No. What I despise is the way Facebucket has inveigled its way into popular culture. People talk about it in public as though it’s a cure for cancer, or a peak human achievement. I don’t think it connects people either: I actually see it as a profound form of social disconnection.

But oh and woe! If you dare to suggest it’s a popularist fad started by an over-hyped far right geekoid you will be verbally assaulted. Yelled at even. I don’t like that, but I find it hard to button my lip where this is concerned.

Saying, ‘Facebook is crap!’ attracts some serious snorts from its many apologists. Here’s a selection of snortoids:

‘It’s a very valuable tool.’ (A tool?! Like a spanner or a rock? I think not. Tools are used to make things, but Facebook will more than likely make you stay at home and develop a fatter arse, or encourage you to tap away on your Crackberry in public like a demented woodpecker.)

‘It’s quicker than writing a letter.’ (Eating a pot noodle is quicker than cooking dinner, but you wouldn’t want to live on it. Ah, there’s the rub. It’s about speed isn’t it? You can’t be bothered to communicate with people if it actually interrupts your important schedule. Sounds like a great recipe for friendship).

‘It keeps me in touch with my friends!’ (I suppose it does. And Just all these friends are on Facebook too aren’t they? If – like me – you won’t use it, then I can’t be your friend. I’m simply not worthy. Well hey! I’ll walk around with a sign on my back saying ‘Kick the Luddite’ from now on.

Such comments suggest that software must act as an intermediary between people, and that no other form of initial contact is possible. You have but one friendship group, and just one channel to connect you all. ‘One ring to rule them all, one ring to bind them…’ Does this remind you of anything, Gollum?

It’s as though someone has added something to the world’s water supply to switch off peoples’ critical faculties. I’m pretty sure that a fair wadge of academics use Farcebook, so do students, rocket scientists and prize turnip growers. All are individuals with different cultural beliefs and assumptions. And many of them are probably on Facebook…

…or are they? A high percentage of the world’s population (roughly 1.5 billion people) doesn’t even have electricity , let alone an Internet connection. Facebook is therefore an artifact of developed nations where people are more comfortable with anonymity.

Highly developed societies have some serious social problems to contend with. Overwork, exploitation, lack of ‘me time’ for individuals. Facebook is an apparent solution to all this, offering a quick fix. Like a pot noodle.

Instead of writing to people, visiting them or (here’s a revolutionary idea) getting to know them in person – we have a ‘software solution’, cooked up by someone who is (ironically) celebrated as a socially adept luminary. Well, my thesis is that he’s a pillock, but I bet his missus loves him.

Who would have thought it? Years ago I imagined that by 2011 we would have moved on a bit as a species. Instead we seem to be shifting towards a more dictatorial culture where it’s unusual to not do certain things. Like use Facebook. It’s a zombie apocalypse, and I wish everyone would get wise to it.

Then you forget about them again and go for a walk. In my case a walk through Birmingham’s unfeasibly crowded Christmas market, dedicated to the memory of Jesus and his love of commercial enterprise. Temples? Moneylenders? But I digress.

Anyhow, I was thinking about this young man who runs a local live music event. I haven’t been going as I don’t think it attracts a particularly friendly crowd. The music’s great though, which is the main draw, so I suppose I can’t complain.

Imagine my surprise when D. popped up from amongst the throng of sheeply shoppers, clutching a leaflet in his pale fist. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages!’ he cooed, while thrusting said leaflet into my mitts.

Apparently his event has been supplanted after a bit of political backstabbing on the local scene, and he’s been forced to move it somewhere else. He invited me to try it out, thereby derailing a shopping trip (which I didn’t want to bother with anyway), and really making my evening.

It really was a very nice evening. A bit of indie orientated folk(ish) stuff, followed by some very infectious jazz singing / playing. A far cry from a rock club (for example) but fun to enage with. I’ll be back!

Someone I know slightly said, ‘You remind me of Nick Drake.’ I’m nothing like him, apart from a bit of performance anxiety. I also use fewer exotic tunings than he did. Mind you, he was hugely talented and deserves to be more widely heard.

Guitars are really beautiful and satisfying to play… assuming you have a good one. I’ve spent years thumping away on poorly made mass produced models, but now I have a decent instrument which is a constant source of pleasure.

There is something almost sensual about shutting out the world and sitting down for a long practise session. It’s quite a meditative experience… and anyway, it’s fun!

