Bob Foresight's Do it Yourself Guide to: Having Your Own Hit Song.

Received this rather troubling email in my inbox this morning, most disturbing stuff...

THIS IS NOT SPAM. IF IT IS IN YOUR SPAM BOX, PLEASE DO NOT DELETE IT. I AM BOB FORESIGHT, I AM A LEGITIMATE BUSINESS MAN. PLEASE DO NOT FEEL THE NEED TO GOOGLE MY NAME. PLEASE OPEN FORTHWITH.

Dear Valued Consumer,

Hello, I'm Bob Foresight, major name behind such artists as Tiny Tempa, Insufficient Anga, Titchy Strider, Spice Girls, Girls Aloud, One Direction, and Simply Red (now Simply Mick Hucknall). 

I've worked in the industry of manufacturing chart-topping bands for over 21 years (21 years, 2 months exactly), and now I want to share my secrets with you (not due to any outstanding legal fees, my lawyers have kindly suggested I might want to point out). So if you've ever wanted to know how to make £££ Shit Tons!! (current market rates) of money in the music industry, despite having no real talent or any musical ability, then read my step by step guide to learn how to exploit other people who are just as talentless as you, and keep all the profit.

Step 1. Choose a name. 

A name is important, it's your brand image, like Coca-Cola, or Tesco's Own Brand. Your band name will appear on posters, lunch-boxes, TV talent show graphics generators, young fans' tits, the table in front of you spelt out in cocaine and ket. So choose wisely. Too long and you run the risk of not being able to fit it on posters/overdosing. Too short, and you're limiting your band's TV exposure by several syllables. 

Why not browse through, and choose from following suggestions? [CHOICE IS MANDATORY]

Texting Acronyms

L.O.L. (Loving Only Life)

L.M.F.A.O. - (Lumbering My First Avenge Ostrich)

R.O.F.L. - (Rubbing Our Friends Lustfully)

A.E.I.O.U. (Anything Equador Insists Is Obviously Unacceptable)

B.R.B. - (Burn Robert Burns)

A.T.M. - (Automatic Toaster Massacre)

I.M.H.O.  - (I'm Made Horribly Orange)

T.B.H. - (Timbuktu Biodegrading Horrendously)

T.B.F. - (Timbuktu Biodegrading Fabulously)

I.O.U. - (I'm Only Underwater)

Boy Band

N-Tyme

Lip-Synkd

One Way Only

Give Way

No Through Road

Please Keep Clear at All Times Exit in Constant Use

Red Light

Shinelight

Sunlite

Starlite

CokeLite

No Girls Aloud

Sad Men

Boys III Men: The Boys are Back in Town

Boys IV Men: New Boys on the Block

Men IV Boys: Pedophile Predicaments

Clothes 4 Africa (popular appeal option)

No Direction

Completely Lost

S.S.Club

The Boyz

Girl Band

Girls' Band

Pussy Galore!

What's That Pussycat? Holy Shit, That's No Cat...

Pussycat (On the) Dolls

The [DAY OF THE WEEK WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE TYPICALLY GO TO CLUBS]

The Cheeky Shits

Overt Lesbian Overtones

The Pin-ups

The Pin me Downs

The Pin me Right Round Baby Right Rounds

Destiny's Unwanted Child

The Jellybabes

Babelicious

Labia Majorca

Vulvatious

Young Girls Looking like Strippers But Seemingly In Charge and Confident about their Own Sexuality (Watch this Video, Boys/Buy the Magazine and Aspire to be Like this, Girls)

Step 2. Choose Your Members.

Now you have a name, you need to find some eye candy. Don't worry if they can't play any instruments, in fact it's preferable if they can't. Try to find people with some vocal talent, and no concept of artistic integrity, self respect, true ambition, or music. This way they won't mind being told what to sing, what to wear, who their friends are, and who to have scandalous affairs with. Make sure your band includes at least one of the following:

Boy Band

(x1) The Talent - This is the hardest one to manage, he must be a talented musician in order to give the band legitimacy, but must not be encouraged to break off into a successful solo career out of your control. To combat this, make sure he is the least attractive, that way he'll feel repressed by the other members, but accept their more beautiful leadership. His soul must be crushed the most. Mentally castrate him and have him sublimate his sexual frustration onto the group's young female fans.

