TOP O THE SEARCH BLOGMUFFIN

Too good to bury on an old comment thread

2011-12-28T23:39:00.002Z

Comment by chris morrell
December 26, 2011
1:21 pm

Update on Eton rifle toting Robert Hardy lookalike David Cameron..and “the riots” and social networking.
“They” “looked at” the possibility of selectively closing down the internet because two or three idiots posted “lets riot” on Facebook… they were quickly disabused of the notion. Any real networking was going on with BLACKBERRY phones anyway! NOT Twitter or whatever, and Blackberry offered to collaborate.
The two sad twits who got NO responses to their incitement to riot on Facebook got sentenced (pending appeal) to FOUR YEARS each!
Thankfully,the current crop of cunts we have in Government are not so keen on being seen to be taking lessons from Egypt,Iran or China. Anyway, it must have dawned on these knee-jerk assholes that the internet and cell-phone networks are the most useful tool we have to TRACK the real villains,and enable surveillance and the cooperation of the majority ANYWAY!
The USA is still ahead of the field,as in the same month,we saw an outrage in San-Francisco.The transport department DID shut down the mobile phone system in response to protests at the killing of a homeless person by the Transport Police ( I heard about that on DemocracyNow!.org )

...The initial Cameron responses ,that the riots were “pure criminality” and the work of “gang culture” have ALL been thrown out by subsequent investigation. NOT the work of gangs,more a mass-response by aggrieved individuals. Also more a product of simmering underlying dispute with the Police...this with a racial bias,especially in London.
The initial incident was the killing of a drug dealer by rival Police departments. He had a gun but it was not in his possession (tossed into a garden nearby) A Policeman got shot in a supposed fire-fight ( wounded in the shoulder) but it was “blue on blue” ,a police bullet, that hit him. The family of the dead kid were roughed-up by Police when they gathered to protest the killing …that’s when the first RIOT started ,a Police car burnt and so-on.
There were and are political,deep-seated societal, police and justice-system/operational reasons for the riots..NOT just poor people grabbing a big T.V. and some trainers because they wanted “something for nothing” ,they being the the “workshy”,”feckless poor”.

That’s the shitty,pathetic, class-ridden,sniveling position that “Great-Britain” finds itself in these days...but otherwise ,everything’s great.

Running along the platform trying to piss into the train...as it's leaving.

2011-12-11T19:50:00.001Z

Hmmmm the Eurozone “veto” thing..

Initial reaction..i hate it …horrible ,horrible…horrible.

I think it sends out all the wrong signals, politically , culturally and ethically. Tactically it makes little sense as well.

All the old values ,the useless values of “trickle-down” light regulation of the City, poor workers rights etc are being upheld. ALL the wrong side of the line.

The Euro deal may be rubbish, and need lots of changes to get things right for the 26 or whoever, but the total sidelining of us Brits couldn’t get any more acute.. and I think it puts us firmly on the wrong side of the argument that is emerging GLOBALLY.

We appear to be saying “we are the posh boys,the city bankers ,you can’t tax or regulate us..it’s all we’ve got for fucks sake. We don’t make anything do we? We shift money around …for a living ,and we run the biggest Tax haven the World.

We know best .We went to Eton and all that.

The clip of Sarkosy that played on T.V news must have rung true with most people in the country..that is to say that,following the disasterous banking crisis we are still living through, at least a modicum of tighter regulation of the financial sector might do everyone a bit of good..This justaposed with our Prime Minister’s position of unbending support for the City,the financial sector that has just screwed our economy totally,forcing “austerity” on the many to ensure the “bail-out” of the few…with no return favours at all. The credit ratings agencies are downgrading French banks at the moment. Our position further entrenches the idea that the finance industry and the tax avoiding Corporations who “outsource” jobs to the cheap labour markets ,can never be challenged,never be made to “pay their way”

The few Pro-European “One Nation” Tories left must be thinking..ok you’ve finally got what you wanted.

Next step referendum on total withdrawal..and after all ,our total marginalisation is due mainly to not being in the Euro anyway.

Now we have the worst of both Worlds,rather than at least the better of one.

The thing is that this position gives Cameron and the right-wing Tories nothing anyway.

One thing it does confirm is “our” kindred spirit status with the American Government.

Just as they are the climate change denying killjoys at the COP ,which has ,of course,been almost wiped off our news agenda by the Eurozone. The Tories are looking back instead of forward to the Golden days of Little England.

The Shit Hits The Fan Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Post Google+ World

2011-12-04T22:42:00.005Z

In 2008,during one of our regular “coffee in town” discussions. I declared to my friend darcy that I thought that we were seeing the death of capitalism..he scoffed at the assertion. In retrospect I think I was right. The Banks were in the resuscitation room ,and the Government applied the fiscal paddles..we couldn’t possibly let the banks fail..let the “cash machines go dry” (who uses cash these days anyway?)..but the fact was that we were converting the massive debt of the banks into “sovereign debt” and now embarking upon a decade,maybe of “austerity” with NOTHING in return. If this had been a Samuel Beckett play it would have been “Endgame”…capitalism,at least in the form of the financial marketplace,had eaten itself,screwed up and run out of road.

This was the biggest failure of “private enterprise” being taken on by the state…

After 3 or so years in public ownership the sale of Northern Rock has netted a huge loss of £600 million plus.. The usual “all the last lot’s fault” came up again here with Mr Osborne saying that Mr Darling had put a “sell by date” ,on the deal,but of course they BOTH agreed that it should go back into the private sector AND remain a bank and not convert back to a mutual building society. They ALWAYS think it’s got to be worth a gamble don’t they? Never mind the way the financial markets have continued to tank all the time the Government held the controlling shares..under the stewardship of Branson's set of financial gamblers he’s bound to put it back in profit? Really? We’ll see. It will be all the more galling if..free of this time limit on selling it off,that even without undue “Casino” influences,and remaining in Government hands that Northern Rock could have in a couple of years netted a PROFIT for the U.K state

The losses to the treasury over the banking bail-out have not really been calculated, but it possibly runs into TRILLIONS..and you can’t really put a price on the destroyed adult lives of a whole generation or more…added to that the screwing up of those forced into redundancy or losing their jobs which ,up to now have been highly productive for the well-being of the country. My last reference is to the public sector squeeze that the slashing of local government settlements has brought.

The private sector has NOT created anything like a replacement number of jobs,shows no sign of doing so as confidence remains shaky and has neither the means nor the desire or inclination to repair the ruined public sector services anyway.

When a bunch of "Starbucks" store openings is hailed as a welcome boost to the economy we know that capitalist free enterprise is literally scraping the barrel of it’s aspirations.

The failure of the Private banks has led directly to pain for the State , the Public sector ..and we call it “Austerity” ..with the general narrative that some are bound to actually believe, that we have been “living beyond our means” and we have to cut back to afford what was far from over-funded in the first place.

..NO..the banks fucked-up..and the State took on the debt…as I have banged on about before..local Authorities did not,collectively,OVERSPEND up to £50 million on dinner ladies ,care workers and teaching assistants!!

The “plan” that Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne say they have to pursue, and cannot deviate from,is one that “reassures” the International bond markets.

The irony is that,the very “austerity” measures that they have, and intend to continue to implement, have had a deleterious effect on the meagre “recovery” that was underway as the last Parliament ended.

So the essential cuts to public spending,laudable for the reassurances that would be given to the international bond markets,thus keeping our borrowing interest low,are now giving those very bond markets,(for are there any other bastard bond markets?),cause to possibly reassess our credibility as debtors.

It’s a total mind-fuck in which the Worlds of Politics and the Fiscal Markets can seem to find no solution individually or collectively. One is making things worse for the other,and vice versa. ( or “Vi Sub-versa” as the little remembered ,even then ,middle-aged queen of radical feminist punk was known) … (give her a Google).

Fixing the bond market insolvency “first” time round (similar thing happened in the 30’s of course,but they tried not to talk about that too much) was the bail-out of the banking system in 2008..the collapse of Lehman Bros…the “end of capitalism as we knew it” as I called it …and got scoffed at…but if it happens again the banks will come running to Government again ,cap in hand because “you can’t let us fail” that would screw everything…but who’s meant to pay for this? All the rest of us of course! And the question that keeps being asked is “why should we pay for another bail-out when we did not create this crisis,and those who did are not suffering or paying back?

The fightback against "austerity" has begun including the biggest public sector strike in Britain since the twenties. This was dismissed by the Prime Minister, as a “damp squib” and the media gave more coverage to the Clarkson “outrage” ,over a poorly constructed and told joke about “balanced reporting on the BBC”

Taking a an aural snapshot (mixed metaphor or what?) this Sunday morning of our equivalent of the “shock-jock" radio phone ins etc shows the old “divide and rule” tactic being fully deployed and taken up with gusto..Public versus Private..what happened to “all in it together”? (I know THAT was a joke) When it’s public sector workers protesting, they conveniently cease to be “taxpayers” for a start.

Maybe,just maybe some of the Taboos about our economic system are being challenged and may be broken soon…A groundswell of a sort of collective “that’s enough!” is forming. “Occupy Wall St” and the strikes in Europe are the most obvious manifestations…we need a complete change to our systems of commerce and working practices.

“When the USA sneezes the world catches a cold” that old homily could well be turned on it’s head,as the world banking system is SO synced up and inter-dependent.

The “Eurozone” crisis will feed directly into the USA as the Federal reserve contemplates injecting more money into the U.S. banks “exposed” in Europe.

Public money and institutions ,once again will be called upon to save PRIVATE enterprise .

The “Occupy” movement has spread massively across the USA , the “point” of the protest now clearly directed against the lie of the “trickle-down” economics ,demonstrating that the system is not working …

One item on the agenda is the “Tobin Tax”, the tax on financial transactions.VAT for investment banks .This could be part of where the massive amounts of money,made by capitalist enterprises could be harvested to solve some of our problems..but yes! you guessed it ,the politicians are generally against it.as being a loss to “our” competitiveness, as it would stymie the trickle-down "wealth and job-makers"…a notion we now know is a complete lie.

The Brits say if we do it the USA will benefit..the USA say if we do it the Europeans will benefit ..They say everyone has to agree to introduce it at once . Of course ,that way ,they can always argue out of it … constantly.

Mrs Merkel is keen on it..Let’s hope it goes ahead in Europe.Germany will get all the stronger economically ,if and or when it is introduced.

As far as British Government is concerned.Never has a British Prime Minister looked more impotent than “mild euro sceptic” (is he?) Mr Cameron .

He is literally waving on the sidelines saying..”do let us know what you decide to do..we don’t want to get any closer,but,as you can see we ARE right here and whatever shit happens to you is going to at least splatter on our nice shiny shoes”. ( .. you’ve got shit on your shoes and I’m the shoe-shine boy…? WTF?)

Frankly ,the European big hitters probably couldn’t give a fucking toss what Cameron thinks or says, the same going for the general populations.

Our general understanding and comprehension of the politics of the “Eurozone” remains woeful, based on all the stupid tabloid notions of “Brussels bureaucrats” ,”straight bananas” the ideas of Tory twits like Daniel Hannon and Bill Cash etc

As for the rump of the Tory right, the confirmed” Euro sceptics” To be rubbing their hands as the Euro “burns” thinking , now’s the time to “Repatriate powers” (whatever that might mean) from the E.U. ..well that just shows that we have ,possibly the least-well equipped Government both politically and ideologically to deal properly with our involvement and OBLIGATIONS to the E.U. and the continent of Europe. Let’s hope that Cameron is as intelligent and personable as he can seem..Other than when talking about his own people,of course ..ie “purely criminal underclass”..”damp squib” of biggest strike since the 20’s ..”give him another chance”..re Andy Coulson,“do come round again for Christmas dinner” Rebekah Brookes and James Murdoch etc)

However he is all we have at the moment and may be the only Tory other than Ken Clarke to have any appetite for the sort of CLOSER cooperation and involvement with Europe that we MUST now seek openly.

This sort of restructuring of thought…(maybe we will have to wait until this Government are kicked out?) is part of the major change that has to be made.

Not a lot of inspiration on display from Mr Miliband who can’t even perform the traditional role of “opposition leader” and leader of the “Labour” party by at least supporting the striking public sector workers, in their clearly correct exposure of the FAILURE of the Government

Most of us think that Mr Clegg and his party will be "dead in the water",come the next election.

The wages of the majority have been stagnant for 40 years.. the super-rich have had a FORTY percent tax reduction over that period..to even THINK of cutting Britain’s 50pence rate is crazy..top rates of tax should GO UP to 70 or 80 percent. Of course this can NEVER be discussed. The people who caused the crisis are not being asked to pay by this set of equally dysfunctional politicians.. despite the fact that independent economists agree that this would be the best way to solve our financial problems

The whole way that free-enterprise is structured should be different..

Instead of top down management, a boardroom of 20 people,share-holders… soon as the company gets big ..sells off to the highest bidder..the jobs go to a cheaper labour force. We know the story..it has FAILED. The more successful the company the more it lets down the indigenous population and the area it sprang up in…

It should be “bottom-up” ..Democratic…the workers should own the company..and make all the big decisions , keep it sustainable , source locally ,support the local population and at the same time deal responsibly with the Global marketplace.

New start-ups should model themselves more like this.. They may be forced to anyway, as they may well have to be self-funded initially ,what with the lack of credit available from the traditional sources.

The “old” politics and fiscal money-market ideas..learned at Eton and Cambridge in the 80’s or wherever our current crop of career politicos did any financial studying, need to be ditched ..

The Euro break-up can be projected onto all layers of society to illustrate the obvious

fundamental fault lines..if you have vast inequality built in to the system ,then you are always headed for disaster.

The State We Are Becoming

2011-09-26T23:46:00.004Z

It seems that a collective hypnosis has overtaken the “Western” World..why are we so in thrall to the IMF and the International bond traders?..”Trickle Down” .Reaganomics” Thatcherism” “New Labour” “Con-Dem” are being revealed more and more as sick jokes on us all..
What are Governments for if not to provide for the majority of their people?
The Rich are in charge ..and refuse to relinquish their stranglehold on the economic model that purely serves THEM.
We need a complete reconstruction of our society..and I don’t mean the meaningLESS “Big Society” slogan. The very voluntary organisations that the BS claims to want to promote are being DISMANTLED as Local Authority support is
withdrawn..and it’s not just the “caring professions” that are being unfairly cut by pursuit of deficit reduction and scaling back of investment on “services” worldwide.

News comes now,in late September of a massive blow to jobs and manufacturing at our very core! “defence” manufacturing. 3000 jobs to go at BAE systems!! ..The one thing we always seem to be able to do is make Weapons! Now it seems we are losing OUT in THAT market too…Now ,obviously I would rather the highly-skilled people involved make something OTHER than weaponry,but this is an irony too far! One key loss of orders was for the “Typhoon” jet the “Eurofighter” a plane that has taken far too long to develop costs too much and is nowhere near as flexible in it’s deployment as the Harrier,that has just been finally scrapped…why on Earth did we/they not develop a direct REPLACEMENT for the VTOL Harrier?
Politics seems totally incapable of sorting things out…we have a “left-wing” that can’t even support Government job creation and empathise with those moved to industrial action!...and a “right-wing” that insists that we are weighed down by a huge debt that,instead of doing what we ALWAYS have done..and invest in jobs and grow out of the recession ,that we must “pay it off” in order to …in order to what? What giant brownie point-giver in the sky are we reducing our “deficit” for?..It’s a false argument..Countries are built on borrowing and investment that goes on into the future,without it EVER being called in..why would it be? If this current or impending situation is the economic “end of the world” then let’s accept it and hit the reset button! Cancel all the debts!
In fact,I believe one concession,handed out to the Egyptians in response to the protests and overthrow of Mubarek WAS a total debt amnesty! It only needs collective Political will…when are the World’s populations going to take charge and sort this madness out?
Coming down to the micro level,and my individual concerns.My day to day experience of working for Hampshire County Council,as a care assistant and assistant manager is directly impinged upon by the significant cuts to local authority budgets,which were proven to be unecessary in terms of cost cutting and efficiency..and ,despite reassurances to the contrary HAVE created real cuts to “front-line” services..after a gut-wrenching period of “restructuring” ,including an incredibly careless and botched round of voluntary redundancies,the only ultimate prospect,it seems is ,conversion to a 12 hour shift pattern for us all!!
This ALL in the light of the Dilnot report ,the increasing awareness of aging population growth,increased instance of dementia..all the factors we have been talking about for DECADES!
In the face of all this,a service ,provided directly by the local authority,in Hampshire’s case..a Service that it has been concluded needs VAST amounts MORE spent on it,ongoing, is being squeezed to a barely adequate level.

