: 26 March 2004 :

I watched the news today oh boy
a snapshot of a midnight ploy

George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is in the news today for saying that Islam is a faith which engenders extremism and that Muslims should be “more openly self-critical”. Well, Carey’s a blethering sheepheaded moron. If he spent more time reading the Bible and less time on bigoted pontificating, he might remember a little something about motes, beams and eyes. What he’s not sharp enough or brave enough to say is that all religion, Christianity being an obvious inclusion, has the potential to be divisive, fundamentalist and violent. And given that he owns a number of shares in GEC, and thus profits from the arms trade, his criticism of Islamic fundamentalism and of American, British and Israeli foreign policy is a little hard to swallow.

“I know a number of Muslims personally. I have many Muslim friends,” Carey says. I hope they stop talking to him. I’m all in favour of asking tough questions, and stirring up debate, and all the same excuses that he’s making now and that Kilroy made when he got in trouble for being an ignorant Arab-hater. But the banner of “asking tough questions” can’t excuse being ill-informed, condescending, hypocritical, or mentally and morally misguided. Kilroy and Carey both make the same fatuous point, too, that “Middle Eastern civilisation hasn’t made any great contribution to the world for the past few hundred years”. Well, even if this were true – and needless to say it’s complete bollocks – it’s still a canard. It’s meaningless. There are plenty of cultures whose contributions to global society are, arguably, negligible. But that doesn’t make them morally inferior, or intellectually inferior, or less deserving of respect or of human rights.

Oh, and lest we forget, Carey’s also a homophobic prick, and frankly Peter Tatchell should have burst his mouth when he had the chance.

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“And finally...” The end of the Channel 4 news last night had an item about The Grey Album, replete with Jon Snow looking baffled and muttering about “the rawness of Hip Hop” (yes, he did pronounce the capitals). Dangermouse mixes Jay-Z’s Black Album with the Beatles’ White Album, and EMI get all het up. That’s the gist of the story that was on the news. What they didn’t mention is that this story broke in most mainstream news outlets about six weeks ago. Why did they decide now that they were going to feature it? God knows. Anyway, I phoned my friend Adam and told him to put the TV on. “There’s something you need to see...”

Oh, talking of DM, I interviewed an actor the other day (my first interview!) and he was wearing a velvet jacket with a metal badge of Dangermouse’s face on it. Made me like him even more.