(x1) The Twat - Must wear leather jackets, perhaps has slightly spikier hair than the rest of the group. He is full of banal teenage angst but thinks he's the plot to Catcher in the Rye. He will pull in the older teenage girl fans. Allow to have affair with up and coming Disney actress (from shit U.S. Disney sit-com, not animated film). Does not even need to be able to sing so long as there are 5 in the band. Turn his microphone off on stage and just let him feel like he's involved.

(x1) The Background - Too many beautiful boys spoil the boy band. This one must be able to harmonise very well, is quiet, genuinely quite nice, believably not just in it for the money and attention, and completely unmemorable. Is left out by the others in the group, perhaps even psychologically bullied (don't worry about long term issues, they all sign release forms), or sometimes just simply straight up forgotten about when arranging nights out.

(x1) The Idiot - Loud, abrasive, incomprehensible. Speaks mainly in idioms, internet memes, or things he's seen on the telly. Most things he says are posed as questions but are not worth answering, anything that can be conveyed with simple hand signals is presented in this way. He is, however, markedly attractive. Have him pierce his ear. He will appeal to the girls with little self-respect, who mistake his special needs for deft comic timing. Plus, if it turns out he actually does have any genuine special needs, it's a great time to claim benefit from the government and use it to pay off those coke dealers you owe.

Girl Bands

Just make sure all the major hair groups are represented.

Additionally you may want to ensure that they can all dance, are all bang-tidy (sexually attractive), and can all be imagined having pillow fights in lingerie together (this may be a potential photo shoot, but if nothing comes of it, it's still a good way to pass the long nights on the road as tour manager).

Step 3. Writing a Hit Song

Don't worry, the hard work is over. From here on in, it's just a case of multiple choice.

Boy Band

Use the following template:

Title: The title should in some way reflect what goes on in the song. Preferably the title itself forms part of a larger lyric at some point, so that it's more likely to stick in people's minds. The title must suggest love, heartbreak, or contain the word 'tonight'. The song must be about being in a relationship, wanting to be in a relationship, having just been in a relationship and now looking for another relationship/wanting to be back in the same relationship again, or what they are going to do 'tonight'.

Lyrics: [DELETE AS APPLICABLE]

Hey [girl/there/you!], what are you doing [with my heart/tonight/with my wife?],

You know you really [make me fall in love with you/need to let it all hang out/ought to fuck off],

I'm going to [love you forever/go to a club tonight/go cry in the rain],

So I'll see you [in my heart/at the club later/never! You whore!],

[Chorus]

Yeah, [girl/tonight/whatever],

We're gonna [be together/get down on the floor/go our own way]

No one's [gonna stop me loving you/gonna tell me how much I can drink/ever going to love me again, are they?]

So let's just [hold each other's hands/drink until we're sick/wank off into the rain sodden mud, alone]

[Repeat x2]

Music: Don't worry too much about this, there are hundreds of music students and recording artists who couldn't get a break in the competitive industry because they didn't have any money/weren't good looking/wouldn't fuck an exec. and they all need money for hash, or food, I forget which. So, get one of them to write the music, tell them to make it 'popular' and warn them that ANY artistic flair or individual expression will be punished by wage reduction. Make sure it's not too dense, or too different; you want DJs to be able to make remixes for the club anthem market (the biggest market for professional, good quality, high-spec. music) and make sure you keep a separate copy of the vocal tracks so you can sample them in dub-step songs as well.

Girl Band

To be honest, anything that will make sense in the context of a music video of girls looking sexually empowered, dancing like fashionable puppets, and subjugating men whilst wearing tight tops and short skirts will probably suffice, I think most people watch these things on mute anyway.

Step 4. Repeat

Repeat Step 3 until you have an album's worth of material covering the entire thematic spectrum [relationships/plans for tonight], make sure that during this time you're having the band attend photo shoots, make video diaries for youtube, meet fans, write memoirs (seems premature but just have them copy out Robbie Williams' auto-biography and change all the names), tweet, make facebook updates, appear on chat shows, appear on generic music shows aimed at stupid young 'hipsters', open buildings (preferably new ones), post on tumblr, design their own fashion ranges for Topman/shop, sponsor a child (preferably African), sleep with a teenage movie star (if boy), marry a footballer (if girl), sell their souls, sell out, sell their bodies, sell the rights to their lives and privacy of their relatives to ITV2, and finally die, alone in the dirt, round the back of Tesco (Sainsbury's local will suffice in a rush).