We are,through a set of varying circumstances,currently stumbling from day to day,not really knowing from one week to the next,just how we are going to cover our shifts.
Much of social services is effectively being done by volunteers..we are currently dismantling our Welfare State… with nothing and nobody likely to step up and replace or rebuild it..The Labour Party currently seem completely useless,immobilised by Blair’s deconstruction of the whole Public Service ethos..they make NO sense.
The current leader cannot even bring himself to at least EMPATHISE with the decision of the Teachers to take strike action earlier this year!
Following the Labour convention this week..and the inevitable calls for strikes that will come from UNISON and UNITE later in the year..what conclusions will we come to other than Labour are useless the Unions are powerless…and those “in charge” the ConDems still do not look as if they know WHAT to do…other than pander to big-business and the banks!?

Slimlogique (5)

2011-09-05T11:23:00.000Z

Slimlogique (5):

'via Blog this'

Senna Montage

2011-08-27T19:34:00.001Z

Senna Montage, a photo by chrissie j morrell esquire on Flickr.

I sold this picture earlier this year...i drew it in 1994 or 95...

Anarchy in the U.K. ...discuss (part one)

2011-08-15T22:54:00.004Z

So what do you make of it all then?
A week on with ,I would have imagine, a large proportion of the looting “rioters” having been arrested …pending confirmation mostly via CCTV
Punishment ranging from fines ASBOs? and short to long term custodial sentences, has been and is being dealt out . SO What do we do now?
The unrest that is apparently “just below the surface” did not spring from “pure and simple” criminality”..that is too simplistic .
A few days on ,and the two main Political leaders have come out with some more thoughtful responses.
To say that the riots had NO political motivation is wrong… for a start the initial incident in Tottenham seems to be a legitimate rallying point for racial and a general “under-class” dispute with the Police…the young man who was shot WAS a criminal a drug dealer..but he was NOT shooting back at the Police as was at first suggested by the reports of the bullet lodged in the Policeman’s radio..That turned out to be a “blue on blue” strike..a police bullet…the outrage in that community was expressed first in a peaceful way..then ,heavy-handed policing sparked the first riots…
We then saw a clear expression of the “politics” of those motivated by the hysteria that seemed to spread to some select “hot spots” ..The politics ,you could say, of the avaricious rage of acquisition …It’s what informs the Capiltalist system from the top down!
Greed ,exploitation of weakness, opportunistic acquisition. Get all you can for yourself and fuck everyone else.. even if it means whole economies like Greece and Ireland are ruined for a generation…
Whatever way the communication lines ran “facebook” e-mail on phones or just watching the T.V news..criminal elements “piggy-backed” the situation around the country..the damage and violence was appalling and led to murder and mindless thuggery etc all that..but ,as I began , 2000 or so arrests ,accounts for almost the ENTIRE country-wide riot..England WAS NOT on fire! This is STILL a civilised country.
The rows over operational responsibility between the Police and the Government and individually, over proposed cuts to the police budget between Boris and David Cameron are in full swing…the biggest headline response looks worryingly “knee-jerk”…
A “War on Gangs “ and bringing in an American “Supercop” sounds like a recipe for …well War! The challenge to the “Gangs” would be met with more resentment and simmering fury,however wrong-headed it might seem…the American “expert” being brought in is a slap in the face for the Met…and the same old sticking plaster response.. This is really an insult to all of us.
How can Bratton employ his “broken-windows AKA zero tolerance” policies without ARMED Police in the first place? The first thing he will surely say is GIVE ME MORE MONEY…and that will be on top of his own private fee..he touts his “expertise” for money these days…same old story.
Funny how “throwing money at the problem” is never the answer in relation to Public services,but someone like Cameron can sideline those who are actually doing the job and find it legitimate to employ an expensive “consultant” every time.

chris morrell - Google+

2011-08-05T22:49:00.000Z

chris morrell - Google+

What Just Happened?

2011-08-05T11:52:00.013Z

What just happened in America?
It looked like the clearest demonstration that the people who are supposedly “in charge” of the most powerful country on the planet are a bunch of self-serving idiots with no real concept of public service.. They are in thrall to the Banks the money markets and the big corporations…they put $16 trillion into the banking system and are proceeding to borrow from those same people without taxing them ..then paying back with interest..and whose picking up the tab? The working poor..the elderly ..those without health-care insurance..in fact anyone OTHER than the top two percent of the population who have all the money..Time was ,through the 50’s and 60’s ,following WW2 ,when America virtually “owned” the World ,they taxed those who had the means to spare a bit more cash..Taxation has shifted subsequently from the Corporations and the mega Rich to the backs of the hard-working poor , many of whom now are out of work, have little prospect of work,and are sleeping on the floors of local Schools.Check out Paul Mason's report. Newsnight
Who IS Obama?..what does he really think he is doing?
At the moment it looks like he could be shaping up to be THE most ineffectual President EVER..After being voted in with the biggest ever wave of “hope for change” or whatever it was. He even got the Nobel Prize for “not being Bush”
The same taxation shift ,from rich to poor has also occured in Britain... We just let it happen and have started to believe that NONE of the Welfare State provisions that we set up following WW2 and were rightly lauded for are affordable..and everyone has to pay big business with interest for the right to a job and a pension.
The row in the States as we all know was over raising the “Debt ceiling”..the “Public borrowing requirement” as it is known in the U.K/ NO U.K government as far as I know has EVER had such an argument. No previous U.S President has ever been forced into trading tax or public spending policy in exchange for agreement on raising the “debt ceiling”. To give Obama the “benefit of the doubt”,he has been forced unwillingly into these spending cuts by the hysterical right-wing of the Republicans the “Tea Party” ..a “movement" based on a misnomer as George Monbiot reminded ,and or informed us …We ,in the U.K. HAVE of course lately decided that we also have to reign-in spending ,the argument being over the pace of spending reduction. (If you ask me “our”Government is currently looking stupid over this aswell,but anyway)…
Ironically the requirement for Congress to sign-off on the borrowing requirement was introduced in 1917 to prevent the then President from running up spending on WAR!... A few weeks ago,again ironically there was a cross party attempt to stop the funding for the “War” on Libya..which Obama slapped down by stating that it wasn’t a “War” because they were bombing and killing people over there but “our” people were not getting killed. What a horrible justification .
Anyway back to the “stupid economy”..”stupid” as Bill Clinton might say…
Does Obama really believe in “trickle down “ Reagan / Thatcher style economics.. It seems so ..He carried through the Bush tax cuts..that were supposed to encourage private finance to create jobs..they havn’t done it! So has he just been railroaded by the Republicans into making more concessions to the Rich..the Corporations and the banks? Or did he want to do it anyway ?..needing little encouragement to cut public spending and ,faced with the rabidly anti-government of any kind “tea party” ..he ends up STILL looking at least “centerist” a “Blairite” if you will.
We have been talked and “spun” into the same position “over here” in the U.K…
The moderate people marching in demonstration against the public spending cuts must now be doing a “double-take” on their moderation. HOW exactly does cutting public spending,pressing local authorities into making people redundant,shedding useful public service jobs , teaching assistants ,care assistants, POLICE even ! thus reducing the tax take..AND increasing the benefits bill ..how does that lead to any sort of GROWTH in the economy?..The short answer is that IT DOESN’T…it’s a recipe for recession..it’s regressive and deflationary..and in the USA it’s already looking like a disasterous course of action ,for the “working poor” especially BLACK America and especially BLACK WOMEN .. Obama is Presiding over the BIGGEST wealth gap between Black and White and Hispanic America..and the stupidly corporate driven “deficit reduction” deal they have just struck is the biggest divide and demonstration of disfunction in the politics and in Capitalism as a system to provide for the people of the “Western” “developed” countries. It looks to me as if we are failing to get enough of the right calibre of person anywhere near to politics,let alone Party politics to have the courage and vision to Govern in the interests of the many rather than the few.
As for our system of Capitalism and economic growth to provide and create wealth and fund our society going forward..well,after the crash of 2008 i said to a friend of mine ,surely (his name isn't shirley it's darcy, but whatever) this IS sort of "the DEATH of Capitalism" ..and he scoffed...but i persisted ..the World Banking system THE biggest private Capital project on the Planet had fucked itself up ,with no way OTHER than to go cap in hand to Government. It was "Endgame" for Capitalism.
Toss-pot economists argue of Hayakian versus Keynesian policy..the facts of the matter were that Governments stared into the abyss of letting BANKING fail and said NO..they CHOSE to save the banks rather than the States! We ARE TRULY FUCKED...

Sources for this include of course democracynow.org over the last few weeks notably the contributions of Michael Hudson of Missouri Uni and Richard Wolff author of
"Capitalism hits the fan : the Global economic meltdown and what to do about it"

Chloe, north of 59: If you sup with the devil...

2011-07-19T19:01:00.002Z

Chloe, north of 59: If you sup with the devil...: "If you sup with the devil you need a long spoon . This phrase has been going through my mind many times as the Murdoch scandal has unfolded..."
Shared with me anonomously via twitter a brilliantly lucid summation here of "how we got here"

chris morrell - Google+

2011-07-15T22:34:00.000Z

chris morrell - Google+

Dilnot Willnot part two

2011-07-14T21:02:00.004Z

The Dilnot report has been swamped in the News agenda by"#hackgate"...but the report still represents ideas for reform of how we pay for care in old age,should we need it.
Given that the biggest problem at this moment with elderly care provision ,for both the public AND the private sector is lack of funds available to Local Authorities,how does Dilnot address this?
The “cap” of £35,000 a year is just for “care” costs. “Bed and board” is extra.
So,with the average private home looking for around 8 to £900 a week,looks like we might have to insure ourselves for a further £20,000 or so per year of costs.
The Insurance companies must be rubbing their hands together at the thought…along with the proposal that pensioners CARRY ON paying National Insurance…but . even given the means,only one in four will ever need 24 hour care,so at which point would you take out the policy? Unless ,on retirement we were all FORCED to take one out,along with continuing to pay national insurance...once again,those with modest assets and no house to sell,will have vital parts of their ,then fixed income devoted to insurance for something they may never need.
I don't have children,but i do not object to my taxes going into education..i've needed a doctor or two in my time...but i have not been in Hospital for long periods recieving expensive treatment...but i do not resent paying for the NHS...
Now,I’m pretty damn sure that most of the people that I look after in the Local authority care home that I work at,do NOT have anything like access to £35,000 a year ,let alone £52,000!!! Maybe I’m wrong ,and they are all millionaires,or heirs to fortunes from business ventures of the fifties and sixties…but it’s probably nearer the truth that this selection of men who fought ,and or were invalided out of fighting the second World War and women who brought up the now late middle-aged freshly redundant,or just retiring “baby boomers” get by with a meagre state pension,added to whatever private or work-related pension totalling ,at most ,two-thirds of their costs ,with the local authority, making up the difference to a greater or lesser degree.
As far as preventing the “scandal” of people having to sell their homes,well if they ARE home owners in the first place,and that is their only asset,how does Dilnot prevent that? £35,000 is still more money than I have or will ever see in one go. Without massive savings surely most people who end up requiring full-time care will STILL have to sell up completely. You can’t sell a third of a house!!
What is currently seen as a capital asset to borrow money against hand over fist throughout someones adult ,working lifetime ie the mortgage or ownership of a property ,in retirement and in need of expensive care costs then becomes inviolable ,scandalous that it cannot be bequeathed to children that may or may not exist or be in any need of that asset. Why do those who CAN afford to pay suddenly have to be protected from having to do so? anyway “you can’t take it with you” and all that.
The mantra of "patient choice" is one we will never get round from our elected politicians. What are we choosing/ I really would like to see some concrete examples of where OTHER than the most local Hospital or care home or whatever represents a real "positive choice transaction"
I can think of at least one example of costs dictating where someone is living. Where’s the choice,when one individual,quite happily living in a private residential home,very close to his daughter,has been moved half a dozen miles away to live with us,because the private home is too expensive for the local authority to justify funding?... and If THAT home has a high occupancy dependent business model like Southern Cross,then how long can it go on “losing custom” in this way,and both maintain it’s care standards and justify it’s higher price in the first place? Simple business rules start to apply.
The local authority will spend it’s shrinking resources elsewhere,and ideally ,as is the case with my authority,place people in homes that they operate anyway.
Just look at the awful mess now being left by the closure of Southern Cross.
A myriad of small providers of varying voracity and capability are left to pick up the pieces. Some will not be able to meet the requirements. Some of the older shabbier homes will be too unattractive for any new provider to take on.
It looks very much as if Local authorities will also have to step up and help sort it out.
The Public sector once again bailing out failure of the private sector.

Dilnot Willnot...if you have not got none part one...

2011-07-12T22:42:00.007Z

The Dilnot report what to make of it?
This,is the long-anticipated report by Economist Andrew Dilnot … meant to be the “once in a generation” chance to reform the way we pay for elderly care.
Several high-profile Stakeholders think it’s a good set of proposals,but I can’t really see how it addresses what I see at the “sharp end” ie actually having worked in a private ,and still working in a public sector care home.
The Local Authorities can barely find the funds to maintain services as they are now. Along with cuts to other services, good people with many years loyal service ,highly skilled people are being lost to voluntary redundancy ,those remaining are being “spread thinner” through redeployment ,working longer hours for less ,in a job that is only modestly paid anyway £8.00 or so an hour in my case ,£9 or so in some private homes…and surely the crux of the matter at this moment is that the myriad of private providers (leaving aside the implosion of Southern Cross) are set to fail ,even the brilliantly run ones,that go the extra mile to provide a really caring home environment … The majority of their residents rely on local authority funding to pay the fees ,and this money is currently being REDUCED They rely on high occupancy to keep themselves solvent,so they need to keep their reputation high...They also rely on employing many migrant workers who seem prepared to accept much poorer pay and conditions than us Brits ,mainly i would imagine,because they do not intend to stay more than a few "seasons".They are rarely looking for anything resembling what we laughingly call a"career path"
There is no getting away from these facts.
We always hear about patient “choice”..well I’m sure that NONE of us would “choose” to get dementia,to lose our mobility through Parkinson’s disease or stroke…become incontinent,to not be able to get out of bed unaided,or use the toilet or have a bath without the physical help of another person
This is a circle that refuses to be squared without some sort of national insurance policy.
Along with all other areas of public provision that the local authorities run,far from being protected ,as the Government seemed to say,with an extra 2bn or so from NHS money,the budgets have been squeezed ,the standard of care,which has been barely adequate for several years,is about to suffer for the foreseeable future.
My Local authority is in the minority now,in providing residential care directly, but in the light of the ruinous Southern Cross affair, I feel that Public provision should be the model wherever possible
Any thought’s the County Council may have been entertaining of privatising it’s care homes,what with the new budget restrictions,must have been scotched now surely?
No private provider with any spare capacity or ambition to expand can see any way ahead for the market at the moment. The fact is that no private provider HAS any spare capacity or appetite for investment. fresh money will NOT i feel come from private equity .It just HAS to come from Central Government..nearly 2bn extra apparently to introduce the proposals i am scoffing at as ineffectual....yes Mr Dilnot try selling THAT to Mr Osborne. What will the IMF say?
A primary focus of Dilnot is “the scandal” of people selling their homes to pay for care..this is the “scandal” that I have never really been able to relate to.
Why is it ,that throughout an adult working life property is seen as a capital asset to borrow against ,hand over fist,but when a homeowner unfortunately late into retirement needs full-time care,their asset becomes inviolable,a scandal if they have to sell it? Surely those who CAN afford to pay should do so.
Dilnot also recommends raising the savings limit that cannot be taken for care costs to £100,000! You can't sell a third of a house,so those who's ONLY asset IS the house,will STILL have to sell up. These proposals ONLY make sense to an Economist and an Insurance broker.
My family have never owned any property,I am not likely to ever own any property ( I work in residential care! I don’t earn enough! )
My parents were not seduced by the “right to buy” policy of the eighties.
In 1970 the house they still live in was a council property,the rent was FIVE POUNDS a week! My father was keeping a family of four on £30 a week wages!
The “working poor” have stood absolutely still financially,what with the rent for that same house now at over a HUNDRED pounds a WEEK, being paid by two pensioners...and my salary of around £13,000 and rent of not far short of the same for a one-bedroom flat putting me in the same financial bracket as they were.
Some things that the working poor can never avoid of course are Taxes : income tax, national insurance ,pension contributions and local taxes…
So,as I understand it...all that Dilnot really seems to do is allow the undeniably better-off to keep more of their money and or property.