There’s a downside to all this though: playing guitar hurts your fingers. Eventually the tyro guitarist develops hard pads on his fingertips, but before this you experience a lot of discomfort. A mate of mine recently called this, ‘the bleeding stage.’

I think it was Shakespeare who said, ‘All the world’s a bleedin’ stage.’ This isn’t well known, so keep it to yourself.

Good (guitar) wood brings responsibility though. It’s not enough to pick one up and play it every day. You have to nurture it like a big expensive baby. Guitars pick up dirt and grease from your fingers, which has to be cleaned off. Strings need replacing about once a month (assuming you play regularly), and your guitar sometimes needs a good rub-down with a soft cloth… and maybe a dollop of specialised cleaner.

As if that’s not enough, your big (expensive: about the price of a second-hand car) baby guitar needs to live in a case, or else it’s liable to loose a lot of moisture. It’s wood, after all. I won’t go into the finer details of all this because I’m still learning about them myself, but it’s a far cry from the way I treated my first steel strung instrument: chucking it in the back of the car and dropping it at regular intervals!

Anyway, there’s a point to this ramble. If you don’t play an instrument, have you thought of taking one up? It’s worth the effort, and it’s better than watching the telly or sitting in a traffic jam.

I’ll give him his due. The Brylcreem Warrior always has a smile glued to his fatuous face during his very public vapourings about localism and the rising tide of ‘entrepreneurs’ who are supposed to sail the Good Ship Britannia towards a safe harbour. There’s nothing safe about his shenanigans though.

‘Why?’ you may ask with an ugly sneer smeared across your lips, as you advance towards me, coalition manifesto in hand as though to batter me to death with that tome of the party faithful.

‘Simple’, say I, retreating slightly before your withering gaze. ‘There’s no-one left to deliver Deluded Dave’s perfectly potty vision’. Even a swift straw poll will reveal that local services are dying out faster than fleas on a dead feline. Virtually nothing has been left untouched, as the voluntary organisations, who will supposedly step in – like the hero in a cheezoid Hollywood movie – lose their grant funding and lay off their staff in droves.

Oh, go ahead and volunteer then, but don’t expect to actually get paid for your trouble. Not a bean will you get, because this year heralds a tsunami of public sector job cuts. ‘So what, I don’t work for the public sector. And anyway, they’re a bunch of greedy bastards chugging along on the gravy train.’

Wrong fool. They deliver the local services (‘localism’ in action!) which we all depend on. Are you old, and did you depend on Supporting People grant funding to pay for your meals on wheels? Bad news I’m afraid; that particular pot of money is no longer protected. To use the parlance of the public sector it’s been ‘un-ringfenced’. It will now be used to deliver essential LOCAL services – or should I say, ‘More essential than looking after all those inconvenient oldies who clutter up our country. Hell – they haven’t got long left, so why even think about them?’

All right then. Are you a young person trying to get a start in life. Too bad! Your LOCAL (there’s a clue there isn’t there) Connexions service has already been axed by Dave the Tory Tyrant and his band of thieving brigands. You’ll be okay though, because these days you should apparently ‘take responsibility for yourself’ and do your own donkey work. No-one could accuse this lot of shirking when it comes to unfeeling idiocy. Whatever happened to cooperation as a way of getting things done?

Are you a small organisation trying to deliver local services to your members, thereby generating the ‘green shoots’ of economic recovery we sometimes hear about? Too bad. Who do you think will supply your grant funding now? The public sector. Sorry! Its pockets are empty. The private sector? Nope – they are laying people off and pulling up their proverbial drawbridges. Localism is a canard – where else can services be delivered if not locally? In dream land obviously.

Some people view the public, private and charitable (third-sector) as completely separate, and the coalition often implies that local authorities should look to the private sector for greater efficiencies. This overlooks one simple fact: these sectors are not independent, they are completely interdependent. Local government is quite complex, but historically, it has been very good at working in partnership with both private and voluntary organisations. The coalition’s massive round of public sector cuts is tearing apart private contractors, and forcing charities to withdraw funding from people who really need it.

Localism and the ‘big society’ is akin to chopping your friend’s legs off and saying, ‘Go for a walk pal’. It’s an  irrational idea used to mask the real agenda: the removal of the Welfare State. I support the idea of distinctive local services, and I even agree that the third sector should play a much stronger role in society. Third sector organisations must be supported and enabled, but instead they are being quietly pruned to death through an act of ideological vandalism.

