Discuss

The internet is good for quick checking or buying a pair of shoes but as a repository of deeper thought and wisdom it has some way to go.

- Sebastian Faulkes in the Telegraph.

I am afraid he is right. I had more fun, more intellectual stimulous down the pub last night. (It's a Scottish pub, in the middle of nowhere and they do great food and fantastic live music and no, I am not telling you.)

I am lucky, I seem to attract thinkers. But on the whole, this is too hit and run, too diffuse emotionally and abstracted to be interesting.

When Murdoch decides..

A long while back, maybe last year, I predicted that when Rupert Murdoch decided to dump New Labour, then New Labour would be out the door.

Well bugger me.

Today's Times has the headline

Brown plans to take cash from the poorest families

Hardly equivocal is it?

Do not underestimate the power of the man who could rightly be the heir of Citizen Kane. Murdoch controls around 160 newspapers worldwide. His editors do what they are told. Be in no doubt, with headlines like this, Murdoch has dumped Gordon Brown and the New Labour odyssey is fucking over. Hurrah!

Fasthosts - Another Warning

Sometime ago, I posted THIS about a web hosting company called Fasthosts. Well, I have had trouble with them again and have now decided that it is worth it and the timing is right to dump them.

Basically, Fasthosts are a company that makes it very easy to sign up and very difficult to leave them or downgrade your package. That, coupled with a dire customer service profile and I would advise anyone looking to register a domain name or use an off-the-peg web package to look elsewhere.

Lockerbie - Selling Justice by the £

I have been pleased to read the comments on the last post about the release of the Lockerbie bomber. It now transpires that several Labour ministers paid visits to Libya in the months leading up to the release and together with the comments on this blog and others, I am unable to take this as a coincidence.

Deals were done. At the bottom of this is money. Just as money was at the bottom of the war in Iraq. What a stinking rotten government we have that is prepared to play with the lives of innocent people, for trade deals with a lunatic.

The importance of motive over Lockerbie

I am not a detective, but it seems to me that if you can figure the motive for a crime, you are half way there to discovering the perpetrator.

So in trying to fathom the extraordinarily baroque machinations of the Lockerbie affair, I will start with asking why the Scottish Government gave consent to the release of that bloke, Mr Megrahi. If, on the surface of it, the release of a mass murderer was actioned on compassionate grounds, at the very least, you would expect the Scottish Government to have weighed and understood the consequences of this. I would have expected, at the very least, a "sounding out" of opinion, with particular reference to the USA. I would not expect them to fall over and have their tummies licked, but all the same, there had to be some thinking behind what is on the face of it, an extraordinary decision.

An appeal was due. Is it possible, I ask you, that the appeal would have been won and that the original conviction proved unsafe or "not proven"? I wonder if politicians in the Scottish Government found this scenario too difficult to deal with and took what they thought was the "soft" option?

Then of course, is the complicity of Number 10. Does it surprise me that Gordon Brown is silent on the issue? Do bears defecate in the woods?

In whose interests was it to cause the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi? Was it the Scottish Government trying a damage limitation exercise in the light of a possibly successful appeal? Was it the greater business and political interests at stake?

Whatever the motives on the release of a convicted terrorist and whatever the truth, it will not bring back the lives of those who died and it will not comfort those who loved them.

Where were you when...?

For reasons that escape me, I got to wondering when was the first time I used a mobile phone. In 1993.

This is important and momentous, don't underestimate how important this is - for it has changed everything. Arguably more than the death of JFK and the coming down of the Berlin Wall or the death of Princess Di or whatever it is you set your nostalgia clock by.

I remember precisely where I was. I was en route to the Lake District in a Citroen Xantia (as a passsenger) and I was speaking with my future wife. "Guess what?", I twittered, with all the delight of a six year old child, "I'm on Andy's mobile telephone!" It was practically all I could do to refrain from reciting, (in a clear-cut voice) "Mary had a little Lamb" - one of the earliest cylinder recordings I think.
Anyway it was about sixteen years ago.

50 years ago, we were the only people in our street with a telephone. People used to come and borrow it at times of great importance. The only thing I have never mastered is getting used to the idea that you don't have to shout down it in order to be heard at the other end.

Over to you.

