Edward turned an ordinary haulage firm into a national icon. The lorries always cheer me up on a long, tedious journey. Very British, very sturdy, very Eddie.
Edward Stobart dies
Edward turned an ordinary haulage firm into a national icon. The lorries always cheer me up on a long, tedious journey. Very British, very sturdy, very Eddie.
Marc Bolan - Early Recordings
Over at Rock Legacy, there's a short piece about Marc Bolan and one of his first recordings for Decca Records. Of course, a music track is included.
Fingers crossed, but coming up on RL, I have clinched an interview with a former member of a major rock band and brilliant songwriter. Bookmark the site now! Demos, interviews, stuff you have never seen anywhere else.
Jethro Tull Article
http://rock-legacy.blogspot.com/2011/03/jethro-tull.html
Taking a Break
I'm taking a break from doing this. I shall be busy building up my other blog, the music one.
The Secret World of Whitehall - BBC 4
The programme gives us a picture of the quite different ways in which Whitehall is allowed to operate with a Prime Minister and his advisors, but there are certain non-negotiables. The first is the first hour's briefing with the Cabinet Secretary on national security. One of the first duties, we learn, is that every incoming PM must provide handwritten instructions to the Captains of our Nuclear Submarines, who presumably will only open them in the event of the destruction of the British Government due to all out war. We don't get the details of course, but we do get a peek at COBRA, the situation room that becomes the hub of activity in a crisis.
The personalities in the programme are large. Some appear affable, most exasperated and some interviewees, particularly the political ones, just your usual bastards. All of them appear to have been avid followers of Yes, Prime Minister, the comedy show based on the interplay between a PM and his Cabinet Secretary.
You will not learn much that has not already been said or reported, which is in itself an exemplar of the new style of Number Ten operations which operates these days on a 24-hour news cycle. But as I said, the most revealing thing is the lingua franca of government. And perhaps also, that Tony Blair got through three Cabinet Secretaries before his fourth, Sir Gus O'Donnell, who has only stayed on to the present in order to ease the transition to coalition government.
Sir Robin Butler is probably the most concise and most revealing about the relationship with the three PMs he has served.
If you said something critical to Margartet Thatcher, she would be affronted but it woudln't rupture your relationship. If you said something critical to John Major, he'd be sad and ask If I really thought he had made such a mess of it. If I said something critical to Tony Blair, he would say, "You are absoulutely right. I quite agree with you". But you never really knew if he did.
I have seen the first two episodes. So far the words "Gordon" and "Brown" have not passed the lips of the present Cabinet Secretary. If you are wondering why, perhaps I can enlighten you:
http://wrinkledweasel.blogspot.com/2011/02/gordon-brown-and-sir-gus-odonnell.html
(I would at this stage have liked to post a guest piece from a senior ex civil servant who is most certainly in a position to cast some light on it all, just for this blog, but despite his agreeing to do so over six weeks ago I have nothing to give you. You never know in the end if a "Yes" is really a "No". I guess I'll have to learn Mandarin.)
Public Sector employment will always be kept high
Unemployment is at its highest in the last 20 years and is expected to rise. That is a great bit of material for Labour. It is the sort of line they can trot out in any interview and it has the added value of being true. It also appeals to those with a visceral hatred of Tories, thus, keeping Labour supporters in a convenient, windowless box. For Labour voters are generally stupid. They typically believe in free everything for everybody and if they are unemployed Labour voters they can draw their benefits without referring to their consciences.
There are however a lot of details in the headline. For a start, the number of people on state benefits has reduced. The claimant count in February stood at 1, 450,000 - down by 128,000 on the year. There has also been an increase in private sector jobs. A significant portion of the job losses, not necessarily redundancies but simply not replacing natural wastage, was in the public sector, well before the Coalition government took over.
Yes, it was a Labour government that has been responsible for the majority of job losses in the public sector - in the year ending December 2010, the public sector workforce was reduced by 123,000.
There is a distorting effect to consider, of youth non-employment, and by "youth" it is defined here as the 18-24 age group. John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the CIPD said of this sector:
A number of things strike me here. The first is that if 30% of people classified as unemployed are in fact full-time students, then the truth of the situation becomes clear; the creation of non degrees and daft qualifications has been an industry in itself and has had the effect of massaging the figures for some time.
The second is that Labour were quietly dumping public sector jobs during 2010. I would like to know what these are and in what parts of the public sector these came from.
Obviously experts can be picked to back up a point but they almost all agree that it is youth unemployment that is the biggest cause for concern. Almost all agree that the private sector cannot be expected to mop up this large reservoir of unemployed youth.
It seems an intractable problem, but there is more bad news. Labour kept themselves in power almost entirely on the back of a public sector jobs boom. In 2003, Labour was creating jobs at four times the rate of the private sector, inflating it to 5.3 million. And that was in 2003. In 2008, the increase was massive, due mostly to the official figures reflecting the government's aquisition of RBS and Loyds, in the wake of the banking crisis. By 2010 the figure was 6.195 million.
Unfortunately the picture is not as clear cut for the Tories. They too depended heavily on an inflated public sector, and despite all the claims, public sector employment peaked at a 13% increase during the Labour administration and began to decrease long before the change of government.
The simple fact, the only real fact I can deduce from all of this is that all governments are spending our money on preventing an employment meltdown, largely by keeping the inflated public sector in business, which means that those who work in the private sector are paying to keep the government popular and in power, regardless of political pursuasion.
There are however a lot of details in the headline. For a start, the number of people on state benefits has reduced. The claimant count in February stood at 1, 450,000 - down by 128,000 on the year. There has also been an increase in private sector jobs. A significant portion of the job losses, not necessarily redundancies but simply not replacing natural wastage, was in the public sector, well before the Coalition government took over.
Yes, it was a Labour government that has been responsible for the majority of job losses in the public sector - in the year ending December 2010, the public sector workforce was reduced by 123,000.