Don’t believe me? I can prove it. This site contains data showing that so far cuts to the voluntary sector total almost £49,000,000 – and that’s just the start. In case you are thinking, ‘What’s this got to do with a blog about bohemian life?’ I would say, ‘Loads’. Those small distinctive organisations help to prop up creative projects around the country. Without them we might as well sell out and get jobs in call centres, because at this rate there won’t be much left of our local services.

Never in the history of UK democracy have so few written so much blinkered bollocks for the benefit of so many. David Cameron and his condom-headed cohorts are trying to brainwash us into thinking that the round of cuts announced in the review is ‘fair’. Apparently, ‘We’re all in this together.’ His ideas are ‘radical’. I beg to differ!

Thinking people everywhere will resist the coalition’s cuts every step of the way. There are few liberals in government at the moment – but plenty of crypto fascists and power grubbing careerists with their faces deep in the trough of iniquity.

You might wonder what place an entry like this has on Boho Musings, but conservatism is largely the enemy of creativity. For example, the Spending Review is intent on cutting arts projects all over the country.

To add some figures to this vituperative rant, the Arts Council of England will make cuts of about £350 million over the next four years. This is an outline figure, but it will cripple creativity, while stifling  intellectual and cultural growth for decades to come.

These days everything is run by accountants, and while I think it’s sensible to factor money into important projects, I see these cuts as retrograde. They are designed to hurt the very people whom we should be encouraging during the global recession.

This short piece can’t begin to discuss on the sheer scale of the CSR without losing its focus. In any case, few people would want to read about it here, but unlike Nick (not-really-a-Liberal) Clegg, I have examined my conscience and found a sickening void at the heart of Government. It’s between his ears.

Well scrub that! I can’t write objectively about something I love so much, so this is the blog equivalent of bungee jumping in the dark: I have no idea what I’m about to write. Folk music as a subject attracts academic discussions, cosy chats in the back rooms of pubs and heated debates about ‘what folk music really is.’ All I can hope to do is touch the surface in a piece like this; no conclusions will be drawn… as far as I can tell.

I first heard folk songs from my dad, without knowing what they were. He used to be a jazz musician, and somewhere in the flock-lined depths of his musty old banjo case he kept a yellowing loose sheaf of songs, complete with chords. In between expertly vamping out tunes like ‘California Here I Come’, he would sing ‘The Raggle Taggle Gypsies’ and ‘The Fox’. Simple but wonderful songs; just right for a child with a fertile imagination.

I had no idea that these were part of a folk tradition: my five-year-old self couldn’t even spell ‘tradition’! I quickly recognised that songs can tell a story and whisk you away to a parallel universe peopled with talking animals, strange gods and beastly angels.

I could walk through the enchanted forest and gaze at the bright wonders locked within – as long as I didn’t stray too far from the path. There be dragons! When I grew up I forgot about the magical kingdom and mutated into a bored, pizza-faced teen.

Once again, my wonderful father intervened and came back from town clutching a handful of (very worn) Joan Baez singles. ‘I think you might enjoy these,’ he said. So I played them and I did! Joan’s singing and guitar playing lit up my world with songs of the sea, loves lost and found – strange buried treasures of the luminous spirit.

There is a folk song for every human emotion and situation because it represents our collective experience. A song can start out as a personal statement, but once other people hear and sing it, that experience becomes a shared one: something we can all relate to and use in our everyday lives. I have found that folk music contains a great deal of distilled wisdom. Perhaps some of it will rub off one day.

Early collectors believed they were gathering songs for posterity, and treated them like museum pieces. ‘If I don’t record these soon they will vanish forever’. They were wrong, because while they were busy collecting, the next generation of singers and performers were already emerging, reworking old themes into new songs and singing old ones in different ways.

The tradition is dynamic and manages to reinvent itself across different generations. This is sometimes called the ‘folk process’ – songs can and should be changed to suit the singer.

Samuel Pepys collected traditional songs, and so did the rural English poet, John Clare. William Blake sang them to his friends, and indeed most people know one or two, even if they think otherwise.

The truth is, there isn’t one musical form which can be described as ‘folk’. Songs can be rooted in an industrial or rural tradition. There are work songs, sea songs, songs about unemployment. Some songs belong to the Romantic movement, while others are brand new and completely focused on current events. Folk music is both old and new, and therein lies my fascination.