Pirates

Meet Tina, the Pirate. She can raise my Jolly Roger anytime and may well capture me by the Minches. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

I don't get the Pirate thing. There is a ship missing, presumed taken by pirates, in the North Sea. It is a Russian vessel and I dare say the Russians are not happy. But my point is, why on earth don't these vessels carry cannons and blow the buggers out of the water at the first sign of trouble? It wouldn't have happened in Nelson's day.

If however, you should be unlucky enough to come across these scurvy ruffians, this website should help.
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

Organic, Schmorganic

Dominic Lawson poo poohs the Organic food Shtick by writing :

The general public, however, had already begun to call the organic bluff, perhaps one reason Whole Foods’ sales have suffered over three consecutive quarters in the United States and Prince Charles’s Duchy Originals has seen its profits slump. That noise – half-fart, half-howl – you heard last week was the organic balloon bursting. (Times)

I am an organic sympathiser of several decades standing, in fact I was an early member of the Soil Association. Lawson thinks I might want to send him hate mail in the wake of the "evidence" that organic food is no better nutritionally than the shitty chemical kind. (Apparently the FSA has been getting weird and nasty mail from some very disturbed people.)

Well, I am not going a waste a nail bomb on him (joke). These geezers are missing the point. Organic food is not about nutrition, it is about an attitude to our environment and the fact that some people genuinely believe that organic produce tastes better. The problem is that the public get it mixed up with the loony vegans and animal "rights" terrorists, which it never has been - you have been able to buy organic beef for decades, and it really does taste better.

It is in the end a lifestyle choice, not one everybody can make, I admit, but it is merely the other end of the spectrum from Mechanically Separated Meat and those wicked Chicken Nuggets.

Years ago, a farmer in Lincolnshire was prosecuted for feeding his cows, among other things, dead chicken carcasses and the bones of condemned cattle. Organic standards at least imply that you are less likely to eat that kind of food. You pays your money, so hey, let's not let science get in the way of a warm smug feeling of being a bit natural and back to the landy.

Remember David Shayler?

Shayler used to be an MI5 officer, but decided to go public with some of their supposed secrets.See THIS article.


Shayler now dresses as a woman and calls himself Dolores, and claims on his personal website that he is the Messiah.

And you think I make this up..

There are reasons why I am less and less interested in the world of media, politics and the chattering classes, and prefer to read a good book on a far away island (see below)

Great stories begin with a journey

It's amazing how many stories come out of a journey. Real or imagined, I can think of the Titanic, the Aubrey/Maturin books of Patrick O'Brian, Scott of the Antarctic, Dickens adventures such as Pickwick or Nicolas Nickleby, On The Road, and then there is the woman on the donkey, on her way to be part of the greatest story ever told, propelled by the prosaic plot device of a local government census. I am sure you can think of many more.

The journey can of course be an internal, spiritual or intellectual one. I seem to remember Hermann Hesse did a lot of that, though I last read his books over thirty years ago and memory fades. Nordic literature is full of stories that are not only narratives of a physical journey, but a spiritual one. A favourite Norwegian author is Knut Hamsun. His protagonists are wanderers, seekers, sojourners.

And so I have started another journey; this time it is Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset's trilogy of the life and journeys of the eponymous heroine, written 80 or so years ago but set in the middle ages.

You can live in a book; take on the scenery, the characters, the magic that fires the imagination and yet, sooner or later the fire and remains as a fond but melancholy memory as the last words leave your mind and the book goes back on the shelf, leaving you, if you are lucky, with the glowing embers of sweet bereavement.

Kathmandu

My currant bun, Richard, is going to make a film for the Nepali Children's Trust , a charity that works with orphaned and disabled children in Kathmandu. He needs sponsorship. Can you help? The plan is to do a long trek around Kathmandu and film the work of the Trust.

Please contact me on magicged AT Hotmail DOT Com if you want further information or want to help, and I will be happy to get in touch.

In case you think Richard might not be up to it, CLICK HERE and watch a film he made about his walk from Newport, Wales, to London in the Winter of 2007. It is called "Slow Down".

When Education is run by the School Bully

We all remember it well. Tony Blair said, "Education, Education, Education". Today, The Times has reported that:

A quarter of boys and 15 per cent of girls left primary school unable to read and write properly, Government figures show today.