There is a distorting effect to consider, of youth non-employment, and by "youth" it is defined here as the 18-24 age group. John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the CIPD said of this sector:
1 in 8 young people in this age group are unemployed and almost 30% of those classified as unemployed are full-time students.
A number of things strike me here. The first is that if 30% of people classified as unemployed are in fact full-time students, then the truth of the situation becomes clear; the creation of non degrees and daft qualifications has been an industry in itself and has had the effect of massaging the figures for some time.
The second is that Labour were quietly dumping public sector jobs during 2010. I would like to know what these are and in what parts of the public sector these came from.
Obviously experts can be picked to back up a point but they almost all agree that it is youth unemployment that is the biggest cause for concern. Almost all agree that the private sector cannot be expected to mop up this large reservoir of unemployed youth.
It seems an intractable problem, but there is more bad news. Labour kept themselves in power almost entirely on the back of a public sector jobs boom. In 2003, Labour was creating jobs at four times the rate of the private sector, inflating it to 5.3 million. And that was in 2003. In 2008, the increase was massive, due mostly to the official figures reflecting the government's aquisition of RBS and Loyds, in the wake of the banking crisis. By 2010 the figure was 6.195 million.
Unfortunately the picture is not as clear cut for the Tories. They too depended heavily on an inflated public sector, and despite all the claims, public sector employment peaked at a 13% increase during the Labour administration and began to decrease long before the change of government.
The simple fact, the only real fact I can deduce from all of this is that all governments are spending our money on preventing an employment meltdown, largely by keeping the inflated public sector in business, which means that those who work in the private sector are paying to keep the government popular and in power, regardless of political pursuasion.
Get Out of That
by Wrinkled Weasel
According to Google, it is Harry Houdini's 137th birthday. Well, it would be if he was alive. Harry and me go way back. I was mad keen on magic and still am. When I was about 12 years old I was taken to see Man of Magic at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1966. Stuart Damon played Houdini. To be honest from what I can remember, it was not that good; a bit of a mishmash of songs, tricks and bits of business. The critics didn't like it either and it was taken off after 135 performances. As one observed, "the sort of fare that impresario Harold Fielding was used to assembling for the London coach trade." Of course, Stuart Damon was later to become well known to British audiences at the time for his role in The Champions, another fairly ersatz show about three semi-super people who had a headquarters in Geneva. Of course, none of it was shot anywhere outside of Elstree, with their headquarters being the Labour Exchange in Harpenden or somewhere.
Houdini does not really figure in my list of great magicians. He was primarily a showman and a huckster. David Blaine comes to mind. Sure, you cannot figure how it is done (oh, yes I can), but somehow, when he gets out of the box you just shrug and think, yeah, ok.
Many real magicians are not so well known, people like Rober Harbin or Ali Bongo or Patrick Page, Dai Vernon or David Devant. These people were amazing and more importantly entertaining. When David Nixon came along, he was a likeable chap and you didn't mind being fooled by him because he was so charming with it. Houdini was a bruiser with an ego and little formal education. His skill was showmanship. There's no escaping that fact.
According to Google, it is Harry Houdini's 137th birthday. Well, it would be if he was alive. Harry and me go way back. I was mad keen on magic and still am. When I was about 12 years old I was taken to see Man of Magic at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1966. Stuart Damon played Houdini. To be honest from what I can remember, it was not that good; a bit of a mishmash of songs, tricks and bits of business. The critics didn't like it either and it was taken off after 135 performances. As one observed, "the sort of fare that impresario Harold Fielding was used to assembling for the London coach trade." Of course, Stuart Damon was later to become well known to British audiences at the time for his role in The Champions, another fairly ersatz show about three semi-super people who had a headquarters in Geneva. Of course, none of it was shot anywhere outside of Elstree, with their headquarters being the Labour Exchange in Harpenden or somewhere.
Houdini does not really figure in my list of great magicians. He was primarily a showman and a huckster. David Blaine comes to mind. Sure, you cannot figure how it is done (oh, yes I can), but somehow, when he gets out of the box you just shrug and think, yeah, ok.
Many real magicians are not so well known, people like Rober Harbin or Ali Bongo or Patrick Page, Dai Vernon or David Devant. These people were amazing and more importantly entertaining. When David Nixon came along, he was a likeable chap and you didn't mind being fooled by him because he was so charming with it. Houdini was a bruiser with an ego and little formal education. His skill was showmanship. There's no escaping that fact.
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| Epitaph with wrong birth date |
Weasel's Alternative Budget
My budget will be a carrot and stick budget. Some may call it popularist, but I know where the votes come from. Here goes:
A freeze on duty on fags and booze.
Legalise cannabis and tax it at the same rate that tobacco is taxed.
Legalise Prostitution, but enforce strict tax regime according to what is on the menu and how disgusting and perverted the service is. VAT will be charged, and customers who are VAT registered can claim it back if it is for entertaining business clients.
Car Tax. This is currently related to engine size and green credentials. I would scrap that and tax vehicles according to how cool they are. For example, a Dodge Charger would be exempt of all vehicle tax, but a Rover would have a £500 tax disc. All White vans will attract the top rate of tax unless they have a tacho in them which records adherence to speed limits and use of phones whilst driving.
While realising that people need a break from crippling taxation, I must address the deficit. Accordingly, I have created a brand new tax, effective immediately on wordage and packaging of food. The first layer of packaging is free, as long as it can be demonstrated that the purchaser can open it without needing medical attention for lacerations. All instructions, such as "serving suggestion" or "may contain nuts" (the latter, especially if it is a banana) will be taxed at 5p per character, per item.
This next initiative has been difficult, but I am reducing the BBC's TV licence from £145.50 to 70p. Of course, the BBC may wish to conduct a campaign against this move, or even attempt to do a lot of programmes that attack me, but at 70p, they are not going to find it very easy are they?
But we still have to make economies due, as my predecessor often asserted, to the global meltdown.
