Fondue

Some of us remember Fondue sets being a kind of ironic, post modern joke, that went along with Rum Babas, Black Forest Gateau and Prawn Cocktails. (All of which I like, incidentally). Not anymore. They are coming back. Weasel, the Count of Cool, says so.

I am about to take delivery of a Le Creuset one, a retro 70's model, used only once. The reason is simple, I have recently become very excited about making Cheese Fondue. It's easy: you make a thick white sauce, add a teaspoon of Marigold stock powder, add some Emmental, some Gruyere, maybe something else like a little cheddar, then, very carefully some white wine, and Bob is your uncle. I find that making the white sauce, even a little, helps the whole thing to come together. There is no official way to make fondue, you just get your own method. And it is fun and wonderfully tasty and life affirming. And don't let them tell you there is a trad Swiss method. In my experience, they all do it a little bit differently. Of course, you do not have to just do cheese. One of my best Fondue experiences was after a wonderful Alpine walk. We dropped down into a place called Le Sepey and had a beef one.

Here is a cheesy (geddit?) American video.

Music in a Doll's House

I did a quickie review of this in 2006, but now things have moved on and I can post an audio sample. Family are one of those bands that did not reckon with the age of the World Wide Web; they are impossible to Google unless you have some more information on them, such as the name of the lead singer, Gurgling Roger Chapman, or one of their album names. I knew about Family because they had a couple of chart hits, "In my own time" and "The Weaver's Answer". Incredibly, Music in a Doll's House was released in the middle of 1968. Listening to it today is a revelation; the production and sound is astonishing. The songs are clever, musical, inspired and possibly insane as well.

I first heard this played in an independent record shop, very loud. The opening track thumped out with a galloping rhythm and by the end my brain was dribbling out of my nose.

The Album cover, or at least the back of it affected me - an eery photo of a Victorian Doll on a toy bicycle.

Anyway, here is that opening track. Turn the volume up, sit down, take an anti excitement pill and prepare to pop your poppers.

The Alan Parsons Project

What do vocalists Arthur Brown, Gary Brooker, Colin Blunstone, Alan Clarke and Steve Harley have in common? Answer: they have all done guest vocals for The Alan Parsons Project.

When The Project were making albums, you will not have heard them unless you had a cool friend or traveled abroad, because for some reason the band was totally ignored in the UK. Indeed, my first hearing of TAPP was in a small cafe in Minorca of all places. They played the entire Pyramid album and I went out and bought it (had to order it, actually)on my return. It's a complete, atmospheric album that has a theme (not a concept). It does however, take you on a sonic journey with a beginning, middle and end, and in my opinion is pretty darn flawless.

When you consider that Parsons worked as an engineer on The Beatles Abbey Road and Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon it is hardly surprising that the production values are very high.

Incidentally, one of Mrs Weasel's all-time favourite tracks is Don't Answer Me, (Ammonia Avenue) a brilliant re-creation of Spector's Wall of Sound, complete with castanets and echo chamber. (I added this as an afterthought to the post, but it is rather spiffing.)

The only criticism I have of their entire output is that there is some depth missing and it can be emotionally cold. There are no undiscovered layers there for the serious listener. The sound is eclectic, as evidenced by the lovingly re-created Spector sound on the above track. Elsewhere there are hints of ELO and Jean Michel Jarre.
The Alan Parsons Project is what it was intended to be: beautifully crafted contemporary music, played well, sung by some of the best in the business. I really do not understand why there has been a virtual ban on the band and their songs in the UK. If anybody has heard one on British radio I would be surprised to hear it. In the meantime, here is a track from their 1982 album Eye in the Sky entitled: Old and Wise, with vocals by Parsons stalwart, Colin Blunstone.



UPDATE: Since this post has become poplular, I shall make an effort to update it. I am in discussions with certain people to do an interview with one of the principals about the making of Pyramid and other albums. Watch this space.

My New Blog: http://rock-legacy.blogspot.com/

Eurovision - did anyone watch it?

Germany has won the Eurovision Song Contest, with a song that I would not give house-room to. I listened to it and had to chuck it after a minute. It sounds like all the adolescent drivel that gets piped into supermarkets these days.

As for poor Josh, the UK entry, he came last, as all gentlemen should do. And as all gentleman should do, he and Peter Waterman should repair to a private room with an old service revolver.

I did not watch the show, but apparently the highlight was someone doing a Jarvis Cocker and leaping on stage to freak out the Spanish entrant. None of my choices did anything; my tip for the top (see below) came 22 out of 25, with my other two hopefuls failing to make it to the finals at all, so that's me then, not knowing much at all.

followers

I am gratified and happy that 71 people have seen fit to press the "follow this blog" button. It kind of bears out the stats. Between about 80 and 90 people a day visit the blog, which, considering my inconsistency, my lack of replying to threads, my scatterbrain approach and my general neglect and propensity to close the blog without explanation, is darn good. I don't do all the tricks that some engage in the get hits, either. I don't appear on lists, because the blog defies description. Sometimes it is musical, sometimes it is political, sometimes it may seem boring, but occasionally it is ok.

