This post is presented in solidarity with Gary McKinnon, the British UFO enthusiast who the Americans want to punish, probably to death, in one of their murderous hellholes. Gary's hopes of escaping extradition are, alas, in the hands of a particularly spineless running-dog - Justice Minister Jack Straw.
I well remember Straw from his days as president of Leeds University Student's Union. At the time the union was a hugely popular meeting place for drug dealers stoners and freaks from all over the country. Then newly built, it seemed that it could have been designed for that very purpose. There were lots of intimate nooks and crannies, where dealers would set up their scales on the low tables, hacking up with Zippo blackened flick-knives great kilo slabs of Red Lebanese, Afghani, or Nepalese Temple Balls, for the queues of customers clutching wads of notes. From midday onwards there was a permanent sweet blue haze hanging in the air.
At this time LSD had become so cheap and abundant that it was more often given away than bought and sold. Glassy eyed trippers milled bewildered from nook to nook, groups of them sat in crosslegged rings on the floor debating the universe, couples writhed on the upholstery exploring polymorphous perversity.
The odd nook might be loud with a mob of engineering students or ruggerbuggers, chucking beer around, setting fire to piles of beermats, spewing up, or trying to pull each others jeans off.
Everyone knew who Jack Straw was. Now and then you'd catch a glimpse of him striding purposefully through the blue fugged mayhem, taking care not to look too closely at what was going on in the nooks. No one gave much of a toss about him, but there was a sense that he might be quietly plotting to put an end to the party.
I have this vivid memory of him walking up to where perhaps a dozen of us were sitting around a table, skinning up and passing joints. He just stood there with what might've been a smile on his face until the table went quiet and everyone was gazing up at him, then he turned and went. As he walked away this Scots voice called after him with exquisitely poised sarcasm, 'Away now then Jack, yer doss wee twat.'
I flashbacked on this scene when I saw Straw, as Blair's Foreign Secretary, striding towards the speakers podium at the UN General Assembly - chin up, chest out, looking in his stiff double-breasted pinstripe suit like some lad allowed out in his old fellers regimental blazer.
(Incidentally, you can get the measure of the likes of Straw, Blair, Mandelson and rest of the New Labour entity, by reading Alain Badiou's superb The Meaning of Sarkosy. {Verso, London 2006. Translated by David Fernbach} The finest piece of polemics written this century)
I well remember Straw from his days as president of Leeds University Student's Union. At the time the union was a hugely popular meeting place for drug dealers stoners and freaks from all over the country. Then newly built, it seemed that it could have been designed for that very purpose. There were lots of intimate nooks and crannies, where dealers would set up their scales on the low tables, hacking up with Zippo blackened flick-knives great kilo slabs of Red Lebanese, Afghani, or Nepalese Temple Balls, for the queues of customers clutching wads of notes. From midday onwards there was a permanent sweet blue haze hanging in the air.
At this time LSD had become so cheap and abundant that it was more often given away than bought and sold. Glassy eyed trippers milled bewildered from nook to nook, groups of them sat in crosslegged rings on the floor debating the universe, couples writhed on the upholstery exploring polymorphous perversity.
The odd nook might be loud with a mob of engineering students or ruggerbuggers, chucking beer around, setting fire to piles of beermats, spewing up, or trying to pull each others jeans off.
Everyone knew who Jack Straw was. Now and then you'd catch a glimpse of him striding purposefully through the blue fugged mayhem, taking care not to look too closely at what was going on in the nooks. No one gave much of a toss about him, but there was a sense that he might be quietly plotting to put an end to the party.
I have this vivid memory of him walking up to where perhaps a dozen of us were sitting around a table, skinning up and passing joints. He just stood there with what might've been a smile on his face until the table went quiet and everyone was gazing up at him, then he turned and went. As he walked away this Scots voice called after him with exquisitely poised sarcasm, 'Away now then Jack, yer doss wee twat.'
I flashbacked on this scene when I saw Straw, as Blair's Foreign Secretary, striding towards the speakers podium at the UN General Assembly - chin up, chest out, looking in his stiff double-breasted pinstripe suit like some lad allowed out in his old fellers regimental blazer.
(Incidentally, you can get the measure of the likes of Straw, Blair, Mandelson and rest of the New Labour entity, by reading Alain Badiou's superb The Meaning of Sarkosy. {Verso, London 2006. Translated by David Fernbach} The finest piece of polemics written this century)
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