contest

it is pretty much accepted that gordon brown is travelling down shit creek without a paddle. to make matters his canoe has sprung a leak.
it has to be hard when your political opponents attack you for events that are beyond your control. it has to be worse when it is your own party.
there is a double irony here. the conservatives can sit back and goad gordon brown and the labour party over the current financial crisis. they can moan and complain, they can point and sneer. scoring easy points. the one thing they don’t seem to do is provide alternatives.
the labour dissenters seem to be doing the same thing. the difference between then and the conservatives is that they are offering an alternative. well it is an alternative of sorts. they talk about a new narrative (ok hands up who the fuck knows what that means?) or they talk about getting the message out to the electorate. really what they want to say is: “we don’t like gordon and we are scared we are going to lose our seats”.
you expect the conservatives to do it. it is part and parcel of the political process.
you don’t expect it from labour. the dissenters are putting their short-term desires (keeping their nice salary safe) before the needs of the party and the country.

they are helping the tories.

gordon has a few options. he can tough it out, and he more than likely will.
he can give them the leadership election that they want, and he will probably win that as no one of worth will come forward because no one will want to take the chance that they will be in charge if (oh ok) when labour tank at the next election.

i think gordon should go for a slightly more drastic option. he should call a general election right here and right now. what would his platform be for this snap election? simple: nationalise the utilities, nationalise the rail, pull the troops out of iraq, scrap id cards and increased tax on the very wealthy.

i tell you if he did that he would walk the election.

do it gordon – you know it makes sense.

hadron

in case you haven’t heard they are firing up the large hadron collider tomorrow morning. if it works it will help scientists get a little closer to understanding some of the deeper mysteries of the universe, the origin of mass (which in my case is down to the apple doughnuts that sainsburys sell), and perhaps they can find the higgs particle, which may the key to answering some very important questions.
all sounds pretty exciting.
but wait there are a few people who are worried that this is a mad act of science on the verge of going wrong.
they say that the start up of the large hadron collider could create black holes that will suck the world into them. which, lets be fair, is not going to be nice. these doomsayers say, “don’t do it”.
their cries have fallen on death ears, so tomorrow somewhere between france and switzerland a small new universe will be created, which means it, will be arrogant and afraid to commit.

when it comes time to throw the switch will there be a little bit of hesitation? will they think to themselves “mm have we done the maths on this right?” will they have second thoughts? will they just pretend that they threw the switch?
or will it destroy the world?

it should all go well. i hope so as i want to go see the francis bacon show at the tate britain on friday and that won’t happen if the world has been sucked down a black hole.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!

mccain ahead in the usa presidential election polls. it can't happen.
cameron ahed in the polls over here. just not right.
it is like we are back in the 80s (at least the music is a bit better).

sensible people want obama to win. the problem is he stands for change. but change seems to be fluffy and nice and in the words of bill watterson, a pony for everyone. it is time that obama started putting more meat on the bones of the dream of change.

over here cameron is in lead position for the forthcoming election. he talks of change as well. change from the current labour party and a hinted at change of conservatism. a bit like obama there is not that much solid about the changes that cameron offers - other than they will not be labour. the main difference is the conservatives have previous form and we all know that regardless of what they say about compassionate conservatism it just means that they will say sorry while people lose their jobs and the rich get richer.

of the lot of them gordon brown is probably the most honest and the one most driven by the right convictions but he is such a dour speaker that he just doesn't inspire.
is it too much to ask for him to have a "palin" moment (it can be sarah or michael, i don't mind).

fault

it is not my fault that i am fat. no really it isn’t.
a few weeks ago i discovered i was fat because my pal paul was on the chubby side and so he enabled me to be fat. my waistline is all down to paul, nothing to do with the pizzas i put away.
then i discovered that i was fat not because i scoff chocolate like it was going out of style but because of the combination of dietary abundance and a sedentary lifestyle. it is true there is no way i can go out and do stuff because i am too busy filling my face with all the food that is there, not only is it there but it is crying out to me “eat me”, “eat me” “eat me and me and me and me”, and there is just no way i can refuse.
just as i was coming to terms with these reasons for my rotundness i learn that it is the fault of pollution. fantastic.
the range of reasons given to why i am fat makes me feel like the first trip up to the buffet bar in a restaurant: which one will i have? then i realised no need to worry i can have them all, and i can come back for me later.

i could go into a long ramble about the loss of personal responsibility that this fosters, but that puts me too close to david cameron and his conservative party. (oh ok you have dragged it out of me, on this i have some sympathy with what he is saying).

but before i worry about responsibility i am going to get a few chocolate bars to wolf down, after all it is not my fault if i get to be fatter.

windfall

to put it politely gordon brown is fucked (please excuse the use of the highly technical psephologist term). well actually he is not just fucked he is right royally fucked.
even worse for gordon is that the laws of physics do not apply to him. in the real world shit flows downwards, yet for gordon it flows from the bottom upwards.

he is attacked and blamed from all sides, from allies and enemies alike.

you only have to look at the increasing cost of fuel. to read the press it is gordon brown’s fault that the fuel companies are making outrageous profits while also putting up the price of fuel (“oh pity us”, they cry, “our costs have gone up and we can’t make huge profits anymore, oh we can if we just put our prices up”).
brown made them put the prices up.
it is brown’s fault that the price of oil has gone up. the increased demand from china and india. not really a factor in this. the madness of hedging the price of fuel has had nothing to do with it. the unwillingness to increase the supply of oil has had no bearing on the increased.
brown has just increased the price of oil on a whim.

but there are times when he is the architect of his own problems. there has been talk of a windfall tax and a £100 rebate to those in need. the story is allowed to float about in the news for a few days building up expectation and then brown says no, it is not happening, was never going to happen, well maybe it was never going to happen, not really sure, if we are going to be honest. i think. possibly. (what makes the situation worse is that we can all remember when it all went tits up (another psephologist term) for brown when he let the talk of an early election to drift about before squashing it when it became apparent that he had lost the confidence of the electorate. you would have thought once bitten twice shy, but nope).

yet if we are honest we all know that a windfall tax or a rebate to the needy is never going to be enough.
thanks to thatcher we sold off our utilities to private companies. there was a lot of talk about competition, efficiency, cheaper prices and a land of milk and honey. like so much that thatcher promised it was a lie.
so what we have are large companies who know that they can screw the punter, because there is no competition, that they only have to worry about efficiencies when they are forced into it.
even worse foreign companies own several of the companies.

see that is how the free market works.

and that really brings me to the point of this.
the only way out of this for gordon brown is for him to pull up his socks, roll up his sleeves, grit his teeth, spit in the eye of the cbi and do what he knows is right and nationalise the utilities. bring them all back into public ownership.

do that gordon and not only have you solved the current issue of prices, but you will be seen as a hero by so many in the country that you will be elected again.

gordon: you know i am right.

ttt

she is no condi, but sarah palin has now entered my top torry totty list (international).
her speech at the republican convention was an assured attack on the democrats and obama. it was the usual mix of personal schmaltz and paean to the glory of the american way that so moves the american voter.
hopefully she hasn't done enough to swing the female vote over to the republicans.
because while the republican convention might be happy to chant "usa usa usa" the rest of the world is not looking forward to them remaining in the oval office.

so i will be checking out mrs palin for the eye candy, but hoping that obama cleans up in the polls.

quote

for some odd reason i was reading a review of a collection of dirk bogarde’s letters. why is this odd? well i have never read any of his books, and i was never much of a fan of him as an actor. so there was no reason for me to read the review, but i did. i enjoyed the review, but i am not going to be buying the book.
in the review there was a lovely line: “the need to write, though, doesn't impose on a general public the need to read”.

i know much of what i write (oh alright all of what i write) falls into the category of “not necessary to read”.
yet that is the joy of the internet (or web2.0 as it is now known) it allows so many of us to express our views, our opinions, our hopes and our fears, to lay bare our souls for all the world to see.

a recent book “cult of the amateur” (a book i own and one day i might even read) argues that the internet/web2.0 has seen a shift from knowledge to opinion. so there has been the rise of the citizen journalist (have camera phone will travel) and the blogger some of whom have influence, but not as much as is often claimed, but the majority are like me read by a dedicated few (and i love you all).

but if you really want to see writing that should not be read then you need to head over to that very special part of the internet: the message boards. it doesn’t matter if the message board is attached to a respectable media outlet, whether it deals with a minority hobby or if it deals with politics, sports or entertainment the message board is a license to write in electronic crayon.
all logic, all rationality and all contact with reality go out the window for many of the people who comment on the message boards.
reading some of their posts you can imagine them searching the net for the story that sets them off resulting in them banging on their keyboards shouting at the screen, their eyes bugging out, the vein in their forehead throbbing.

i blame my pal paul for my current fascination in message boards, when i read the comments on the daily mail’s website or over at the evening standard i can imagine what it must have been like to tour bedlam during it’s heyday.