Therefore, I regret that it has been necessary to impose a tax on any organisation that uses the word "Green" in its literature or remit. "Global Warming" will attract a similar rate, which will be 20% of net income.
But the tax imposition must go further, my friends. Cycling has become a blot on the landscape. So with immediate effect, lycra, if used for making cycling clothes will attract a special VAT rate of 100%. Bicycles themselves will have a flat, index-linked, premium of £1000.
I have now to address the cost of the public sector. All PFI contracts will be subject to re-negotiation or cancellation. All PFI interest payments, currently amounting to billions of pounds will now be subject to Zero interest. Furthermore, all public sector workers who cannot actually put their finger on what it is they actually do, will be personally taxed at 60%, thereby snatching back at least some of the public money they are wasting.
And finally, the rabbit out of the hat.
All taxation on holidays and travel will be suspended between May and October, and that includes personal as well as business travel. This will encourage industry and cheer everyone up.
I commend my budget to this blogosphere.
Hell is shrinking. At least on Earth it is.
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| Traditional depiction of Hell with Red Hot poker up the bum top right |
There is a bit in the Bible about Hell:
Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it
(Isaiah 5:14)
It would appear that Hell has an unlimited capacity to accomodate new recruits. But here on Earth it is a different story. The number of places of sanctuary for the truly evil are declining. It's partly geographical and political, but it is mostly a function of the information age. Sooner or later, but these days, sooner, you will be found and brought to account. Where can a modern despot flee? Somalia?
It is only, I think, in the last ten years that tyrants have begun to understand this. And of course, most tyrants are bullies and most bullies are cowards.
Twas always the case and always will be. To have a fanatic who believes in what he is doing is much more dangerous. Gaddafi is no fanatic, religious or otherwise. Gaddafi is a coward, surrounded by cowards. His strength has always been in his ability to cause those around him to cower in fear.
Gaddafi is fighting for no cause other than his own skin. Those who work for him, largely out of fear, know this. As soon as it becomes clear that ageing Russian technology is no match for a B-2, and it already has, a lot of Libyans will abandon their enforced loyalty to their be-decorated fruitcake leader and scarper.
The rhetoric is always the loudest and most bombastic from cowards. I don't think Saddam Hussein was a coward, but many around him were, and the fled, not once, but twice, in the face of opposition, after all the promises to the contrary of Muhamed Saeed al-Sahaf, Saddam's information minister.
I was interested to note that another tyrant, who rules his country with a combination of fear and bribery, just as Gaddafi did, has been very cool about Western intervention and the kind of precedent it makes; that of assisting a poplular uprising in a rogue state. He is Vladmir Putin. I am sure he is sleeping a little less comfortably tonight, as he most certainly begins to see that in a world that is shrinking, there is no longer nowhere to hide except in Hell. And Hell, at least on Earth, is a very small place.
I agree with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
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| Fenton Tower aka Archie's House |
I say this to make the point that there is a very flimsy veil between reality and fiction sometimes. I do not live on Mull by the way. Archie's House, for reasons I do not know, is really a castle on the Scottish mainland. It stands on the summit of a rolling hill and commands a view for miles, which is what castles generally did as a defensive measure. But anyway, I can see it now. Archie's House, resplendent in pink, in the sunshine.
Perhaps I should talk about Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and my provocative headline, for of course, I generally hold this woman to be mephitic.
The bit I agree with her about is this. She writes in The Indy:
At the end of the long coffee-drinking evening, most of us seemed to feel that helping rebels in Libya was necessary. But the real passions were raised over what the West does next. Their movers and shakers cannot go on cultivating hideous leaders and then turning on them when the winds change. They embrace Saudi Arabia and in the same moment shoot down Libya. Such hypocrisies will no longer be swallowed by people who are now globally connected.
Somehow I feel myself agreeing with Yasmin. Perhaps I should visit Archie's House and give myself a reality check.
Coming Soon - WW's Rock Legacy
It is becoming impossible to do justice to the music sections on this blog, so I have created another one. From now on, some of the longer music articles will migrate to it and new ones will be added. The plan is to create a credible database of primary historical material from musicians, producers and commentators. Believe it or not, there are people out there who cannot name The Beatles. A legacy needs to be addressed before the people who were at the hypocentre of the Pop and Rock explosion are no longer with us. The whole story has not yet been told.
Hence:
If this interests you, please bookmark it, or go to
http://rock-legacy.blogspot.com/
If you are a fan of a particular band, or you are a musician and want your work to be remembered, please get in touch.
Hence:
If this interests you, please bookmark it, or go to
http://rock-legacy.blogspot.com/
If you are a fan of a particular band, or you are a musician and want your work to be remembered, please get in touch.
Jet Harris dies
Another milestone, another legacy that is lost forever. We need to capture the last 50 years of popular music before there is nobody left who was there. Jet Harris has gone and the relatively young age of 71. He had cancer. Here's to Jet. Here's to the band that I emulated in front of a mirror and practiced the "walk".
These guys were pioneers. Let's not forget that.
Going Tits Up Down at the Nick - by Stephen Maybery
Guest Poster Stephen Maybery has a take on one of this week's less taxing stories:
By God you need a sense of humour in this day and age although you’d be arrested if you were so indelicate to laugh at the wrong things, the sort of jokes pub comics had them in stitches with in days afore, when you could enjoy a fag and clout the missus without being banged up for the rest of your natural. I think that at this point I should confess that I am not politically correct, save a lot of explanations further down the line that will.
Now this is all about humour, laugh? You’ll have diarrhoea ‘till doomsday by the time you’ve got through this lot. Down on the Jurassic coast, often referred to as Dorset, the panjandrums of authority, starting with the police have finally lost their marbles, that’s assuming they had any in the first place, and they certainly didn’t have any balls to substitute for them. A woman police officer visited Purbeck School in Wareham to talk about a playground spat, a task vital to the security of our nation.