Let’s not forget that the tradition is crammed full of tunes too; there are 1000s of them! One blog entry isn’t enough, so I’ll revisit this subject later…

Here in the UK, our coalition Government has been aptly christened the ‘ConDems’ by the media, and those bright enough to see them coming from miles away.

They have only been in power for a few months, but already the coalition has set in motion negative events which will resonate throughout British society for decades to come.

This is a government without scruples, with no feeling for natural justice and without a clue. We are witnessing the wholesale destruction of our welfare state; and what is there to replace it? Nothing!

The ConDems argue that an abstract idea called the ‘Big Society’ will plug any gaps left by the ‘deletion’ of local services. They call this ‘localism’ – I call it a tragedy.

I don’t use that word lightly. It is both a tragedy and a travesty, because genuine public life is coming to an end in England, and it’s happening now. Every socially useful institution I can think of is being axed, and those services which remain are being castrated.

But that’s not the real tragedy – what churns my spirit is that there is nothing tangible to replace the essential public services we are losing. There is a very human side to this. The ConDems can’t understand that if you remove a day centre for the elderly from a community, some lonely old person completely loses contact with the outside world.

This is a Government which promised to protect the vulnerable. They lied, and they will go on twisting the truth because that is the nature of neo-cons: they actually believe their own delusions.

The ConDems are unable to grasp that our world is in fact a concrete reality, where the withdrawal of services can mean isolation, poverty and a premature grave.

I’m not exaggerating either: the slashing of state benefits and local services will mean homelessness for many – lives stripped of meaning and joy. This is as nakedly evil as walking up to a complete stranger in the street and throwing acid in their face.

During a so-called ‘emergency’ Budget called earlier this year, the ConDems pledged to cut welfare spending by £11 billion. Recently, Chancellor George Osborne vowed to cull another £4 billion from the same purse.

I live in a neighbourhood which can ill afford such reductions. There is genuine poverty and social exclusion here, and it grieves me to know that innocent people will suffer as a direct result of this entirely unnecessary act of social vandalism.

I am already seeing more people out on the street – begging has long been a problem, but it’s actually getting worse. Hardly surprising when so many people are being cast aside by this cold, uncaring and worthless Government. And they haven’t even started yet.

It is utterly shocking that so-called liberals have allowed themselves to be hypnotised by the promise of power; and frankly insane that the British public appears not to understand what is happening on the ground.

I know that given the global financial crisis we are facing, some cuts in public spending were inevitable. I also know what Bertrand Russell once said, “All movements go too far”, though it seems this one has wasted no time in weaving its misguided wickedness.

The answer is to organise! The ConDems must be opposed at every line end. This is not a plea for New Labour to return, but it is an appeal to everyone reading this to do something about it. We should all ensure that we are in a union, write to our MPs and – where practical – attend demonstrations. I would not rule out civil disobedience if it comes to that.

October 20 will see Osborne the Fool announce even more public spending cuts, and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is organising a mass protest in London the day before his spending review.

A further public protest is planned for March 2011. Please attend if possible, and let your voice be heard. What we do not defend, we stand to lose forever.

There is no localism or ‘Big Society’, unless you see these poorly defined ideas as a neo-con ruse to hide the fact that our government is keen to avoid direct decision making in these times of economic strife.

The ConDems’ spending cuts are a smokescreen for patching up the dreadful mistakes of modern capitalism, and there can be no excuse for this attack on ordinary people. Governments are supposed to serve people, not destroy their lives with pseudo philosophical nonsense.

Make no mistake, the poor will suffer and rich people will not. This is a lesson which we must learn today, because these changes will affect YOU.

Tomorrow will probably be too little, and much too late.

I thought that as I aged I might somehow grow colder… Not in the sense of becoming distant; more like ‘simmering down’. Perhaps I would relax into the mellow zone and learn to mow lawns.

This has not happened. The things which used to matter to me have become even more important, and I feel like I’m on fire. They burn inside me with indignation, and sometimes even anger. I felt the same in my twenties, but I lacked focus.

I realise that zeal can be dangerous, intoxicating and volatile. I have also grasped what is for me, another fundamental truth: people do not understand passion when they see it.