the message boards are now a guilty pleasure and while they are there i can feel a little bit smug and superior with the drivel i write.

taglines

for many of us our first introduction to a new movie is the film poster. sometimes we are attracted by the image; most often it is the pithy little comment that serves as a pitch that appeals. this can either be in the form of a tagline or a catchy review.
so it was with me. there i was on the station platform and i read.
“guns”
now i am from the school of thought that there are not many films that couldn’t be improved by there being a large helping of guns in them. “citizen kane” is the greatest film of all time but a few running gun battles would have improved it. “toy story” may have been a work of genius, but without the inclusion of an uzi firelight it remains a pale imitation of what it might have been. a few scenes of balletic bullet mayhem would have made “on golden pond” a much more serious movie.
“girls”
guns are crucial but girls are almost as important. i can’t think of an ingmar bergman film that wouldn’t have been made all that much more enjoyable if it had a full on lap-dance scene in it, maybe two for the slower ones (oh that is all of them). “there will be blood” would have been hugely improved by several girl on girl scenes, they may not have added to the story, but it would have made the film that much more watchable. “schindler’s list” would have benefited by having some sultry ladies in uniform.
“geezers’
now tell me what movie would not be improved by having a geezer in it, a slick fast-talking tough guy who takes no shit and dishes out the dirt. imagine “star wars” with a character telling darth vader to “shut it” or during “close encounters of the third kind” instead of the famous notes of welcome there was a shout of “get out of our manor”.

so when a film poster has the world “guns, girls, geezers” i should have been in hog heaven and i was. the elation died before it could be take flight. not only was the poster promising guns, girls and geezers, it was also promising guy ritchie.
when it comes to films there are certain names that just scream “wait till this appears on bbc2 before you watch it”. there is cedric the entertainer (a name that surely gets him arrested for lying), there is danny dyer and then there is guy ritchie. they all provide hints as to the quality of the film.

so in the case of the new ritchie movie the triumvirate of guns, girls and geezers will not produce a fun movie.

oh well the poster is nice.

twix

limited editon.
white chocolate.
twix.
delish.

quote

“ping-pong is coming home”.
pure boris.
total class.
just a shame he is a tory.

jealousy

olympic handover.
the blonde boris triumphantly accepts the olympic flag.
a red london bus.
just how green is ken right now? i think he is a bright shade of envy.
can’t say i blame him.

ban2

will people stop going on about the use of the word decimate.
we all know it is used incorrectly, but we all know what people mean when they use it.
you are not big, you are not clever and you are no longer original when you go on about what decimate really means.

ban

it is time to ban “role model” when it is applied to any sporting non-personality. young bryony shaw wins a bronze medal at the olympics and at the end of a very very very gushing thanks she said “fuck” live on tv.
of course the use of the world fuck has brought raging condemnation from at least 14 people, and most of them see themselves as being guardians of the moral fibre of the nation. rather than just chalk up this stray fuck to a heat of the moment enthusiasm it has become a question of what sort of role model is bryony shaw to the youth of the nation?
the simple answer is: no. not in bryony shaw’s wildest dreams is she a role model to the youth of britain.
quite why it is thought that because you are good at sports you somehow have the answers or that you should be held up to scrutiny. after all most successful sportsmen are selfish; they have to be in order to get to the top. they have to have supreme belief in their own abilities, they have to have a belief that winning is what it is all about.
these are not qualities that scream empathy.
add to the mix that top sportsmen are paid far beyond that of ordinary mortals and we have moved beyond the realms of shared experience.

the lessons that we can learn from sportsmen are that regardless of naturally ability success comes when it is mixed with blood sweat and tears.

we may want our sportsmen to be nice people, but really what we want them to do is to win. that is their job. as we have turned sportsmen into celebrities we have also given them the additional job of being role models. it is easier to point to the behaviour of these role models than it is to point out that parents may have let their children down, that more and more we abrogate responsibility to anyone.

it must be hard to be a sportsman (or for that matter a minor celebrity) so let us make their jobs a little easier by stop branding them role models.

pride

i remember having a conversation with one of my old work colleagues – like so many of the conversations we had it left me scratching my head. it must have been during a world cup campaign and we were talking about national anthems he was going through a list of all his favourite ones, it was no shock that “god save the queen” came bottom of the list. when it came to certain things he was very predictable and very conscious of what the “correct” and trendy view was.
in the conversation over the anthem he claimed that the british one was a dirge. i was flummoxed.

because of the olympics i am getting to hear the anthem more often than normal. now it may very well be an unfashionable thing to say but by golly i do love to hear it. it sounds even better when you can hear the feint sounds of the spectators singing along, it is not helped by my joining in, as i can’t carry a tune even if i am using a bucket.

long may the anthem be heard.

quote

a new must read political book is out this monday, “cameron on cameron”. in it david cameron says:

"i'm going to be as radical a social reformer as mrs. thatcher was an economic reformer, and radical social reform is what this country needs right now…
"it's dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime, and the problems that we see in too many of our communities."

the reason why it will be a must read book is the hope that at last cameron will outline just what being a radical social reformer really means.
cameron is quick to use the phrase “breakdown britain” he is not so quick to state his policies for changing the situation. rather the conservatives trot out the tired excuse that they do not want to provide the labour government with any ideas. perhaps that is a canny strategy or perhaps it is just the fact that they do not have anything new to offer.
we may learn something from cameron’s new book.
we may have to wait until the general election is called.
we can guess at some of what will be offered. the usual mix of tax cuts for the rich, a push on traditional family values, the removal of welfare provisions, a return to selection in schools, in short radical means it will be a return to old conservative values.

maybe the boys and girls of new labour will be rushing out to get themselves a copy of the book so that they can remind themselves why they shouldn’t be engaging in political in-fighting. i doubt it.
that is the reason why the book can be seen as essential reading because as new labour self-destruct cameron and the conservatives are looking more and more likely to be forming the next government.
and that is a scary thought.

(i just have to find it somewhere very cheap).

lazy

been a lazy day.
did nothing.
still doing nothing.
and i do not feel guilty about it.

coins

for various reasons i have recently started trying to give shop keepers the exact money that way i cut down on the amount of change i have in my pockets and it means that i am using the loose coins that i seem to have floating around the place.

there i was in my favourite coffee shop, i am sorting through the shrapnel to give the exact amount. there is a little “tsk tsk” from the lanky barista, as i must have been holding him up from doing something really important and interesting.
yet shamefacedly i have to confess that a sign of encroaching old age kicked in as i sorted through the change: i gave him a 1 pence piece instead of the 5 pence piece i meant to hand over.
ooops.

even more than that i realised i had made the mistake as soon as i did it because i was stunned at seeing my first example of the new coinage.
yes the new heraldic coins are here.

several months back the mail on sunday made a big song and dance about the designs of the new coins. at the time they didn’t know what they would look like, they just knew that britannia would no longer be on the 50 pence piece. this was a terrible thing because it would be the first time that britannia would not have featured on the country’s coinage for the first time in 300 years.
this change was seen as being a betrayal of all that is british by gordon brown and new labour.
judging by the tone of the pieces that appeared in the mail you would have thought that very fabric of life, as we know it was about to be torn asunder. look they cry we have 30 thousand people who want britannia kept; now we have 45 thousand people. it is an unstoppable tide of people who are prepared to fight this change, to defend our way of life.
take britannia off of our 50 pence pieces at your peril.
david cameron came on board to say that the conservative party would return britannia to the coinage.

i was surprised that the mail on sunday didn’t blame this change of the coinage for causing the sub-prime mortgage crash in the states, the credit crunch in the uk. i don’t think it would stretching matters to claim that the situation in georgia is down to the fact that britannia has now been taken off of the 50 pence piece.

well that is not strictly true either as there are lots of 50 pence pieces around that still feature britannia, it is just that the new ones are now out.

what is a bigger shock is that after a few weeks of making this a big cause for the mail on sunday it was quietly dropped. there was no big story to say that the new coins were nothing more than a way to integrate us closer to europe even though new labour had promised a vote on coins in europe (not that they did, but that isn’t something the mail worries about).

the lack of coverage of the coins meant that when i saw my first one i was a little awestruck that i could hold in my hand a new shiny 1 pence piece and to know that i held something that could bring down governments and make world’s collide (even if it nothing of the sort occurs). for that reason alone i was slow in giving the right change to the barista.

i am still recovering from the fact that the new labour have managed to slip the coins in under the radar. keep watching the skies as disaster is only around the corner. well according to the mail on sunday and they wouldn’t lie.
would they?