I've been Bob Foresight, and this has been my Do it Yourself Guide to: Having Your Own Hit Song. If you've enjoyed this tutorial and wish to hear more, please send as little as $499,999.99 [MINIMUM] to Fatcats Anonymous Ltd. Zip Code, 90210, to receive a FREE copy of my audiobook 'The General Public and how to Generalize them', along with a press pack detailing some of my other great D.I.Y. tutorials. [Please note, press pack not included, audiobook RRP: $1.99] 

N.B. My lawyers have graciously suggested that I may, or may not, wish to point out to you that the fact that my outstanding legal fees amount to a total of $499,998 has had no bearing on the pricing of any of the GOOD VALUE items of offer.

Thanks,

I've been, Bob Foresight

You asked me what I'd do for you.

Edward Hopper - Hotel by a Railroad, 1952

You asked me what I'd do for you.

Turning my head away from the television,

I asked what you had just said,

Because BBC4 was on,

and it was on too loud for a tiny kitchen flat.

You said,

'What would you do for me?'

It was in relation to something we'd been talking about earlier.

You knew that,

But other people listening might not.

I told you,

"I would capture the moon in a sunrise,

the devil in disguise, 

I would write your name on the wind's breath,

and tear a hole through the sun-streaked sky.

I would see the world through a needle,

and creation in a tear,

I would hold you closest to my heart,

For you are my most dear.

I would ride with dragons through the heartland,

fight ancient kings in halls of stone,

slay demons where they stood, unearthed,

and still I'd never ride alone.

I'd mould waves to rip through mountains,

topple peaks from out the blue,

to crumble into the dust below,

this, I do, my love, for you."

You looked at me,

and asked if I'd wank off into an eggcup whilst you watched.

We managed to reach a compromise between the two.

In Memoriam, K.J-i.

So, farewell then, Kim Jong-il,

Supreme leader of North Korea;

On your gravestone they should write,

'I told you I was il',

But you'll probably be able to come up with something better.

A Simpleton's Request

Koshu Kajikazawa - Hokusai, c.1830

When I die, as I'm bound to do,
Don't put me in a box;
Confine me not to neat little rows
Or anything that locks.

Don't freeze me in abhorrent age,
Forget my memory;
For it was not the I that was important,
But what I saw in me.

I should not wish to be remade,
An echo wandering out of age;
Let my voice be heard in others' laughs,
Not in a mortal cage.

I do not want to be confined
To the beauty of the earth;
Damned to lie beneath the skies,
These cold eyes seeing dirt.

The questions that I could not answer,
The beauty that I missed,
Inherent in a skylark's call,
Concealed within a kiss

Are not for you to go on seeking,
My quest is at its end;
I lived for me, so live for you;
You, the dust, my friend.

Life is made of smaller things
That move within the whole,
Orchestral movements caught in bursts
That spark amongst the coals.

Brief fires burning to consume,
So others may bask in heat;
Piles of ash and ember thrown
into little rows so neat.

Let me die as I intend to live,
As grandeur in darkness gropes;
An ephemeral spark in eternal dark,
Lighting love, and joy, and hope.

Please Keep the Exits Clear

Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X - Francis Bacon, 1953

Dance with defiance,
The circus freaks & lions
Are crowded round your cage to permit you


To condescend your dreams,
But they're picking at the seams,
And now it seems like they're going to rip through


The bars of your cage,
Which you constructed in a rage;
Underage liaisons & your vices.


Now you're trapped by the same
Faceless mass with no name,
That took you by the hand in a crisis.


I can stay if you want me to,
And we can have another beer;
But I'm not driven by greed
So I'll stay if you need,
But please keep the exits clear.


See, I'll come if you need me,
But I won't do more than that;
Deceptively needy,
Consistently greedy,
Know your exits or you'll be trapped.

Fireflies

Das Irrlicht - Arnold Bocklin, 1882

We, fireflies; burn for a day
And think it a forever.
Flitting through the cosmic dark;
Wisps of twilight rising,
Caught like silk on Autumn's leaves,
Hung amongst the ageing trees,
Frame the rolling amaranth skies,
Which round the quieted fireflies.

The Lovers

The Lovers - Rene Magritte, 1928

Watching the bubbles rise through your pint

Like grains of sand in an hourglass,

Whilst the rain beats down on the pane outside;

These smaller prisons to pass.

