Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

FIRE IN CAIRO - THE CURE

Record of the month for February is "Fire in Cairo" by The Cure. It can be found on The Cure's debut LP "Three Imaginery Boys" - But you are listening to it from side two track two of "Boys Don't Cry" the US release from 19 hundred and eighty.

We play it in celebration of our Great British Imperial News Service, the BBC, who are always ready, with a whole battalion of their hand picked institutionalised idiots, to spread global disharmony wherever and whenever it's not required. As soon as the Tunisia thing kicked off they were there on the ground rubbing their collective grubby hands, inventing meaningless hyperbole and shouting at the top of their voices THIS FIRE COULD SPREAD ACROSS THE WHOLE OF NORTH AFRICA & THE MIDDLE EAST - hopefully.

Then they bumble into Egypt "the foreign correspondents" each and every one of them crippled by class, blinkered by liberal leanings and dulled by education. They came armed. Armed with the BBC's most deadly weapon: "The three M's". The balloon went up and the BBC correspondent was ready - ready to misread, misunderstand and misrepresent. Good work boys on to the next place for more of the same.

I always have a strange sense of deja vu when I watch foreign reports on the BBC news channel. It's just a slightly modified version of The Rough Guide programme from the 90's. Wyre Davies in Cairo is Magenta Devine (puke). Venturing round the city saying "stuff" a lot, and being both rude and condescending and disrespectful in equal measure. And then saying "stuff" a few times more - it's the only adjective they have at the beeb, other than their description of all human kind as "guys", and every situation which is described "unprecedented" The constant repetition of these words "guys", "unprecedented" and "stuff" prove only one thing, the BBC are purely broadcasting for people who work at the BBC.

How long will the BBC continue as an anachronistic relict of an imagined past? How long will the BBC go on believing that as long as they keep showing Songs of Praise on a Sunday night Britain will have an Empire? 100 hundred years ago the sort of "guys" employed by the BBC would be out in the world being missionaries, teaching the less fortunate black people about the white baby Jesus whilst dismissing, destroying and replacing their culture as if flicking away a fly. And how long do the BBC think they can carry on with the pretence that anyone outside Britain gives a flying fig about what Britain thinks? People only used to listen to Britain because we had a massive Navy and our national pastime was war.

No, the BBC still believes that Britain has the divine right to wonder around the world telling Johnny Foreigner just how to behave. "Democracy is great!" they say. "Come on join us!" But there's is not a natural disaster in Egypt. The people there don't need our help or advice. This is an internal matter. I say leave them alone, they haven't invited us there, stop fanny the flames you BBC dullards and PISS OFF back home! PS Don't worry you'll still be able to have your hols in the Red Sea next year.

But what have we learnt from this sudden over zealous need for the BBC to "turn on" the whole of North Africa and the Middle East to democracy? Well when the people in North Africa or the Middle East took to the streets calling for change, the BBC & Sky beamed their pictures into each and every dissenting body's home across the region. But when the people of Britain took to the streets (in the student protests) the BBC & Sky streamed their pictures live & direct to the surveillance teams of the Great British Police Force. Welcome to democracy you poor disenfranchised foreign people - beware!


John Bigot - Chief foreign affairs and senior political correspondent North Africa non protectorates.