digital

if money were no object i would be a gadget freak. i would be buying every new bit of kit that came out. sadly money is an object so i am what they call a late adopter, i am generally waiting for the item to be a “mature” product.
today i bought a video to dvd recorder that also included a digital tuner.
i needed a new video player as my old one was on its last legs and i still own a lot of videos. the dvd recorder means that i can cut down on the number of videos i have as i can copy them to dvd. see not just an impulse buy there is a plan.
the digital tv tuner means i can get lots of tv channels. there are two reasons why this is important. firstly my time in runcorn has made me addicted to tv, i went years and years without caring about tv but a few months in runcorn and i am hooked again. secondly the olympics is on.

aside from money there is another reason why i am not at the head of the queue to get new tech toys. the other reason is that no matter how simple a piece of kit is i will find it almost impossible to get it to work properly.

as yet i have not mastered the one touch recording that the machine promises. no shock there.
the digital tuner has tuned. annoyingly it has not found bid-up tv, which i think is a travesty.
now i can watch digital channels to my hearts content, except for the fact that some of them play and some of them say signal is weak. how does that work? i have no idea. the first thing i have discovered is that all those extra channels just means more chances to see the same thing time after time after time.

ah the joy of technology.

hot

still too hot. all i seem to do is sweat.
want a big storm (though did enjoy the electical storm last night). want it to be cool or even chilly.
summer i hate it.

quote

"I am full of fire. I am like a greased bounding panther. My legs are steel springs and every day I get out of bed and I beat my chest. Every morning I am full of wonderment that the people of London have done the honour of making me their mayor. I really am."

thus spake boris.
i am not sure i want to contemplate the image.

as sad as boris thinking that he is a sleek beast the news that ken keeps popping back to city hall is a sad one to contemplate.
though it comes as no surprise that someone who has been in power for eight years and suddenly finds himself out in the cold and can't give it up and move on.
cripes you only have to look at tony blair to see this, made worse by the fact that blair has managed to secure himself a nice cushy number he can't help but get involved with the internal struggles with the labour party.
sometimes you just have to let it go.

1000

well it has taken a looooooooong time but finally post 1000 is here. wooo.
i had lost the urge to blog just recently, which is odd as there has been so much to comment on (as if anything i say will make any difference, but hey ho that is what ego is about).
so i am back and looking forward to getting the next 1000 done quicker.

(still too hot and my zits have not gone they have moved...)

zit

i am eating less chocolate than ever before.
i am eating more fruit than ever before.
the result of this?
i have zits.

there is no justice in the world.

disappointed

first it was the headline in the mail on sunday. then it was a snippet on lbc radio. both were saying that thatcher was to get a state funeral.
how my heart sang!
she is dead.

turns out they are only planning on giving her a state funeral when she finally decides to shuffle off the mortal coil.

for a moment i was very happy and now i am not.
that was a cruel hoax to play.

rain

ah the rain has come. it makes it a truly british summer.
it was a nice break from the heat. i got wet, i felt happy and the clouds were great.
i even managed to step into some puddles.
all in all a good day.

twofer

boris, boris, boris....
two months in, two staff down.
not the best start in the world.

(you have to love the london evening standard though - they and their readers are quick to point out that is just be a smear campaign against ray lewis and boris, whereas the allegations against lee jasper (to the best of my knowledge nothing has been proved against him) and ken were serious journalism that was uncovering sleaze and corruption).

just perhaps the future is not so blue.

60th

happy birthday national health service, the nhs turns 60 this week.
for all the moaning that people do about the nhs it strikes me that we have a very good health service that makes sure that people have free access to care.
the few times i have had to use it i have only been happy with the outcomes.

here is hoping that i don't need to use it that much in the next 60 years of the nhs (mind you it probably won't be around once the conservatives get back into power).

many happy returns nhs - i should go and kiss a nurse, my small attempt to spread some happiness.

summer

too bloody hot.
there you go. i have spoken.

bliss

art.
coffee.
brick lane.
watching the world go by.
bliss.

ice

The chances of anything coming from mars were a million to one he said. Ha! Them odds have now changed.
not only have they found ice on mars, but the sun newspaper (well regarded for it's news coverage) has reported ufo sightings over england. the aliens are here.

So take a belated bow hg and erb.

I am off to read “princess of mars”.

books

i am beginning to hate books. i have an awful lot of books. as i clear up i keep finding more and more, quite a few i never even knew i had and i have no recollection of buying.
yet there they are. a daunting, growing, pile. more than i will ever read.
i should be happy as, logically; i should never have to buy a new book again.
oh if only it were so simple.

even as i sort, stack and pack the books that i find (“oh that one looks really interesting!”) i can’t help but think of the books that i don’t have.
each time i go into a supermarket i drift by the bookshelves to see what is there, and there is always something there to tease and taunt me, something crying out to be bought.
oh it might be a new james bond book but i know what it really is a naughty tease of a book. tempting me, crying out to me “buy me, buy me”. or perhaps it is the new harlan coben book i hear calling to me? maybe it is the new john connolly.
no it is not, it is even worse they have come together in a choir and they all sing out to me. their voices joined by the cherie blair and john prescott biographies. and hark there is the sound of a book about the building of st paul’s and in the distance the golden trumpet sounds the arrival of more editions of marvel essentials and dc showcases.

try as i might i can never quiet deafen the voices of the books. they cry out, they beg and demand to be heard.
so far i have resisted but i know i am going to weaken soon and then it will only be a matter of time before i give in and buy another new book…

“my name is pat and i buy books….”

running

so i have started running. well perhaps running is too strong a word for it. maybe jogging. no that might imply something more athletic than what i am actually doing. perhaps a fast soft shoe shuffle is closer to the mark.
i am not making bold claims here – it is a short route, and i am doing it at a (very) comfortable pace – i am not noticeably fitter but i do feel a little better. it is all very much journey of a thousand miles starts with one step type thing.
i try to go in the mornings that way there are fewer people about, less embarrassment and humiliation.
the other day i was passed by a very petite cutie. she went by me as if i was standing still (to be honest i wasn’t far short of that). she had a lovely bottom. i thought i would pick up my stride pattern (ooh get me…) and catch her up.
then it dawned on me, she looked like she had been doing this sort of thing for a while, that she was at least 20 years younger than me and probably at least 10 stones lighter than me so trying to catch her up was just going to end is disaster.
i went back to ambling and enjoyed the view for as long as i could keep her in sight.

42

for douglas adams 42 is the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
for gordon brown 42 was a political virility test.
for david davis 42 is a matter of principle.

the labour government recently won the vote on the extension of the period a person can be held without charge from 28 days to 42 days. they wanted this extension not because they needed it right now, but because they might need it in the future. the reason being that terrorists were becoming more and more sophisticated and more skilled at using their computers to hide what they were doing, unlike gary glitter and pete townsend.
as yet the current allowance of 28 days has only been used on a handful of occasions, in some cases those detained were innocent.

by the skin of it’s teeth the government got what it wanted: there was a yes vote on the extension to 42 days. this doesn’t mean it has won. the house of lords is likely to vote against it, this bringing it back to the house of commons. still early days.

there is a lot of harrumphing about how the 42 days proposal is undemocratic, yet polls show that the majority of people are in agreement with the proposal. how odd for gordon brown to be on the side of the public opinion.

david davis has been an outspoken critic of 42 days. he is an outspoken critic of the much-heralded decline in civil liberties that have been taking place in recent years. he lost the debate in the house of commons. his solution? resign and force a by-election.
over the last couple of days much praise has been heaped on davis for his principled stand, so unusual for an mp cry one and all.
if only it was such.
davis talks about the attacks on civil liberties, but seems quite happy to flaunt the rules of a democratic parliament by throwing his toys out of the pram: “i didn’t get the result i wanted so i am going to scream and scream until i do…”

the by-election davis tells us will be fought on the single issue of civil liberties. he challenges the government to defend their position in his local constituency. his argument goes that if they are so certain that they are right then they will win the vote. the liberal democrats are not going to stand a candidate as they agree with david davis.
ah if everything in the world was so simple.
at the general election the labour party came a weak third. it is very doubtful that the campaign can be kept to the single issue, and even if it could be it is unlikely that the electors are going to be able to think of it as anything but an anti-government vote or a pro davis vote because they have admired his work as their local member of parliament.
in short he is going to win. when you are onto a certainty it is easy to stick by your principles.

this isn’t to say that gordon brown’s attachment to the 42 days is a good thing. the argument has not really been won. so far there has been no hue and cry from the police or intelligence service for 42 days to happen (although a good case could be made that they don’t have to say anything as the government is making all the running on this). so far the experience is that 28 days is more than adequate.
in order to get the bill through various amendments have been made which almost render it pointless (such as having to come before parliament to ask for permission to extend the incarceration period), additionally those that are held beyond 28 who are found to be innocent will be compensated at the rate of £3000 a day, perhaps that money could be better spent in getting more computer literate intelligent service personnel so that you didn’t have to keep someone banged up for 48 days.

while it is true that a majority of people are in favour of the 42 days extension we don’t always elect our members of parliament to do what we want, we often want them to make the hard decisions for us – which is why we don’t have the death penalty here.