Crisis in Elderly Care...it's not getting any better.

2011-06-03T08:53:00.002Z

The Southern Cross fiasco has an air of inevitability about it for me
I feel the urge almost to gloat…this is the perfect storm of what makes my blood boil…the unsustainability of the “private” care home business,and the “financial wizardry” of those oh so clever assholes ,the private venture capital expertise that , not satisfied with any degree of altruism going forward, attempted to “make back” the capital investment by ,effectively selling peoples homes out from under them,only to be stung mercilessly by the extortionate rents that the greedy bastards they sold them to have ,year on year, attempted to extract….All in the name of greedy moneymaking,but bound up in the stupid stock exchange mess that could well see some of the more financially astute among the population of the care-homes actually owning shares in the Landlord companies within their own share portfolios!

“Granny Farming” as a close friend started to refer to it in the late nineties, began a decade earlier under Thatcher and Major..
Tax breaks for second businesses or whatever led to many of the sort of place I used to work at…find and convert an ex-farmhouse..put in a lift ..fill it with hopefully as many of the widowed or spinster ancients sitting in bungalows in the locale now valued in the millions ,with the acreage …and ,increasingly,of course those of more modest means ,who’s care was and still is subsidised to greater or lesser degrees by the LOCAL AUTHORITY.and ,crucially for those with a “Nursing Home” registration,the NHS.. Yes that very same local authority who have,as a result of the banking bail-out etc been instructed to do everything they do at the moment for ,on average, 50 million less per year…this funding “tug of war” between Health and Local Government is supposedly being addressed at the moment…
Back in the late eighties the future looked bright …blue horizons .the county still seemed to have a rich vein of little old ladies in bungalows…and of course this model for a small 20 to 30 bed Nursing Home,where “continual care” 24 hr “nursing care” is funded from the NHS has remained ,largely sustainable
In my county “residential care” is still under the direct auspicious of the county council..i am a county employee…In ’97 a privatising deal was on the table,being worked towards..with the change of Government,the political tide changed. We breathed a sigh of relief when the privatising deal was scrapped and we remained a public body.Our cache should be rising at this point!
Instead , we know what is happening to Local Authority budgets,we’ve got our work cut out like never before.
More than ever ,the publically run regulated and accountable service model looks the right way. We are in the minority in this respect…and the Southern Cross disaster will surely not be the last “financial crisis to hit a chain of private care homes.
It’s not comforting to us that in this age of “private consultancy” fixing the Public services,that an ex-employee of Southern Cross,is in charge of the “restructuring” of our service to accommodate the cuts!
The “Southern Cross” type companies are “dual registration”. If a service user needs subsidy for “residential care” that is “personal care”..help with washing and dressing ..short of “medical” care.Then they are means tested. The local authority subsidises them to a greater or lesser degree.
Obviously,for the likes of the stupidly greedy Southern Cross,the gravy train has run out of track. The local authorities were already putting a cap on subsidies that was beginning to impinge on the upper levels of the private homes profit margins, and in the case of Southern Cross their oh so clever money-making business model has become wholly unsustainable…
The CEO says that earlier this year the business was more “cash positive”..more deaths due to flu at Christmas? Greater throughput? …and of course that the care delivered “ will not be impaired” ..yes that’s because those workers are on about £13,000 ,have an empathy and aptitude for the job and are generally NOT selfish greedy bastards.
Well, now,with the local authority subsidy capped,and even reduced.they just cannot squeeze enough bloody cash out of their current crop of grannies and grandpas…
What self-respecting,right-thinking care-manager,would be placing someone in a Southern Cross home right now? In the knowledge that someone who may have just had to completely “realise their assets” ie ,sell their property ,to pay £900 a week for their care could be potentially throwing there lot in with a bankrupt company,looking for a set of buyers and or bail-out by the tax-payer?..Surely,they are dead in the water.
Why,short of a Government bail-out should their creditors and Landlords waive their own share-holders profits and write off their debts? A sudden attack of altruism and compassion from the world of finance? I don’t think so.
Don’t forget ,we are talking 31,000 people the population of a town like Newbury Berkshire,near where the Middletons live…..largely in at least their seventh and eigth decades..these are the people who were told that they could expect to be cared for from the “Cradle to the Grave”..they fought the Nazis..they saw the Welfare State created ,and ,from the eighties to the present,day gradually dismantled..where now ,more than ever, even complete financial security does not even secure a safe ,caring environment to live in…
As I run through this litany I find it harder than ever to believe that our county service is being squeezed and potentially degraded by cuts to budgets that ,following the Dilnot report on funding for elderly care,may look completely indefensible.
Will we ever ,as a society get our priorities right again?

Crisis In Elderly Care Provision

2011-04-03T19:00:00.000Z

It seems there is no going back now,and all local authorities are saddled with the big “front-loaded” cuts that the Government has decided have to be made.

Given that the budget for the Elderly Care service has always seemed to be “austere”,that the elderly frail and demented population is set to rise exponentially over the next decade or so ,given that provision is patchy and in some cases barely adequate now anyway. How can we justify ANY cuts in this area,that patently needs MORE investment?
An ex-Nurse who does our on-going “moving and handling” training,was saying that a care-home local to her ,was having to lose 400 plus “care-hours”..how can the service possibly be maintained to the same level?
The short-cuts and under-staffing that has characterised the Private Sector providers,especially on night-shifts,is now having to be advocated by the Public sector,thus encouraging the Private sector to cut-corners all the more. The sad facts are that moving into a care-home will become even more of a lottery as to the quality of care provided .
The workforce are currently being squeezed from all directions.
There is a public sector pay freeze overall. Weekend pay is being cut wether we like it or not.Maybe this is just a change in the working time culture? Saturday and Sunday are regular working days for an increasing number of the working population anyway.We will just have to accept this,obviously,but none of us were asking for a pay RISE In the first place. Just adequate “tools” to carry on doing the job.
Throughout what I might laughingly refer to as “my career” ,elderly residential,and now,increasingly dementia care has remained the “Cinderella service”..a patchwork of funding ,with a range of provision which is inconsistent in quality…
Only requiring the minimum of qualifications ,with relatively low pay.(Typically,around £8 an hour these days)The job of care-assistant for elderly residential care, despite what we know to be the personally fulfilling nature of the job, has remained largely low-status, not attracting graduates or many men. Seen as a “second-job”..the hours are flexible,but therefore quite often “part-time” . However,these factors are also virtues in that staffing mainly comes from the immediate locality and ,our unit ,like many across the County remains a vital asset to the local community. Witness the presence today, as I write,of a large number of us at two Funerals for local women,who both lived into their late nineties,under our care.
At our unit currently,three people in their mid-nineties have been reunited ,having known each-other at junior school!
In relation to this,i have recently been made aware of a BUPA report that shows the impending crisis in elderly care beds. With private homes in many cases not able to commercially withstand a lack of increase in local funding. It projects a shortfall of 81 to 100,000 "care" beds. With the NHS comprehensively "bed-blocked" across the Country as a result. The average Care Home bed ranges from £400 to £900 a week.Pretty steep anyway.
The same person,forced by lack of places to stay in an NHS bed costs around £1800 a week!
What IS the latest thinking on long-term care for the elderly? The last serious ideas seem to have been those of Andy Burnham the last Labour Health Secretary..Then of course we had all the “Death Tax” rubbishing as the Election Campaign took over ,and the whole issue seems to have been comprehensively “kicked into the long grass” once again. Surely we need a “National Elderly Care Service” funded by us all in some way?
Given that the economy WILL pick up over the next three to four years . Is there any “light at the end of the tunnel” for elderly care provision?
Will there be a restoration of funding to the local authorities?
If no ,then just what are we working towards? Bumbling on with the service deteriorating with overstressed staff effectively doing the same job and more, for less?
Or can we just count ourselves out of the equation altogether as Central Government urges Local Government to privatise and ,as I would see it ,down-grade all these essential services? This seems an unlikely prospect in light of the BUPA report..What financial incentives are there for private investment,when the funding is reliant on Local Government subsidy, and that is being reduced? It just does NOT add up.?
What are the prospects ,should they need 24 hr care for your parents ,or mine..or those of your neighbours and friends?
What are the black and white facts about the money available?
I read that £2Bn has been allocated, to be ring-fenced for elderly care. Central Government have instructed Local Government to do this,despite the general encouragement now NOT to ring-fence,and to allow more flexibility for Local Government to allocate funds.
The Local authorities are being asked to find average across the board cuts of roughly £55million..an "adult services" budget is typically £60 million ..if £2bn has been ring-fenced to preserve the increasing demands of elderly care across the Country then why are elderly care services being squeezed at all? The savings involved are in the hundreds of thousands..we are talking about thousands of Millions being allocated?
The £2Bn Spread over ,400 Local Authorities ,would mean roughly FIVE million extra for each.Adult Services.dept to start with.
Plus,if Local Authorities have any contingency funds, then why are they not using them now? What other disaster or crisis are they waiting for? Just what ARE the Local and Central Government officials up to.?
We have reached a crisis point in elderly care provision..it needs MORE funding not less.
Chris Morrell

speedtestusa

2011-02-05T00:11:00.001Z

speedtestusa
Originally uploaded by chrismorrell60

Who's Shrodinger's Dog Was It Anyway?

2011-01-30T02:32:00.003Z

I was working away at work as one does... and all that.
Oh there's a dog in here.. ah a sweet looking little thing..must belong to chris
(tine) ..(workmate)
That seemed like a natural thing to presume..yes it belongs to chris..or is being
doggy-sat for her daughter or something... the animal lover seems to be familiar
with it..wait a minute chris has got "scotties" ..this is a shitsue (is that how you
spell it?) hang on...a shit-tzu! a little unkempt (why isnt it UNKEPT?..there is NO
reason)
shit-tzu..a fluffy sweet looking yappy thing anyway..
Upstairs working working..no need to detail what i'm doing ...downstairs in a bit
..down by the laundry..there's the "guest dog" as i am thinking of it ..squaring up
against one of the workplace cats...the cat arched like half a car tyre...the fluffy
guest dog largely backed down ..yapped a little ..then backed down further.. "come
on you two" i addressed them as i do all animals,as if talking to the child of an
aquaintance..
I overhear some conversation about the dog "yeah i'll give her a ring about it..." .."
if we don't hear anything from the shelter i'll ask..." carried on working.. i gathered
up some rubbish to take out to the bins...I went down to the back door,propping it
open with my foot as i started to take out the heavy bags..."yappety yap" there was
the doggie..ooh it's running off.."hey *whistles* dog" " come back doggie" there
am i thinking "shit Chris' dog is running away..come back doggie!..."
The doggie started to run across the courtyard ...down the end of the pathway
stood a youngish looking woman she came out with "hello fluffy" or words to that
effect.. Hang -on i thought ..is that your dog..or were you just passing
with,coincidentally the SAME type of dog..it runs over near to this door APPEARS to
have come out from behind me...but ..wait a minute .What are the chances of that
happening? ( intellectual property of Harry Hill)...hang on again..as i approach her
she's on her mobile..she's obviously part of a highly organised local pedigree dog
napping gang.."yeah i've got her".."over by the bungalows"..the dog looks somehow
bigger now ..while she's holding it..or i suppose SHE must have been smaller..it
WAS a full Moon..Lunacy had me in it's grip..i dashed back inside to find chris.."that
dog it's just run over to the bungalows..and a woman has picked it up" i told her
..we both came back outside...chris hadnt yet realised how wrongly i was viewing
this and my mind was still operating inside a film where two dogs exist..a passing
dog snatcher mistakes one for the other and comedy ensues.."hey you with the dog"
i yelled... sounding like Larry David as i ran after the woman carrying "fluffy" off..i
caught her up,and waited for chris to join us both..she was still on her mobile.."yes
i've got her..but there's a bloke here who's worried i'm stealing her or something"
..the penny finally dropped as chris told the woman about contacting the "dog
rescue shelter" and i slapped my head in suitable comic realisation and self
admonishment as the story of the lost dog that had wandered into the
workplace..no name tag ..no sign of owner unfolded..i apologised profusely as the
friend of the owner explained how there was a "gap in the fence" it kept getting
through..and she "had pictures and everything" to prove ownership..
The full-moon shone down alarmingly brightly, it's magnetic gravitational oomph
continuing to tug at my all too gullable brain fluids...

TrickiWikiLeaks

2010-12-07T23:14:00.006Z

So the aftermath (on-going) of Wikileaks..it looks very much like the USA,CIA or whatever are literally trying to break the Internet...the manufactured "witch-hunt" of Julian Assange is utterly appalling and shows the USA up so badly. How far are they going to go?
In a game of "bad-guy Top Trumps" Assange is up there with Kim Jong Il and Bin Laden!
If "mucking-up" diplomacy means even a slight brake is applied to the virtual International bullying that the USA indulged in the last pathetic "Climate Change" talks..then that's no bad thing...
..That old chesnut about China building all those coal-fired stations looks pretty stupid,when China is the NUMBER ONE climate change fighter in terms of wind and wave and photovoltaic power. USA is way down the top twenty..this makes no sense ecologically or economically.. Even Bush murmered something about the U.S leading the way in "Green" technology..they are still spending a fraction of their War budget on it.

In further "fail" news it seems that President Obama is willing to totally "Cave" on the Bush tax-cut agenda.. He may split the Democrats totally on this..the same way Nick Clegg has virtually killed-off the Liberal-Democrat party in the U.K over tuition fees. Although that seems to be being sorted this evening.
Niether of these blokes seem anything like worthy of the votes they got nowadays.
The Gazan siege situation just gets worse..but the big bully in the region is supposed to be Iran and al Qaeda..why don't we listen to the people who live in the Middle-East? Not the selected quotes of the theologically driven maniacs or the Dictators, but the ordinary people who want to use Facebook and Twitter, go to University,live their lives putting all the stupid sectarian divisions behind them.
The Iranians seem to be completely mis-reading the "Wikileaks" leaks proclaiming it to be intentional leaking by the U.S to present the countries of the region as being "in fear" of Iran. I feel that this is a sad mis-reading,as it is the fact that Iran is squarely in "the cross-hairs" of the USA that threatens the stability of the region.
Ahmedinejahd's daft rhetoric is putting them all at risk from a U.S backed attack...primarily from Israel. He's pissing them all off by fullfilling his "mad Islamist" role. We need to communicate with the populace of Iran ,Yemen Iraq and Afghanistan on every social,diplomatic direct and indirect level.
The last thing we need is the destruction of the vital tool of cohesion that is the INTERNET...

That money was just resting in my account

2010-11-23T20:51:00.003Z

The Irish crisis brings up a load of "Father Ted" quotes ...and of course the "give us yer money"! one...but...