Overall one in five 11-year-old pupils failed to reach the expected level in their national curriculum tests in English.

ONE IN FIVE!

I did some digging. I found an article in the Guardian, by Andrew Adonis , written in 1996, the year of the EEE speech,which to me, gives an astonishing and terrible insight into New Labour thinking on Education, and perhaps helps us to understand why education has gone backwards under New Labour.

By a complete and satisfying coincidence, Adonis wrote in 1996

One in five of seven year-olds in London primary schools score zero in reading tests

Of course, he was confident that in reporting this, he was able to place the blame firmly on the failure of 18 years of Tory administration. Not only has Labour totally failed to improve on this, they have ensured that the state system has now extended the timescale of failure by four years!

So, how did they get there? Your guess is as good as mine - I am not an educationalist, but I am a parent, which is why my children, who were found to have dyslexia, were moved from state schools which failed them, to the independent sector. (The change was most marked in my daughter, whose reading at age 11 was way behind and subsequently shot up to well above average after a year at her new, independent school) Both of my kids are now voracious and articulate readers, both above average intelligence, but you would not have guessed it from their mediocre performance at primary level.

Anyway I digress. Adonis gives an insight into the way Labour thinks. Labour does not believe in creating a level playing field, it merely believes in dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. He describes the tension between the independent sector and the public one as "England's apartheid between state and private schools". This is combative and divisive language, with the word "apartheid" having all the hallmarks of gross inhumanity. But this is the way they think. It is a kind of bullying.

He also talks about "the deep anti-education culture of the underclass." Well, I am afraid you are not going to change that unless you hypnotise them. Social engineering does not work, especially if the football is on and Stella costs £5 a crate.

This perverted brand of neo Marxism is ingrained in New Labour, yes, New Labour, though they have as much in common with the actual teachings of Marx as George Soros.

The main subject if Adonis' piece is to pitch Blair for the job of Education Secretary, alongside his role of PM. He ends the article by saying:

And the third reason for Mr Blair to take the job himself? Because he will be the first - yes, the first - Prime Minister since the war to send his children to state secondary schools. This makes him one of Britain's rarest birds: a product of the private system who has not opted out for his children too. It concentrates his mind wonderfully on how to improve the lot of the great majority who are in the public sector alongside him.

To which I can only say, "Bollocks". We are having Education policy driven by a group of people whose guilt over their own privilege must be the engine of our children's suffering.

Little Britain

An article by Stryker McGuire (he can only be an American, with a name that should be on a 70s detective show) portends ignominy and piddlization for the once Grand Britannia.

He tells us, in a comprehensive dissection of our diminishing international status:

"History has been closing in on Britain for some time"

and the

"inevitably shrinking.. disproportionate role Britain has long played in world affairs."

I do not doubt that most you agree with this. What I wonder, is when you think the rot set in.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6737848.ece

BBC Bias - it is what they don't do

It is easy to think that Bias at the BBC is somehow put into a manifesto that you can print out as a PDF. No, of course, they are much cleverer than that. Bias at the Corporation is more along the lines of self-censorship. You would no more evince Right wing views at Broadcasting House than you would make jokes about Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin - you only have to read of the experiences of people like Jeff Randall, a former BBC business editor who wore Union Jack cufflinks to work, only to be told that he looked like a National Front sympathiser. Many insiders complain of not being able to come out as Tories.

And so to Lord Taylor of Warwick - whose case gives an insight into the inner points-scoring system that news editors have. Taylor has been the latest politician to be unmasked as a fraudster (See Here).

As the BBC news editors see it, Taylor is a Tory (Bad)
He is a peer (not so bad now that they are all political appointees)
And BLACK which is so good that all mention of him has either been expunged or it never existed, in clear adherence to the principles of the Ministry of Truth.

The Times has run with it, The Telegraph has run with it, as have the Daily Mail and the Birmingham Post. At the BBC it has been buried.

But in the interests of balance on this blog here is a quite bizarre (and neo-colonial) factoid.... The BBC employs more members of ethnic minorities than their true representation in the population - but they are mostly cleaners and domestic staff. As Stephen K Amos wryly observed on Black Talent at the BBC, "I am waiting for Lenny Henry to die".