the worst part of all of this is not the encroachment on civil liberties but the utter waste of political energy and capital that gordon brown is making on this issue.
assuming that he is not turfed out by the labour party, it is probable that brown only has until 2010 as prime minister, and probably much less time when he has the power to make a difference, as there will come a point when he no longer has control over labour members of parliament.
instead of doing what he really wants to do: make a difference to poor and working class of the country he has gotten himself caught up in a bizarre piece of macho posturing. instead of trying to build his own legacy he is busy trying to finish off a mess started by tony blair.

in the end neither brown or davis is right over the issue of 42 days, douglas adams comes closest: what matters is making sure you ask the right questions, at least then you have the chance of getting an answer that makes sense.

stuff

who knew i had so much junk? well i admit i did know, but i sort of thought (well more hoped) that it would be easier to clear up.
i seem to have piles of stuff, boxes of things, bundles of bits, heaps of bobs. i have started to rack and pack it all. i have started to sort it out. i have started to move it from here to there. i am throwing out, i am recycling, and i am clearing.
i feel a little like a fat hairy hercules.
i am expecting to find rosebud perched on the ark of the covenant.
the one thing i doubt i will find is the unified theory of the universe, but early days yet.

peeves

i am a man of many peeves. some peeves make it to full blown hates. i suspect that as we get older the number of peeves we have grows. some peeves are based on rational reasons and if pressed on the issue you could defend your reasons, other peeves have no rational basis and they just are.
there is no reason why i should get so irked by blokes in low-slung jeans, yet i do. it is not like i have an interest (or knowledge) of fashion, but the sight of the low slung jeans makes me snort with derision. it is irrational.

this is the time of year when another of my pet peeves pops out. this is the one where i get annoyed at commentators who just have a pop at something for the sake of having a pop (a little like i am doing now). recently there was amanda platell having a go at geri halliwell for selling pictures of her daughters first birthday. the piece slagged geri for showing her daughter off and using her to earn cash. yet there accompanying the article was a picture of geri and baby. it made sense to me.

last night it was radio 5 live going on about “big brother”. one of the advantages of not having a telly is that i don’t have to watch “big brother” and in all the years that is has been on i have not watched it.
now i know that the bbc contribute to the upkeep of channel 4, it is still not a good enough reason for them to constantly plug “big brother”. last night it was whether or not “big brother” had run its course. the best part of an hour was taken up with the discussion, which seemed to decide that indeed the show has not been worth watching for years.
this morning there was a similar conversation on one of the other radio 5 live shows.

call me stupid (and many have) but surely if the whole thrust of what you are saying is someone or something doesn’t deserve the publicity they are striving for then perhaps the best way to deal with it is to ignore them.
after all it is not like there isn’t enough going on in the world to find something interesting to talk about.

cripes i am turning into my dad….

orgy

you would never have thought that a simple private orgy, albeit it one that had multiple prostitutes went on for 5 hours and took place in a dungeon, would have merited much media attention. but you would be wrong.
for all of the uproar you would have thought that max mosley was indulging in caligula like excesses rather than giving his little soldier a bit of exercise.
part of the allegations brought against max is that part of the fun was a bit a nazi style s&m role-play. there in lies the (body) rub as max mosley is the son of sir oswald mosley, the wartime leader of the british union of fascists, and hero to jay. (it is nice to note that even though he was a fascist we still refer to him as “sir”, good to see politeness still holds sway.)

quite way anyone cares about what max mosley does in his spare time is beyond me, though i am impressed with his stamina, can only hope i still have that get up and go in me when i get to his age (actually wouldn’t mind it now).
the news of the world thought differently and paid a lot of money to one of the prostitutes for the story and the pictures.

mosley is an international figure because of his involvement with formula 1 racing. he is one of the men that make sure that a very repetitive sport (the cars they go round and round and round) and very wasteful sport (the cars they burn up lots and lots of fuel to go round and round) earns lots and lots of money.
he seems to have been very successful at it.

formula 1 is not a moral sport. the stars of formula 1 are not role models they are mostly icons of conspicuous consumption.

the problem, it appears, isn’t what max mosley was up to but that he got caught

we live in a celebrity obsessed culture so that anything that happens to a celebrity (no matter how minor) is seen as being newsworthy, and if it has the whiff of scandal then so much the better.

given the nature of formula 1, cars going nowhere fast, what max does in the (dis)comfort of his dungeon should be a matter for him and him alone. just as it is the right of people who may have to deal with mosley not to want to shake hands with him (after all you never know where that fist might have been). shunned he seems to have been by the great and the good of the formula 1 world, apparently he is not welcome in places such as china or saudi arabia – both places which have sterling human rights and are fine examples of moral probity.

mosley decided not to go quietly (apparently this is what people do when they have been caught doing something private) he said lets put it to the vote.
they did.
he won.
now people are complaining that the process was not fair.
democracy it seems only works when you are winning.

the key argument seems to be that max mosley is the public face of formula 1 and is now compromised in this position. when in reality he is the public face to the sponsors and teams. he is the same person he was before the revelation of his orgiastic behaviour was broadcast to everyone. he is still as capable of doing his job now as he was then.

the role model argument is a convenient one to throw out. just whom is he supposed to be a role model to? i am sure he finding out that mosley spends five hours in a dungeon is not going to create a rush on the local s&m hangouts as all the “kids” want to try out a bit of leather and pvc action. true he may inspire a few conservative mps to follow suit but i am sure they already have a few numbers of their own to call.
it wouldn’t be so bad if the news of world, which broke the story, was not a newspaper (and i use the term lightly) that was littered with adverts for premium rate call lines many of which have a s&m flavour to them. expect a “ride max to the finish line” call service soon.

as mosley’s job has nothing to do with public health or public morality the only “public interest” aspect of the story was to titillate. in this our free press plays its very own role in the nanny state that it so often derides.
perhaps mosley’s problem was that he has made lots of money, gained lots of influence without being a creation of the media. unlike the amy winehouses and peter dohertys of the world there has been no chance of building them up and stripping them down, pretending that they should be role models for children and teenagers around the world. the constant cycle of building up and breaking down sells the papers. so in the cases of the media stars you know that they are always going to be coming back to help sell papers.

in mosley’s case he is a one hit wonder so they may as well go all out and destroy him. no matter that their expectations of how he should live his life are probably out of step with most of us and out of step of most of the adverts they run in their paper.

totty

it is time to add a new name to the top tory totty list: amanda platell.
she has gone from being an australian back-packer who decided to stay in the uk, to a fleet street editor, to tory spin-doctor and back to journalist.
i find most of her views to be dull, though i am intrigued at her constant attacks at women celebrities. i don’t know enough about her but you can’t help but think it is all about jealousy.
but putting all that aside i wouldn’t kick her out of bed.
ms platell is a foxy right-winger and she gets me a little hot…

quit

i like hillary clinton, but then i have a thing for powerful strident women.
i had a dream that hillary clinton and condoleezza rice would contest the presidential race and perhaps just get down to a baby oil covered catfight. but that is just me.
instead poor hillary is about to see her run at the democratic nomination come to an end. she started out as the clear favourite but barack obama’s vision filled speeches of hope has seen him leap into pole position.
at this point there are not enough delegates left for either of the candidates win outright, but the sensible money is on obama to get the required numbers of super-delegates to get the nod.

but even at this point hillary is fighting on. she has issued a clarion cry to the super-delegates to vote for her.
there is a slim chance that the confrontation will continue past the last two elections through until the democratic conference.

should she go for the dragged out endgame?
no.
the american political process just takes forever. finding the right democratic candidate seems to have taken years. yet after all this the winner still has to contest the presidential vote with john mccain.
hillary needs to find a way to quit and support obama or else there is big chance that mccain will win and the world will remain a less safe place.

so hillary do it for the rest of us. given in now. tell obama you love him and then help him to win the presidency.
go hillary you can give it up and then you have saved us from the prospect of more republicans in the white house.

quit for americans, quit for the rest of the world. stand down, support barack and make the world a safe place.