So, a big thank you again to those who read it from time to time. I know who some of you are, but still wonder about those who, for example, live in Switzerland or Iowa, who appear to read it regularly but never comment. I wish you would. I am interested.

Keep reading, and if you want to email me, do. Those who have always get a reply and I do listen to what you have to say, as those who have taken the trouble to contact me will attest to. Thanks. Ged.

David Laws

David Laws has apparently broken the rules on claiming expenses for monies paid to partners for renting a flat. I don't think this is in any doubt. Laws admits wrongdoing and is paying it back.

What complicates this is the somewhat emotive issue of his homosexuality. His defense is that he wished to keep secret his relationship with another man, and consequently did not declare that he was renting from a partner. Two wrongs, however, do not make a right. Firstly, he has been less than honest about his private life, and this would not have been much of an issue were it not for the fact that the claim for expenses was predicated on it.

In order to make sense of this one must try and separate the two strands of this story. But like DNA they are a double helix, of deceit and subterfuge.What many commenters are struggling with today is the inability of the issue to untangle the two strands; our heads tell us he is culpable, and must go, our hearts tell us otherwise.

UPDATE: David Laws has resigned from the Government. The dignity with which he went should be a marker for all those who have the audacity to aspire to high office, but are not perfect human beings. I hope he feels able to return at some point, as Clegg and Cameron have indicated.

Kitten survives laundry cycle

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7770048/Kitten-survives-washing-machine-cycle.html

The bastards just won't die.

The wrong path

A man has been arrested in connection with the deaths of three prostitutes in Bradford. The mother of one of the dead girls said that they were

human beings who were also people’s daughters and didn’t deserve to die like this. Unfortunately, my daughter went down the wrong path and she didn’t have the life she was meant to have

There by the Grace of God is a phrase that is never far from my thoughts. The wrong path. How is it people go down the wrong path? How does that descent into despair and dependency happen? Well, quite easily I expect. Homelessness is not as far away as you think. A few wrong turns, a bad relationship, an addiction - one or all of these, and other things can take us off that little perch of safety and comfort. We are only one step away from the gutter.

Some of us have friends and loved ones, but a person who goes down the path of substance dependency sheds connections. Even I have asked myself how long would it take, how many stolen things would it take or violent tantrums, until I chucked my kids out and said, "never darken this door"?

I have been involved with the rehabilitation of ex-drug users. They were lucky, though many of their friends and relatives were not. There is a lot of support out there if you are on the edge of society, but you have to want it and you have to make some kind of commitment to live and survive. These girls, I am afraid, made the wrong choices. That is not wicked - we all do. But what they did wrong was to close themselves off to help, to believe that they were alone and defeated and unable to conquer their inner demons. And sadly, they paid a terrible price.

Saab

Those of you who have followed the saga of the MGF in the last few months may be interested to know that it has been sold and replaced - with a Saab. It's my fourth Saab. The first two I bought, from a dealer, were stinkers. That is, Saabs are tough as old boots; you can abuse them, do 250,000 miles without putting any oil in them or bothering to check under the bonnet, and the poor old girl will soldier on, like a stranded Lesbian who is the only survivor in a plane crash. Then, if you are a dealer, you can clock them back to 93,000 and nobody will be any the wiser. At least one of my Saabs turned out to be an insurance write-off. The third Saab was a 9000 (the first two were 900's) and was pleasant enough but not very Saaby. It broke down on the day I planned to move to Scotland, and eventually gave up a few months later. So you would think I would be a bit wiser. No, not really.

You see, I am a Scandiphile. When I was six years-old I preferred Ingmar Bergman films to the Wooden Tops. I eat a lot of pickled herrings and have lots of things with IIttala engraved on them. And Gustavsberg, and JIE Gantofta, and Arabia, and Kosta, and Figgjo, etc, etc, get the drift?  A thing may that is made can be beautiful or ugly, and it may as well be the former rather than the latter. And so it is with things Swedish.

There is something, oh so very dutiful and solid about Swedish things as well as their beauty. Even their woman can open beer bottles with their teeth. So, I am sort of hooked.

This time I bought privately. This time I have benefited, I think from the care and attention lavished on this particular car since it was born in Trollhattan in 1999. This time it's a 9-3 Turbo in immaculate condition: two owners, full Saab service history, all the receipts. all the MOTs with the mileage, all the work that should have been done has been done, four newish tyres and it comes in at 115,000, which for a Saab is just about run-in. All the electrics are perfect, including the air con, which strangely, I have had to use this week. Taxed and MOT'd, I drove it away for less than a grand. The previous owner had a company allowance to keep it spick and span. It's never been a tower and it goes like stink.


This is pretty much what it looks like.