When she was out of the room, the right on P.C was referred to by some of the boys as P.C Nipples. Thirteen year old lads taking notice of a pair of Bristols, whatever next, at that age they should long since have been taught the superiority of homosexuality, and a proper appreciation of a nice pair of nuts. Anyway, the upshot of these remarks was that someone, probably the teacher, undoubtedly constipated with political correctness, immediately rushed off to inform the officer of what had been said about her. The PC, obviously as daft and as humourless as the teacher, set in motion the modern equivalent of an excommunication, a full bell book and candle job.
A “restorative justice conference” was called into being. Apart from the five boys and their parents round the table, there were three uniformed officers and, now get this folks, a plain clothes community safety manager, all that was missing was Jasmine Buggerall-Brown sitting in on the pow-wow and insisting the children should be charged with racism.
As the Bard so memorably said “Much ado about nothing.” Hours of time wasted, thousands of pounds down the drain, and all for the want of an old fashioned clip around the ear.
The West is in disarray over Libya
But the endgame is now inevitable
by Wrinkled Weasel
People who are in a position to know about these things admit to me that they do not know what is going on either. The escalation of the situation in Libya has been almost without parallel.
Philip Stephens, writing in the FT (£) had this to say before the UN Resolution:
The west is left in disarray. Once familiar positions on the merits or otherwise of intervention have been upended. Barack Obama has considered the legacy of Iraq and insisted that nothing could be done without the sanction of the UN Security Council. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy has argued for shooting first and checking the legal fine print later. Britain has leaned more towards Paris than Washington.
Divisions within the European Union have been mirrored by temporising in Washington. Just about everywhere, collisions between the realism that prizes short-term stability and the enlightened self-interest that supports Arab democracy have been excruciatingly painful. Has the west got it right? Probably not. Were there any easy choices? Certainly not.
Stephens's commentary over the last few weeks has probably been more enlightening than the plethora of babble and squeak, but he has to acknowledge that there are no easy answers.
All I can do is to re-state my opinion that the British have a different attitude to waging war than almost any other country. Cameron is following in the footsteps of Thatcher, in that he has acted decisively and quickly, whereas the USA prefers a slow burn, and the use of black propaganda and behind-the-scenes pursuasion.
Obviously Cameron has done a bit of behind-the-scenes pursuasion, but the speed at which he has done this is astonishing.It is worth remembering that he has managed some kind of consensus at the UN in a matter of days; a watertight legal mandate. This contrasts starkly with Tony Blair who spent months conniving with Bush to get a resolution over Iraq.
What happens over the weekend will be decisive however. At this moment the British military machine will be moving troops and equipment. As always, the Yanks have come in too late, but of course, the role they play will be a game changer. Colonel Gadaffi is playing the Hitler scenario. He will not live this out. Nobody can give him sanctuary and nobody wants to, except for somewhere like Somalia or North Korea. Gadaffi will fight to the death and he will take as many of the Libyan people with him as he can.
The genii is now well and truly out of the bottle and the endgame is now a world issue.
WW's Weekend Window on The World
I wonder what he is thinking this time?
Isn't that nice.
I have yearned for the years of yore this week. Nostalgic for Strawberry Mivvis, Harpic and Parma Violets. In fact all things English. Well, they've all gone. You can't even get a Halal version of them, which shows how bad things are. Some of us long for the twang of willow on leather on a hot, English sunny afternoon. Cricketers always wear white, Ms Chinchilla, so I guess their desire to live in peace is quite a commitment.
I realised this week that my phone is nearly five years old. It would be no good to either Silvio Berlusconi or national treasure Stephen Fry, for you cannot switch it on and find new friends of like mind who just happen to be needing a blow job on Hampstead Heath. As for "Apps", it's primary application is a phone. Indeed, I have never worked out what else, if anything, it does.
This weekend I shall have to attend to things that grown in the great outdoors. So I shall buy some seeds and plant them and watch the cats pull them up. Then I shall plant some seedlings and watch the Chickens pull them up and perhaps rescue a few, and low and behold I shall have a fine crop of mouldy home-grown headless green stuff that can go in next year's compost. That is, if I have enough time to harvest it between showers, hail and snow.
It's more about being one with the Earth than the final product, after all.
Here's a bit of music trivia: Mike Hurst (see side bar) rescued Colin Blunstone from a life of misery. Mike would not put it that way of course, but Colin Blunstone was on the verge of going back to normal life and a proper job after the disbanding of The Zombies. On a not very good quality Skype connection of mine, Mike Hursts remembers:
Coming to a potential disaster near YOU
GUEST POST FROM GITFINGER:
The Steam Path.
Being people, people are not very good at handling dangerous things of their own making. Because the dangers are of their own making they become defensive about them, protective, in all sorts of ways that reduce their defences and protections against the dangers. The more dangerous (‘safety critical’), and so the more politically sensitive the industry you work in the more you have to defend it, protect it, and keep its secrets, and the more you have to be one of the gang, tough-minded, unflappable, fearful only of showing fear. You downplay the dangers, you overplay your skills, you make a joke of the failures that occur, especially if they are not your fault. You confine your fear to fear of the mighty contempt of your colleagues that will be yours always if you break ranks, risk jobs, if you look like a coward by showing so much as mild concern.
What would happen, say, if you were working in one part of one plant belonging to a safety critical industry and something that just wasn’t right happened in your particular working space? Say you’re working in some part of a plant that has daily and nightly dealings with high pressure steam, that depends ultimately on steam, that has the uses of steam at its very core. Say that there shouldn’t be any steam where you are working today but steam there is, suddenly, without warning, great, near-scalding billowings of it.
In the training and in the manuals you have been told to alert some higher up. Squeal, in other words, scream to mummy, drop someone it in it maybe but, much worse, show that you can’t handle difficulties yourself. So you find a wheel that drives a valve and you spin that wheel or maybe another few wheels, as many wheels as you have to spin until the steam stops coming and just goes somewhere else. There is your result and your contribution to the smooth running of the organisation, problem solved.