(and if you can sort out that baby oil match with condi then i would be pleased…)

metal

i have been known to throw guitar poses; i have been known to shake my locks manically (sometimes even in time to the music). i like metal – it can be speed, death, thrash, black, industrial, prog, and big hair – as long as it is metal that is all that matters. from the basic 3-piece outfit through the twin guitar attack bands, they can have double bass drum set-ups, keyboards, flutes and violins. they just have to be metal. the vocalist can scream, they can growl, they can screech there can even be two vocalists. just so long as they are metal.
so i am a metal fan. so sue me.
on the train back thursday night (the feeling of relief of being on the last train from the north still flowing through my system like a summer’s rain cleaning the humidity from the air…. oooh get me) i was slightly shocked to watch a metal band jump on the train.
they were in traditional look – all black clothes with various bands decorating the various t-shirts. all of them with tattoos, several of them with piercings. the girls had the big platform boots on.
it was quite obvious they had come from a gig.
they were all happy, all talking about the highlights of the night.

now the first thing wrong with this was that they were travelling by train: whatever happened to touring in the transit van?

but that wasn’t the thing that got to me.
to judge from their t-shirts and piercings this was a band from the goth, industrial part of the metal family. probably with a big “type o negative” influence.
nothing wrong there.

yet there was a moment when all i could think was “oh no”. it started with a simple comment when the drummer mentioned that he had pulled out a chunk of his hair when he caught it in his drumstick. this lead into a bit about how good the guitarist looked when he shook his head in the solo. quickly followed by a comparison about hair lengths (remember this is the blokes talking) and how long it took to grow. this led into a discussion between some of them about whether one should straighten his hair or leave it wavy.

spinal tap eat your heart out.
wooooooooaorgh

next

so the last day came and went. in grand pat style it didn’t go to plan. i had this sneaky scheme to get in early, pass my keys on to someone and slink out of the place without any fanfare. with a quick exit from work i would have been back in london by late afternoon.
i was still thinking of this plan at 9am, 10am, and 11am. around midday i had revised the time i would get back to london.
in the back of my mind i knew there would be no escaping early.
who would have thought clearing out an office would have taken so long?
after much pack, stacking, boxing and throwing out i got it all done.
and would you adam and eve it even on my last day there were only 2 of us left in the building. so i got to do some of the locking process.
the only problem was that by the time i got out there was no chance i would catch the 20.05 train.
noooooooooooooooooooooo not another night in the north!

luckily saint chuff (patron saint of trains) was looking down and there is one at 20.58. phew. back in london at the wee small hours of the morning.

friday starts in a bit of sleepy daze. i have a plan for the for first month – i am going to clean my flat. long time coming i can tell you.
have even worked out the method i am going to use. split rooms into areas and then move stuff from one area to another area, cleaning the empty area. simple really.

except i ended up in brick lane drinking coffee.
much better outcome for the day.

besides i can do the packing, racking and stacking in my flat tomorrow.

well that is a good start to my new life.

endings

last day in the office.
lots to do.
mixed feelings. kinda sad, kinda excited, kinda scared.

best get back to work, while i still have a job to do.

rain

my last few days in the north and all it is doing is raining a bit, raining a lot and raining some more.
it would be perfect other than fact i have left my waterproofs at home.
call me soggy.

boris

for some odd reason when i am writing about london's new mayor boris johnson i have an urge to call him either "boorish" or "borish" johnson.
i know it is not particularly funny but it does make me smile.
i wonder if jeremy paxman ever thinks like that?

oil

we live in volatile times. the price of everything is soaring, except house prices, which are plummeting (oooh get me i have come over all daily mail on you). the credit crunch has many of us by the short and curlies.
we cry out for a leader to carry us through this economic minefield. a man (or woman, as i can do pc as well as the next man (or woman) – see i told you i could) with strong convictions, a firm grasp of the situation and bravery to chart the course needed.
step forward our broad shoudered touselled headed blonde leader boris.
yes in a time when oil prices keep going up boris, the mayor of london, has decided not to renew the deal with venezuela which allowed london’s buses to get cheap fuel, which in turn allowed them to be offering travel concessions to those on social security.
back when it was signed ken livingstone, the then mayor, claimed it would benefit up to a quarter of a million londoners, the current take up is far short of that at close to 60,000 people. still that is a lot of people who are much better off. payment for this oil was to be in the form of consultancy work carried out by london experts in the fields of: recycling, waste management, traffic and on reducing carbon emissions.
at the time the deal was struck it was attacked by the green party, who complained that livingstone should be finding ways to reduce london’s reliance on fossil fuels. which is fair enough as that is what the green’s mostly stand for. while the conservatives complained that livingstone and hugo chavez, the venezuelan president, should be ashamed of this deal as it exploited the poor of venezuela. which is fair enough as the conservative party have always stood for compassion for the poor (sorry for a moment there i was cameron’s press secretary).

step forward boris johnson. he sees the inequity of the deal. we get cheap oil, buses can pass on the savings to be poorest, and venezuela gets advice it needs. to boris and the tories there is a terrible smell about this. so they have to stop it.
boris says: "many londoners felt uncomfortable about the bus operation of one of the world's financial powerhouses being funded by the people of a country where many people live in extreme poverty" most of those people who were disgruntled would be tory members of the greater london assembly, the rest of us not so bothered.
"there are better ways of benefiting londoners and better ways of benefiting venezuelans". but “ways” were outlined and i suspect none will be forthcoming any time soon. (to be fair to boris he is maintaining the subsidies for those on benefit until the original deal runs out – august of this year.)
back when the deal was signed richard barnes, the then leader of london assembly conservatives slammed the deal because "london should not be doing business with third-rate south american dictators with an appalling human rights and democratic record."
too right richard we just want our deals to be with first-rate dictators with appalling human rights and democratic records.
with all this talk from david cameron, boris johnson and, now, richard barnes i am expecting the conservative party to unveil several ethical programmes that will ban the sale of weapons to dictatorships, ensure that countries we invest in and do business with are transparent with their human rights records, while back home i expect both david and boris to address the thorny issue of workers rights to ensure that they are protected against the unscrupulous employers. in addition to that the conservatives will lead the charge to ensure that big business pays fairer taxes because they should not exploit the worker.
then again i think that in this instance both boris and richard were just talking for effect and frankly they don’t care about the poverty in venezuela, nor do they care about the state of venezuelan workers they were just miffed that ken livingstone got a sweet deal worked out that benefited the poor in london.

still we can all rest easy as the mayor’s press release states that with the closing of the office in caracas £67,000 a year will be saved on the lonodn budget (even though that £67,000 was actually buying cheap oil).
so although london buses will now have to pay the market rate for oil boris can at least claim to make good on a campaign claim as he has stopped a scheme that he referred to as “crackers”. good for you boris.

one of the reasons that the deal had to go was that the new first deputy mayor (the unelected) tim parker saw the deal as not being part of the “core strategy” for the greater london assembly. mr. parker is interested that londoners get value for money for any deals struck. getting cheap oil seems not to be value for money.
but look boris has struck a deal with mayor bloomberg of new york. the two mayors have agreed to swap personnel and ideas so that both cities could learn from each other’s best practices.
well that is value for money. hold on my 25 bus runs so much better on “best practice” than it does on petrol.
could it be that new york is a better place to go than caracas?
could it be that boris and mr. parker just don’t like left-wingers?

but here is irony for you. do you want to know which other city has a deal with venezuela for cheap fuel?
can you guess?
score one for the home team if you said new york.

mayor bloomberg share some of that best practice with boris and mr. parker now.

zit

i have a zit on my bum.
it is not nice. i can't get a good enough grip on it to give it a good squeeze.
now it is just annoying....

countdown

the last few days of work are stretched out in front of me. the day after i leave is going to be odder than i thought.
but before i get maudlin i have to confess that of the many things i am going to miss it is going to be my air con unit i am going to miss the most. the last few hot days have reminded me why i hate summer and looking at the 2008 year planner (nothing much going on from june 1st…) the days of summer seem to go on and on and on.

geez i am a bundle of fun.

prescott

"annoying, bewildering and prickly" is john prescott’s description of gordon brown.
how do we know this? well prescott is selling his memoirs, so he needs to have something that makes us all go out there and put down our hard earned cash.
it is also the reason why we had to listen to his bulimia stories.

prescott mentions his hundreds of reconciliation meetings between blair and brown.

prescott isn’t actually attacking brown, as he professes admiration of both blair and brown. it is just that his timing really sucks.

whatever good prescott has done in the past for the labour party he has undone it all with his memoirs. for a grubby few pounds he has added to the current of criticism of gordon brown.

don’t worry john i am sure that david cameron and co will reward you well; just don’t choke on the cakes when you scoff them.

still prezza isn’t alone cherie blair is also entering the memoir business. it is well known she has little time for gordon brown, so her attacks are not unexpected.
even so she manages to shock with her revelation that tony blair is “secretly” is helping gordon brown plan the next general election campaign.
well it is nice to know that such a high-powered lawyer is such a tattletale.

gordon brown has become a shit magnet.

i am waiting for him to get the blame of the burmese cyclone.

where

a few weeks ago it was the tail end of winter.
now we seem to be in summer, what happened to spring? what happened to the lead in period of warm weather that prepares us for hot weather?
where has it gone?

as if i didn’t have enough to be miserable about, i now have the hate of summer to deal with.

boris

boris is in charge of london. cripes.
i like boris, but i am not sure that i like him being in charge of london. we shall see how he copes and what it means to those of us living here. does it mean the end of the bendy bus? i hope not i like the 25. will it mean the end of the growing building of big glass boxes? i hope so.
i doubt very much if it will end the proliferation of american descriptions such as midtown (holborn to most of us) south central (southwark) and recently the arrival of noho (marylebone), but if boris can do that then he might get my vote next time around.

