The Prince is Right.....

February 25th – Prince…? Well, anyone who thinks the cruelty involved in wool production deserves a wider public forum certainly gets my attention. How did he come to that degree of understanding? Did he canvas the sheep, or talk to the serried ranks of winter woollies in the Sirdar factory? That would have been a worthwhile way to spend a couple of hours, locked in conversation with a cardigan who bleats on about the squeezing of the strands until the lanolin squeaks or the brutal, segregationist process of dying.

It never fails to amaze me how the extreme leftfield of beliefs stalks the world of pop-stardom and slebrity and, this is scarier, seems to score a hit on a regular basis; the obvious one is religion where deities seem to spring up like springing-up things. All it needs is a copy of some ink-stained tome found under a floorboard in someone’s attic (usually the attic of the founder) suggesting new members enrol onto a programme of revelatory mission statements that, at their culmination, will convince said member about the rise of ‘the human’ (created from the seeds of an interplanetary race of half humanoid-half ferret beings who live in the galaxy of Tharg) and that they, along with the two hundred other rich and famous members of the glitterati, are the chosen children who will be saved…and they’re queuing up to join. Yeah, right as if 1) some omnipotent being would choose a set of deal floorboards under which to conceal the most important document known to man and 2) that it would be considered sound thinking by said omnipotent being to start off a new race of humans with a choice selection of air-head slebs…yeah, right…

And it’s also interesting that to belong to any one of these groups one has to pledge a section of one’s income… I guess it saves embarrassment all round when the plate is passed in the church as you leave. That way, you don’t have to pretend to have something in your eye or that the crowd behind, all eager to give, forced you past the bucket without you being able to donate…shame. There we are, takes all sorts, and I guess that as long as these leaders of the chosen generation aren't demanding that their followers go out strangling coots or wilfully lambasting hedgehogs then we can all feel safe in the knowledge that they've paid their dues...all 15% of them. Thing is though that no matter how much these folk have it seems they will always want more; in the more extreme cases, cryogenic-ally more, but let's concentrate on bank accounts.

We've seen this recently with various pop well-known’s shifting their bank amounts across to some mini-state somewhere so they’ll only have to pay 20p in the pound tax because they only have 40 million in the bank and will only earn a further 8 million in the next twelve months…and forgive me but Prince is a prime example of this.

When Prince, or the ‘love symbol’ as he wanted to be known for a part of his career… OK, stop right there. Let’s just dissect that statement for a second.

It has been called various things, this symbol, and because it was deemed as ‘unpronounceable’ by many in the music press and wider, took on some sort of fantasy idea dreamed up by a ‘genius’ (we bandy that word around so much these days to the point where it's not worth the paper it's written on) and was named ‘the love symbol’. But, like the tale of ‘The King’s New Clothes’ let’s break it down for goodness sake.

1) If it’s been given the name of ‘the love symbol’ then it’s not ‘unpronounceable’ is it? It’s ‘the love symbol’; say it; go on. See? You pronounced it so it’s not ‘unpronounceable’.

2) The SYMBOL is ‘unpronounceable’ because it’s not a word! OK?

3) Its a mixed metaphor of mixed messages. It’s done to raise the user’s intellect far above that of ordinary mortals such as you and me to make us feel unworthy in the presence of a visionary of such greatness.

4) It has an inherent ability to confuse – verbal and illustrative trouser-rolling, like they use in the Mason’s.

These tricks have been pulled for centuries by those wishing to raise an invading army, it’s what battle standards are used for and it’s what advertising agencies use today to gain brand recognition, loyalty and membership into the lifestyle they promote…the club of cool. The symbol Prince used, this ‘unpronounceable’ symbol dreamt up by a 'genius', is made up by joining together the biological symbols of female (a circle with a cross at the bottom) and of male (a circle with an arrow facing upward on the upper right-hand side of the circle). The swirl on the mid-point of the cross where it joins the circle is taken from a medieval banner sign denoting the use of horse piss in battle…OK, OK, I made that last bit up, but it's just as relevant, the swirl is either someone’s doodle or spilt coffee, IT IS NOT MYSTICAL OR MAGICAL AND IT'S DEFINITELY NOT THE WORK OF A GENIUS. He's just done what so many other pop stars do; trying to reinvent themselves in order to make more money…like pressing the refresh button on your computer, you know? How can we be sure of this?

OK. On this day in 1999, Prince, or ‘unpronounceable squiggle’ as he preferred to be known at one point in his career, or genius (or any of dozens of other epithets used to cloud the facts from people) decided to do the terribly human thing and sue various websites for illegal downloads of his music and for using unsolicited images of him. There we are, the mark of a true genius; ‘by their bank account shall you know them’. Had the money been forthcoming he wouldn't have bothered, I guess, but ‘hell hath no fury like a pop star short-changed.’ And when the omnipotent one’s wrath had wreaked vengeance and profit from those non-believers what then becomes of a fair chunk of this re-gathered wealth; you may well ask? Why these popsters, these chosen ones use it to buy more real estate, send clouds of talc up their nose and prop up the bank balance of some leader named Zob or Yuwaratwat who has assured them that after they hand over their money, when they die, they’ll live on in a purple haze of foreverness with everything as it was before: no one’s come back to say different, have they, so it must be true.