Those eyes that flirted, perverted by season,

Lines run amok through heartache and reason.

You could take a pen and scrawl on each one:

'Here is December 2008,

When I realised you couldn't let go of your past;

And here is the New Year's Eve of that year,

When in favour of cheer you forgot your own heart.

Here's where I saw how you always sought ease,

Clutching at fading memories;

Too scared to entrust your fate to me;

Your future, your past, your elegy.'

I loved you for guilt of what I had done,

But it led me to crawl at your heels,

In paying my debt I ensnared myself,

And your touch became my seal.

But time has embittered the lash of your laugh,

And the rain has run dry your lips;

Though your nylon-clad thighs chain my joy to your whim,

and your face has my vision eclipsed.

Still, sat here with you,

In this jailhouse bar,

I'll seek a collusion at last;

You're the face of love,

But you're not the whole,

You're a memory of the past.

The 1:20 Service from Edinburgh to Leeds

Edward Hopper - Compartment C Car 293 (1938)

On the 1:20 service from Edinburgh station,

Through Newcastle, Sheffield, and Leeds;

Delayed on approach for 10 minutes at Preston,

And a further 3 minutes by me.

As I boarded the carriage with courage and luggage,

And sat down in seat 24B,

My heart took a leap as you glanced at my seat,

Then sat across the aisle from me.

What beauty and wonder in futures I ponder,

Clandestinely await you and me;

I sought your eye as you stared at the sky,

and listlessly appraised the sea.

When looking right to admire the sights,

You surreptitiously caught my gaze;

I snapped down to my book and dared not to look,

In case you thought me crazed.

O, girl of no name, with one destination,

How perfectly preserved you are,

With dusty sun-light on soft hair and dark tights,

As distant from me as the stars.

And when the train pulled into Newcastle,

As you began to ready your things,

I wept in despair at the sight of your hair,

which I shall never now see up in rings.

Call off the engagement! Illicit romance,

Return the children to sender;

Undo the kisses we shared in our home,

Refund the aga and blender!

For what can you say to a girl in a way

That conveys one's most desperate thoughts,

Without being arrested, imprisoned, molested,

And strung up by court after court?

So as you rose to leave my life, 
My eyes alone perceived my strife,

I begged for one last requiting glance;

And as you buckled your coat,

Fate clutched at my throat,

And our eyes met by sweet, heavenly chance.

I shall miss you, my love, of an hour and a half,

Who departed, Newcastle at three,

On the 1:20 service from Edinburgh station,

Who sat across the aisle from me.

Though perhaps not as much, for fate twists as such,

And a heart is too quick to betray,

As the girl who got on, after you'd gone,

And sat down in seat 24A.

Louise Distras - Heartstrings on a Hand Grenade EP Review

Louise Distras

  Young, wild, & armed with acoustic guitar, Louise Distras sings of desperate situations, dodging bullets, final stands and hostile towns with the coarse emotional vigour of a reckless outlaw pleading to the heavens for deliverance from the hell of a barren life. Her anthemic melodies and refrains grab hold with a fierce bite, whilst her lyrics are fraught with futile sentiments, fearful vulnerability, and aggressive defiance, reflecting an adept eye for the frustration of trying to escape a fruitless life in a town where only love and resentment grow.

  Her voice cuts through the tracks with the same visceral intimacy as on Jamie T's 'Panic Prevention', or Billy Bragg's 'Levi Stubbs' Tears'; whilst the acoustic guitar rattles out a cascade of chords with the same relentless vibrancy of Neutral Milk Hotel's songs about mutant children and poorly conceived monarchies.

  Folk-punk may strike some as somewhat of a contradiction in stylistic terms, but Ms. Distras ties the fast-paced aggression of Joe Strummer's Wild-West rebellious attitude to the rustic charm of the current 'folk revival' with jaunty skill, and the resultant sound is something distinctive, appealing, instantly memorable, and pleasantly indelible.

  Louise Distras' EP, 'Heartstrings on a Hand Grenade' is short, at three tracks, but fierce; like a musically inclined Gimli. The strength of this vignette is in the diversity between the tracks displayed within a fairly restrictive playing style. 'Black and Blue' is an upbeat and lively number, with lots of catchy whistling and whimsical fancying, but the lyrics have more in common with 'Jackson Cage' than Eliza Doolittle and there's a followable narrative structure, which is a welcome refreshment from the erratic mumblings of singers whose concept of lyrics is just the vacuous filler to hold stupid people's attention until the bass kicks in. 