Now move to a few moments later. Suppose now that you are someone else working somewhere else. There should be no steam where you are working today but steam there is, suddenly, without warning, great, near-scalding billowings of it. This time there are no handy wheels that drive valves. But, this time, you have a giant door that opens to the world. You also know where there is a giant electric fan. You and three others just like you open the door and manoeuvre the fan so that the steam that shouldn’t be there is blown out into the wide blue-grey yonder and so to beyond your concern. There is your result and your contribution to the smooth running of the organisation, problem solved.
The management need never know and if even if they do find out it is not in their interests to advertise the event. Not if they’re managing a safety-critical industry. The public might worry that the same mentality would prevail no matter what the problem was. As it is, the world need never know any more than that things near you were a little steamier than usual that day. The trouble is, the greater the danger, the more those handling it need that mentality.
A stranger in a strange land - LOVING THE ALIEN
LOVING THE ALIEN
by Wrinkled Weasel 
A commenter called Revenai, on this POST makes the following observation:
migrants usually don't want to bother with the disadvantages that living in the country brings, they seem to prefer the town and cities where they have access to their own ethnic markets and places of worship.
He made the comment in the context of migrants to this country, and of course it is true, but the same could be said about British Ex-Pats. Whatever your origin, it takes a certain type of toughness and tenacity to survive alone in a strange land, away from the familiar trappings of home.
Tuscany is so full of Brits it has been comically called Chiantishire. Cheeky cockney criminals prefer Marbella. The Dordogne is riddled with them. In the town of Eymet, there is a shop called L'Epicerie Anglaise. These places have there own English newspapers, shops, Churches and cricket grounds.
In some of our former Colonies it is unthinkable that wealthy whites mix with the local population, apart from having them as servants. What is left of the white, former ruling class in places like Zimbabwe, have, by necessity, pulled up the razor wire and the shutters and rarely take part in anything other than White European social ventures.
So, I would argue that the propensity to agglomerate into cultural ghettos is a universal trait. As I said, it takes a certain type of person to go without Marmite and Theakston's Old Peculiar. It takes true grit to be a stranger in a strange land.
I don't blame anybody. I live in Scotland, and believe me, being English here is not easy. I try and fit in as best I can, but the Scots are nationalistic and prickly about the English asserting themselves in a nationalistic way, in their country, to the point of beating them up if they display overt signs of Englishness, such as talking aloud. Others just get cold-shouldered.
The latest example is of a 65 year-old English widow who lives in Findochty. She is being forced to sell her home after what has been described as a local hate campaign:
'It is shocking but it's been made obvious that I am no longer welcome here. The only option left to me is to leave.
'I had no idea problems like this existed here. I didn't think I would be treated any differently to anyone else.
'I came here looking for some peace and quiet, but I never found it.'
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| Anti English Race Hate in Findochty,Scotland |
I know I am going to get grief for the last bit, but its true. The same can be said of racist attacks in England. People simply cannot cope easily with people who are not like them. In extremis, they attack. It is ignorance and fear manifest.
So none of us come out of this particularly well. We go abroad and demand that people accomodate our Britishness, so we cannot really moan about it when people come here and demand that we accommodate their own culture. Can we?
Hidbound by Political Correctness, we have stifled debate about this. Perhaps a little satire might ease the inhibitions:
Midsomer Madness
by Wrinkled Weasel
The blogosphere is alight with the Midsomer Murders story. Even I had to have a go. The writer of the long running murder mystery show has been suspended by his bosses, over remarks made about the lack or omission of non-white people in Midsomer Murders. A week or two earlier, an Animal Rights activist won the right to sue his former employer who allegedly sacked him over his "philosophical beliefs".
This seems to me to be a case of two issues which boil down to what people think and the kind of lives they lead and the impact this has on their day jobs.
I have to say, when I learned of the Animal Rights chap I reacted in two ways. The first was that my distaste for such people goes back to the days when I lived in Bristol. They had a campaign of bombing people at their homes. One such bomb went off under a car and injured a passing mother and child. I really have no sympathy for them or their cause. I do however, acknowledge their right to hold such views and that to sack someone for holding an extreme view is a dangerous road.
Brian True-May said some things that can only be interpreted as racist. Sorry but there is no other way to do so. However, racists abound and racists have a right to work, just as animal rights acitivists have a right to work. The alternative is to only employ nice unassuming people who pay their taxes and complain about the wheelie bins.
What is interesting to me is the difference in reaction to these people. True-May has been villified. The animal rights guy is now a hero, with the backing of the law. Of the two, only the animal rights guy is prepared to break the law in support of his beliefs. It puzzles me.
Could it be that the judge is pandering to a liberal left consensus? Surely not.
A timely post, but in a bad way
by Wrinkled Weasel
I have been discussing, on and off, with a friend, the subject of realities. See the plural there. What we know as reality is in fact a fairly frangible commodity. Periodically, throughout our lives, we exchange one reality with another.
What I mean by this is the difference between an everyday life and an extraordinary life. Both are real, but they generally do not overlap.
Fukushima is probably going to become a metanym, just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki did. It will become a metanym because its name will be a short-cut to the devastation caused by an earthquake. Lockerbie is the same. In metonymy you get a compression of an idea that is easily understood because the idea, or event in the case of Japan, is a compression of an intense reality, so intense, that the use of a metanym somehow allows us to even speak of it. The alternative is to say, "The death and devastation and agony of" Japan, to such a degree that it becomes a euphemism, at which point it illustrates the difficulty with which we cope with alternative realities.
With me so far? Simply, our normal version of reality, let us say on a wet Tuesday at number 20 Acacia Avenue, does not readily allow for the discussion of alternatives. We find ourselves using shortcuts which become so familiar that they lose the intensity of the experience they represent.
What is happening in Japan is that there are people who got up one morning and did not go to work or worry about the bills that needed paying or that their kid was being bullied at school. They got up to find the side of their house missing and their children swept away to their deaths. There then followed a confrontation with a new reality; without water, without power, without communication. It was profound and final and unmitigated.