Eurovision

I haven't predicted a Eurovision hit since Lordi, but I like this one a lot. Eurodisco written through it like a stick of rock, a great very simple sax break and the whole song just makes me tingle.


Sunstroke Project & Olia Tira -Moldova's Entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. (The UK entry is Crap, as usual)

Get the whole Eurovision experience HERE

UPDATE:
I also think these are worthe entries: Sweden and Finland. But then, I am a hopeless Scandiphile, aren't I?



And Finland:

Sail Away

"There is nothing- absolutely nothing-
half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats."

I have had three boats. The first was a modest little cruiser , a Birchwood Continental, on the Medway. The second was a sloop in the Bristol Channel, and the third was a narrowboat on the Kennet and Avon.

I have to say, (and I think I speak for 1stLieutenant Weasel, and the Midshipmen Weasels) that these were the best days of our lives. If you have been watching Timothy and Shane Spall, going around our country in their rather wonderful DB, you will appreciate what it is all about. We actually exchange pleasantries with them in the days when they too had a narrowboat. (Rather inevitable on the cut)

So now I am thinking, "Time for another boat". The last one took us down about £50,000. Boats are worse than burning money. They are worse than being Gordon Brown for fiscal armageddon. But hey ho! I have never felt so alive, so at one with the universe and the Dalai Lama when at the helm of a boat.

And I think I have found the perfect mooring "somewhere" up river of the Forth Bridge. TBC 

Has the tide turned in favour of common sense?

The Queen's speech is full of good intentions so I shall leave others to pick over that carcass. The only thing, conspicuous by its absence, is the repeal of the unworkable and Stalinist Hunting Act. Clearly the Dim Libs scored on that one.

What I have picked out today is a story about a transsexual whose legal bid to get breast enhancement on the NHS has been denied.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7762879/Transsexual-loses-bid-for-breast-enhancement-on-NHS.html

Of course, the main thrust of the claim was that refusal to pay for bigger boobs violated her human rights. Bollocks! If she is that desperate, she should pay for them herself. Of course, this individual, who cannot be named (and why not?) has made this claim, with legal aid, for no cost whatsoever. The Primary Care Trust, which will be made up of doctors who specialise in this sort of thing, said,

The Committee ruled there was no compelling health reason for the procedure which, it said, was "purely for cosmetic reasons". 

So in other words, this deluded individual, brought up no doubt, to believe the state was going to fund her throughout her life, has been at best deluded, and at worst taking the piss.

The ruling does make me wonder, though, about the wider picture. Is Britain about to become a country where common sense prevails, instead of this hideous tyranny of political correctness and personal greed?

Inside the mind of a ten year-old boy

Thunderbirds and puppetry in general were one of my chief obsessions when I was a young lad. That and magic. I was mad keen on magic, and eventually learned enough to do shows and make a bit of money at it. I did not have much of a gang, but I was the leader; the other gang members were one other boy and my younger sister, who usually got experimented on or became a test pilot for our home-made fairground rides. We liked making fairgrounds - either models of rides or actual rides. One was a tin bath that was supposed to slide down a ladder. Not very successful and potentially lethal. Another thing we did was shops. Having accumulated a lot of toys and stuff, and being conscious that some of these things were not much use anymore, we sold them, every Saturday, on a "stall" at the front of our house. One day, I decided to sell my electric train set on the stall. A man came along, expressed interest in the steam engine and asked "how much?" I think I said "ten shillings". (It was a work of art, a Gresley Pacific in green livery with a tender.) He told me he only had five shillings and said he could pay that and come back later with the five. As a ten year-old boy, I accepted this. He was an adult and in those days children were pretty much in thrall to adults. Of course, this man never returned. He had cheated a ten year-old boy out of five shillings.

Strangely, I trusted the buyer of my electric railway engine. I was in business, but I was in business as a child. In fact I was merely emulating what I had seen. That is all. Any perceived skill on my part, as a salesman, was a clumsy copy of what I had seen in the market.

Ten year-old boys generally go through the motions.; they pretend, they practice, they aspire, but rarely do they act with full knowledge or motive. To a ten year-old average lad, life is very simple and very transient.

Which is why I feel so sad that two young boys have been convicted in court of the attempted rape of a young girl. I feel as if we have gone back to hanging apes for being spies.

Paper Free but not junk free

There is a certain amount of doublethink going on among workers at the Post Office. "Making private profit out of public services is just wrong" says Bill Hayes, General Secretary of the CWU. It now looks at if they will be joining British Airways in a joint Summer of Discontent.

Hang on a minute, Bill. Since when was the Post Office letters division a Public Service? When was the last time anybody received a meaningful communication via the Royal Mail, that could have been done electronically? The last important document to arrive at Weasel Hall was a Passport. And that was by Private Courier. The only thing we get from the postman these days is junk. Day after day after day. These days, posties are in reality, highly paid leaflet distributors, and, forgive me If I am mistaken here, but this aspect of the Post Office is done entirely for commercial reasons and is highly profitable. It benefits nobody but the Post Office and perhaps also the companies who use this method of marketing, which apparently raises £67 billion in sales. Hardly what you could call a "public service", though, is it? Getting details of Twofers at Somerfield? Do me a favour.

