How are the mighty fallen!

Seduction. An interesting word, concept and soundscape. It starts with the sibilance of the snake, meanders through long vowels and ends with a modified sibilance and the finality of a smoother consonant after the harshness of the middle ‘k’ sound: an eventful sonic journey.

I am watching a similar journey of seduction exhausting a frail human being sitting opposite me. He struggles to resist but the sensual pull of those insinuating syllables has him in thrall. Resistance, as the Darleks keep informing us, is useless.

So he sits there, his morale depleted, his reserves exhausted, an empty shell of lust, lost in his gargantuan appetite, ever unsatisfied until he be sated with his object of desire.

Which, I might add, isn’t me. No. He has lost his heart to the blandishments of the slim attractiveness of svelte, sleek sophisticated and versatile good looks. How can I complete with the juggernaut-like appeal of the Argos catalogue? Who can resist the Ministry of Sound version of a hi-fi system which has two tower speakers and a four CD player mounted vertically in a third tower? I am sure that the reality will disappoint, but the catalogue picture makes them seem like true objects of desire!

How fatuous to be seduced by mere objects! I spurn such things and stand tall (on a mound composed of digital cameras, ipods, PDA’s, laptops, memory sticks, mobile phones, computers, printers, DS lites, CD players, mp3 players, mini disc players, tape recorders, radios, televisions, DVD players, digital watches, mobile DVD players, remotes, portable telephones, blood pressure monitors, televisions, and other electrical impedimenta!)

It is actually a delight to watch the writings of others as they wrestle with the electronic serpent which is electrical desire. In my mind the statue group, Laocoön and His Sons, for me represents a family (unaccountably nude) struggling against the ensnaring coils of the sinuous lead of the latest must-have electronic device. It goes without saying that they did not escape and succumbed as all (right thinking weak people) do.

Now say that classical art does not have a didactic role in twenty-first century Britain!

Once again listening to the relentlessly depressing news makes one reach for the hemlock. One can tell that films like ‘Casino Royale’ have a definite and measurably dangerous influence on the population of the more, uh, how shall I say, unpredictable states in this rackety old world of ours. They seem to believe that the elegant scenes of psychological personal conflict in the Salle Privée of some exclusive gambling joint can be transferred to the everyday life of dictatorial folk!

And we do have a wonderful assortment of vile leaders who seem to relish gambling for high stakes with human lives.

There is the ever religious homophobic monomaniac Mugabe who seems to be fine with 2,000% inflation, but I suppose his foreign bank accounts make live a little easier for him.

Saddam Hussein had the major disadvantage in vile dictator terms in looking like the embarrassing uncle who did inappropriate things when invited to Christmas dinner and had an absurd moustache.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is the real McCoy. He looks like the deeply sinister solitary drinker who has lurked in his murky corner of the pub sipping a single half of stout and speaking to no one. He as such deep set eyes that half his face seems in perpetual shadow and his thin lipped smile is not one to promote confidence. This is the ‘obviously guilty’ character that is playing high stakes solitaire with the lives of British sailors and potentially with great chunks of the world.

I think that these petty dictators of the third world have been learning from the antics of the big boys of the West!

“The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”