Sitting in our comfy homes we become very acclimatised to normality, or the reality we generally inhabit. It does not take much to upset us. We get upset because the bins are not emptied. We get upset because there is a power cut. Many are so dependent on the stability of the reality in which they live that they are useless without it; de-skilled and disoriented.
There is a curious flip side to all of this. Whilst it is not agreeable to be brutally confronted with another reality, such as the one in Japan, it behoves us, from time to time, to step out of our comfort zone. Some do this by involving themselves in dangerous sports. Some journey around the world. Some live on a boat. Some give all their posessions away. The methods of getting an alternative reality are as myriad as the number of alternative realities.
And yet, we cleave to the normal, the predictable, the safe. Indeed, we risk social separation if we so much as step out of the generally accepted norms.
Over the years I have met several people who have had periods of intensity in their lives that you could describe as an alternative reality. There was the Rock Star who had little over three years at the top, right at the top, and then sank, more or less, into obscurity. Anyone who fought in a war understands this, and that brings me to the point. Assuming a normal life, assuming the generally accepted reality after an intense experience is not only difficult, it can impact badly on your mental health. We know this from the number of service personnel who find it hard to adjust on their return from a war zone.
So what is to be done? I do not propose for a minute that we ignore opportunities in life to experience intensity. Often it can be sublime, even if it involves near-death experiences. What we need to do, I think, is to challenge ourselves about the reality we presently inhabit, and ask ourselves, are we really fulfilled? The next question we must ask is, what will we do if our reality breaks down? Are we prepared, or do we fold when the gas goes off?
Future generations of children must learn to cope with adversity and concepts like fear, and learn to deal with them.
The extent to which the lucky survivors of Fukushima will cope is directly related to how they have been nurtured and formed. If it was purely a theoretical exercise, I am afraid they are in trouble. Strength is formed in a crucible, which is hot and dangerous. It is also purifying and removes things that cause the product to collapse under stress. Better the crucible than the safety net. At least, if the young are exposed to some danger they will understand it and perhaps fear danger less.
But back to realities. In 1970, Alvin Toffler published a book called Future Shock. Part of his thesis was that peoples' ability to cope with the future; too much change in too little time. He said that this change made the sense of "normalcy" a moribund concept, becuase life was changing at too fast a rate to enable that kind of comfort zone of "normalness" to exist.
Germane to this piece is his comment on technology, for it is this that is at the centre of debate over Fukushima. Toffler wrote:
He goes on to say that man must either vaquish the process of change, or vanish. Critical reception to Future Shock by academics was not good, and that remains the case today. He is seen as lighweight and mediagenic. He is criticised for not placing his thesis in the context of workability and of not properly taking on board the human condition:
The main drawback of the ‘future shock’ thesis was that it did not help people find their way into that domain (Source: http://www.metafuture.org/articlesbycolleagues/RichardSlaughter/futureshock.htm ) by domain, the critic means, I think, worldviews, paradigms, social interests.
By accepting and understanding that the human condition is frought with alternative realities, and embracing them, the impact of Future shock, or any seismic shock for that matter, can be somewhat mitigated.
I have been discussing, on and off, with a friend, the subject of realities. See the plural there. What we know as reality is in fact a fairly frangible commodity. Periodically, throughout our lives, we exchange one reality with another.
What I mean by this is the difference between an everyday life and an extraordinary life. Both are real, but they generally do not overlap.
Fukushima is probably going to become a metanym, just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki did. It will become a metanym because its name will be a short-cut to the devastation caused by an earthquake. Lockerbie is the same. In metonymy you get a compression of an idea that is easily understood because the idea, or event in the case of Japan, is a compression of an intense reality, so intense, that the use of a metanym somehow allows us to even speak of it. The alternative is to say, "The death and devastation and agony of" Japan, to such a degree that it becomes a euphemism, at which point it illustrates the difficulty with which we cope with alternative realities.
With me so far? Simply, our normal version of reality, let us say on a wet Tuesday at number 20 Acacia Avenue, does not readily allow for the discussion of alternatives. We find ourselves using shortcuts which become so familiar that they lose the intensity of the experience they represent.
What is happening in Japan is that there are people who got up one morning and did not go to work or worry about the bills that needed paying or that their kid was being bullied at school. They got up to find the side of their house missing and their children swept away to their deaths. There then followed a confrontation with a new reality; without water, without power, without communication. It was profound and final and unmitigated.
Sitting in our comfy homes we become very acclimatised to normality, or the reality we generally inhabit. It does not take much to upset us. We get upset because the bins are not emptied. We get upset because there is a power cut. Many are so dependent on the stability of the reality in which they live that they are useless without it; de-skilled and disoriented.
There is a curious flip side to all of this. Whilst it is not agreeable to be brutally confronted with another reality, such as the one in Japan, it behoves us, from time to time, to step out of our comfort zone. Some do this by involving themselves in dangerous sports. Some journey around the world. Some live on a boat. Some give all their posessions away. The methods of getting an alternative reality are as myriad as the number of alternative realities.
And yet, we cleave to the normal, the predictable, the safe. Indeed, we risk social separation if we so much as step out of the generally accepted norms.
Over the years I have met several people who have had periods of intensity in their lives that you could describe as an alternative reality. There was the Rock Star who had little over three years at the top, right at the top, and then sank, more or less, into obscurity. Anyone who fought in a war understands this, and that brings me to the point. Assuming a normal life, assuming the generally accepted reality after an intense experience is not only difficult, it can impact badly on your mental health. We know this from the number of service personnel who find it hard to adjust on their return from a war zone.
So what is to be done? I do not propose for a minute that we ignore opportunities in life to experience intensity. Often it can be sublime, even if it involves near-death experiences. What we need to do, I think, is to challenge ourselves about the reality we presently inhabit, and ask ourselves, are we really fulfilled? The next question we must ask is, what will we do if our reality breaks down? Are we prepared, or do we fold when the gas goes off?