15 billion in cuts for the Irish public sector and We are borrowing another 7 billion in order to lend it to them!
Putting those HUGE figures in perspective..the "tax haven" of Ireland is currently host to around 100 BILLION dollars in tax-avoidance...Tax legally avoided by 100s of major companies like Cadbury's Scheppes and Vodaphone...with little or no evidence of the jobs or prosperity that these phantom" Financial Management Departments" bring to Dublin..
The same goes for the City Of London...Hundreds of billions of avoided tax pass through the City,and,save for the low-paid security and cleaning jobs that are created,the "prosperity" that this legal "money-laundering" circus provides is non-existent!..These are the companies that can place their financial departments anywhere,and we are always told would leave if we tried to tax them. It would make NO DIFFERENCE,we get nothing from them being here anyway!..
A culture of ever-decreasing Corporate taxation has developed ...part of a "market" you might say,in tax-haven status...So like other groupings of jobs and industries in general..the British Government is eager to maintain it's perceived influence over this market,as much as any other. Corperation tax has been in on a steady path downward.
Despite our efforts,pretty soon other tax-havens in the far east and India will be coming on-line..and these "Financial departments" may well leave anway...many will say good riddance of course..
My source for this.. the World Service...kept me awake between 3 and 4 in the morning!

Nuffin Ripple

2010-11-14T20:53:00.000Z

6 mix explores 2010’s most talked about music genre “Nuffin Ripple”
Featuring mixes from Native American Striplight and Tame Something. With it’s it’s linear non-digital earwave interpretation referencing vinyl platter-matter such as Bootlicking and Trendsville , Nuffin-Ripple set the blogs on fire when the term was first coined in the U.S at the end of 2009. Here we hear Native American Striplight and Tame Something ,both bands having been associated with liking weird eclectic sounds ,generally farted about with and often strained through a sock,for added retro LO-Finess …Used mostly as an aid for masking tinnitus, Nuffin-Ripple is fast becoming a late night substitute for the World Service…

Over Here

2010-09-22T20:13:00.006Z

In Britain

Over here the unions are the only real shrill voices of dissent,at the moment..along with Ed Balls of course…
The Con-Dem coalition still has an air of novelty.about it.. aren’t we so European all of a sudden.
.Brits are still reeling slightly,but ready to adopt the default “hard done by” position..
More than ever it seems Blair heralded the end of Politics as we knew it..he largely destroyed the notions of “left” and “Right”. New Labour didn’t ever really adopt any discernable “Labour” policies. When it did, with introduction of the ten pee tax rate.. Brown seemed to perpetrate the biggest fiscal/political gaff of all time by abolishing it in a claimed longer-term objective of ..well what? The alienation and total pissing-off of the last vestige of what might conceivably still be thought to be the “core” Labour vote?…turns out it was a mistake and the abolition was reversed ..well almost completely reversed The tax and benefits system,under Brown has become ridiculously complicated..it almost seemed that he would have been happiest if every point on the scale could have it’s own tax rate!
There is a sense of bewilderment still …oooh look a Coalition! ..how does this work?
Those of us who always question ..why do things have to be this way?
Alistair Darling had a deficit reduction program..over a longer period, with lesser initial cuts in Public spending..
This current deficit cutting agenda seems to have an element of Tory glee attached…
It does seem fundamentally wrong that ..having suffered the biggest ever failing of the private sector..in the form of the “credit Crunch” the “Bank Bailout” with private debt being converted into “sovereign debt” , Public money poured in to shore up the banking system..it is that very Public sector that has to be slashed to make up the short-fall.. the answer to this very unfair looking conundrum is of course that the Government can only cut public spending,cannot manipulate private spending…but the Banks now know that they are totally bulletproof…they can fuck up all over again…
Meanwhile there are no signs that the international bond markets are ready to turn us away any time soon…it’s like the Blair pre-emptive war strategy. As enunciated by Donald Rumsfeld .we cannot know what we don’t know…Only this time next year will the effects have started to become clear…What many are still wondering,is just what our rewards will be in the medium to long-term.
.The Banks are already back to “normal” Is there going to be any restructuring of banking,dividing “High st” from “Casino” as Vince Cable and other commentators have suggested is a must?
Is the Public sector going to be rebuilt when the economy recovers?

Our politics had already been all but destroyed by Blair..the New Labour ..New Conservativism..the Royalist peoples princess party of the Dome Brit Pop and focus groups..the one massive focus group that was the protests against the war on Iraq was the clearest and most ignored.. Latest research shows that our trust in Politicians was at it’s lowest ebb under Blair around 2007.. The failure of Brown and the revelations of the expenses “scandal” almost had an air of inevitability about them,in the wake of this dissolusion,largely based on Iraq/WMD and the “cowing” of the BBC with the Hutton Report (“Whitewash”) Remember the Snow-Storm over Downing St as the result was announced? "Give us a sign ..any sort of sign"!
The trouble is IRAQ just pisses all over any of the domestic success that Blair could be granted..obliterates it.. New Labour were of the “centre Left” but always made the lib-Dems look definitely to the LEFT of their policies..Now, Clegg will have none of that..his Conference speech strove for personal affirmation…and got a luke-warm response.. he is a “Centre Right Liberal” apparently. And the party should not ever again see itself as a “repository for the disaffected left” ..well sorry mate,that is precisely what Blair Brown and Mandy ( an obscure “Watch with Mother” show) turned the Lib-Dems into ..Up until now they always seemed “to the left” of Blairism
Opposing the Iraq invasion put them way out there for starters ,of course… while Blair re-writes History and compounds it with revisionism with his vanity publication Clegg takes that old chestnut “a week is a long time…etc” and injects oceans of Blue water and a millennia to distance himself from the clear position his party occupied before the phenomenon that was the last election…
Those who voted Lib-Dem voted for a ,as they saw it “fresh-faced” fairer , untainted version of what Brown might have offered…they were certainly closer to Labour than the Tories ,policy-wise…oh so slightly more “to the left” you might say..That is a phrase that is forever banished now,it seems…the Coalition is ,wait for it “Right for Right now”.Believe it or not that’s his Conference Slogan”!. ...methinks the lady doth say “Right” too many times..and he is described as a “Centre Right” liberal….what ever you do don’t say LEFT… Ok so there is no left and right anymore? Come off it! Then how the fuck are we going to judge any “ideas” behind any policy that might emerge..from either side..this presupposes the “Rose Garden/Brokeback” honeymoon goes on forever ,and politics from now on in Britain are conducted in a cross-party consensual never-never land..where no real “ideology” is ever expressed or pursued ,and all we have are highly educated managers to oversee the financial system and promote growth in the economy…About time we started appointing,or electing some experts then..instead of just taking the next set of Eton/Oxbridge types….
Of course this is a time ripe for conspiracy theories..Ask David Puttnam about the anti-BBC licence fee pro-Murdoch agenda that both Cameron (and Blair whilst in power) seem to have followed ..desperate times...an "Age of Austerity"? Bring on the alliteration..In this new Age of Austerity Aunty Adopts Austere Measures ...duh!

I like to be in a Merry Car

2010-09-22T19:54:00.003Z

In America…

Over there the hysterical and scary “Tea Party” is the scary and hysterical over-reaction to the first year of the Obama administration..and the gnats nadger of “socialist” policy making that it represents..blown up into ..the illegitimate President ..the Moslem Communist who’s a baby killing nazi!...yes a communist and a nazi at the same time…
To me he sounds more and more like any other U.S President..i’ve never really cared for the Luther-king “I have a dream” intonation..but now he regularly uses the “Make no mistake “ prefix that George Dubya seemed to introduce ,adopted in turn by Tony Blair…
Presumably the hordes of gun-toting creationist Tea Party activists all support the heartless mis-guided Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan..still craving never-ending vengeance for “9/11”…so I’d guess that they agree with the massive Government defense department spending the “ Military Industrial Complex” that drives the U.S economy and national moral-crusading conciousness… but then I thought Glen Beck was a character on “the Daily Show” ..Lewis black in a blonde wig..but,alas no….
Yes, so Obama is a Communist..he’s not a real American (ref the whole “birthers” movement) ..what else,he’s Moslem ,of course…Barack Hussein Obama? How could he not be..so he’s a “sleeper” President..will probably blow-up the White House with a “dirty bomb” as soon as he gets the chance…
They..“The Tea Baggers” ..are asking to “reclaim” America…by all means ..including Witchcraft?
The GOP is really just falling apart as the whack-jobs come out of the woodwork and seem to be trying to make Palin look Liberal…
The question among the cognescenti is..just how will the Democrats fuck this up..and miss the open goals presented …but that’s “Soccer” of course..a game that the U.S still hasn’t fully embraced…
I cant theorize abot the U.S. it just seems like brilliant comedy material and that’s about it.
Basically the Obama “”hope” “yes we can” agenda has crumbled under an unbelievable weight of expectation…the reality of power and getting things through Congress..unfairly making him look a fool

On a Scale of One to Ten

2010-09-06T21:01:00.004Z

Hi Billy
Long time no mail...so here goes the "catch-up"
So just how disappointed with Obama are you..on a scale of one to ten?..Eleven?

It's a laugh to listen back to the "Liberal" podcasts and general buzz and what-not as the election was playing out...
Never has a U.S election seemed more significant in my lifetime...(well,apart from Bush stealing the 2000 one that is)
That,"anyone other than Bush" euphoria,has well-and truly played out yeah?
Clinton sounds the more solid character to me (wish it was her more than ever now)
The ongoing joke that is Palin (Sarah not Michael)..goes from twisted strength to strength..appealing to the inherent ant-Moslem hatred via the totally ignorant "tea Party" ( i know it refers to Boston and Independence,but have they not heard of "tea bagging"? for fucks sake?)
My main source of a "realistic" perspective comes ,as ever from "the Daily Show" .
Stewart really nailed the "Ground-zero Mosque" fanaticism the other day. Pointing out the inconvenient truth that a major funder of Fox was a major funder of the islamic centre project...unbelievable ignorance, stupidity, or pure evil, as they put it in the T-Shirt debate...brilliant!
I would point you again to "the Bugle" ( it's on I-Tunes) podcast from John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman's satirical take...
A year or so in ,Obama sounds just like the American President and not much more...with a few distinctive equivalents of Bushisms ..notably the "kick their asses" remarks about B.P..you know,when all that nasty British Oil was spewing out all over the poor people of the Gulf coast...
I suppose we've got to still give him the benefit of the doubt. He was handed the most poisoned of Chalices The U.S and U.K. have now got to try to extricate themselves from Iraq and Afghanistan over the next decade or so..maybe the U.S will keep bases in Iraq for ever!?

As you may know little old Britain now has a COALITION Government..Hurrah! Anyone would think we were European or something pah!
In a frankly homophobic reference the "brokeback coalition" is so-named as messers Clegg and Cameron looked and sounded like a happily married gay couple as they announced some of what appear to be the most reactionary right-wing policies in decades..
It does rather seem as if we have a very Conservative Government using the Liberal Democrats as political beards...( i use Beard, in the sense i gained knowledge of via "Broadway Danny Rose" of course).
Two MAJOR events today ..Apparently the Iraq War is officially OVER..well that all went well didnt it? and ,edging that off the top of our news agendas..the release of the Tony Blair memoirs..oh dearie me...here i will start ranting no doubt...
On British politics he reckons that even the disfunctional and now disgraced and villified Gordon Brown would have won the election if HIS (TB's)"new Labour" policies had been re-emphasised..What a monumental nerve.. for a start ,any direct connection to Blair "New Labour" policy or otherwise is now the "kiss of death" ...and he is being frankly revisionist in the first place as it was largely agreed that if Brown had replaced Blair in 2005 then Labour would have won with a bigger majority..Brown was Less tainted by Iraq.,and suspected of ,(shock horror),possibly being just a teeny weeny bit SOCIALIST in his policies...and THAT recipe would have garnered more votes..NOT more of his twattish Tory reforms.

Just watching top interviewer Andrew Marr with Tony Blair..and you are reminded of how "good" a politician he is.. a very good speaker, he still shows nearly everybody else up in this respect... he is rightly praised for his work on peace in Northern Ireland and the intervention in Kosovo...but Iraq just fucked the whole lot up..and undid it all in the most fundamental way. Some of us are forgetting that these are really just the obligatory "book promotion" interviews..he'll probably do "the Daily Show" next week.
He will insist that,on-balance Iraq is better off without Hussein etc ..since 9/11 his doctrine of pre-emptive War on suspicion of what "they might do" was adopted by Dubya Bush..he was the enabler ..
Oh dear,sorry i'm covering old ground again..these missives can become elliptical ..Nothing really changes..
After watching the brilliant "Generation Kill" it strikes me more than ever that the "self-interest" of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq serve not only to notionally "protect" the West from terrorism (never bought that one,never will) but more practically they provide,especially in Afghanistan a "safe" (sic) training ground and test area for new weaponry and troop deployment ..the real death and destruction takes place thousands of miles from "the Homeland"..and the Military Industrial Complex is fed new challenges and fuelled further by constant fear-mongering investment..that's just the way of the Capitalist World...
remote control "drone" bombing is already here on a daily basis over the border with Pakistan.
That country is taking hit after hit..Allah must be taking it out on them...aren't the Christians in the Pentagon praying to the same God just by another name?
Never mind i see that Barack Obama (or whoever does his tweeting for him) clicked the follow button for me..not all 5,208,768 get that honour..they've probably got a "subversive comment" filter or something, i've probably only said very flattering things...
Cheers Billy

The Jam

2010-03-25T23:10:00.003Z

DoubleClick and watch it on Youtube

David Cameron on Woman's Hour

2010-02-18T10:43:00.002Z

David Cameron was winning me over ,at least with his appreciation of the comedic value of Sid Waddell,but then showed himself up badly over trying to prevent his daughter from listening to Lily Allen..
If he were to actually listen to one of her most popular songs "The Fear" (maybe his daughter has already forcefully tried to impress this upon him?)he would have heard HIS "fears" of overcommercialism,sexualisation of young girls etc EXPRESSED within that very song!
It reminds me of Gordon Brown soppily saying that "the Arctic Monkeys" were his current faves..again,if he had had any knowledge AT ALL of their music,he would have been able to defend that notion entirely...
Politicians and Pop music eh! will it ever change?
The interview ended on a story that could develop..that his daughter broke his "I-Pod" in an arguement over wether they could play Lily in the car..ooh dear!

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Torture cover-up?

2010-02-13T14:07:00.003Z

re the "torture cover-up"..
This looks to me like another case of our "special relationship" with the USA making our people look bad.
The revelation of the alledged "torture" of the suspect by the CIA was an obvious embarrassment. This was NOT "intelligence" that had to be guarded and not shared under the "control principal".
To suggest that our intel sharing with the USA would be compromised i find highly offensive,and surely laughable. What kind of a "special relationship" would see the CIA NOT providing intel to Britain on a possible attack ,because they had been embarrassed by such a revelation..that's the politics of the playground!
This was a revelation of wrong doing NOT information about planned "terror" attacks.
I say ,well done the Judges for shining light on this mess.
An American court had already made the "seven paragraphs" public.. It just leaves the Government looking overly secretive,paranoid,self-righteous and toadying , all at the same time.. It's s good job we have David Miliband,he seems to pull off this cocktail of obfuscation rather well...

Thoughts on Blair at the Inquiry

2010-02-01T20:12:00.003Z

I think Kevin Maguire summed it up well on Twitter with:
Blair: "It's not a lie or a deceit or a conspiracy but a decision." Yes, the wrong decision.
Gleaned from the general sickening nature of his "performance",a few "beefs" that stuck out for me...
Why speak in the present tense about " decisions that come before me"?..You are out of office man!...thankfully!
Why, at great length, talk up, erroneously,the involvement of Iran in fuelling the insurgency.? Is it pure coincidence that the Americans have moved missiles into position TODAY? Are we already on another false timetable leading to ultimatums that will see thousands of Iranians killed in pursuit of "our security"? Sorry,i know that's conspiracy theorizing,but the next day,a genuine expert totally rubbished his assertions.
If anything ,as with Palestine and Hamas,one could argue that it was the invasion of Iraq that brought about the election of the "hard-line" Ahmedinejhad...
It worries me that this Lawyer,seems to have been able to re-define the words "Beyond doubt" into "beyond "my" doubt,and ,in fact, based entirely on supposition,and assumed intent". Where would THAT put the "real world" criminal law?
According to Clifford Longley on"thought for the day" this morning ,Blair consulted St Thomas Aquineas' theory of a "just war" over Iraq..So he presumably totally ignored THAT, along with the Pope's advice against the Invasion. HOW and WHY,other than his "celebrity" does this man command hundreds of thousands in consultancies and the "lecture" circuit?
Unless the "lectures" are "How to delude and convince yourself that you are anything other than a total fraud"

Chilcott and Bull story

2010-01-22T01:47:00.007Z

Even the then culpable "Today" can now safely say that the "WMD"("dodgy")dossier that Alistair Campbell defends "every last word of" was ,in fact ,TOTAL SHITE.
What Evan Davis said,referring nonchalantly to the "45 min claim" and the "WMD" not being there ,was almost the same phrasing that put Andrew Gilligan in deep shit,sent Campbell on a crazed tirade onto Channel Four news, and later Newsnight ..culminating in the resignations of Greg Dyke and Gavin Davis!!
A cowing of BBC News that they have barely recovered from.
Fascinating how the Iraq Inquiry is confirming our suspicions with "thumbnails" of each "contributor".. Campbell ..massive ego,self-important,deluded and unrepentant.. Geoff Hoon.. self-important,not quite so deluded ...but completely "out of the loop"..
Straw today .."nothin to do wiv me mate"..Blair next week... we know,almost word for word what that man is going to say...what's the point?