I have used one postage stamp this month, and that was to the DVLA, another behemoth that finances itself from, among other things, extorting money- in fines- from people whose paperwork gets lost in their system or the postal system.

Now I know that there are businesses that rely upon the Royal Mail at present, but most of the commercial services, such as direct mail, are done by private firms anyway. I don't buy the argument that if the Royal Mail letters division was sold off, the service would deteriorate or disappear. Even if the cost of sending a letter increased fivefold, it would not be a big deal to most people. Any company that is still sending mass mail-outs by post should take a serious look at its business model and learn about the World Wide Web.

As for parcels, they seem to me to be far more efficiently handled by private couriers. That is my experience. Many small scale firms I deal with have given up on the Royal Mail, simply because they are so unreliable.

Taken in the context of the British Airways dispute, any strike action by Postal Workers looks nothing more than the last gasp attempt of the former and soon to be former publicly owned dinosaurs to hang on to working practices that have no place in today's world. The commercial sector has stripped waste to the bone, so why should taxpayers be conned into supporting an anachronistic throwback to a bygone era?

Why doesn't Nick Robinson just shut the f@&k up?

Here is the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, in full froth, absolutely relishing Cameron's egg-shell stepping in Europe, and declaring that David Cameron is "at the centre of a European economic crisis" - As if the tanking Euro is his fault, for fuck's sake!

Here is Robinson's article in full, so that you can add the kind of comments that the BBC won't publish..

Before he came to office David Cameron told his party to stop obsessing about Europe.
Yet within days of moving into Number 10 he finds himself at the centre of a European economic crisis and facing calls for treaty amendments to prevent a repeat of it.
As a result the Prime Minister is now having to manage not one but three different coalitions.
The agreement between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats may have ruled out further transfers of powers to Brussels without a referendum but the Lib Dems will not relish headlines about Britain threatening to use the veto.
The Tory party is itself an uneasy coalition of Euro sceptics, Euro pragmatists and those who want Britain out of the EU altogether.
And, of course, the European Union is itself a coalition fraught with its own tensions.
The Prime Minister came to Berlin today and last night to Paris as part of an early European charm offensive - he'll need all the charm he can muster to try to keep all three coalitions he's handling happy. 

Sorry about the swearing, but fuck. How can Robinson get away with trying to make Cameron the bogeyman in the crisis over the Euro? Cameron has quite rightly, made it clear he is not about to cede even more power to Europe in order to fund shit hole economies like Greece. Of course, Robinson is just slavering over the putative cracks in the coalition. Well he can stuff his blog up his arse, and fuck off while he's doing it, the baldy, speccie smug tosser.

Wallander - Review

I watched an episode of Wallander on the i-Player. This review is free-standing, in that, until yesterday, I was barely aware of the series, and have not read the books or done any other reading into it, so what I have to say is fresh for me, and not influenced by outside sources.

I thoroughly recommend it. Wallander is a cop and the show is a police procedural, with, in the one I watched, a sub-plot about the cadet cop's relationship with his dad. There is a link to the main plot here, but I will not spoil it. The episode I saw was called "The Sniper". A lone gunman is killing people. What is the link? Why is he doing it? Can he be found? Etc. Nothing special about that. What makes the show so good is the central character, played by the extraordinary Krister Henriksson, whose inner life is writ large on his craggy face. Indeed, Henriksson does not appear to act, he just sort of sighs and shrugs in quiet desperation. Even when he is close to losing his composure, he never does, but the face has a thousand tiny story-telling permutations and they are totally compelling.


There is nothing very romantic about the scenery. Not a lot of IKEA or ABBA or Absolut in shot. Indeed, not what we think of as Sweden at all - in could be Swindon for all we know, with Saabs and Volvos, and everyone has an estate car. Wallander lives by the sea with a nice woman, who gently takes the piss out of him. Wallander himself is weak with women: he has an uneasy relationship with his female police cadet and there is "history" with the local Coroner, which is done in a scene so understated, but so real, it made me cry. Wallander smokes of course. I suppose he is a cocktail of one part Lemmy Caution, two parts Maigret and a dash of Columbo.


The writers cause the characters to say one thing and do another. It has the effect of making the resolutions at the end fall into place when word and action become one, and it adds realism. Nobody in Wallander is one dimensional. Even the bad guys appear to have complex inner lives. 

It is worth a look.

Cameron vows not to bail out ailing Euro

Jeff Randall writing in the Telegraph this week was being pessimistic about the survival of the Euro. "No amount of pit props from Berlin can save the euro Mk I from collapsing under the weight of its structural dysfunctionality", he opines. And today we hear that David Cameron is not in a mood to prop up the Euro either. He is in Berlin, with Angela Merkel, (not his favourite Aunty) and has come out and said so. The Telegraph says today:

Mrs Merkel has suggested that all European countries need to be willing to surrender more sovereignty to give the EU powers to prevent another Greek-style eurozone crisis. 