At the extreme risk of sounding cynical, I would say that passion is out of fashion. Indifference is in. Speak to your average Jack or Jill in the street, and try to discover their point of view – many people seem to have none, simply accepting the status quo.

If passion can seem annoying and heated, indifference is the death of the spirit.

It’s hard to find someone who cares much any more here in England. It is very easy to make the right noises, but a life well lived is not about mere words – words must turn into actions or all is vapour. There is a saying I remember from long ago, ‘What are words but wind?’

But here I am again, straying from my point. What is passion? How can one be on fire with such an ill-defined emotion? Some would call it sublimated sex, others would ascribe it to a type of temporary madness. But I know it’s an all consuming force.

We are not talking about a passing fancy for horse racing, or a crazy desire to take up origami. Passion should be seen as fundamental, driving us forwards to some barely perceived goal.

Before I wrote this piece I went looking for some interesting quotes, and I was surprised by what I found. For example Balzac said, ‘Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless.’

It is a power buried deep in the psyche, struggling to burst free. It is the antithesis of indifference, and believe me… It’s not easy to live with in such difficult times as these.

The fact is, I quite enjoy a few rounds of chess, and I know all the rules. I can even understand the difference between a ‘pin’ and a ‘skewer’ and I usually open well, developing my pieces and attacking the centre of the board. But still I lose, and lose again. And again.

This does nothing for my ego, because my main opponent is currently a mobile phone. It has an onboard chess programme which I can’t beat for toffee. It knows a thing or two, ‘Phone’. I might start dating it soon.

I’ve begun to ascribe human foibles to this silicon instrument of humiliation. On a good day, I can back it into a corner and get it slightly worried. But mostly it creams me. Effortlessly. Phone even gives the impression of learning from its mistakes as it takes me down. If I attack it a certain way, it adapts. I’m sure it doesn’t have a brain. But I do, and that’s the problem.

I’m no longer certain that human beings are better than the machines which serve them. You see, all a chess computer does is play chess. Or not. Human beings rampage across the planet, tearing it to pieces. Apart from the Buddhists of course: they seem to have things sorted. Do Buddhists play chess? I have no idea.

This reminds me that chess is essentially a war game, and I’m not really geared up for that psychologically. I once played a completely passive game against Phone, letting it take my pieces and refusing to defend myself. It beat me, but seemed somehow confused. ‘I know how to lose,’ said I to Phone, ‘But all you can do is win.’ It’s cold comfort, but I hope to learn from my mistakes one day.

Playing chess reminds me that I’m horribly fallible, and that I don’t have all the answers. The fact that my opponent isn’t a person enhances this feeling. If I can’t see the next move, what can I see? What else am I missing? I have no idea.

It may have something to do with boosting newspaper circulation figures, but you know the drill.

Someone in their early 20s goes backpacking abroad and has an accident; or a crazed bowie-knife wielding random murders them.

Something bothers me about all this. It’s not the deaths, tragic though they are. I find it hard to mourn for strangers while endless news bombards my senses. No, it’s the peculiar bias such stories seem to have.

The victims are almost always young, white and middle class. If they are single women in the prime of life, so much the better for the journos’ raddled sensibilities. It helps if they have recently graduated: plenty of scope for saying, ‘She had everything to look forward to.’

And she did…. But I can’t help noticing the absence of young black people in these stories. You could be forgiven for thinking that tragedy never strikes if you belong to another ethnic group. I have often wondered why this is.

Then it struck me. The victims whom the ‘meejah’ focus on remind tabloid readers of their own nearest and dearest. If you regularly read the Daily Depress, it’s likely you have a son or daughter resembling the dear departed – so you will swallow hard and think, ‘Christ! That could have been our Emily!’

You can then scamper back to the womb-like safety of your semi, in the sure knowledge that the Reaper’s lust for souls has been sated… for now. While you’re about it, you might want to install an extra lock on the door, and reflect on what a terrible place the world has become.

All this demise and doom hints at a deeper meaning – an almost ritualistic sense of loss. Consider the Princess of Wales, and the very public grief her death inflicted on us. The media probably helped to kill her; but as we consume more and more news we create a dangerous hunger in ourselves. We want to be comforted as well as informed, but somehow we just end up feeling ever more terrified.

The truth is that nothing is risk free or guaranteed, and we hate to admit that in the end we are all food for worms. And on that cheery note, thanks for reading!