Bloody hell she's great

2009-12-23T03:14:00.001Z

This is just not credible

2009-12-16T00:07:00.000Z

This farcical Helicopter procurement fiasco just goes to show that Britain's "interventionist" involvement overseas is pure political expiediency..ie support for the USA..not sustainable economically.
The U.S.A's economy is,by contrast effectively on a permanent "War footing".
For these new helicopters to be of any use in Afghanistan,they would have had to have been procured in 2002!

So that's that

2009-12-15T19:18:00.005Z

Blair maintains that..Saddam Hussien's alleged weapons of mass destruction "were a threat".
Yes ,they were a threat... to the people of IRAQ .
Their alleged existence meant that we,the USA and Britain, bombed and invaded and killed tens of thousands,and,through total mis-management of "the Peace" created an insurgency,and sectarian division amounting to Civil War,that is still ongoing.
The "body-count" under Saddam has been far out-stripped by deaths as a result of the invasion.
The "destabilisation" of the region that is always cited,was only really brought about when USA bombed and invaded the country..
Blair is effectively admitting lying and mis-leading Parliament and the country.
The "Regime change" by military means argument just would not have passed Parliament or the U.N.
He is admitting exactly what we all suspected.
In his Nobel acceptance speech
Obama spelt out the time-honoured "Just War" edicts in direct relation to ,(without actually saying it) ,9/11 and Afghanistan..
Therefore,by complete OMISSION ,he implied that IRAQ was an "unjust War", "wrong"...and not what the might of the USA should have been used for.
As the second Iraqi general elections approach,sectarian-based violence could well continue to escalate..Blair and Bush have ruined Iraq for decades,out of paranoia,and a basic lack of empathy and any attempt at human contact and diplomacy.
They relied on the almost comic-book demonising of Saddam Hussein to prevail as the justification for ,probably a million deaths,and an ongoing insurgency,with ethnic and sectarian divisions broken open as never before.
So that's that then...

Afghanistan campaign

2009-11-17T12:57:00.000Z

A couple of months ago,an interviewee on NewsNight, (chaired that week by Nick Robinson)..one of the very few (perhaps only) female politicians now in post in Afghanistan, was saying that in certain areas "Taleb",as she called them had already been allowed to assume control,in some "districts".
The U.S and U.K. Governments are in denial about this.
Karzai has undoubtedly already struck deals with his Taleban "brothers" ..
To frame all our dealing with the Taleban in violent Military terms,"harbourers of Terrorists",conflating them with Al-Qaeda ,from the start,etc, was obviously completly wrong.
Then,of course we invaded Iraq!..we have wasted eight years in Afghanistan,with the wrong policies.

Carry On Jihad

2009-11-11T17:36:00.002Z

The British Government seems to have conveniently altered,or misremembered the chronology of events surrounding the Afghanistan War.
The arguement that our troops fighting there is keeping "our streets safe" does not make sense.In fact,just as the "Bloody Sunday" shootings were acknowledged to be the "biggest recruiting sergeant" for the IRA,back then,the complete opposite is surely the case.
Like Iraq,Afghanistan merely provides a remote "battlefield" to demonstrably fight the "War on Terror",although that phrase seems has to have been dropped lately.
The bombing and invasion of Afghanistan was initially the response,by America to the 9/11 attacks,with the U.K joining in.
That alone was a questionable response to a criminal act for which the main presumed perpetrator has never been apprehended or even located.
Britain was NOT targeted by the Jihadi's (which were subsequently identified as Al-Qaeda)until 2005. Those suicide bombers had connections to Pakistan NOT Afghanistan,and said explicitly in their suicide video diaries,that they carried out the attack as a response to the highly questionable invasion of IRAQ.
The Afghanistan campaign was compromised from the start by the erroneous invasion of Iraq..political expiediency keeps us there,but we are hearing the ground shifting to identify the real source of the Jihadi's,which is PAKISTAN...
We could not target Pakistan properly in 2003,because they were enabling the IRAQ mis-adventure,giving political and logistical cover and support.
This alternative take on "World events" and "Foriegn Policy" seems clearer and makes more sense than the "official" one.
Of course, we can all formulate our own "mix" of the two extremes.
Look on "the bright side",seeing as our Government will never acknowledge complete failure. Just as Iraq came to resemble a "War game" for the Americans,so Afghanistan provides the U.K with it's best training ground and justification for an interventionist standing Army.

Arm swinging and Intonated concatenation

2009-09-22T11:03:00.004Z

The T.V. presentational "ticks" that always make me laugh,when they are most noticeable,are,surely the two most common...and they often go together..
Walking along or standing still doing a piece to camera, a presenter will hold there hands lightly together,and at varying intervals,spread them apart ,swinging their arms expansively.bringing the hands back together ,and either interlacing the fingers or holding one set of fingers lightly with the other, in an oddly tentative sort of way,knowing ,as they do,that,in a few seconds they will be swinging their arms apart again,on another "key-phrase".
Some are more accomplished than others at this,making it look almost a natural hand gesture. I suppose it's meant to be a "distillation" of hand gestures, so they dont flap their hands around madly. However ,in the wrong hands,(sic) they may aswell be sticking their thumbs in their ears and waggling their fingers.As it looks just hilarious These individuals should just stick their hands in their pockets Simon Schama-like and be done with it..The reason he can speak to camera whilst walking uphill and keep his balance is that he usually wears jackets,and so can gain enough lateral stability ,whilst keeping the hands effectively hidden by cloth. .
The head "bobbing" can accompany this of course, and is widespread. In fact,no way is it just a trait of the lovely George Alagia . Nodding and bobbing and emphasising words randomly with head movement is surely de riguer for ALL news presenters.
I had better not get too much into "verbal ticks" ..mainly a radio problem,of course,illustrated quickly by two Newsreader "Greens" Charlotte Green (radio four)...very good.Syntactically and intonationally perfect,( She did, of course do brilliant work on the "shipping news" rating of bands at Glastonbury). She also often needs to stop for a cough,which is endeariing and almost died laughing whilst reading an obituary a while back.... Justine Green (Fivelive) by contrast,poor! Constant descending tone at the end of every phrase,same intonation for every segment and therefore innapropriate, equal weight given to EVERY story...This sort of poorly intonated delivery,leaves the listener with the impression that the same set of people have either been present at,or had some part in ALL of the stories in the bulletin.
Prize for worst overall intonation on radio and television? goes to.....Robert "Pesto" Peston.. the thing is ,when he's replying on a "two-way" he can speak almost "normally"..but if his piece is pre-recorded ,he goes into gothic, madly stretched -out intonated over-drive...without the superb Paul Mason,i STILL would not understand a thing about the "credit crunch"...
A close second,and to balance things gender-wise Sarah Montague is another nightmare...With Montague it's mainly vast changes in VOLUME and tone that are the problem. Apart from sounding impossibly posh (as do most of the Today presenters)..her delivery varies wildly from a meek soft-toned "goodmorning" to a brash military "bark" sometimes in the same sentence. Begininng with a loud THANKYOU WE HAVE TO END IT THERE..the delivery trails off to leave the constant ,two or three minute spaced time-check almost inaudible..
I could ramble on about this for ages
it's certainly a rich vein of trivia...

Smell O the Internet

2009-09-17T22:13:00.001Z

Anyone remember "scratch 'n sniff"? .Sounds disgusting doesnt it?
The results largely were pretty rank,as i remember.
The idea was to add smell to a T.V programme.
Along with "3dT.V." experiments it may well have been a feature of the beloved "Tomorrows World" programme..archives of which the Beeb have put on-line this week.
It is accepted wisdom that smell is,indeed THE most evocative of the senses when it comes to memory..
Shooting straight up into the frontal lobes,smells can give you instant access to perfectly formed capsules of memory,good and bad ,of course.
An amalgum of cigarette smoke,freshly brewed tea,with digestive biscuits,and fly killer take me to the, black and white, formica topped table of my cousin's
kitchen/dining room of the mid-sixties...A dull "porcelain/farty" sort of tincture,a certain brand of washing powder along with stacked newsprint,and i am in the dark hallway of my Mum's Mum ,"NannyPutney",along with the Mangle...
Around this time last year,i was having fun with the new toy from Google "Street-view". Retracing my under ten year old steps around the streets of Saarf London..The journey from Tooting to Putney,and Tooting to Southfields to visit the Grandparents and my Dad's brother's houses.
Whilst distractedly traversing one of the main routes "Garret Lane" i recalled visits to an out-door swimming pool (we never called it a "Lido") ,plunging into the cold water,the slatted wooden seats of the changing rooms..and the smell...dried urine mostly...and what tha? ...that same smell was in my house!...I had inadvertently made that memory completly indelible and tangible once again forty years on...
Should you have a similarly dried urine related memory/place you wish to evoke,then make sure you burn milk to a crisp in a suitable saucepan..blackening it to the extent that soaking ,then scrubbing and finally ,only use of emery paper will remove the carbon footprint of the dairy product
Ahhhh Milkie Milkie thanks for the memories

Bertie Basset meets Mick Mgaughy

2009-08-31T00:05:00.002Z

Hi Billy
This truly has been a momentous few weeks for World Fuckin Idiocy..(soundtack "American Idiot" by Green Day)
The NHS is an ongoing debate in the U.K. ( how is Canada's system managed?)
To hear the idiot Princess herself with that "quit makin' things up" proclaimation,with the backdrop of the ludicrous debate about "social" health-care...with the response ,on Twitter,(THE "social-network" of the moment,still ),of "weLOVE the NHS"..(fuck off you moronic,scaremongering idiots)..only serves to make "us" feel falsely superior. "Sicko" (Michael Moore) gave an overly "rosy" view of European health-care..
Big trouble for our "Prime Minister in waiting" Mr Cameron,came in the form of prize twat (accurate use of the word Mr Cameron) Daniel Hannon,with his "wouldnt wish the NHS on anyone" line on FOX.
Overshadowed now of course by the seemingly inexplicable release of Al MGrahi" the convicted Lockerbie bomber (poor evidence against him anyway).
Funny thing is,whatever your take on it, the Scottish Parliamentry guy,came to this decision,of compassionate release,through something called "due PROCESS" and the rule of LAW. (Just watched the brilliant HBO series "John Adams" again)..whereas the USA does of course still have a bunch of palpably innocent people banged up in Cuba with no "legal" or acceptable way of just letting the poor bastards go. A legal black hole they built for themselves that means they are way off the morale high ground ,leaving their exasperated "giving in to Terrorists" ranting totally laughable. Every "expert" agrees that there has GOT to be another tactic in the "War On Terror" (not called that anymore of course)..In Afghanistan the Taliban have GOT to be involved etc..
The Scottish justice Minister has to be hoping,praying to a non-existent God even,that the guy dies pretty soon,and all Gordon Brown can say is that he was "repulsed" by the "Triumphal" homecoming, and "nothin to do with him mate" ,on the release,it being all down to the devolved Scottish Parliament.He remains the only person in the country NOT to express a view!
Back to Health-care, Obamas "vodcast" ( on I-Tunes) is a reassuringly sensible and intelligent,counterpoint to the Republican "Death Panel" scaremongering.
Better not get started on the "2nd amendment" (?) asshole,with a loaded gun strapped to his leg at an Obama rally,exercising his "rights" and all.
Cheers for now
Chris M
----- Original Message -----
From: Billy Warhol
To: Billy Warhol
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 8:04 PM
Subject: Robbie Gennet: New Protest Signs at Town Hall Rallies

Sad but so True!! I wonder if People will ever Wake The Fuck Up!!

this Moron Bush NeoCon Brainwashed Flock of Religious Taliban-like Right Wing Christian Idiot Zealots have gotta go!!

the Joke is over!!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/new-protest-signs-at-town_b_266515.html

If you haven't seen them, some clever folks started showing up at these town hall protests with faux signs that make light of these Fox-fed people ranting and raving about Nazis and Orwell and whatnot. Here is a link and some good examples of what's being done:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/17/the-funniest-signs-from-t_n_260838.html

If any of these protesters wanted to have a serious, fact-based discussion about health care, they have had ample time and many places to do so. But that is not what they want and it is not why they are out there protesting. So how bout it, Obama supporters? How about making up some clever signs to hold amongst the Dittoheads, Hannityhearts, Beckbutts and O'Reilly's Righteous Roisterers? Get in that crowd and get on the news holding some mad slogan that tells the world that you are all a bunch of crazy racist fascists! Show them you have absolutely no idea what you are fighting for but you are mad as hell and willing to misspell with a Crayola marker! Get mad and tell them that you're White, you're Right and you're not gonna fake it anymore!

Here are some suggestions for some rally signs; please post your own in the comments below and let us know if you put them to use:

Don't Socialize Our Medicare!
Take Back the Flat Earth!
Americans Against Dinosaurs in the Bible!
Guns Not Jobs!
I Support Heterosexual Fetuses!
Americans Against Rational Thought!
White is the New Black!

When I put this out to some friends, some of the replies were outrageous, but that's the point isn't it? The more far out, the better, cause like Obama said, TV loves a ruckus. Like these:

Omelets Are Abortion!
Beck is Reich! (add some swastikas and a Hitler mustache on Glenn Beck)
No Gaybortions!

and other racist, homophobic or completely nonsensical froth. Guns not Jobs? Gaybortions? WTF?! In the end, efforts at rationality cannot shout down these people. They won't allow reason, facts and data or civility to frame the debate. But we can dilute their message. They say if you can't beat em, join em. Just hold your sign high and get that photo out there! See you on the news...

TWITTER is a good thang

2009-08-05T20:50:00.002Z

All but one of this week's Any questions panel betrayed complete ignorance of "twitter".as did David Cameron,of course..
"Facebook" has it's followers,but no "networking" site has the reach and potential effect of "Twitter"..the Iranian protests alone made it a worthwhile asset.
To say that "twitter" is for the young,is COMPLETLY wrong..the demographics are clear."twitter" is for the older and more sceptical..plus it's used,as a "site traffic" enterprise business tool,which all politicians purport to encourage. Overall...who was it said that "brevity is the soul of wit"?..if you are not selling anything ,other than your intellect,as a small part of your day "online",then "twitter" is the current
perfect outlet...