Well, I don't think so darling, and neither does Dave. He has an effective veto in this area and puts it thus:

''Britain obviously is not in the euro and Britain is not going to be in the euro, and so Britain would not be agreeing to any agreement or treaty that drew us further into supporting the euro area.'' 

Well said. Well, at least well intended. I just hope this is not one of Dave's "cast iron guarantees" If only the weasley Brown had not crept in the back door to sign the Lisbon Treaty, we might not even be having this conversation. None of my regular readers will be surprised that I want out of Europe altogether. We don't need  it, and going by today's account, for once, we have the upper hand. Let us hope David Cameron stands firm.

WW's Weekend Window on the World

My overwhelming impression of the media's handling of the new coalition government is that it wants it to fail. I have yet to come across a story that is not hinting at splits, or the impossibility of delivering manifesto commitments or indeed, the last gasp of those whose beloved party is no longer in power and believes, quite incredibly, that Ed Balls will save us.
All I know is that some of the worst excesses of the last lot are to be reversed, which to me is good news. HIPs for example, the universally despised Home Information Packs - an unnecessary and useless bit layer of expense tacked on to the buying of a house. It never delivered information that was going to displace buyer surveys, building society surveys or solicitor's questions. Instead, it created a sad bunch of mickey mouse jobbers who are now presumably looking for another job in the real world. So that, at least is good news for would be home buyers.

The BBC still cannot believe that the old regime is gone. Question Time still stacks its audience with braying and credulous liberals, whose shirts and shoes give away the fact that they owe their livelihoods to the Public Sector. On last night's show, they were all plainly in favour of protecting the human rights of avowed terrorists and of allowing them to remain here to plot more atrocities. What does the BBC think we are? Fools? The QT audience is sifted and stacked to reflect their own agenda. My only question is, will this change now that Cleggameron is in charge?

There are rumblings that Nick Robinson, the BBC's Political Editor may go soon. Laura Kuennsberg is up for it apparently. I love to watch her face when she reports. Her mouth seems to have declared UDI.

Older people like me are supposed to worry less. And do you know, it's true! A few weeks ago, when I had a problem with a neighbour who is now gone, I faced him off. Given that he weighs twice as much as me, is a foot taller, and behaves like a stereotypical truculent Scot, I came out of it rather well. As he literally held his bulging Cro-Magnon fluorescing head about an inch from mine, spluttering expletives and threatening mayhem, mostly at me, my overriding thought was one of mild disdain and curiosity. I was curious as to how this man lives the rest of his life and if he will make his new neighbour's lives a misery, as he threatened to do mine. (Never fuck with the Weasel. I have seen plenty off in my time. It is a skill, inherited from my awful father who in quiet moments was sweetly sentimental, like Kim Jong Il, and in drunken ones was a bit like Russel Crowe, but without the charm)

As for money, which I suppose we all worry about, even if we have lots (especially if we have lots) I have been around that block too many times to let it consume my life.
So, if you are under fifty, and worried about getting old, don't. It is quite nice really. The only thing I will say, is... don't mock old people for moving slowly. They move slow, not because they are infirm or stupid, they move slow to avoid accidentally bumping into things, which is, I am afraid, a bit more painful and damaging for an oldster.

This weekend, I shall mainly be buying a new motor and pottering in the garden. I managed to hit some concrete with the mower yesterday and now it vibrates like hell, which I suppose means a new spindle and/or a new blade.
I have to get my passport renewed. I only mention this because not having a passport makes me feel very uncomfortable, as if I will be severely inconvenienced when MI6 sends me my next orders, to see a man in a white suit, known only as Clive, at the Cafe Ouvre on the Boule Miche.

Enjoy your weekend, wherever you are, and don't forget the Sun Tan lotion.

Check your bottom

Went out last night? Can't remember what you did? Check your bum, old chum. A woman died in 2009, after an operation to remove a toilet brush from her bottom, that had apparently been lodged there since 2005, after a drunken fall.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7739359/Woman-died-after-doctors-failed-to-spot-toilet-brush-in-her-buttocks.html

Somehow I don't know where to start; this happened in Lincolnshire, my home county, the woman must have been very drunk, and she was examined by a Dr called Killan Mbewe, whose Zambian medical qualifications did not apparently cover loo brushes up the rectum, how to spot them, and how to remove them.
Now, I don't know about you, but I have a very sensitive bottom. I am one of the many poor souls who buy that moist bathroom stationery, and so I reckon I could tell if I had something larger than a matchstick up there. Anal sex would have been right out for me, even if I fancied it, which I don't. I thought doctors were paid to look at bottoms. Have they stopped doing them under health and safety rules? Are women from Lincolnshire so terminally stupid that they are happy to walk around with small domestic appliance up their bums?

