All Terrain Thinking

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Humanity Wrap

A Fine Month for Independent Explosions

So, the activists were out in rage at the US for not giving enough money to Aids victims. And rightly so. But then Britney Spears makes more money from a single album than the amount of aid given to whole clusters of Sub-Saharan states so their leaders can go off and buy new fleets of BMWs, deal drugs, kill their own people, and refuse to pay next year's debts. Then last week, a statue of Lady Thatcher was decapitated by a man wielding a metal pole, who said he committed the crime to save his son from global capitalism. Good thing he wasn't in Barcelona; God knows who he might have beheaded. Still, academic minimalists hoping to record the flute music of the Chang-Pas nomads or charting the growth rate of Arctic moss, should forget about that grant. Funds are needed elsewhere.

An e-mail from a journalist colleague in London who likes wearing genetically modified aftershave, says that there are large screens near the lifts where he works showing stock prices from around the globe. "I find my heart always lifts a little when I see the arrows glowing red and pointing down. This month they've been plummeting faster than Mohammed Atta in an overloaded crop-duster. As a human being I want prosperity for all. But as a journalist I want trouble."

At the laidback lakeside American Independence Day spare-bud-burger gig last weekend, I approached an old veteran and enquired, "What time do they start shooting the British?"

"About 7.30," he said helpfully. "We find the fireworks drowns out the gunfire."

"Cunning plan."

"We stole it from you guys."

"God save America."

"God bless the Queen."

July is the turn of the French to celebrate explosive matters. On July 14, 1789, King Louis XVI's journal consisted of a one word entry Rien (Nothing). A surprising entry considering it was one of the most tumultuous days in French history. Writers invariably find this a comic symptom of the King's hapless remoteness from political reality. But it was nothing of the sort. He was referring to his hunting count. No kills that day.

Around 11pm, the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt asked to see the King in his private apartments. A famous, anecdotal, version of the story has the citizen-noble informing Louis, for the first time, of the fall of the Bastille. The King reacts with the question "Is it a revolt?" and Liancourt replies, "No, Sire, it is a revolution."

A day later the august court of the Bourbons had died. The royal council met for the last time in its traditional form. It had some very serious things to discuss. In the hair trigger atmosphere of France in the days that followed local wars were fought between those who had something to lose and those who they imagined had nothing to lose. In southern Champagne, 3,000 men were fully mobilized to hunt down what had been reported to be a mob of brigands but which on closer inspection turned out to be a large herd of cows.

The notion that, between 1789 and 1791, France basked in some sort of liberal pleasure garden before the erection of the guillotine is complete fantasy. It soon became apparent that violence was not just an unfortunate side effect; it was the Revolution's source of collective energy. It was what made the Revolution revolutionary. The Terror that followed in 1793 was merely 1789 with a higher body count.

So now we know. The TOT has blown Bt20 billion and is scheduled to be listed on the Stock Exchange later this year. Sounds like their grasp exceeded their reach. Somebody at the office tried to call the TOT to get more info on the tangled web of cables and corruption, but all he got was a rather hysterical recorded message by someone called the Abominable Conman.

"What did it say?"

"You'll never audit us alive! You'll never audit us alive!"

Orange may turn out to be a lemon but it's smelling like a rose compared to the TOT.

At a downtown pub, a music channel on TV played bits of "My Generation" to mark the death of The Who's bass player, John Entwhistle

'People try to put us d-d-d-down....' stuttered lead singer Roger Daltry.

"Perhaps they should have tried harder," came a voice from the crowd.

In a moment of boredom my partner punched my name into Google. Next to references to things I'd published, and the activities of various people who have the same surname, displayed prominently was a site that said I had gone to prison for life for murdering my second wife.

"Did you?" she enquired.

Certainly not, I told her indignantly. On closer inspection, the site referred to a Michael Belling, a member of the Beaumont meat family - whoever they are - who had indeed chopped up his wife. More worrying was reference to an N Beaumont, my brother's initial, who was in trouble for running an international plutonium smuggling ring. Perhaps a phone call might be in order. Unplacated, my partner is now suspicious of the entire tribe however they're spelt - and wherever they might be. It's a worry.

By Roger Beaumont

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