  Opener, 'Bullets', has a strong refrain that feels instantly familiar and Distras builds well upon it, making the song feel like a personal anthem for a disjointed youth, rambling around the same ineludible streets. 'This is Your Life' has much the same feel, though there's an element of the politically charged that supports the '-punk' suffix to this hybrid genre, and it comes across as one of the strongest tracks because of it. There's real fury and commitment in these songs and the minimalistic instrumentation only amplifies the personal expression that's at the core of Ms. Distras' appeal.

   
  Overall I give Louise Distras' 'Heartstrings on a Hand Grenade' an animal rating of: Slow Loris. Don't be deceived; it may be short, instantly likeable, and something you will want to own, but this animal will still claw the skin from your face if you get it riled. Don't underestimate it.

In Memoriam A.J.W.

Amy Winehouse - 1983-2011

So, farewell then Amy Winehouse,
You sung the blues with soul,
Now you are blue,
And your soul has gone awry;
They tried to make you go to rehab,
And now it seems only too obvious why.

Hail to the Eskimo - 'Anything can Happen' EP Review

Hail to the Eskimo

        Hail to the Eskimo's debut EP 'Anything can Happen' is burgeoning with snappy beats, crackling with energy, and flourishing with heavy pop; it is, in other words, the Rice Krispies of the music scene. Low in cholesterol, high in protein and glazed with sugar it is filling without being surfeiting, sweet but not sickly, it is full of energy with little excess fat. Don't let me be misunderstood, this is not a thinly veiled advert for the nutritious benefits of eating Rice Krispies - other brands are available - this is a poorly contrived analogy for the nourishing experience of listening to Hail to the Eskimo's krisp sound, delayed guitars, biting bass, and powerful, female-fueled, vocals. 

        Emerging out of the furnaces of Sheffield and the coal mines of Doncaster, Hail to the Eskimo are still in their molten state, slightly unrefined and unsettled, which lends a feeling of unpredictability and vigour to a sound reflective of the high pitched guitar of The Killer's first album, the readying for the jump to light speed feel of The Stroke's third, and the restless sophistication of Bloc Party's first.

        Eponymous track 'Anything Can Happen' kicks off drums flanging, guitar snarling, and bass bracing itself for the fight. It is unrelenting in its danceability, yet the arrangements are varied enough for this to not become jaded, though perhaps the songs would benefit from having more confidence to really accentuate the contrast between the passion and the breaks; not that confidence is anything the band lacks. There's space enough in amongst the tightly interwoven parts for you to get a good grip on the music, and it grips you back with matched enthusiasm. 

        The lyrics have an anthemic hold and vocalist, Sally, sounds like Beth Ditto on a Slim-Fast diet, which is why, microcosmically, the band work. There is no perceptible over-riding ego, pushing and shoving for breathing space, suffocating the others, and whilst this can be a curse in getting media coverage in an age where music is judged - and I use the word scathingly - on personality and wardrobe, not content, here it allows all members to play an intrinsic part in a wider order. The guitar breaks are like Nick Valensi's early ones, competent but unassuming, the drums are highly rhythmic without swallowing up the restless bass, and throughout all of this the rhythm guitar brings the substance whilst the vocals strike out from within, piercing through the layers like a lighthouse tearing through the night.  There are no egos in this band, because the band is the ego, a collective body functioning as a whole.

        I give Hail to the Eskimo an animal rating of: Cerberus, the multi-headed hound, guardian of The Underworld's eternal gates; a collaborative of heads working as one to produce something that resembles the familiar form of the loveable dog, but with much more bite.

Did the First World War Fundamentally Change British Society?

Siegfried Sassoon

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

  In any essay dealing with a change to society caused by a significant event, care must be taken in appreciating the subjectivity of perceived changes, long term and short term trends surrounding the event, and the difficulties of reaching a satisfactory definition of 'society'. This essay will look at both internal changes to British society in terms of shifting class boundaries through the distribution of economic and political power, and also external changes to a society through its views, self-definition, and the role of empire.

Benjamin Disraeli - The UK's only Prime Minister
to date born into a Jewish family.

  In defining society it is best to judge changes on both an international and a domestic level. On an international level, British society within this period is clearly defined by its empire and its imperial outlook. 