the scary thing is that this result probably heralds the end of the current labour administration and the rise of david cameron and his tory party.

disaster

no matter how you look at it last night at the polls was a disaster for gordon brown and the labour government.
cameron is right to talk about it being a "big night" for the conservative party.
the electorate have given the clunking fist of brown a bloody nose and it is likely that the london mayoral election is about to land him with a black eye.

yet brown is also right to say that the results are due to the fact that there are some unusual circumstances out there at the moment.
labour is paying the price for not just these events but also for the fact that they have been in powere for a long time and that they have forgotten that they have to pay attention to the electorate.

cameron took the chance to once again point out that this was a vote against labour's top down approach to government. in this he echoes the mantra of thatcher. so under cameron we can expect less government and more local action.
but the point is what people really want is a government who will protect them from the wider world's mistakes. we want them to make the big hard decisions that will stave off the problems brought on by stupidity of greedy banks.
that is what we want we just don't want to admit it.

brown has been punished for the credit crunch, he has been punished for the rise in petrol prices (but not to worry the two companies involved with petrol just released record profits), he has been punished becuase of the rise of food, yet we know tescos will release figures of record profits and the farmers will complain that they are not paid enough for what they grow.
bad transport? it is the government - even if the rail and airlines are privately owned.
it is a long list of what is going wrong and blamed on the government. (even eard a banker blame the recent problems in the banking industry on the bank of england for not spotting the banks own recklessnes...)

but brown has problems of his own. he heeds to drop policies that are pointless and just there to make headlines - forget about id cards, forget about the 42 day limit. concentrate on what it is that labour should stand for. the people, the working people. work towards protecting them and rewarding them.

do that sort of thing and watch the votes come flooding back.

meanwhile i am going to go off and sulk as boris becomes the mayor of london.

election

c'mon ken.

yeah i know it is pretty incisive, but what else can i say?
for all his faults ken livingstone is not a tory - that should be enough to get everyone voting for him.
fingers crossed that boris doesn't get in.

punch

david cameron has “fessed” up to the fact that he has not been able to pursue the quiet politics he had promised he would do.
he believes that prime minister question time is adversarial and that commons is designed for such antics.
cameron sees himself as being robust and that if you do not take that approach “…you lose out."

of course it helps the robust performances of cameron that gordon brown is not the most gifted speaker in the world and in fact would probably appreciate a more detailed discussion of questions in prime minister questions, but that wouldn’t suit cameron.

a little like a bully cameron keeps up his one or two lines of attack “ditherer” “never answers questions”, regardless of the fact that brown and labour may have made a decision and did answer the question.

cameron is aware that the whole point of prime minister questions is not to debate the issues it is to get some soundbites.

they still remain the nasty party.

jobsworth

there i am on the train. i’ll get a first class supplement, why not i say to myself – it is not like i need to save the companies cash! so i plonk myself down in the quiet zone carriage. i get my book, my paper, my m&s sarnies and my coffee arranged and i get comfortable.

boy do i feel good that i managed to buy some supplies at the station as the train manager make the announcement that due to staff shortages there is no shop opening on the journey.

i sip my coffee and smile thinking “i don’t care i am sorted!”

the train rocks on. i read my book (it is a patricia cornwell book, a bit of a disappointment and i won’t be reading any more of her books). i am happy.

train manager comes round.

“can i get a first class upgrade please?”
“no that service isn’t available”
“what?”
“can’t give you the upgrade…”

he walks off. i finish my coffee. pack my bags.
then wander along the train to find somewhere to sit.
through two almost empty first class carriages.

the first standard class i come to is packed, not a spare seat. same with the second one. at the end of the third one i find a space i can sit in and spread out a little bit. i go back to get some of my stuff. i make the treacherous walk along the train trying not to bump into people or fall on to them and all the time trying to maintain some cool. get to where i was sitting. pick up a couple of bags.
trudge back to the standard class.
plonk the bags down.
walk back.
other passengers thinking “what is he doing?”

back in first class i see the train manager. i have a bit of a fume on. we don’t complain enough. darn it i am going to complain.
i decide to ask him his name. he gives it and then asks why.
i tell him i am going to write a letter of complaint that he wouldn’t sort me out an upgrade.
“we don’t have the staff for the service” he says.
“how does that matter? you have the machine there you can bill me?”
“no staff for the service” he repeats his mantra.
“that’s madness, besides the rest of the train is packed”
“i never said you had to move, i just told you i can’t bill you…..”

oooooops bright red, major embarrassment, jaw dropping, blood throbbing in my ears not quite hearing the rest of what he was saying
“…shouldn’t assume….”

well my apologies were craven and profuse.

to make matters worse later on in the journey the train manager has arranged to get some free drinks out for the passengers based on the fact that the shop was closed and the train packed and warm.

what a bastard, making me feel even worse for my earlier faux pas.

to that train manager i doff my cap at you for just being good and sensible at your job and to publicly apologise for making such a tit of myself.

now i know why we don’t complain as often as we should – because sometimes we look very very silly when we do.

but i did learn a valuable lesson – no jobs for me where there is contact with the general public as i might end up having to deal with an idiot like me.

enemies

with friends like these who needs enemies – so goes the old saying. gordon brown must really understand what it means.
for a few months gordon was the saviour. the serious politician, the change maker, the man with the vision thing. all it took was a stupid decision to tease the electorate that he was going to go to the polls and now brown and his party look to be ditherers and incapable of giving a straight forward answer.
more and more there is a real chance that cameron will actually when the next general election (london’s mayoral election will give an indication as to what will happen when the whole country goes to the polls.).

recently lord desai commented that the whole point of brown was to remind us how good blair was when he was in power.
now lord levy is on the attack. he claims that brown is a weak leader and this has lead to the squabbles that take place within the ranks of the labour party. levy says that brown was aware of the cash for honours (of course while implicating brown, levy makes it clear that he himself was against accepting loans). furthermore levy says that blair as commented that brown could not win against cameron in an election. this assertion has been denied by a blair spokesman. this alone is quite interesting. you can well believe that blair thinks that brown is a dead duck and has probably said it in passing to a few of his closest confidants and it is likely that levy was one of them, how it must please blair to see it out in the open like this.

it is all right though levy is very keen to point out that:
"firstly i'm a labour man, always will be a labour man, always have been a labour man.”
"my parents were, my family are, and i will never change my political viewpoint.
"i absolutely had total belief in tony blair, and i felt it was a privilege to help in any way i could both he and the labour party.

indeed levy wants to help so much that he is having his memoirs serialised in the mail on sunday newspaper (a paper that is notorious for the support it gives labour, that would be irony on my part), that he is publishing his memoirs at a time that is likely to cause the most embarrassment to the government

yes lord levy i can see you are labour through and through.

we can all take heart that lord levy is “saddened” by the bickering that is going on in the labour party. not that anything he says or writes while his memoirs are being discussed are likely to create any problems for the labour party.


lord levy is obviously a man of integrity and very trustworthy so his recent outburst can’t be about publicising his book – after all he is very wealthy and so doesn’t need the money.
it could be because he is still irked because brown replaced him as a middle east envoy
it is possible that lord levy wants to alert gordon brown to weaknesses in the labour party ahead of the local elections and to give labour time to restructure in order to fight the good fight in the forthcoming general election. because such a devoted labour man as himself would not want to give succour to the opposition, would they? in fact any of the pain that labour might feel in the polls because of what levy had written is worth it because it will make them stronger (and sell more of his book).
that is what it is. there it was in front of me all the time. lord levy is a caring parent of the labour movement and he is indulging in some tough love.

it is either that or he is just a spoilt tosser who doesn’t want others to play with his toys.

you decide.

quotes

there i was skipping through the channels when i hear the authoritative tones of jeremy paxman declare: “has lap dancing become socially acceptable?”

i was dumbstruck.

i must have missed the memo that told us that lap dancing was socially unacceptable.

live and learn.

george

and on this fine proud st george's day all that needs to be done is for me to just post this:

and did those feet in ancient time
walk upon england's mountains green?
and was the holy lamb of god
on england's pleasant pastures seen?

and did the countenance divine
shine forth upon our clouded hills?
and was jerusalem builded here
among these dark satanic mills?

bring me my bow of burning gold:
bring me my arrows of desire:
bring me my spear: o clouds unfold!
bring me my chariot of fire.

i will not cease from mental fight,
nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
till we have built jerusalem
in england's green and pleasant land.

blake's fantastic poem, set to music by hubert parry, is one of those songs that makes the hairs stand up and puffs the chest out with pride. as i type this i am listening to billy bragg version and thinking that it is a near perfect song.
it has helped get me through both my parent’s funerals.
strangely it is a hymn that has been “banned” from several of the nation’s churches because it is not devotional enough or it is nationalistic (how easy it is to confuse nationalism with patriotism), this is most notable in southwark cathedral.