Bat for Ashes? nah! La Roux i like em a lot never mind the BOLLOCKTICS

2009-07-06T19:40:00.007Z

I was talking to old mate Sean Hurl,in Glasgow and listening to his "Stagestruck" tooons on MySpace...I said it brought back memories (maybe false ones) of standing uncomfortably at the Caribbean Club,Basingstoke, clutching a plastic cup of warm lager in 1984 or something.He said they didnt play the Caribbean club,so ..."Troops out now"!( a reference to N'Ireland,sean is from Irish stock)
The Ashes" series looms.Seems they are starting the matches a day earlier? On wednesdays? Will you be able to watch or listen on line?..
I couldnt really get into the "20Twenty" ,just too quick for me... but above all i am a radio fan so TMS rules..did i say before that an old lady currently living at the Residential home is a relative of John Arlott..sister of his nephew i think,something like that. She lent me a video of his appearances on "Parkinson",and they were "personal" non-commercial copies,nice to see. He also narrated a history of Basing and Basingstoke which she lent me...
I will definitely take more interest in the Tests...and The Tour De France should be good for the Brits,mainly Mark Cavendish. At Last a "verified" Lance Armstrong...
Musicwise..i'm hearing about bands getting fans to fund their records and tours.. For instance Patrick Wolf (electro-pop i'd say) ,sort of making themselves mini public companies ..as far as oldies making comebacks,i heard that "The Blow Monkeys" for instance were up for hire..fans clubbing together to get them to play. In their front rooms even?
I guess that Michael Jackson is outselling most stuff this week...lets face it dying was the only way he was going to clear his debts!..
What english bands are you selling lots of lately?.. "Florence and the Machine"
are this years festival darlings.("Along with Bat for Lashes"..even worse) Nige recommended them over a year ago,as they are sort of rock/folk... I find it dreary,overrated. "Little Boots"? also overrated.. but very pretty and pop.
"la Roux" i like! "Bulletproof" sounds like an update of "Dont go" by Yazoo meets Daft Punk...(the singer's mum is "June" in "the Bill").."Bulletproof" number one last week, beaten only by Jackson's."Man in the Mirror" Are they buying it again? just out of sentiment?...
Basement Jaxx's new single "Raindrops" also caught my ear,just coming out along with new album..it seems that electro pop and house are my faves at the moment!...the last CDs i bought were "Santogold" (now SantIgold) last year..along with "the Kills" and Elvis Costello!! (Momofuku)..
The Clark Springs MySpace page gets regular hits,and addition of "friends",usually from Europe,and small record companies...i should take a look at sprucing it up maybe..

You may have noticed that British politics has been shaken to the core by revelations ,leaked to the Telegraph,of what M.Ps claim on expenses and their second homes.. Some of them revealed indefensible abberations,like not knowing their mortgage had been paid off,and continuing to claim..avoiding capital gains tax on second homes..claiming they were using one home when they were living in another ( Tory couple Kirkbride and ,forgotten his name,both designated "the other" of their two homes as the "main" one) Offenders numbered some 100 or so,NOT all the MPs,and most made perfectly reasonable claims,but most of it just looks so fuckin bad, Like the chancellor,Darling,claiming his tax advice ON EXPENSES. It just demonstrated a culture of,if you can claim it do so,matched only by JOURNALISTS i'd say. Speaker Martin was scapegoated to some extent,with the unliked John Bercow now in place. Michael Martin did ,as a parting shot turn things back on the MPs,pointing out that they could have had this problem aired and sorted over a year ago. The expenses allowance,introduced as a fiver a day in the seventies had ballooned out of control,rising exponentially in the last few years to cover bigger and bigger mortgages on second homes,with the other approach of big pay rises to keep up with this necessity always being avoided..
Stories began with MPs Ministers even ,claiming for second homes ,sometimes parents houses,within easy commuting distance of Westminster!

Gordon Brown is gradually clawing his way back into some semblance of authority,but the most powerful man in Britain right now is undeniably Peter Mandelson!..he is the P.M. in all but name. Gordon owes his ,just slightly less than precarious position largely to him. Gordon knows he will not threaten his position,and is rivalled only by ex-Tory Shaun Woodward for loyalty..no matter what happens though,it seems we are heading for a Tory Election win next year. Despite the fact that there is no great love for Cameron,and no real knowledge of any new policies.. I guess you would share my disgust at the non-turnout for the last euro Elections,resulting in the fuckin BNP gaining two seats!..by default. I wouldnt have minded if it had been a Tory landslide,but they gained on a lower vote. The Labour vote just disappeared altogether.The Greens increased their overall share of the vote by FIFTY percent,but still didnt gain an extra seat!..so much for the "fairer" PR system!...at this rate the Tories will get in on less than 40% of whatever pathetic turnout we get.
Have you tried "twitter"? i really like it, I just cannot be bothered with "Facepoop",
i've used "Flickr" for years..i set up the Clark Springs MySpace of course,just pissed around with my own page before that...i continue to dabble/hobby learn javascripting,and flash for web-development..."twitter" is not just frivolous.there is some serious interaction,even though it's best for the good-natured banter.
In that linked example,Graham Linehan,(Father Ted IT Crowd etc) was outraged by a Mail On Sunday story and pressed for a complaint to the PCC..another example last week,a Daily Mail on-line pole was hi-jacked and came up with the result that 80% of respondents wanted "Travellers" to be able to take priority for health care from their local NHS hospital. The Mail story headline being sort of ."Gypsies are jumping "our health queues"..the story behind it being that,quite reasonably,"travellers ",should they "travel",often miss out on vaccinations for kids and other health issues.So local councils wanted to fast track them so as to catch them before they left the area.
Ah,i've just been added to list of followers by "the DuckworthLewis Method".. Divine Comedy Neil's latest thing..A loving tribute to Cricket, they were playing live on afternoon radio. I have never bought any of the D C stuff but i think his voice is great,and this sounds very good,think "Village Green Preservation Society" Kinks...

G.M bale-out

2009-06-01T19:19:00.007Z

I have no sympathy for GM whatsoever,and ,despite being a "Libertarian Leftie" i am WITH the American Conservatives on this,the feeling being that the Government should NOT have baled out a basket case company.
I was amazed during FiveLive Simon Mayo's coverage of the election ,visiting Detroit,to hear that the G.M idea of a fuel efficient car was TWENTY FIVE miles to the gallon!!.
No wonder that as soon as "GAS" prices started to go up to the sort of levels we have had for years ,and that they SHOULD have had to pay. the SUV ranges started to look RIDICULOUS to all but the likes of P Diddy,Scharzenegger or Al Gore..
If the British and other European plants have to suffer it will be cruel irony,as Vauxhall and OPel,have,of course been producing EXACTLY the sort of cars that the American G.M will now be FORCED into producing.

Car S Crappage Deal

2009-05-22T23:43:00.001Z

I just dont see how the "scrappage scheme" "helps" anyone OTHER than those who were going to buy a new car anyway. Plus the negative knock-on effect of putting independent car maintenence companies out of business is potentially disasterous. The side-effect in relation to maintenence being,that, well-maintained ,low-emission cars get scrapped,but the real smoky "old bangers" just carry on,as their owners,even with £2000 off,plus all the "deals" STILL cannot afford £5,000 for a new car! Going down this route potentially destroys the well-maintained second-hand market.
£5000 in the second-hand (under ten-year-old) market,could buy them something excellent,and if someone can afford,or get credit for a £20,000+ car then why should they get another two grand off anyway?
..Someone may well be driving quite a large 10 year old car,why would they want a tiny £7000 car? The cheapest Vauhxhall 4-door"Insignia" is over £17,000..
This scheme is DAFT on so many levels.
Having said all that,it's just a short-term measure anyway,and in no way "Green" or sustainable or anything!

FAULTY TOWERS that was then...

2009-05-07T01:02:00.002Z

Re "Fawlty Towers"
Yes it's the thirty year anniversary Of "Fawlty Towers" ,and watching a couple of episodes tonight confirms that it still has plenty of laughs in it,but also that it is very much "Of it's time" and could not really be repeated on BBC 2 now.
Maybe this is reflected in the documentary,that is going out,however it's on an obscure subscription channel,which i do not have and consequently that "Televisual Feast" will probably only be seen by a relative handful of people.
A friend gave me an original Beeb tape. Luckily i had access to an ancient working "VCR".
First ep,"The Hotel Inspectors" starring Bernard Cribbins, has it's moments.I enjoyed seeing it again Slapstick is always funny.
Being a tape we run straight into "The Germans" This is the episode that everybody supposedly "knows and loves"(?) A few minutes in to this i was reminded of the "vintage" shall we say,of the show i was watching...
Everybody remembers the "dont mention the War" lines ,famous ,but questionably funny now. An under-current of, acceptable(?) thirty years ago racism runs through the whole series.and this episode in particular. However,I didnt even get to the "goose-stepping".
Along with the Benny Hill type references to Manuel's Spanishness, a glaring "Carol Thatcher" type moment looms up early on in the ep. The Major (forgetful"senile"? elderly character) is recounting how he took a girlfriend to "See India... At the Oval"... John Cleese made a point,yesterday,talking to Colin Paterson, of how ,he and Connie Booth spent SIX WEEKS on the scripts for these shows. I've got an idea that ,given THAT amount of thought NOW,they would not have had the Major explain that his date insisted on referring to the Indians as N-Word and that he had to put her right,and say that the West Indies were N-Word ,that "these people were WOGS"!..Funny line, got a great unembarrassed sounding guffaw at the time,but i would contend that it would NOT get on T.V in this context now,9'o'clock BBC2 as i recall?
. I'm obviously NOT suggesting that John Cleese or Connie Booth are or were racist,just that how DATED these shows are,and that "they dont write them like THAT anymore" could not be more precient in relation to Fawlty Towers". Indeed,to that assertion i would say,"good thing too" ,and when anyone "offended" by todays "foul-mouthed" stand-ups ,"poor taste" and swearing in comedy in general might venture to offer "Towers" as representing that "Golden Age" of wholesomeness or some such rubbish,i would invite them to actually watch the shows again,and prepare to be disabused of that notion.30 years is a hell of a long time in terms of popular culture.
Chris Morrell

BOB QUICK a bit slow?

2009-04-12T10:43:00.003Z

Are you,like me totally mystified by the enforced resignation of this Bob Quick bloke?
Just who would have taken the photos,or video that the exposed document could be read on?.Surely only registered CRB checked (?) press phtographers are allowed in Downing St?
To extrapolate,that the photographing of this piece of paper, blown up to readable size would find it's way un-filtered to "tip off" the alledged "Terror" plotters. provided for a price by one of these shameless photographers,is surely paranoia,verging on the HYSTERICAL!
The beardy guy at the back from "Al-Qaeda" weekly...,(for the thinking Taleban) would be the only one we would have to worry about.( Front cover Women in Burkas ,with eyebrows pixellated.)
Did the photos HAVE to get ANYWHERE near publishing? This is just a ridiculous situation.
A normal sized reproduction of any of these pictures in the printed press,would have been NO problem whatsoever. They were only readable when viewed digitally,in the editing suite.
Why did it even become a news story?
What it amounts to is a "blunder" story,"look the silly bugger is holding a "Top Secret" doc outside of a folder! What a twit! ..and for that we have to have an unplanned early intervention on the alledged plotters,and a complete upheaval in the security services,with this trusted ,"Safe pair of hands" having to be replaced.
Add to this a political row as Boris pipes up to take credit for the new appointment,his deputy slating Ken ,Ken putting in a "scaremongering" line or two. Home Secretary undermined and pissed off again.
The Terrorists "WON" again,and they havnt even set off a bomb yet!

Didn't See it coming? ,Didn't see it coming?

2009-03-18T13:38:00.007Z

Hands up everyone who saw the housing market crash "coming" right from the start. We've been watching it on T.V the whole time!.
We added the "property development/selling/makeover" show to the list of guilty pleasures headed by "Saturday Morning Kitchen" all the "Ramsey" shows and ALL their forbears.
"Property development" became the new trendy lifestyle choice. Two retired,possibly lesbian ,advertising executives,cash in their share options ,sell their own houses and start renovating their way across the country,straddling the "property ladder" with a film crew in tow.
"The Property Ladder"..the first rung is now impossibly high for the majority of the working population,and most people feel like they are trying to crawl up one of the "Snakes"...
In the last section of the programme after the Estate agent's "Valuation" has taken place ,the protagonists are assembled in their masterpiece.
Our presenter, surveying their work, gives the verdict. This is the "money shot" the "stainless steel,and chrome shower" moment.
This scene always irked me,coming over as an insidious nasty undertone to the show.
"So how much over budget did you actually go"? went the line. "How much do you think you put on the asking price,by stapling those sheets of MDF over that crack and hanging those IKEA pebble pictures?".."and of course ,you did lose money waiting for the kitchen to arrive,insisting as you did on all left handed handles,and the sink unit that converted plug-flow to the southern hemisphere"...
"Well the thing is ,i can tell you ,that if you had done NOTHING at all to the property,this area is really sought after at the moment,and you would have made just as much,without all that hard work,including as it did,the broken ankle,and the suicide attempt".
Another damning with feint praise,or outright put-down,and it's all down to where the house actually IS anyway.
I guess they had a whole season of these sort of shows "in the can",but lets hope this sort of "Property development Porn" is Dead in the Water.

RED PHONE BOXES why do they still exist?

2009-03-08T20:05:00.011Z

What are these bastard things still doing around? Take a look at one and you will see the sign "coins not accepted here" Well what the HELL?
Just what kind of troll,goes out walking,taking in the smarter villages of the Home Counties,maybe stopping at a local hostelry to sample some "real Ale" or whatever, WITHOUT a mobile phone,BUT, CARRYING a selection of credit or debit cards?

Closer than usual inspection reveals that ,to use these phones,where the coin slots once were, is another familiar slot, to stick a credit card!

How ridiculous.
I'd say that these Red phone boxes are little more than "nostalgia street furniture" . Nasty,divisive,largely unusable tokens of "Ye Olde Wolde" charm that help win the "best preserved village green" contest..they think. Pathetic.
I always used to carry some change for an emergency call,when out cycling.If,as i first feared my mobile had been smashed in the pedal breakage crash i had recently,then all one of these red cages would have been useful for, would have been a place to pee,before finding a charitable phone lender.Pah!

Watership Down ,camera made a cloud

2009-02-26T22:09:00.001Z

Watership Down ,camera made a cloud
Originally uploaded by chrismorrell60

Panorama feature on my crappy cameraphone made it look like VERY local weather conditions..and i didn't notice that row of "next years christmas trees"

VETO on freedom of information to save embarrassment?

2009-02-24T15:57:00.003Z

Jack Straw blocking publication of cabinet minutes of discussions relating to the invasion of Iraq.. How can we presume OTHER than this is because it would be embarrassing,and probably reveal that it was the idea,more or less of ONE or two people,who had either decided themselves,or been persuaded by one or two other people,in another Administration,that it was legitemate foriegn policy to bomb and kill and invade a country on the pre-text of "Pre-emptive self defence",and we can make up ,or justify the reasons in the mean-time or afterwards.

Re-POST "THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES"

2009-02-20T01:05:00.002Z

I embedded the video last time,but the link lapsed after a while anyway. the Open "thumbnail" left on the blog was of a dark blue Oceanscape.

BLIP FM blippin 'ell

2009-02-15T23:13:00.001Z

TWITPICS

2009-02-13T00:48:00.002Z

2009-02-12T17:38:00.003Z

with all the content available on the web,why would anyone want to look at crap like FITNA..this is much more like it...and hey,i just re-watched the Seinfeld episode that Janeanne starred in,that i had forgotten about..and take a look at this.. not only has she not aged much,but that looks like Jonah Ray in the friggin background..he's been stalking her for 13 years!

BANNING GERT WILDERS..

2009-02-12T17:23:00.004Z

I have just watched FITNA on YouTube.. nothing new here whatsoever.
Since 9/11 the internet has been awash with this stuff. What this does in detail,is pick out line by line,the very verses in the Koran that the crazy fundamentalist terrorists MUST use to justify their actions. It juxtaposes these directly with video of "9/11,the Spainish bombing,7/7 in London,and ranting speeches by Islamic fundamentalists. All of this stuff is indisputable fact has been "out there" on the net,put together in more or less the same way,for the last eight years or so. Similar views,allied to the Bush administration's actions and the "War on Terror" were and are regularly aired by the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hennity on the Fox T.V "news" network..
It really is stupid to have made such a fuss about this guy. The film itself ,looks like an OBJECTIVE setting out of what has happened ,and in no way incites violence or anyrthing.
Following the anniversary of the Rushdie Fatwa,we really need to engage properly with the "Moslem World",that is 99% of the Moslem World,who obviously abhor Fundamentalist Terrorism,and not just stifle criticism , to spare their embarrassment.

I TURNED ON THE TEST MATCH AND...