Future generations of children must learn to cope with adversity and concepts like fear, and learn to deal with them.
The extent to which the lucky survivors of Fukushima will cope is directly related to how they have been nurtured and formed. If it was purely a theoretical exercise, I am afraid they are in trouble. Strength is formed in a crucible, which is hot and dangerous. It is also purifying and removes things that cause the product to collapse under stress. Better the crucible than the safety net. At least, if the young are exposed to some danger they will understand it and perhaps fear danger less.
Germane to this piece is his comment on technology, for it is this that is at the centre of debate over Fukushima. Toffler wrote:
the horrifying truth is that, so far as much technology is concerned, no one is in charge.
He goes on to say that man must either vaquish the process of change, or vanish. Critical reception to Future Shock by academics was not good, and that remains the case today. He is seen as lighweight and mediagenic. He is criticised for not placing his thesis in the context of workability and of not properly taking on board the human condition:
The main drawback of the ‘future shock’ thesis was that it did not help people find their way into that domain (Source: http://www.metafuture.org/articlesbycolleagues/RichardSlaughter/futureshock.htm ) by domain, the critic means, I think, worldviews, paradigms, social interests.
By accepting and understanding that the human condition is frought with alternative realities, and embracing them, the impact of Future shock, or any seismic shock for that matter, can be somewhat mitigated.
Being ENGLISH is NOT about Race
by Wrinkled Weasel
There is a TV programme called Midsomer Murders. According to the Telegraph the writer of the series has been suspended, yes suspended, for reportedly saying:
A few general observations first. First is that Midsomer Murders is a work of Fiction. It is not real. Second, I wonder how many similar works of fiction, from Africa, India, Yemen, etc, have white Europeans in them, and if they do, are they portrayed "sympathetically"? Of course not, they are about being African, or Indian or Yemeni.
You may argue that these societies are not multicultural. You may argue that centuries of White oppression have not endeared them to us. You may even argue that we should insist that drama reflects reality. I would suggest, if you do, that you have misunderstood the nature of fiction. It is not there to reflect reality, it is there to make an artistic statement. It just so happens that Midsomer Murders makes a statement about something that is not popular.
What I take issue with is not a work of fiction but the opinion of Mr True-May (the author) who believes that the show is "The Last Bastion of Englishness".
What he has done is to fail to see that Englishness is about an attitude, a cultural worldview and a sense that people should be treated fairly and equitably. By insisting that there be no black faces in Midsomer Murders, he has alienated a lot of English people who are every bit as English as he is, and perhaps more so.
I understand part of the problem. To insist on having rough parity with the demographic is absurd. Shows like East Enders insist on it and the results are laughable. So does Dr Who. It's pandering to political correctness.
But at the same time, back to Englishness, what defines us is love of our country and pride in our achievement. Anybody can subscribe and all are welcome.
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| The "Black Farmer" and friends |
Well, we just don't have ethnic minorities involved. Because it wouldn't be the English village with them. It just wouldn't work.
A few general observations first. First is that Midsomer Murders is a work of Fiction. It is not real. Second, I wonder how many similar works of fiction, from Africa, India, Yemen, etc, have white Europeans in them, and if they do, are they portrayed "sympathetically"? Of course not, they are about being African, or Indian or Yemeni.
You may argue that these societies are not multicultural. You may argue that centuries of White oppression have not endeared them to us. You may even argue that we should insist that drama reflects reality. I would suggest, if you do, that you have misunderstood the nature of fiction. It is not there to reflect reality, it is there to make an artistic statement. It just so happens that Midsomer Murders makes a statement about something that is not popular.
What I take issue with is not a work of fiction but the opinion of Mr True-May (the author) who believes that the show is "The Last Bastion of Englishness".
What he has done is to fail to see that Englishness is about an attitude, a cultural worldview and a sense that people should be treated fairly and equitably. By insisting that there be no black faces in Midsomer Murders, he has alienated a lot of English people who are every bit as English as he is, and perhaps more so.
I understand part of the problem. To insist on having rough parity with the demographic is absurd. Shows like East Enders insist on it and the results are laughable. So does Dr Who. It's pandering to political correctness.
But at the same time, back to Englishness, what defines us is love of our country and pride in our achievement. Anybody can subscribe and all are welcome.
Water Nymph Gets Serious
CHRISTINA REES
Christina Rees is a writer, broadcaster and member of the General Synod of the Church of England. She is a tireless activist for equality in the Church. Christina pops up as a talking head on many issues, primarily the current battle in the Church over the ordination of women Bishops. The reason for my interview was not to get the latest soundbite, but to scratch beneath the surface of one person who is influential in making changes in our society; to find out if they are human or not and to try and reveal the strands of experience that make them who they are as humans and what distinguishes them as agents of change.
Christina grew up on a boat, a wooden schooner, which her father had bought in 1946. Built at Block Island, off Long Island in the USA.
The Tappan Zee measured 38 feet over all and was 14 feet wide. Christina, together with her father, mother and two siblings sailed the oceans and inland waterways more or less continuously from the age of 5 to 15, beginning their incredible journey in 1958. In the introduction to her first book, Sea Urchin, she writes:
We know how to relate to people if we see their cars or sip tea with them in their houses and speak to them about their jobs, but how do we relate to people who have discarded all points of reference, who have abandoned the set criteria used to determine exactly who they are and where they fit in society?
For the full article, go to the WAVELENGTHS 3 TAB or CLICK HERE
In the meantime, here is a little little montage:
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
Aftershock sparks European Panic
The Earthquake in Japan has shocked the world with its intensity and devastation, and moved the political tectonic plates in Europe.
by Wrinkled WeaselGermany has suspended plans to extend the life of its ageing nuclear power plants in the wake of the Japanes earthquake. Switzerland has followed, putting "blanket authorisation" for nuclear development on hold.
This is not logical. Nothing has changed. There has been no seismic shift in the seismology. So why have two wealthy European governments suddenly announced a U-turn and should the UK be doing the same?