  Disraeli had set out in 1867 to popularise empire and place it at the heart of British politics, and the necessity and maintenance of empire became a ground on which Conservatives and Fabians alike could 'find common cause'. By the 1890s 'intellectual and popular tastes had converged' under the cross-party cross-class issue of national imperialism, and even if this were a mere semblance of unity, in reaching an encompassing external definition of British society, judging any fundamental changes to that society by any fundamental changes within it of its views towards empire is both convenient and apt.

  Imperialism gained a fervent popular tinge after the Abyssinian campaign of 1867 that can be seen bubbling to the surface in public sentiments towards the 1874 Ashanti Campaign, the calls for sharp reprisals towards the Egyptian crisis of 1882, right up to popular support for the Boer War of 1899-1902. And though one should not ignore Pro-Boer groups within British society, one should also not forget the terms useage as a politically tarring slur. Dickens, a highly regarded and publicly popular author of the nineteenth-century, perhaps reflected the growing opinion of society in 1853 when he wrote that a savage was something 'highly desirable to be civilised off the face of the earth', which reflects much of his society's imperialistic outlook.

   However, there is an argument that this imperialistic view of British society underwent a fundamental change after the First World War. Britain's war debts, and inability to reclaim the $11.1m (equivalent) it had lent out to support its allies, knocked international confidence in the gold standard, and Britain was forced off it in 1919. British industry struggled to recover markets lost to rival US and Japanese competitors during the war, causing slumps in industry in the 1920s which were acutely felt by the general society, and the general rise of agitation in India and the dependant territories all equated to an 'atmosphere of failure' which severely knocked British society's self-confidence.

Rudyard Kipling used to sign many of his
books with the Indian religious symbol
'the swastika', leading many people with
no sense of chronology to deride him as
a nazi-sympathiser.

  The reverence of society for military leaders such as Kitchener, 'the victor of Omdurman and the Boer War', who in this sense can be seen to reflect a form of imperialist militarism, was fundamentally changed by the horrors and diabolical leadership of the war; which is reflected in most WW1 poetry post-1917, as in Kipling's epitaph, 'If any question why we died,/Tell them, because our fathers lied.', or Sassoon's ridiculing caricature of 'fierce bold... scarlet majors'.

  The 'atmosphere of failure', coupled with this rejection of the imperialist militarism, which had 'produced the war', suggests that the First World War and its consequences constitute a fundamental change within British society in its outlook, self-confidence, and views towards empire.

  However, the Boer War is commonly cited as representing the accumulative 'final bout of popular imperial fervour', and that the First World War simply finished off society's interest in imperialism would imply that its decline forms a part of a longer-term shift that culminated in the first World War, meaning the roots of this fundamental change would precede the war, and hence not be attributable to it.

  Also, whilst the effectiveness of propaganda upon society is debatable, it is evident that the 'imperialists were propagandizing [sic]' increasingly from c.1890 onwards with the establishment of imperialistically orientated groups such as the Imperial Federation League in 1884,  the League of the Empire in 1901, and the Overseas Club in 1910, amongst others. This imposition of empire survived the war and manifested itself in propaganda in the cinemas and other forms that influenced society, such as the Wembley Exhibition of 1924-5, Empire Day, and the survival of the 'new history and geography' taught in schools which emphasised empire and its heroes. The fact that at the outbreak of the Second World War, Orwell was still arguing that imperialism needed to be separated from nationalism suggests its continued role in society's collective consciousness after 1918.

  Based on this evidence, and looking at British society as being externally defined by its imperialistic outlook pre-1914, one may draw the conclusion that if the First World War did fundamentally change society, it was, in this sense, a temporary change, that was rekindled as Britain recovered and reasserted itself on the international stage. After an 'inevitable period of post-war instability', Britain's empire was again relatively stable by 1922, Britain returned to the Gold Standard in 1925, and, whilst domestic markets still suffered, Britain's international position with regards to empire was perhaps stable enough again for its society to revert back to its pre-1914 imperial self-identity.

  However, if there is something to be said for the First World War's long term effect upon this element of British society, it would be that perhaps by 1920s, with inter-war depression taking its hold, society now realised that Britain was dependent on its empire for resources and man-power in order to avoid absolute dependence on the growing power of the USA. The fundamental change is evident in the shift of perceptions towards empire as an indispensable crutch, which would explain the government's increased investment in imperial propaganda, as increasingly the 'empire and society began to need each other',  and away from Dickens' Orientalist, superior view of the empire needing civilising.