I am confused. I appeal to readers to explain how this might have happened. I have included pictures to help focus your thoughts.

Germaine, love, pull yer knickers on and make us a cup of tea

Germaine Greer, writing in today's Guardian, does a stunning and comprehensive hatchet job on Margaret Thatcher, Thatcherism, anybody to do with Thatcher and anybody who once knew somebody who did. This philippic, which has a blunderbuss approach to all around the first female PM (Why was she never known as PMT?) goes into a lot of detail about how unresponsible Thatcher was for Thatcherism and how shitty and supine were her ministers (remember the Vegetables?) Her main thesis is this:

What is clear from any reading of the vast mass of documentation of the Thatcher years is that Thatcher herself is not the author of Thatcherism, which is a thing of shreds and patches. It was put together, as her public persona was, in response to a series of pressures originating in circumstances beyond government control. For years it had been clear that whoever ruled Britain was going to have to deal with the problem of failing industries, excessive public spending, and the power of the elite trade unions. 

I can see Greer's point. Many strong figures in history stand in what Oscar Wilde termed Symbolic Relations to the epoch: Nelson, Hitler, Wilberforce, Churchill, The Borgias, The Beatles, to name but a few, but that is just the point. These were all figures with the strength and personality and talent to light the blue touch paper of change and dynamism - for good or evil. It is a pity that Germaine Greer attributes the latter to one of the greatest Prime Ministers we have ever had. People, as Greer rightly says, coalesced around a figurehead because what happened had to happen.

But it takes more than a figurehead, and this is where the article falls down. That, and the dreary tractor stat roll-call of all the misdemeanors of her nearest and dearest. So, what on the surface appears to be a thorough and coruscating anatomy of Thatcher and her influence is just another hysterical knocking piece; Guardian fodder for the Branch Davidians of politics, with plenty of facts to make it look academic. Some people, plain and simple, were born leaders, regardless of whether or not they had to lose their Lincolnshire accent or lower their public speaking voices (that is the level of the diatribe and times, yes, that the evil Thatcher lost her Lincolnshire accent, which I suppose is on a par with eating the children of asylum seekers). The talent required for leadership is lost on Greer who seems to believe that all Mrs T did was that "she bulldozed and dragooned her cabinet colleagues". Reducing Thatcher to the role of a bully is a cheap shot and quite disingenuous. If you want an example of a bully, why not take a look at recent history and Gordon (bigotgate) Brown.

This Guardian piece is not worthy of an academic or someone with a brain. It's length and primary thesis belies its motive, which at its heart is a visceral hatred of its subject.

Germaine, if you are reading this, try and have a more balanced view of Iron Lady, and, while you are at it, pull yer knickers on, love, and mek us a cup of tea

BBC hypocrisy? Never!

Trying to get proof of BBC bias is extraordinarily difficult. Bias at the BBC is masked and obfuscated, largely by omission. That is, it is what they leave out, not what they put in. Dan Hannan had a moan about it recently, when a BBC producer failed to elicit a sufficiently tin-foil hat reaction to the new Coalition. See: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100039829/its-the-bbc-here-wed-like-you-to-say-something-angry-stupid-and-preferably-racist-about-the-new-government/

They have an agenda and they will shoehorn anything in to it. As a former journalist myself, I well understand how someone can find a punter who will reflect "the line". It happened to Nicholas Winterton, oh so close to the election when, in what can only be described as a fit of frothing moral outrage, he was pilloried on Radio Five for daring to suggest that "I believe that the facilities extended by the rail companies to travel first class are very valuable for businesspeople and I include in that category MPs". Of course, Winterton was an easy target, a prize chump who got caught up in the expenses fiasco and who typically represented a shade of old Tory that Cameron and co were dying to offload. But that is not the point. The point is a piece in today's Telegraph that includes revelations about Anal Botney (aka Alan Yentob) a BBC apparatchik of some years troughing, who claims that Club Class transatlantic air travel is "essential" to his job.
According to the piece:

Last month the BBC's creative director Alan Yentob, who gets £183,000 and a six-figure pension from the BBC, claimed he would not be able to work properly without flying business class at licence feepayers' expense.
He justified a £3,381 return trip to New York in business class by saying that without it, he "wouldn't have been capable of doing the job". 

Somehow, I just don't see Botney being pilloried in quite the same way, do you?

Mystery Intro #3

Mystery intro number three should be easy. It's from the 80's and features some great guitar work.


Answer below:

Scorchio

Not that this is particularly clever, but I was warning about Labour's Scorched Earth Policy as early as February last year, and now it has been made official by David Cameron. According to The Times:

One former Labour minister told The Sunday Times: There was collusion between ministers and civil servants to get as many contracts signed off as possible before the election was called. One former adviser to the schools department said there was a deliberate policy of “scorched earth”. “The atmosphere was ‘pull up all the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the Tories’,” he added. 