2009-02-10T18:14:00.003Z

I turned on the Test Match on saturday ,and England were 58 for seven!..made a phone call,put the match back on and it was all over!..bloomin 'ell. and all the misgivings about Petersen were right were'nt they?
Football in England gets crazier by the day.. Tony Adams is out,ok fair enough maybe ..but Scolari out after just 5 lost games!?..this is just incredible. Is the only "safe" seat ,fuckin "Fergie"?
Sven is being touted as the new Portsmouth manager..
Tomorrow Beckham equals Bobby Moore's cap record? is that right? the two are ,obviously being compared,
Did Bobby Moore go through the petulant "rooney-like" phase that Beckham did? i dont think so.

"The Bankers" are being lined up against the wall,by the "Treasury select commitee" today,what a fuckin laugh! For a start they revealed that none of them (head of RBS and HBOS included) have ANY formal banking qualifications. Like Crozier at the F.A. these people were coming in from other private sector jobs,like Supermarket management. Surely this is our whole "way of life" /capitalism/consumerism ,on trial? These are the views of the Moslem Fundamentalists being borne out! ( too far? ok )

Just how are we going to change the system? Totally nationalise the banks,write-off all debts,and turn the banks just into "utilities" with all "speculation" and "secuties/hedge-fund selling" highly regulated? . We seem to have the worst of both worlds now,with ,for instance the government owning 70% of R.B.S. ,but unable just to instruct the bank to free up the capital "we" (the taxpayer) have put in. We cant,for instance say NO bonuses at ALL dont even think about it ,in fact those sums could clear many outstanding mortgages..( Their SALARIES are STILL in the millions!,and they are including themselves with the "casualties" as they lost their share investments along with everybody else!)
THESE are the sort of radical things that people like economist Will Hutton are saying. Will any of this ,clearly responsible thinking be acted upon? I have not heard such clear cut thinking from Darling or Brown.
Basically the banks need to return to "asset" banking only,we all need a bank account to live..and Government should HEAVILY regulate the "investment" banking side.

MY FAVOURITE BY HER

2009-02-09T13:52:00.002Z

This woman has "got it all"...she played at KOKO last year..too logistically complicated for me to get there!

burning rom

2009-02-08T20:19:00.001Z

burning rom
Originally uploaded by chrismorrell60

rejigging the old flickr dooh dahs

No Country For Old Men [in 30 seconds]

2009-02-08T10:52:00.001Z

Re-enacted by bunnies.

read more | digg story

FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY...anyway,Just how fucked are we?

2009-02-04T22:01:00.005Z

Thanks to the "new media" and the old in the form of this week's PANORAMA,,when it comes to things like corporate tax avoidance WE now KNOW the figures!
One example i picked up from activist comedian Mark Thomas podcast,is that "Her Majesties Customs" RENT their buildings from an "off-shore" ,and therefore TAX AVOIDING company!!!...the system is CANCEROUS... We need nationalised banks and Tax reform...and debt relief..the banks would be "bankRUPT" already,if the "tax-payer" hadn't stepped in...

FABULATION

2009-01-12T23:20:00.003Z

The word "fabulist" came up in film reviewing last week.The very literate Mark Kermode used it several times on "NewsNight" review.. i guess it's also directly related to "Fable" yes?
The Presidential inauguration is well-described in preview..here the pretty damn good comedy "podcast" from Internationally divided brummie twosome Andy Saltzman and John Oliver..
Washington D.C. is apparently going to spend upwards of Forty Million dollars on what could be a sub-zero Carnival..as sixty million people throw their shoes goodbye to Bush...
I didnt think things could get more sickening in the Gaza/Israeli killfest,but i was wrong..mid-week i heard the voice that did the job..Tony FuckfaceBlair ,with his wonderfully even-handed idea of bombing the tunnels that the Gazan's dug,to smuggle in weapons ..somewhat overlooking the fact that the Gaza strip is and was virtually under seige,and the tunnels were dug originally to bring in vital food and medicine...listening to the World service last night,i heard a Palestinian doctor,an obstetrician ,who had been delivering babies in Israel a few years ago..and is now under-siege in his house on the border of the Gaza strip, now a single-parent ,with bombs threatening to wipe him and his family out at any minute. He described a period working in the Israeli hospital as "the beautiful time" ..Sir Jeremy Greenstock was very even-handed and informative today about the situation...HAMAS is a Sunni based organisation,and so very unlikely to be backed by Iran. So does not fit that blueprint from the point of view of Blair and the Americans "War on Terror" perspective ..Also,the other main plank of the Blair/U.S (no doubt Obamas) approach to the problem, the presumed manifesto of "wiping Israel" off the map ,is also debunked by Greenstock. It's part of linking it to Ahmedinejhad. Part of the whole "crecent of evil" or whatever the latest villification phraseology is. Greenstock relates that HAMAS are no longer signed-up to anything so unrealistic,and it was really just a bit of high-blown rhetoric that is largely irrelevant now,but ,of course is always seized upon for justification of Israel's actions. What a laugh this morning (monday) when James Naughtie suggested that if HAMAS are supposed to be held accountable to U.N. resolutions ,then,Israel should do the same. To which the guy on the line,only had the chance to say "Yes" as they went to the eight O'clock news,. So,after sixty years Israel,are going to start abiding by U.N security council resolutions?..i did think that i detected a snort of derision preceeding that one word answer. Greenstock carried on making sense by expressing the view that this current action is entirely elective on Israel's part,in that,following the cease-fire,the next move should have been diplomatic,and included a lifting of the embargo on Gaza..but no,this action looks more and more like a cynical ,"political/timing-motivated" War ,before the Israeli elections and the inauguration of Obama...
As more and more young Palestinians are "radicalized"..and the seeds of another generation of hate resentment and anger are sown ,what exactly does the Israeli Government think it looks like? A "Rogue State" is what many are now calling it. Forty years on from "the six day war" ..this has set it up for the next forty..McDonnell- Douglas-Boeing must be taking orders as we speak...
Bill Rammel the junior Foriegn Minister sounded just plain flaccid and pointless on "Today" on (last)saturday morning .He just had to repeat the same self-evident truisms over and over as Ed Stourton probed with the obvious observation that the Americans abstaining from the latest "resolution" just made it pointless and made Britain look silly as usual...

हफ्फ न PUFFINGTON

2008-12-26T21:22:00.001Z

Let's call it "Youtube" or "Digg-Reel" logic (we're among friends here surely)...
The abiding memories of the calamatous Bush Presidency ,will be that smirking,ducking performance at the lectern as he told us he wouldnt sign Kyoto so as not to "jeapordise American jobs"(!)..the subtext being,this "Global warmin aint really happenin anyway is it?".. wipe the whole,shameful "war on terror"/Iraq mid-section,and skip straight to the same(albiet accentuated) ducking motion,as he skillfully avoids a pair of shoes,flung at him... We are all ,equally skillfully adjusting our expectations of Obama (...."bufferring" if you will...) to take into account the unholy mess that Bush and,lets not forget Cheney, have left the image of the Presidency ,and the USA's "World Image"languishing in..
I say ,languishing,he really did give up months ago didnt he?.Right after the dead-eyed "vote for the bail-out or else" speech...It's as if Obama is already President! THIS is his "honeymoon" period...
I see the parrallels with Britain of course with the election of Blair in '97... The tidal wave of hope and relief must be even greater in the U.S. right now...
Then,of course,via the concept of "morally-justified pre-emptive War"...(first in Kosovo)
.."Blair became Bush's beard for Iraq"
Now THAT manages to mix a Woody Allen derived reference with the image of Billy-Bob-Laden ..is that worth a Digg?

2008-12-23T19:26:00.003Z

Having enjoyed "John Adams" ,and ,of course the gracious bowing out of "the Wire" i just had to tell you about a new four part T.V series from channel four "the Devil's Whore"..
Having been infuriated by the actions of "McNulty",creating the "homeless man killer",thinking that he may go "all the way" and actually commit a murder. (I even heard a Wire fan call it a "jump the shark" moment.) Accepting the,quite conventional way that David Simon ended things .. One thought left hanging was,what did Mcnulty(West) do next?..
Answer: Dominic West is, no less than, Oliver Cromwell!, in "The Devil's Whore" a contentious iconic figure that he fills out superbly..honestly,i hardly thought of McNulty at all ..
Co-written by Martine Brant and Peter Flannery,(who is famous for a great bit of T.V. "Our Friends In the North") ..this is an Historically accurate drama,with a fictional thread which attempts to embody the mood of the times,as England tore itself apart,overthrew the Monarch ,became a Republic,only for that to resemble much the same tyrrany it purported to replace,ultimately ushering the Monarchy back ,yet was still to inspire the way America was to form itself...
Starring as Angelica Fanshawe "the Whore",the percieved embodiment of the "licentiousness of women" the wey-faced Andrea Riseborough ,(nothing less than a junior Angelina Jolie...) her ,almost "proto-feminist" character is a common factor in the lives of the key players...
"Leveller" , Rival to Cromwell ,Thomas Rainsborough is played by "Hunger" man Michael Fassbender..and the mercurial,"gun for hire" Edward Sexby is played by my all time "man crush" John Simm..(Life On Mars ) it doesnt get much better than this. Fourth and final part aired tonight..i have already downloaded it to watch again.. Hopefully you can access the web-site ..and get to see it via "I-tunes" or DVD...

So as Elvis Costello said :"Olivers Army is here to stay" .. and as Cromwell "Lord High Protector" reflected, on the fate of "Leveller" "Honest" John Lilburne .."He was ...a free-born man...." ..now where did i hear that line recently?
Cheers
Chris M

जिहादी तवो shoes

2008-12-15T18:33:00.004Z

"Jihadi two shoes"
How about that shoe flinging incident?..t.v.and radio reports annoyed me when they kept saying a bloke threw "a" shoe..he threw BOTH shoes! for fucks sake!
He took aim with the first...Bush ducked instinctively,the latent "jock" in him sensing the object in a playful sort of way..He rose with anticipation of another with a smirk on his idiot face..at this point we are all hoping that the guy has got his "eye in " and will hit the fuck, full-square in the face with the second one..but sadly NO..his anger gets the better of his aim,and the second shoe misses by a mile as well.. Bush rose again ,now he's up for it.."is that all you got?.." says that smirk.."only got two feet huh?" At that point,Bush would have happily engaged in a new game "ducking the shoe successfully as metaphor for justifying his whole crass,fucked-up Presidency",if the whole press core had joined in ,chucking their footwear ,i think he would have started to really enjoy it! Vindication from "St Hubbings" (sorry a "Spinal Tap reference is wasted here).....rather than responding magnanimously he just makes things worse by not even appearing to realize the extent of the insult..what a CUNT!... "apparently it was a size ten shoe" ( as if to say "the hell knows what THAT means" ) ...
Yeah great fuckin come-back you ingrate..Anyone who saw ANY news coverage of the "glorious overthrow of Saddam Hussein" will have seen the Statue pulling-down "photo-op" .. witnessed the shoe-pummeling and realized the significance and level of insult that shoe throwing represents...

Anyway..how the fuck did that guy miss?...and with hindsight he should have taken both shoes off to start with ,so he would have been quicker with the second shot..( "JFK" skit anyone?)..
All i will personally allow myself to remember of the Bush Presidency ,will be the press conference when he rejected signing the Kyoto treaty for fear of "jeopardizing American jobs" (ha fuckin ha!)..and this, tragically comic epilogue..the shoe-thrower will probably be in jail for a year or more..what a fuckin Hero!

CLARK SPRINGS (the Rain as was..)

2008-11-03T01:29:00.002Z

The Rain then Clark Springs
was our band through the mid to late eighties..by "our" i mean Clive Stubbings he of the long hair and Rickenbacker twelve string.. seemingly obsessed with all things American,and why not...Tony Duckworth..who had his fingers in the funky pie of "the Higsons" and his own band "Junk Factory"..more soon.. and me the lone blogger among them..Chris Morrell. no "clark-nova" here but "a maiden from the DELL"...

Failin Palin Football Fiasco

2008-10-23T18:31:00.008Z

I give you the: "Palin foils football's attempt to break America phenomenon" .. A side-effect of the Sara Palin campaign that i have detected.
The thing is ,her big "catchphrase" is some babble about "Haawkey Moms" right? Now,i'm pretty sure that this demographic used to be referred to as "Saawker Moms" .similar sort of thing..Women ,mainly white i'd guess,who have to drive to and later collect there offspring,usually girls apparently, from "Soccer", FOOTBALL practise.. Stopping on the way back to pick up there own "Joe Six pack" a crate of beer and throw that in the back of the SUV..they were definitely S M s or MILFs or GILFs or something...and they're really into it and everything...
Football,still largely a girls game in America,was going to go from strength to strength with the arrival of Becks..
When David Beckham moved to L.A and the big push for football er ,i mean Soccer,to embed in The U S of A...started again..they thought ..this time it might take off... the "World Series" could be put in the shade once and for all ..the "World Cup" actually means teams from around the World take part!! It would be Sawccer Sawccer all the friggin way..but NO.. That's all wiped out now,as those very same set of demographical ladies that brunch ,are now officially re-assigned the nomenclature "HOCKEY MOM"..in one fell swoop Football goes back to being that ball game where you can only kick it? you mean you cant throw the ball? It' s no coincidence that the best,most successful American player that even i can think of is a GOALKEEPER,the one player that is allowed to pick the ball up!...

So ,with the necessity to keep his fitness levels up,in order to get a couple more England caps, and provide his wife with some prime retail therapy opportunities,David Beckham has signed for Milan...Palin wiping out of the Soccer Mom profile just added insult to injury...

It's just another big reminder that we may well share a language and a lot of popular culture with America,but there are still some healthy differences...thankfully.

The whole World's gone Brown

2008-10-14T17:03:00.008Z

I find it incredible that i am just stumbling on news of todays(?!) election in Canada!.. The USA sucks the news media to itself like a black hole it seems!..
So,it looks like Harper is another "middle of the road,just about where Blair was ,kinda guy" over the War and all that?...Looks like "too much" choice on the "left" splits the vote? In the U.K ..we've been talking about electoral reform for years ,but neither of the two "main" parties will ever bring it in!.. Blair got in with something like 40% of the 60% turnout...
Gordon Brown's "share-value" is rising steadily as he really looks like he knows what he is doing,over this financial crisis.. The U.S now look like they are being forced into much the same set of ideas.. State intervention!..It goes against all their principles! Pretty funny..The equivalent over here is the "socialists" amongst us are sort of having the last laugh,on the Thatcher/Reagan era!..
It should make Obama more certain to be elected.. Bush just looked paralyzed by fear or just "end of term" cant be fuckin bothered "i'm outta here soon".. Also means that the Tories ( U.K.) are no longer a shoe-in for the next election.. Brown is being forced into more of the sort of Government intervention that many hoped ,in vain for, when he took over from "Pope" Blair.The laughs there come from his description of this state intervention as "innovative,fresh ideas" Brown is getting genuine Kudos for his efforts in the U.S..as today we get the Hollywood re-make of the "Euro Plan" ,starring Tom Cruise ,where Wall st turns into a Spaceship and sorts things out with a Gamma Ray! .Cameron hasnt got a principled leg to stand on when it comes to markets and "banking bonuses"..where does he think his biggest donations come from?
I feel more optimistic about the political future...