where is my cross of st. george when i need it?

later on i will be doing the st. crispin’s day speech.

cruel

the latest stage in the, seemingly, never-ending political struggle between hillary clinton and barack obama to see which of them will run as the democratic presidential candidate is being played out in pennsylvania. the fight between them has been getting rather dirty.

today hillary attempted to show she was macho enough to lead the american people. when asked what she would do if iran launched a nuclear attack on israel her reply was "if i'm the president, we will attack iran... we would be able to totally obliterate them."
whooosh rock hard there hillary.

but a sneaky attack is being planned on iran. it is an attack that is worse than a nuclear strike, worse than a biological strike, far worse than boots on sand. this attack is going to hit the iranians hard and will probably change their way of life forever.

it is looking likely that tehran is going to host a chris de burgh concert. the simpering and anodyne pop singer famous for “the lady in red” is going to sing to iranians. he will be the first western musician to play in iran since the 1979 revolution.
chris may have to tone down his act for the iranians.

what i don’t understand is that in iran you have to have a permit to perform and yet chris is getting permission to play. why? how?
obviously someone is trying to undermine the regime from the inside.
once the local population begins to hum chris de burgh songs then cultural decline is not far behind.

hillary show the iranians some mercy and nuke them now before they have to listen to “the lady in red”.

quote

i can’t deny it i have enjoyed all 6 of the star wars movies. i still have fond memories of seeing stars wars on its opening day at the odeon leicester square with monty (and hearing for the first time the immortal utterance “brainblast”) or seeing it several times with adam at the granada cinema in harrow.
i never became a total star wars geek, but it was a close run thing. i could quote very large chunks of the film at the drop of a hat. i could (and would) discuss the metaphysical nature of the force. i was excited about the idea there were to be 9 films in the series, i devoured the film tie-in novels and worked out hidden histories from the hints in those books that never made it to the screen (ah the innocent days before video and dvd).
yet i never became a star wars geek.
why?
comics. comics were my first love and not even a lightsaber battle was going to change that.

it was a lucky escape.

in 2001 the jedi religion was recognised on the census. some 400,000 people said they were jedi.
presumably barney jones was one of them. barney, or to give him his jedi name of jedi master jonba hehol, was making a documentary about being a jedi in his back garden. in a break of filming a man dressed in a bin bag with a darth vader helmet on jumped into the garden and attacked jedi master jonba hehol and defeated him (the dark side winning again!).
darth appeared to be under the influence of drink.
barney, jedi master jonba hehol, was not amused declaring that "this wasn't a joke. this was serious."

to be fair to barney he knows a thing or two about serious not only is he a jedi master, not only is he a hairdresser he is also the founder (along with his brother) of britain’s first jedi church.

in a radio interview today barney said of his attacker: “he is clearly demented.”

pot and kettle.

1701

now i am on record as being a fan of the monarchy. i think they provide value for money – after all where else are you going to get a key public figure in nazi uniform (well maybe formula 1), where else are you going to have the heart warming story of a boy so besotted with his girlfriend he just drops into her parents field in his military issue helicopter?
gawd bless the royal family is what i say.

but in a case of pc gone mad the royal family are under attack from equality legislation.
back in 1701 eldest daughters were prevented from becoming the monarch if they had younger brothers.
but if vera baird, the solicitor general, has her way all this will change and women in the royal family will the same rights as their brothers – so it will be first out of the womb first on the throne (unless you marry a catholic – but that is another matter…)
as “unfair" and "a load of rubbish".
she went on to say "i have always thought that what we have to do with the royal family is integrate them as far as possible into the human race."
we all know that there is a glass ceiling for women in the economy and perhaps changing such a venerable institution as the royal family may encourage businesses around the country to give women equal pay and equal opportunities in the work place. but i doubt it.
why?
let’s be fair we have had a queen on the throne since 1952 and still the situation for women lags behind that of men. we have even had a woman prime minister (though most of us are still trying to forget those harrowing years) but look at parliament and look at the make up of the parties. look closely and you can see some women.
even with major examples there is much resistance to giving women equality so playing around with the royal family just seems to be no more than gesture politics.
but what really makes the whole thing, to quote ms baird, “a load of rubbish” is that the royal family by its very nature is unequal, it is a hereditary institution there is no equality in it – you have to be born into. it is not about ability, it is just about being there.
the exercise would make sense if people showed respect to the royal family, but as it stands very few people care about the status of the royal family, they are just interested in their antics.
perhaps ms baird would be better off looking at parliamentary institutions first.

notice

it has been coming for anew months now. although there were a few twists and turns at the end i am now looking forward to some serious changes in my life in the next few months.
my notice has been accepted and sometime soon i will take my redundancy package and move on.
have to say it is a very scary thing i am doing, been doing this for 20 years and perhaps i am too old to be changing careers. i can feel some twinges of regret and fear.
the short term future is going to be interesting, i suspect it might be my brown trouser period (and if i can sell those skidders for the sort of money picasso’s demand then i will have nothing to fear).
ah well i only ever wanted to work for them for 6 months….

moobs

this weekend sees the running of the london marathon, one of the great modern sporting events.
each year it is run i promise myself that the next year i am going to run a marathon, each year that promise gets less and less likely to ever come to pass (especially as i recently ran for a bus and then had to spend the whole of the journey panting to get my breath back….)

even though i have not been in training for the marathon i do seem to have one thing in common with many of the runners. i have chaffed nipples.
yes even though i have not run any sort of distance it seems my nipples have been rubbed raw.
how can that be?
well the sad (but true) answer seems to be that i have piled on a few pounds recently and that instead of going to my hips that have gone to the nips. yes i have developed man-boobs. i have moobs.
it seems that the reason i have chaffed nipples is to do with the jiggle jaggle of my man-boobs as i walk to and from work. this has been made worse by the recent cold weather making my nipples stick out like buttons.

sore nips.
ooooowww is all i can say.

brown

he shoots. he scores.

gordon brown struck gold today as it was announced that he would not be going to the opening ceremony of the olympics.
good for gordon brown.

except it appears he was never going to go to the opening ceremony, his intention all along was to go to the closing ceremony. when he had told people this back in march he had also mentioned that he was planning on meeting the dalai lama, guess which part of that press briefing made the news?
yup.

even though it is not a change of plans for brown he is now embroiled in a row as to whether or not he is boycotting the olympics. so the guardian writes: “despite the complication of other european leaders not going brown has continued to commit himself to being seen at the olympics.” which would be good other than the fact all they have said is that they will not attend the opening ceremony none of them seem to have said “there will be no official representation from us in beijing”.

you have to say who would want to be the leader of the country when there is such a rush to criticise anything that they do.
my sympathy is with gordon brown on this as no matter what he did he would have been criticised. while we have a chance to win a few gold medals gordon brown really has to work hard for his few victories.

diana

just thought i would jump on the bandwagon and see if chucking diana’s name in the title gets me a lot of people dropping by.
so the inquest comes out and says what we all knew: car crash caused by reckless stupid people. fantastic. worth every penny.
hopefully that will be it.
oh no al fayed is still going on about it being murder. as al fayed has shown himself to be less than balanced (oh ok teetering on the edge...)
but the biscuit has to go to kelvin mackenzie (ex sun editor) while he agreed that the paparazzi were to blame (he was at pains to make sure everyone was aware that it was french and italian paparazzi who were responsible and not the good old jolly sensible british paparazzi) but he followed that with the veiled accusation that this was all because of the readership of the papers they demand to know everything about the various numerous celebs. it is our appetite for lurid details that caused this. rather than the fact that the tabloids spend a lot of time building people up only to spend a lot of time breaking them down.

will that be the end of it?
you don’t need me to answer that.

torch

today was the day the olympic torch came to town.
not a good day. we had snow and the london streets were wet and cold. the weather meant that the turn out along the route would be sparse, and as i went past whitechapel that seemed to be the case, only a few straggling policemen on the high street.
when i returned a little later there was a fair sized crowd. a nice buzz of anticipation.
there didn’t seem to be too much of a protest.
on come the joggers with the torch (have to say i couldn’t see the torch).
as they approached there was a mix of cheers and boos.
then a certain amount of surprise and disbelief as we all registered that the torch runners in their blue and white tracksuits were flanked by a troop of police. some dressed in yellow tops, some decked out in action man boiler suits, all of them looking pretty much shagged from having run along with the torch.
just as the procession exited the whitechapel high street to go into the mile end road it came to a stop. double backed and hopped onto a bus to continue on.
fantastic the protest for a free tibet forced the torch to continue the journey on a bus.

there is a part of me that believes that sport and politics should not mix.
i find myself in agreement with steve redgrave who argues that sport is an easy target because you don’t see the protesters outside the offices of companies or government departments who deal with china. nor do we see the protesters outside of stores who sell chinese goods.
the olympic torch is an easy target, which allows people to make their point and get maximum publicity.