We are talking about our money here, and also, our trust. It might sound like hyperbole to equate what Labour has done to our country, with Hitler's programme of the destruction of Germany and France's industrial infrastructure during the last days of WW11. but the effect may well be the same.

The weather has been a bit better this weekend, in contrast to the last, when I nearly froze my nadgers off whilst visiting York. Not quite Scorchio, but not Scott of the Antarctic either.

I am trying to sell the MG. It is threatening to be worse than an ex-wife in terms of fiscal debilitation. It may look good in British Racing Green but it is currently as useful as a mint-flavoured suppository. Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.

An old friend of Dr Weasel is fairly high up in the McLaren Formula One Team. She is currently in touch with him via a popular social networking site (something I do not do), but refuses to broach the question of a Pit Lane Pass for the Grand Prix for me. What is social networking for then? I guess it is a means of finding out how all those beautiful and popular former schoolmates are doing and delighting in the news that they now just squeeze into a size 18 and are Betterwear Sales Consultants in Swindon. Myself, I cannot see the point. I have spent most of my life successfully avoiding acquaintances and successfully keeping close friends. I still keep in touch with people I knew when I was in single figures, and in those days we communicated by two tin cans connected by string.

More aggravation with The Ash. Dr Weasel has to fly again and I guess I shall end up doing the equivalent of the Paris to Dakar rally (Again) when Squeezy Jet strands her in Luton. I have read all the Sagas and also an interminable modern Icelandic classic called Sjálfstætt fólk and nowhere does it mention Volcanoes that fuck your day. That reminds me, I actually sat in the Mastermind Chair. It was always kept in the production office years ago, for safety, and I happened to be interviewing some of the winners. Magnus Magnusson - all his wonderful PR for Iceland undone by a lousy thieving banker and an eruption. Bjork is keeping a low profile though, isn't she? We should have a mass burning of Sigur Ros albums in Trafalgar Square in protest. I once met this Geyser...

Mystery Song #2

Time now for another mystery intro that has been buggered up with my nifty Sound Forge prog. Could be easy for some. If it is, I shall have to make them harder. Can you guess it?


UPDATE; Answer BELOW (unjumbled)

Speedos

Desultory bit: I had a conversation with a chap today about neighbours from Hell. I have just had the pleasure of seeing off a family whose anti-social behaviour threatened to ruin the peaceful world of the Weasel. Chiefly, but by no means only, their kids were out of control and the parents refused to do anything about it. These kids screeched at every opportunity and had no sense of personal space. They were nice enough, but the parents let them run wild. It go so that, with our windows closed and the stereo on, we could still hear them. The chap I spoke with today has a similar problem, but it sounds worse. The police and the council have been involved, but apparently will do nothing. This is a noise problem, and had this been Afros having reggae parties I dare say something could have been done, but apparently, kids, who scream all the time, high pitched, for no good reason, are beyond public criticism. Both the parents in the case of this chap, and myself, have proved to be highly unpleasant when challenged. Is it me?

Eric Pickles might do a ha'porth o' good as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He is quoted as Tweeting (what is that?)that he will "wipe out municipal socialism forever". It's about time. Like a former smoker, he is a former Trot and there is nothing worse than a former anything for having a savage agenda. Perhaps he will curb the excesses of the Loony Bristol City Council, who notoriously consulted Stonewall about the proposed clearing of foliage on the Bristol Downs in case it went against the human rights of Gay Cruisers.

Some bastard cat went and jumped on a tray of my seedlings and overturned the lot. Bastard.

I am appalled but not surprised to find that the MSM, and especially the BBC are busy trivialising and decrying the new government. Give the poor buggers a chance! I still get threatening letters from the licence people - apparently I am "under investigation". Well, investigate away, I don't have a TV and never will until you stop funding a left wing propaganda machine by criminal means.

On a lighter note, I experienced a Hot Tub for the first time in my life. This is where you sit in a big bath, outside, with high pressure bubbles and other people, acting as if you are just sitting in a chair. It was surprisingly daft fun. I was told off for having tight Speedos. I am not sure what Speedos are supposed to say about me - all I did was go into a shop and ask for swimming trunks, and now it turns out I am probably gay.

Mystery Song

Here's a song that has been chopped up a bit. This one's easy! Can you guess?
Answer is in the Comments section

Guess the mystery rock star

Bugger the election, let's have some fun. To start, here is a photo of a well known rock star before he was..er..well known. Can you guess who it is yet?

SPOILER ALERT! ANSWER IN COMMENTS.

The Pyramid public sector should now be under threat

I have been looking into something. During the course of searches I began to see how Labour has perpetuated itself and how it has spent our money, largely by stealth, on multi-layered Quangos and Charities. Essentially, it is not just that Labour pumps money into non-productive sector organisations, but these organisations in turn raise orders for more quangos, more consultants and more waste.

Here is just one example.

