Brand Zero

For the last few months I have been a reluctant local observer to a pointless ‘rebranding’ exercise. In the last few days the noise from empty heads stopped and the ‘product’ was launched at a glitzy private reception.

It would be too cruel to identify it. Suffice to say it flopped within 10 minutes but the self-obsessed marketers were too dumb to notice the sniggering of their guests, many of whom were present by compulsion rather than choice.  Seriously (or should that be “not so seriously”?), I was laughing so hard I had to sneak out after less than half an hour of the most ill-advised antics since 1980’s rock stars (allegedly) served coke on the shaven heads of dwarfs.

As I said to some real creative friends elsewhere that night, “Now I know what David St. Hubbins and Nigel Tufnel did when Spinal Tap broke up.” Yes, it was that bad, and at least one screw-up was eerily similar to the ‘Stonehenge’ cock-up in that classic send-up of naff arty types with delusions of adequacy.

Many months back, I had visions of what we might be in for when I accidentally discovered that the chumps trousering a six figure consultancy fee were led by someone who insisted on being called Binky, who appeared to have graduated from Cheltenham Ladies College circa 1970, dropped some bad acid and lived off the commissions of fellow rich inbreeds ever since.

It never ceases to amaze me how expensively educated people can have nothing but belly-fluff where most people keep their brain cells. I was around folk like Bill Drummond and Tony Wilson when they were starting out. I enjoyed myself, and I have a real soft spot for eccentrics and mavericks. But that was 30 years ago, and they were working on a shoestring and investing all they had.

Dipshit corporate ‘characters’ who risk only the family lives of real people are another matter. And anyway, while the business world talks vapidly of ‘edginess’ or ‘thinking outside the box’ the council estate all-or-nothing visionaries I loved, laughed and learnt with were simply not constrained by a box which only exists as a sort of collective hallucination.

Another thing you notice on these occasions is that, sadly, most of the brightest, most interesting people on the island are working for peanuts in the hospitality industry. More accurately, serving peanuts to clueless wasters who were lucky enough to be born here, or to be the offspring of economic refugees from emergent democracies.

It was like that back in 1983, when I first arrived here. These days the nationalities have changed but the pay has not, and the working conditions have got worse.

I hope those bright and beautiful wage slaves go on to better things, because they deserve it. But like me, at least for now they can laugh at naff products spawned by the stunted imagination of those employing them for less-than-minimum wages.

