Wonderful *

Just got in from an utterly stupendous gig - Patti Smith, supported by Steve Earle. Fucking amazing. More on that either later tonight or in the next few days.
Only popped in to say that, as I was hanging around the bar in the Royal Festival Hall waiting for my fellow gig-goer, who do I come across but SWP national secretary Martin Smith, whose exploits over the last couple of days have been linked to by Darren at Inveresk Street. I used to go to college with Martin back in the early 90s and, believe it or not (coming from a former Communist Party member like myself) always found him to be a pretty nice geezer for a trot. Although, when I heard my name being shouted this evening, I didn't exactly burst out in a fit of pleasure and joy when I saw who was shouting me. Anyway, as I say, it was Martin Smith. "How are you, Reidski?" he asked. "Not bad," says me, before enquiring into his promotion of zionism at the party shop Bookmarks couple of days ago. "Can you imagine me promoting zionism, Reidski?" I must say, I couldn't and treated the whole episode as if we were back at college and hearing him advocate a sit-in at the refrectory over someone only getting a B- for an essay as a mark of the upsurge in the revolutionary and political consciousness of the working class. I used to see such things as an excuse for lazy teenage good-for-nothing middle-class wankers to get out of lectures!
So Martin tells me that the picket outside of Bookmarks was staged by a bunch of loonie ultra-left nutters. I believed him. But I also commented that he was a loonie ultra-left nutter as well.
I'll come back to this post soon hopefully and include some useful links, if you ask nicely!

Postcrip: It seems that I was way off the mark - it gives me a lesson that I shouldn't comment on a subject unless I do proper research - so go to this link of Darren's to read what the meeting was really about. BTW, a former jewish trumpeter whose political ideas and dreams about the future of Palestine and how Israel should be subsumed within that state differs from a group calling itself Jews Against Zionism hardly merits a fucking picket outside an ultra-left bookshop, however much I abhor the SWP. This really is a tedious debate among the ultra-left anorak brigade, so be warned those who haven't read about it yet.
*Adam and the Ants