Men Whose Fate is Linked with Coal and Cotton - Kurt Hutton, 1939.
The grandeur of the Empire seems a world away from the unemployment of Wigan. Orwell saw both, and knew which one Britain was on the road to.

  Having looked at the effect of the First World War in changing British society in terms of its international, external definition by attitudes towards empire, the remainder of this essay will examine the effects of the First World War at a domestic and internal level, as defined by society's attitude towards itself, and the distribution of economic and political power between the classes.

  One of the most obvious changes to British society brought about by the First World War was the increased prominence of working and middle class women within industry, and the political and economic leverage that created. When the call for volunteers went up in 1914, the Foreign Office was overwhelmed by the sudden rush to enlist from manual labours, clearly drawn by the promise of a guaranteed wage and a better diet; and at its peak the armed forces contained 'one in three of the entire male labour force'. Initially resistant to conscription, the Liberal government were increasingly pushed towards it initially not by a need for troops, but by a need to introduce some measure with which they could limit the amount of volunteers signing up, whose presence on the western front would produce a deficit in essential industry.

  The answer to this deficit however, lay in women. The amount of women in metal and chemical trades rose from 200,000 in 1914 to 'nearly a million by the Armistice', mostly from the working classes, but with spill overs from the middle classes. This in the long term however, did not cause a redistribution of power or fundamental change; women still did not hold the vote and by 1921 the female work force had virtually seen no net change from its 1911 level.

Photos such as this became popular sights, but in cases such as these the allure was more one of novelty
than of an acceptance of the new role of women in British society. Women over 30 may have won the vote
when the war ended, but it was a further decade until women were granted equal voting rights.

  The First World War had created a temporary fundamental change in the constructs of British society, but it had been purposefully reverted back again at its conclusion, as promised under the Treasury Agreements. However, women now played an increased role in Labour and trade unions, whose position was strengthened by labour shortages, with trade union membership peaking  at 8 million in 1919-20. Whilst trade union membership had been rising since before the war, and promises for electoral reform had been made before August in 1914, it was the war itself that brought about the calls that led to the 1918 reform bill. Whereas before, Conservative politicians had held reservations as to enfranchising the proletariat, they now held no reservations in enfranchising 'our soldier lads', and this sudden influx in the amount of enfranchised males, with the working classes in its broadest definition comprising 80% of the population, Labour now firmly established itself in Opposition.

Ramsay Macdonald - Britain's first Labour PM, though not for very
long first time round.

  This suggests a change in the political structure of society that, whilst not radical, can be seen in the general election of 1918 to signal the imminent rise of Labour, and the decline of the Liberal party in what has been termed, 'the strange death of Liberal England', and further suggests the rising political prominence of working class concerns within society, as reflected in the work of writers and journalists such as Orwell.

  In conclusion, as a whole, perhaps the war did not fundamentally change British society. Imperialism survived the war, but was now more defensive in nature than expansive, and whilst this does reflect the changing views of society, it cannot, I think, be termed a 'fundamental change', as the theme remained important and still informed politics and culture alike. However, Britain was now plagued with debts and un-reclaimable loans as a result of the war which would hamper plans for wide spread social welfare reform for another forty years. This, coupled with the emergence of the USA as a new 'economic empire', perhaps spoke of a longer term fundamental change in the way British society perceived itself on the world stage that found its causes in the First World War. 

  Issues on a more domestic level within society; such as women's suffrage movements, growth of the trade unions and of labour; had already been on the rise before 1914, but after the war grew exponentially in membership, or gained more widespread support. The war served to erode craft elitism in trade unions due to severe labour shortages in specialised trades, causing a fundamental shift in society towards a more united and encompassing trade union network which served to bring the working classes a much increased political leverage in settling trade disputes. 

  As to whether or not this constituted a fundamental change in British society depends upon how much weight one would place upon the First World War's ability to radically alter perceptions, views and ideologies. And whilst its role in this is evident (one need only think of the changing sentiments and optimism of the War's poetry, or of the resurrection of Socialist movements), one cannot dismiss that a lot of the themes, perceptions, and ideologies that define post-WW1 society were simply continuations, diminutions, or amplifications of pre-existing movements, and of pre-existing trends.