Empty vessels

A houseful of visiting relatives is keeping me away from the blog, but I couldn’t let a letter from the pompously titled ‘Youth Group of Ramsey Independent Methodist Church’ in this week’s Indie (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/your-letters/Manx-Independent-August-14-2009.5550865.jp) go without note.
For a town of under 5,000 where nothing happens, Ramsey (in theory) has a bewildering number of tiny churches, all with their own phonebook entries and all careful to demand listings on government databases. They mostly achieve the latter by writing cretinous responses to any government ‘consultation’ on a vaguely faith-based or moral issue.
From the few times government publishes examples of these responses I suspect most were written in red crayon with stick man pictures. I’m sure writing them makes illiterate losers feel important, and it also feeds the illusion of a lively Christian community. The truth ( as press releases from ‘proper’ churches such as http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Bishop-outlines-future-for-Church.5547812.jp or http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Douglas-church-to-close-its.5550508.jp show) is that the church will be dead in a generation, and knows it.
When less than a hundred are in all Ramsey churches combined on an average Sunday, beats me why they not only heat and claim tax exemption on empty buildings but get schools opened as temporary places of worship – because so many godbotherers can’t bear to talk to those in any of the currently deserted sheepsheds.
So, you see, the situation is even sillier, because it isn’t sarky, media -savvy heathens like me or ‘the other Stuart’ (Peters) bringing about this demise, just the inability of any three Manx Christians to meet for more than ten minutes without splitting into two factions.
Think of the Peoples Front of Judea and Judean Peoples Front in Life of Brian and you’ll be pretty close. I’ve monitored with incredulity and hilarity incestuous, grandly titled nonentities in the many places I’ve lived or worked, but the Isle of Man would be Shangri La for either anthropologists or situation comedy writers.
The name on this letter is a perfect example. Just a wee local history lesson here ….
Manx Methodists signed up to the current mainstream UK Methodist position about a century ago. Those who wouldn’t formed a fundamentalist faction, known as the ‘Prims’ (Primitive Methodists), which maintained separate chapels and fought to get control of the two Manx ‘circuits’ for a couple of decades.
In some cases, even a husband and wife would attend separate chapels at other ends of the same street. By the way, in small communities where being in the ‘wrong’ church could deprive you of a job or home such moves were pragmatic and practical, not faith-based.
But ‘Independent Methodists’ aren’t part of that tradition, and are not even Methodists. They’re a tiny evangelical sect comprised of lapsed Baptists and Pentecostalists. Bear in mind these ‘denominations’ have such a weird Manx history that you can only get expelled from them for being vaguely sensible, honest or public spirited. For example, alcoholism, drug dependency or fraud don’t tend to cause eviction, and adultery certainly doesn’t, but going to the police to stop a ‘pillar of the church’ who assaults your under-age child does.
And what can you say about another tiny Ramsey evangelical cult which expelled the only teenage worshipper for "singing too loud"? I’m sure their decision had nothing to do with him admitting some confusion over his sexual orientation, because despite all the sicko rants such churches print in government ‘consultations’ whose results they know will go unpublished, in public they claim to love the sinner but hate the sin.
So this letter was written by bampots who found even those madhouses too ‘high church’ – as you surmise if you read it closely. By the way, as even locals will find it difficult to recall this ‘church’ I should say it’s halfway up an alley used as a toilet by patrons of the pub at the main road end, next to a charity shop which stopped wellwishers leaving clothes outside because the bags get nicked by skip-divers.
Not, in short, an upmarket venue. And not compelling evidence of a thriving local faith community.

Wanted - flat earth spookchasing do-gooder (No Muslims need apply)

As if to support yesterday's posting on the state of Manx prison rehabilitation services - an advert in today's Isle of Man Examiner for a 'Principal Project Worker' at David Gray House, the island's bail hostel run by the Salvation Army.
The vague job description ends with this statement: 'The Salvation Army is a Christian Church and registered charity 215174. Promoting Equality in the Workplace.'
Actually, even that is misleading, as the SA is not a Manx registered charity, but David Gray House and Friends of David Gray House are - so why not tell us that?
Short of saying something on the lines of 'no dogs, no blacks, no Irish' it's hard to see how the SA could be clearer about who they DON'T want to employ.
As there's no Manx equivalent to the UK 'goods and services' legislation (which makes it difficult for religious charities not to employ well qualified gays or non-Christians or refuse to offer services) they are on disgustingly secure ground. In addition, a few years ago a nice man from CARE came to Stepford Central and gave local evangelicals a briefing on branding their business with a 'Christian ethos' in order to continue discriminating without fear of a court case should Manx law ever even entertain 20th century standards of civility, never mind drag itself into the current century.
Nevertheless David Gray had to improve on their last advert, for a manager, in which they tried to limit the candidates by saying the manager would be required to lead a daily act of Christian worship. When the probation service and DGH management were trying to pretend to the Minister for Home Affairs there was no problem accomodating those of other faiths - most particularly two Muslims awaiting trial who couldn't get bail - I pointed out that advert to him. They continue to deny there would be a problem, or that the worship is compulsory, but you can see they needed a less blatent strategy for ensuring that whoever continues to fail to deliver a publically subsidised 'social service' it will still live up to their previous standards of flat-earth, superstitious prejudice.
Saddest thing is, as numerous groups 'close to government' fiddle work permits over here, there is probably no point in even a reasonably decent Manx Christian applying. The spookchasers and their friends at the DHA will have already decided who to employ - from off-island - and just be running the advert to prevent Work Permit Committee objections.
Well, they already circumvent the rules on planning applications, so what else is new?