I am not a geologist but I am certainly a cynic. Angela Merkel has three German state elections to face in a few weeks, and the anti-nuclear power lobby is strong.
The Guardian reports:
It was inevitable, then, that the earthquake in Japan would trigger yet more debate over Germany's nuclear future. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Stuttgart this weekend to protest against Angela Merkel's plans to extend the life of 17 German nuclear plants for an average 12 extra years – an event given extra bite following the crisis in Fukushima.
After the demonstration, the chancellor appeared on TV to reassure voters that Germany's power stations are safe. "The events in Japan are a critical moment for the world," said Merkel on Saturday evening in Berlin. "Germany can't just carry on as if nothing has happened," she conceded, ordering immediate safety checks in all nuclear power stations.
Well Angela, I have news for you. Germany can carry on as if nothing has happened, and so can the rest of the world, because nothing has changed about the nature of earthquakes; they are not getting worse and neither are they getting more common, they are only getting more reported, with pictures.
We still have such a thing as the grandly titled British Geological Survey. It was the first in the world, founded in 1835, when Britain still had a bit of credibility. But I digress. The BGS, and indeed any other credible recorder of global seismic activity will tell you these simple facts:
- Earthquake acitivity is not increasing.
- Clustering may make it look that way
Clustering affects all natural random phenomena and it is something which gets the press in such a tiswas. A few weeks ago you saw headlines like "Seven more die of xyx3453 Flu in Retford". The truth is, thousands die of flue every year, year in, year out. Most of them either have pre-existing medical conditions, or they are simply too old or too young to fight it. All it means that the nature of randomization means that the effects will be, obviously, not nicely spread out.
Switzerland is interesting because the Swiss are naturally cautious. It is highly unlikely that the guys at CERN allowed the building of a highly complex piece of kit in an area prone to serious earthquakes, but they do happen, even in Switzerland, all the time. One took place in Evian les Bains, just across Lake Geneva in the French shorline, last week. Evian is just over 50 km from CERN, but they had nothing to worry about because it had a magnitude of 1.8, as opposed to one of 9 or nearly 9 in Japan.
And what about the UK? Well yes, we have had a few this week too. We had one in Argyll and Bute in February, magnitude 1.3 and one near Dingwall, Highlands, also in February measuring 1. Germany's last quake took place on St Valentine's Day with a magnitude of 3.9 Magnitude is calculated by using a raft of data, but the designation, shown as a number does not readily reveal the seriousness of such an event, for magnitude increases exponentially. In the official classification of "Normal", "Big" and "XXL" the German event was "Normal". In other words it was no different from the thousands of minor movements of the earth which take place all year round. (Source Geofon, Potsdam)
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| propaganda or what? |
Songbird - a clever alternative to WMP
I raving about this. Raving. I was fed up with Windows Media Player. It always does things I don't want it to, lots of things, and its looks miserable. I have tried a lot of alternatives and none of them appealed except one: Songbird. Songbird is a very adaptable media player that will do what you want it to. It will play almost anything, unlike WMP which skip things for no particular reason or because it thinks you have nicked the file.
Songbird is free. Songbird rocks. Just give it a try and then you can do what it does best and that is to record and play stuff in Ogg format or FLAC, lossless audio. Of course it will still play all your MP3s.
The interface is understandable from the beginning and I haven't even checked out all the options. It does take a while to load and it does default to its homepage but that is a small price to pay for a media player that does not bugger you about.
Get it HERE
Songbird is free. Songbird rocks. Just give it a try and then you can do what it does best and that is to record and play stuff in Ogg format or FLAC, lossless audio. Of course it will still play all your MP3s.
Get it HERE
There is no Prize for being dispassionate
Oscar Wilde said that sentimentality was the bank holiday of cynicism. He was not wrong.
by Wrinkled Weasel |
| Halle Berry gushes at Oscars |
Sentimentality is not just the preserve of Hollywood. It now affects book prizes, and in particular a current obsession with anything that is not English. Take a look at the shortlists for British and USbook prizes. Five books were shorlisted for last year's Orwell. Of the five, one was by Petina Gappah, billed as "The Voice of Zimbabwe", another is a book about Kenya and yet another is a book about Turkish Kurds and another is about Islamism by someone called Kenan Malik. John Kampfner makes an appearance, but Kampfner is a cypher for the comfy left. The winner of last year's Owell wrote about Alzheimer's. Its winners are a a tribal paradigm of the liberal left consensus. Polly Toynbee? Yasmin Alibhai-Brown? Paul Foot? Peter Hitchens? No wonder Nick Cohen turned up pissed out of his head at the 2009 shortlist show.
The Guardian can barely bring itself to review a book that is not written by somebody with a funny name, about somewhere that sounds exotic.
Tips to authors - if you want to get published and shortlisted in Britain today, call yourself Adomati Plange and write about the "plight" of Armenian sex trade workers.
We are plunging into a very silly obsession with anything foreign. I am always mildly amused when I meet some English type with a Chinese symbol tattooed on their person and secretly hope that the Chinese symbol reads "Schmuck".
As for religion, that too has not escaped the current desire for all things foreign and exotic. After all, if you can wear a saffron robe, smoke a bit of hash and learn to play a digeridoo, it has to be more fun than the stuffy old CofE.
It is not as if any of this obsession with stuff that is African or Indian or Turkish or whatever is particularly edifying or true. Most of these places are unremitting shit holes like everywhere else and any attempt to mitigate this is purely a Western Liberal fantasy, and a cynical one at that.
We seem to have fogotten our heritage, our British heritage. We have forgotten that the life expectancy of people on certain Glasgow social housing estates are less than in Yemen or North Korea. we have forgotten that we are the cradle of the Industrial Revolution and the hypocentre of a contemporary rock and pop culture that changed the world.
When it comes to liberality and sentiment, perhaps it is time to point it in the direction of home, but of course, it is not exotic enough to engage the faddists.
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