“Futurebuilders”, is a Labour-created quango that creates jobs in the public sector – basically just another organisation that diverts tax-payer’s money into non-jobs. (The Tories are going to shut it down)

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/994159/tory-government-redirect-futurebuilders-income-neighbourhoods/  

In 2007, Futurebuilders England  hired nine consultants to promote the benefits of contracting out services to charities. (They refused to reveal the cost of these consultants)
 

Futurebuilders was criticised by the National Audit Office for not delivering value for money, and it also has links to Common Purpose, another favoured public sector cash cow that among other things, siphons off vast consultancy and training fees from organisations such as the Police, the BBC and the NHS. CP's fanatical adherence to secrecy seems at variance with it's charitable status. 

This is not really a conspiracy, as some suggest, and neither are any of the recipients of tax payer' money really lizards from outer space. It is merely a confederacy of hapless bureaucrats and micky mouse job holders who hopefully may now wake up to the real world. They are so tribal that I doubt if it ever occurs to them that it is our money they are spending and our petrol that now costs £1.30 a litre and that VAT on money that has already been taxed is taking the piss.

The Labour Government was riddled with layers of bureaucracy which masked the true extent of its profligacy. PFI was a high profile one, but there are thousands of major and minor publicly funded outfits that could quite easily be lanced. There is no need for the amount of external consultancies and training courses that have flourished under Labour; the costs of some of these courses, obtained under FOI requests, are eye watering and defy any qualitative audit.


Oddly, this is an area where a lot of those who benefit are middle class and wet. It is unlikely that "equality consultants" or "grant application advisors" will be battling cops on the picket line. An easy target then? Shooting fish in a barrel? Give me the gun.

Brown Toast

And so, the sorriest period in political history is over, with the imminent demise of Gordon Brown, a man whose only mandate was from a handful of people in Fife, and we watch in awe as a new era begins, at the hands of a man, Cameron, who was not strong enough to take the country on his own, and another, whose mendacity apparently knows no bounds.

Talk is that the Treasury will benefit from two old bruisers; Ken Clarke and Vince Cable. It seems that Osbourne has been kicked into the sidelines.

Brown brought the highest office into disrepute. Brown has been a disaster for this country and there must never again be a mechanism where an unelected politician crosses the threshold of Number Ten.


More later.. I am going to have a drink. New Labour is over, break open the Champagne and rejoice!

I am going to make a prediction, since I am generally quite good at them. My prediction is that the pressure of our national fiscal meltdown will be the source of rancour between the two parties of government. The Lib Dems are full of people who are at heart socialists, of the poofy, fluffy kind who like kittens and quiche. This will mean that they want to prop up the bloated public sector, opposing the necessary cuts, and damaging recovery. Just a prediction, but a credible one, don't you think?

MAD

The possibility of a LibDem/Labour government is, as one former Labour Minister put it, "Mutually Assured Destruction". I prefer the "Coalition of Losers", for that is what they are.

What I will say again is that the parties got what they deserved, a mess, due to a lack of a coherent narrative, or even a sufficiently different narrative. The public too, for there are still a lot of people who believe in Labour. All those people are, in my opinion, stupid and blind.

Earlier in the day (see below) I warned against trusting Clegg. Lo and behold, he sells the nation down the river, a few hours later, the price being the departure of Gordon Brown. This unholy alliance will be a disaster. They will struggle along, they may even try to place the second unelected PM in a row into Number Ten. They will inevitably implode, because as we have learned today, they are not putting the country first, only their own miserable slimy skins.

Hung

Hung Parliament eh? Who would have thought it? Well, me, actually, last year. I said this because I felt there was no coherent narrative for change.


All we do know at this very moment is that Britain will go nowhere anytime soon. I am however impressed that Clegg and Cameron seem to be genuinely interested in saving this country from financial ruin. As for Clegg, he is not to be trusted. Watch this space.

As for me, real life has taken over of late. Lots of VFR's and very average meals in pretentious restaurants, where one, was unable to understand what a dry martini cocktail was, but managed to charge over £120 for three diners.

Lowlight of the last week: having to pee in a loo that stank as if it was a vat of vintage urine. Highlight of the week, meeting wonderful people and bumping into someone dear whom I have not seen in over 30 years, in a railway station.

Moment of the Election? Nigel Farage, crashing spectacularly, and I don't mean not winning a seat. He survived a crash in a plane that looked a bit dodgy to me and walked away. Afterwards he said he was cool about it and I believe him. Nige is the kind of person we need in Parliament. A pity it did not work out.

More local choice, more honesty, more freedom

Quality of life begins at home. I recommend voting for a candidate who promotes local choice.

Honesty is a commodity we are short of too. Perhaps, an honest candidate, if you have one, is your best bet.

If there is one single issue that has upset me over 13 years of Labour, it is the erosion of personal privacy and freedom. That will influence my vote.

You could do a lot worse than read this:

http://www.votepetershields.co.uk/, who is standing as an independent. These candidates form the backbone of reality and sense, placing accountability at the top of the agenda.

I just wonder where we shall all be in five years time? I hope it is going to get better.