Before Tina

2008-10-14T16:48:00.005Z

Backtracking a bit here...this was before EVERYONE knew who Tina Fey is...
The thing is ,if "Little MILFSunshine" and "G.I Joe" do get elected ,(and let's face it how is Biden gonna get a look in? and It's as if the election is between Obama and her now anyway).Then the only consolation,apart from not living in their next War Zone,is that the comedy/satire people will go from strength to strength,"Comedy Central" might even take over the Democratic Party,and John Stewart could stand for President next time.! Janeane Garafolo as vice running mate..(ha ha)
Seriously,as far as the John Stewart Daily Show phenomenon goes. A BBC features bod pointed out quite reasonably,that John Stewart is now,almost the ONLY "difficult" serious, political interview! (When it's meant to be all "spoof" and all.) With the pathetic Republican-cheerleading Fox news,and the likes of the dreadful Bill O'Reilly ,on the one hand,and the bland-out of NBC and cop-out CNN on the other,the main-stream U.S news is just not doing it's job. (Put me right if i'm way off beam there) There IS something in this, right-wing Governments do seem to spawn good comedy and Art generally. The Thatcher Years brought the U.K some terrific stuff.like "the Comic Strip","Spitting Image","Yes Minister" "A very British Coup","House Of Cards" "2000 AD"( including "Judge Dread",of course) "V for Vendetta",the Jam ,the Clash,The Specials..i'm getting carried away with my arguement here,we want something to kick against but we dont want a bunch of whack-jobs,starting World War 3 in the name of God.Obama has just GOT to win..the Republican duo will just keep the USA the laughing stock overseas that Dubya has so successfully created.( Was THAT "creationism"?..oh no that's CRETINISM, i always get those mixed up)
Sad thing is ,it looks like the whack jobs have it. the Iranians voted in Ahmedinejahd ,the U.S seem ready to "Go Fundamental " too..why oh why couldnt Obama and Clinton "bury the hatchet" and have her run as vice President? (Pride i suppose.)..The appointment of Palin is an obvious counter to the failure to do just that!
In the U.K we now have a similarly unpopular leader,and Governing Party..Even if Brown came up with a cure for cancer,solved the financial crisis,and won the Ryder Cup singlehandedly,it seems that Labour will NOT win the next Election. It goes like that sometimes.How is it that the American Electorate can even CONTEMPLATE voting Republican again!? Just a glimpse,via YouTube of the rank hypocracy on display throughout the "right-wing" media is staggering to behold. Regarding Palin Clinton. The same abominable vices of "womanlyness" and "hair-do" and clothing pre-occupation that were sticks to beat Hillary with ,became magically transformed into glorious virtues of Palin and her family.Unbelievable!...and it's degrading for both of them...
It should be about POLICIES of course, NOT personalities,and wether somebody can smile and put over the "spin" well .On that score Palin didnt even appear to know what the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive War was!.On everything else,of course,she's ludicrously retro, how can anyone so blissfully ignorant ever be considered for high office?
Trouble is ,many people will now think they are voting for the wonderful Tina Fey!

Presidential Debate

2008-10-11T16:37:00.002Z

My, objective, ..ie lilly livered bleeding heart,cheese eating surrender monkey..opinion of the second Presidential "debate"...

er..hypocritical,simplistic statements about Afghanistan and Iraq from McCain. Overweening Imperialistic hypocracy from both over Russia..they both still refer to Putin as being in charge. How ignorant is that?..and hardly informative either. (Remember Bush not knowing Musharref's name?)...we may speculate that Putin is still in charge ,but Medvedev is the new President,the Russian "Commander in Chief"..the person that one or other of them will be talking to!
Once again ,appallingly inflammatory statements about Iran! For a start it's the Nuclear weapons that Israel holds that de-stabilise the region..Iran is entitled to Nuclear power and negotation to dis-arm the region under the NNPT..Maybe ,soon ,when Ahmedinejad is gone and ,equally, a more amenable U.S regime comes in,then calm heads can get together and find out how much they undoubtedly have in common. I know i state the bleedin' obvious but these people show zero empathy for any other country! The MASS news media and the INTERNET,more than ever,expose the retrograde path the US regime is currently taking...
Maybe this financial crisis that demands a Global response,will at least put a more humble face on the American "Imperialist" view of the World.. At least let it be ,in the case of the President,a BROWN face..i fervently hope the American electorate vote Obama in.At least he SOUNDS calm and intelligent..he WON the second debate ,hands down!!

A Brit responds

2008-10-05T17:14:00.002Z

I read through that whole "lets see how the Republicans will spin this one" thread..
Wow!.. From a British perspective? Where do i start? "pop" reference : Just started watching "John Adams" on T.V. SO, present day "instructional" it hurts!!! As the "junior" partners in this "Imperial Grand Strategy" ( sorry 'been watching lots of Noam Chomsky lectures lately ) Put simply,we have the same problems on smaller scale ,and everyone involved including George Bush's great mate Tony Blair saw it coming. As "shadow" Chancellor" in 1996/7, he was warning of "overselling" of mortgages and all that. We dont exactly have the "sub-prime" market ,but we do have a whole tranch of people,almost a generation,who would have been housed in "council houses",and only after careful preparation (ie saving) would they have entered the housing "market".. That was changed under Margaret Thatcher. people bought their council houses at WAY below market prices. Rebuilding of the "stock" did not take place under the Tories,and the Blair "New Labour" Government did nothing on that score either,until the last term started. So through the nineties the property market let rip..Property "development",selling on at large profit ,and "buying to let",have become become "lifestyle" choices, an "industry" the "Property Ladder"..One of Gordon Brown's mantras as Chancellor was "no more boom and bust". thing is,with property,it seemed like it could be a never-ending boom!.. Even if your mortgage was a ridiculous 150% job,the market was always going to go up.Renting was for "losers",and "dead money" (naturally, I rent!)..and your house was going to rise in value for ever more,and even become your pension pot. Well the "bust" just arrived.
So,as you imply by your post title, the "parties of the "right",find themselves precisely on the wrong side of the argument to credibly navigate out of this crisis... Cameron's Conservatives over here,like McCain and Bush would have been for even LESS regulation!... Trouble is Tony Blair destroyed British politics, New Labour courted the city to become "electable",to gain the middle ground. Then,even with a HUGE mandate,continued with "Thatcherite" policies and barely a trace of "Socialism" Becoming hostage completly to "market forces rule" Even ,after denouncing it under the Tories they reintroduced market forces into the sacred NHS ,and schooling,with league tables. HUBRIS on a massive scale is what we have had. I'm afraid the beloved Mr Blair embodies it totally. Look at his hypocritical position now as "peace envoy" to the Middle East How does that guy sleep?
. I'm joking,of course,but,at least in the USA,things have crashed on the "right" peoples "watch" .Up-shot is that on many levels the U.S and Brit administrations are in the same mire, they just got there from different directions. egged on by "light touch" regulation ,the smaller banks and newly "de-mutualised" ex-building societies,became part of the U.S "sub-prime" time-bomb,buying in,via convoluted credit "packages". It seems the ignorance of financial products extends well into the ranks of the people who are selling them. A year ago,when the U.K had a run on a bank "Northern Rock" ..the Labour government were forced into a "socialist" move of effectively nationalising it. Cue much gloating by the opposition,of course. In the USA at the same time ,interest rates were slashed , and everyone got a tax break ? I remember thinking.surely ,they are just digging themselves an even bigger hole? Now we see the embarrassing spectacle of the BIG crash. Politically, Labour are able to blame the U.S "sub-prime" to distance themselves a bit. but the "light touch" regulation on credit and mortgage selling coupled with the crazy house price boom is all down to them! Consequently the Tories find themselves ahead in the polls,but face the prospect of effectively denying all of there principles of "small governmemt" and less regulation in their next manifesto.Personality-wise,of course ,you guys have a real choice before you (Stephen Colbert versus John Stewart ha ha !)
Cameron,against his wishes will still be seen as a carbon copy of Blair,an almost perfect "mirror-image" in fact. Like John Major in '97 Gordon Brown seems to be taking the blame for everything, even if he singlehandedly solved the financial crisis,found a cure for cancer and won "Strictly Ballroom" he'd still be in the shit. Niether Brown nor Cameron are in entirely credible positions.Result ,even LESS of us may vote at the next election.

...A Bump

2008-10-05T17:07:00.001Z

For only the third time in about thirty years,i am recovering from a "bump" whilst cycling. On a regular route round the lanes a couple of weeks ago i unavoidably met a little bus head-on ,round a blind bend. Whack into the windscreen.Probably a good vehicle to hit. If Brundle had been commentating he would have talked about the "energy dissipating ,as the windscreen absorbed the impact and crazed over like a giant spiders web"
The "energy absorbing structures" of my left shoulder and leg took the hit.. I knew straight away,that my "collar-bone" had snapped. everything else ,including my shoulder,thankfully,seemed intact. Whilst doing the x-rays this was confirmed. Equally painful has been the bruising to my left thigh. I'm told that "extraversated" blood,that is,blood pushed out from the contusion,and draining through the muscle tissue is highly irritational,and i would agree! The pain in my leg has kept me awake more than the pain in my shoulder!..I got through a ton of co-codamol and ibuprofen. The clavicle feels pretty well re-attached ,and in the last few days,my left leg has loosened up a lot. so, iam signed off work for another four weeks! I got pretty fed-up with the five weeks i had ,laid-up with the strained foot.I got back to work for a couple of weeks,my foot almost sorted ,then i do the collar-bone. The bus driver seemed relieved that i was in one piece. We exchanged addresses and i said that i thought that niether of us could have avoided the collision. He agreed,i have heard nothing more. I reported it to the police and everything ,and went back to check,and concluded that my instincts were right. The way the trees are, along with the width of the lane,the bus had no way to do anything other than stop,thus blocking my path,and i did not have anything like enough braking distance to stop. On a bike,even doing only 12 mph or so,you need at least three bike lengths to stop,and you cant really brake and change direction at the same time. I was leaning into the ,for me,left hand bend. My stopping point was just past the front of the bus. instinctively you "tuck-in" to the anticipated impact , thinking "shit! my bike!"..apart from the left "lever" getting knocked round,straining the cables ,the bike came out of it unscathed,it just clattered against the front of the bus. Like i said, this was probably the" best" type of thing to hit. so that's that, my collar-bone is mending well.The hospital said straight away that no intervention was needed,just six weeks rest.

goldfrapp - a & e (live)

2008-08-28T16:56:00.004Z
goldfrapp - a & e (live)
Blogged with the Flock Browser

I was saying how she sounds like Kate Bush sometimes...She's more eclectic,which i like... she's got the weirdness...and the songs are better.

Flashy stuff

2008-08-26T21:21:00.001Z

Simon made by Neave Games

Retro Russia

2008-08-26T17:15:00.004Z

Well it looks like the Russian government are determined to make us (Britain and the US)look good.! Despite the injustices ,mistakes ,and some would say just plain "wrongness" of the Iraq campaign. MedVedev/Putin,(they seem indivisible) seems to be taking a current trend for "retro" to the extreme.Bill Clinton seems to be getting his wish, preferring the "Cold War" to the new "War on Terror"...maybe these developments will put the fears of "Islamofascism" into perspective,as the "new" Russia takes a further step backwards...

Go Bridget lets hope that access remains this open...

2008-08-26T14:26:00.001Z
You think you've seen FLASH? check THIS

2008-08-26T10:55:00.001Z

YouTube - chrissikins's Channel

2008-08-25T19:20:00.001Z

YouTube - chrissikins's Channel
Blogged with the Flock Browser

EMO hq? plus!

2008-08-25T16:32:00.001Z

chrissie j morrell esquire posted a photo:

Not only is this "EMO" hq , but you can get a "Custom card" for your irritable bowel?
View Original Article
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वही

2008-08-25T16:25:00.001Z

Michael Franti and Spearhead - live concert video on Fabchannel.com

2008-08-25T14:29:00.001Z

Michael Franti and Spearhead - live concert video on Fabchannel.com
Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flickr overview

2008-07-10T22:54:00.001Z

Kula shaker live 07

2008-01-20T21:09:00.001Z

The Power of Nightmares

2008-01-20T01:56:00.001Z

If you want to try to make sense of the zietgiest,then Curtis is your man...
Click on "The Power Of Nightmares" to get to all of Adam's brilliant stuff...

Nige Rivers

2008-01-16T15:51:00.000Z
Nige is one of my oldest friends...the music was the initial connection,and remains one of them..we are both now dabbling with web-design to greater and lesser degrees...he has more of a handle on it at the moment.I've got my work cut out...

2008-01-15T11:52:00.001Z

20% Geek
20%

Find Ultrasound schools near you

KULA SHAKER still going with a bald drummer

2008-01-14T17:56:00.000Z

Cadaver Counter Yay!

2007-11-20T22:18:00.001Z
$4890.00
Long Beach Dating

Zowee

2007-10-28T20:56:00.001Z

Fanana

Sliiiide show

2007-10-23T18:46:00.000Z

mogomaticamatician

2007-10-19T23:11:00.000Z

Cinebanter: Cinebanter #37 - THE TEN

2007-09-03T18:08:00.000Z
http://flickr.com/photos/chris_the_skins/1314108966/Cinebanter: Cinebanter #37 - THE TEN

2007-08-31T13:13:00.001Z

Sheperds cottage

2007-08-15T15:17:00.001Z

Wherwell turn

Swan Lake

2007-08-11T15:35:00.001Z

arlesford

Not Iraq

2007-07-11T00:47:00.001Z

Another year without getting bombed

Watercress

2007-06-09T19:48:00.001Z

These beds are just up the road so why am i eating Italian cress?

How low can you go?

2007-05-20T07:57:00.001Z

I herd da boiner

The green green

2007-05-19T18:31:00.001Z

Overton over there

Blogulight

2007-05-14T22:35:00.001Z

Well well

Phonesville

2007-05-09T10:47:00.001Z

Just checking

Sounds familiar

2007-04-30T23:16:00.000Z
The Israeli guy,old "nutjob" or whatever ,is being blasted for launching a War without judgement,and without strategy or a "plan" ..ha! sounds familiar doesnt it?

"Impossible to explain?"

2007-04-17T21:17:00.000Z
President Bush says that it's "impossible to explain " the University
shootings.. No it isnt.!!.does his lame-brained delusion know no bounds?
The USA is a country and culture awash with firearms ,with a preponderance for the view that guns solve problems..it's their biggest delusion and problem that spans foriegn policy to armed robbery,and in this case, the action of "crazed loners" .
Their idea of greater security would be if EVERYONE had a gun.." If only we had armed the teachers!" the NRA will cry..apparently ,
Canada has even MORE legally held weapons, but nowhere near the violent culture of Gun use ..the only guns used for crime in the U.K. are,and will remain, illegal..ONE thing that we have got absolutely right!
Chris Morrell

I-Tunes ... DRM changes ..just BUY THE FUCKIN DISCS

2007-04-08T12:01:00.000Z
News is today that the MOD are actively encouraging the "Iranian Fifteen" to sell their stories to the papers !!! Several have already contacted Max Clifford..Shit,they think they can control what will inevitably happen...i think it's an attempt to feed the anti-Iranian feeling in the press ...further to Demonize the next target on the "Axis of Evil"...this will all help "public opinion" for backing the American attack on Iran,
...who started all this shit in the first place? ...The British and the Americans..
events spawn events,despite what we ascribe to National stereotypes.. it was the unseating of a minority Sunni regime, and the installing,through election of a Shi-ite led , heavily Iranian influenced Government, that sees Iran attempting to assert itself ,gaining heavy influence in the region, and consequently putting themselves increasingly in to the firing line,not least with the other moderate Islamic states..
"you're making us all look bad"...Ahmedinejad doesnt speak for all Iranians,anymore than Bush does for Americans ,or Blair for us...the "coalition" undermining of the idea of rightful Military intervention..and the de-stabilising of the region that has resulted
cannot now be blamed on the Iranians...lets hope the "cool heads" that seemed to have been "in charge" during this grubby little incident,continue to influence events...notwithstanding who are still in "power"...A..B and B... all C's

And it came to pass

2007-04-07T12:22:00.000Z
My reaction today is of utter despair and dissapointment at OUR "Public" reaction via the press...the hateful Daily Mail and the Sun show pictures of Ahmedinejad and crowds surrounding the bombing in Iraq, linking them directly...saying ,this was an Iranian made bomb..and here is the baying mob celebrating the Deaths of British soldiers..foremost in the photo is a young boy..so they are directly inferring that these young men women and children are now legitemate targets ...this is demonising of the Iraqi and Iranian population... At this rate they are never going to accept our imposed form of "Democracy" ..and why should they?
Blair was on shaky ground already ..Bush has long lost his credibility..
Ahmedinejad rates alongside both of them,as the fully fledged "Enemy of the West"..our times are turning into a nightmare ...
Chris Morrell