where i disagree with redgrave and the like is that in the main the competitors we send to the beijing olympics will have been funded by state money so there is validity in the protest. it is our money and perhaps we should have a say in where we send our national squads.
the problem is the demonstrations against the torch are no more than feel good actions. tomorrow nothing much will have changed, other than the organisers will be accused of not planning and preparing the route much better and tightening the security.
the business of dealing with china will continue, at some point during the week some of us will buy something that is “made in china”. come the summer we will try to avoid it but somehow or another we will watch some of the games.
but right now we can feel good for making a bit of a show to embarrass china.

return

i was asked the other day if i had lost my blogging mojo. sad to say i had, but i think i have come through one of my periodic lets pass on the blog phases and i am back to join the fray.
it is not that i haven’t had things to say but more to do with the work situation just grinding me down and making me a duller person than normal, more on that at a later date.

so here is a little snapshot of what i haven’t written about (don’t worry the nature of things is that these subjects are likely to pop up again allowing me to vent my spleen…)

the brothers peter and christopher hitchens have provided me with hoots a plenty recently. peter’s column in the mail on sunday always provides a laugh or two. his desire for a freer country is admirable but that has to be tempered by the fact that he really only means freedoms for some people (and they would be the white middle classes) and not everyone. it is a little like his claims for the keeping on national identity (part of the mail on sunday’s campaign to keep britannia on the 50 pence piece), it is a very specific identity that should be protected.
meanwhile christopher has obviously decided that peter’s problems stem from him being full of faith so chris has attacked faith in is most recent book “god is not great”. now i declare an interest here: i was raised a catholic and while like many catholics i am fallen i still have faith. like eve and the apple i was tempted to buy the book but a quick flick through it made me stop and consider.
did i really see that? double check. blimey, i did!
in order to score a point or two against christianity christopher has cited dan brown’s “da vinci code”. fantastic. you would have thought he would have at least quoted the book that brown stole from (sorry referenced) “holy blood, holy grail” (or perhaps christopher thought that was just cod history…..)
as for mr. hitchens book i will wait for it to be remaindered or given to me.

technology: been having trouble with my ipod, for the moment it just wants to play the almighty, acid mothers temple and bauhaus. getting a little boring.
then there were the problems i had with flickr, partly of my own making, partly thanks to their (un)help desk. but all sorted now. off you go and check out some of my pics (and, paul, i am sure that there are a few happy ones there for you…)

sport: the media went into hyperdrive about the beckham circus completely ignoring the fact that they could avoid the “circus” by talking to someone else instead, but that doesn’t sell newspapers.
dwain chambers a successful british sprinter, got caught with drugs, was banned, did his time, has come back. the powers that be have tried their best to keep dwain out of the sport, but their own rules are against them. in the end it looks like dwain will be driven out of the sport because he won’t be able to earn lots of cash on the athletic circuit. so he can be prevented from running in commercial events because he just doesn’t get invited, but a national association can be taken to court so that he can run in the national colours. makes sense to me.
dwain has now moved on to rugby league, at least for this week.
for the time being i’ll pass on the olympics, 2008 is going to be a year of sport and politics claiming that never the twain shall meet, but we know different.
so britain won a lot of gold medals in the bicycle world championships. as ever it will be a flash in the pan of the nation’s consciousness. which is a little bit surprising as several of the women riders are quite hot, they should be celebrated, raised up as superstars and then be given a custard rub down…. sorry that was me having a bit of a fantasy there.
we really don’t like celebrating winners.

politics: looks like there will be changes coming. i really wanted hillary to win (but then i was also hoping for a cat fight between her and condi, but again that is another of those personal fantasys that i shouldn’t share). now that hillary has misspoken or, more accurately, lied she looks somewhat less presidential.
the battle between her and obama has shown just how bizarre the american political process is. if i hear another american tell me how anyone can become president i will slap them silly. unless of course they add the caveat “as long as they are very very rich or know very very rich people”, and then i will believe them.
back home poor old gordon can’t buy a break. he should never have contemplated the early election, but once he started he should have followed through. he would have won. instead he gave cameron a weapon to hit him with, now gordon is a ditherer. it has stuck. now everything is his fault.
in london it looks like it boris has learnt from cameron and is running a campaign that means he stands a very very good chance of winning. ken livingstone is being attacked from all sides even the observer recently carried a piece by max hastings that basically said ken’s time is up. it also had the lovely moment where hastings pointed out that ken’s administration was corrupt even though ken himself had not benefited from it (so ken is useless on two counts – can’t keep his administration in check and he can’t make any cash out of it).
if boris wins then cameron will be a happy man as it means he will probably be the next prime minister.

there was talk about making kids take a pledge of allegiance when they graduate. it was about building a sense of community. my only real problem with this is: why just when they graduate? just once is not enough to build a sense of anything (well except in some cases like where you break a bone – then you know not to do it again). my long rumination on community will wait for another day.
can’t help but notice it has dropped off the radar.

the cbi still annoys me. their one strength is that they do have the answer to all the world’s ills: business should pay less tax and have much fewer rules and regulations. we can see how successful that is with northern rock. oh sorry that was gordon brown’s fault.

amazon still disappoints, but i still seem to spend far too much on books, cds and dvds when it so obvious i will never get around to watching or reading them all…. oh well at least i am not buying shoes.

oh and in this very brief round up of things i might have written about i just have to mention that my bowel movements have not be very regular i have gone from being constipated to pebble dashing the toilet.
ah the mojo is back.
you lucky people.

bracing

the “perfect storm” is supposed to be hitting the uk today. when i woke up i could see it had rained. when i got out into the early morning air i could feel a nip in the wind.
a brisk longish walk in the bracing breeze and a light drizzle, nature’s own wake up call.
a great way to start the day.

jaffa

just eaten a box of jaffa cakes.
tasted nice at the time.
feel sick now.
my own fault.
but feel pity for me.

depressing

i have the utmost respect for people who deal with the general public. doesn’t matter if they work in shops, work in call centres; work in public services i admire them they do something i couldn’t do.
why?
because when it comes right down to it the general public are not very nice at all.

there i was on the bus the other day when i notice a sign that proclaims, “our staff will not be spat at”.
which seems fair enough. even if some of the bus drivers i have been subjected to deserve to be burnt at the stake, oh ok that is a bit harsh, perhaps put in the stocks…

the sign goes on to say that all of their staff carry a dna kit around with them in order to make sure that the perpetrators can be caught and prosecuted.

i shook my head and wondered what the world was coming to.

quotes

i have a confession to make: i watch “two pints of lager and a packet of crisps”. if i have to justify my viewing of this bbc3 series it is because i think kathryn drysdale is scrummy and you can see the room i stay in when i am runcorn (where i watch the programme – it is sort of metatextual post-modern reasoning here).
the other reason is that it is crude and it makes me laugh.

as i was watching the latest episode (to be repeated several times this week on bbc3) gaz and janet were about to have a naughty fumble – both feeling guilty because she is the widow of gaz’s best friend and she is the best friend of gaz’s wife – when janet decides they can’t because her dead husband can probably see them.
gaz says that is not the case, to which she says:
“no he is everywhere like god, or polish people.”

i snorted my mouthful of pepsi.

coffee

i am in brick lane.
i am drinking coffee.
i will be going to the tate modern.
all is well in the world.

i am happy.

pics

more of them. i know you love them.

pics

amazingly with all the techology at my hands i managed to get this one slightly out of focused.
top class.

pics

release

you can all rest easy. the floodgates have opened. the blockage has passed. i am no longer constipated.
relief.

quote

i was in pain last night (i still am) i think i have eaten something that has given me mild food poisioning. my guts rumbled, i thought i was going to hurl and my head throbbed.
my guts didn't give forth in a biblical fashion.
the hurl stayed put.
the head didn't explode.
i drifted into and out of sleep.
the tv was showing a sidney lumet movie "q&a" - a police thriller as a district attorney tries to nail a dishonest cop. it stars nick nolte, it is grim none of the characters are nice. to be honest i wasn't paying that much attention as i moaned and groaned with the pain in my tum.
it also features the rather striking jenny lumet. at one point the da (timothy hutton)is questioning various people but can't help but throw a few love lorn glances at ms lumet (can't blame him).
one of the da's assisstants turns to him and encourages him to hook up with her. he uses the rather catchy line of:

"why should all the bad guys get all the good pussy."
it was a line and half and made better as it was delivered by luis guzman.

i am currently i am constipated. so i am not a happy man, last night it was like i was going to flood the place out and tonight i am bunged up.
i tell you my life is hard.

divorce

he is a national treasure worth a lot of dosh.
she is a bit of a grasping nagging shrew.
my advice pay her a lot of money and get rid of her.
trust me it would be worth it.

(can you guess who i am talking about?)