A Far Fetched Resolution

Intertelly

2007-01-19T02:08:00.000Z

I first heard about this on the wireless. But I thought it was a joke. It is however true. Some absolute genius PR has come up with the only real way to communicate to the public the truth behind the process of the maturation of cheese. Cheddar Cheese.

http://www.cheddarvision.tv/

Whilst it may not appear as though much is happening, this is because you are taking far too short term a view of things. This cheese has been maturing now for over 27 days. In just short of a year it will be fully mature. Stay tuned to see it's flavour develop into that rich, strong cheddar taste. slowly. Enjoy.

Meanwhile the potatoes for schools people (no I don't know why either) have just claim for copyright on the unique (not so unique?)marketing ploy that is the 'staggeringly tedious webcam' in that, whilst their "potatocam" launches in March, this is the second such project. The previous years viewing of the life cycle of a...potato...clearly having captured the imagination of thousands.

They also win by offering genuine interaction, tackling ignorance in the name of the public understanding of the potato:

Grow Your Own Potatoes 2007
60% of children thought potatoes grew on trees! So, the British Potato Council launched the 'Grow Your Own Potatoes' project for primary schools.

On an unrelated note, September saw "the launch of Webcameron.org.uk, a website which gives the public a unique opportunity to communicate, and share a platform with David Cameron, aswell as thought leaders from around the world."

I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Guilt free telly

2007-01-18T19:49:00.000Z

I'm not goiing to get involved in this whole celebrity big brother nonsense. Frankly I've never heard of half the people in it, I don't know why I should care what they say to each other. I loved the first Big Brother series years ago because I thought it was so hilariously pointless.

When it starts to be about just churning out shock and intrigue as if this very human interaction was a commodity that could just be traded it loses that innocent irrelevance and becomes a horrible metaphor for something. Not sure what though.

At any rate, there's an amusing angle on this that made me chuckle on the tube this morning. There's obviously been some sort of concerted campaign amongst certain members of the Indian population in the UK to stoke up outrage at the treatment of this Bollywood star by some other pretty irrelevant people. Not having seen any of the show I've no idea of the justice or otherwise of their stance, but I do know someone needs to tell them that at least one of their campaign ploys is almost as big a waste of time as the show itself.

TV ratings are calculated by monitoring a rolling sample of households (I think it's about 40,000 houses) through a black box on their telly. So if you're going to organise a boycott of a tv program to hit their ratings and try to force them to pull it, if you ain't one of those 40,000 your determined non-watching of the show will have precisely no effect on the decisions of broadcasters or advertisers.

We used to have one of those boxes. You get M&S vouchers in return, and of some reason my mum thought this was a reasonable return on the investment of the phenomenal faff of having to enter in what channel you were watching every time you tuned in. I used to exact my revenge by logging myself in as watching the History channel and going off to read the papers in the other room or going out shopping. If enough people did that, we'd have nothing but cheap re-enactments of the building of Tutankhamun's tomb with mystical music and a deep voice-over on every channel for ever. It would be hilarious.

I no longer have a telly.

Christmas reading

2007-01-17T01:37:00.000Z

One of the real pleasures of Christmas is that if you have a certain kind of friend or family group you almost certainly end with more books than you started with. You also end up a lot more broke, which for a great many reasons means more time to read.

So I always find that January is a good month for reading. As I posted late last year I've been making more time for reading as it is, so this month has been a double whammy.

I can strongly recommend Dominic Sawbrook's "Never Had It So Good" . This, despite being a detailed and intricate history of about 7 years of British history is a really fun book to read with so many lovely little factual asides that told you so much more than any number of small-print footnotes could tell you about the period. I can genuinely say that, having answered a finals exam question on the period only 6 months ago I learnt more about the mid fifties to early sixties reading his book than in all of my reading for that exam. But I also actually laughed out loud reading it on several occasions.

It has just entered my top ten books ever - and I'm using the book vouchers Emily's grandma gave me to get the sequel "White Heat" which I shall devour as rapidly I'm sure.

A totally different approach to reading about the mid 20th Century is the "Gonzo" route. Somebody who has, so far as I'm aware little or no interest in politics but knows I have, happend (in one of those serendipitous moments only those shopping for books outside of their comfort zone ever achieves - I get it when buying novels for my mother which she then feverishly recommends back to me, forgetting I rarely ever read novels, or that I ever gave it to her. I'm hopeless at buying books for myself, or people with similar interest to me though.) accross a book I didn't even know existed but would have invented had I even known it was possible.

Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" was clearly only bought for me as it had "Campaign Trail" in the title, but i'm actually a real fan on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and was startled to note I'd never heard of this when given it on Christmas Day by my best friends' mother.

At any rate, i'm half way through it - but it's effing marvellous. It's so vivid, telling what life was really like for a journalist on the odyssey that is a US election campaign - whilst making it absolutely plain that 90% of it is completely made up.

Read it.

La Rive Gauche

2007-01-12T02:14:00.000Z

Tomorrow I depart for Paris. Visiting my dear old Grandad.

My Grandad, as a candidate in the 1956 French general election made what I beleive to be the best campaign promise of any candidate in any election ever.

"If I am elected, comrades" he told his audience, "I give you my word. I do not promise revolution. I tell you, the revolution will have already happened."

He was last on the Communist Party list for his district. Anything less than 100% of the vote for the Communist Party and his fledgling parliamentary career would be cut off in it's prime. It would take a revolution, and the consequent emancipation of the popular consciousness - or state repression to bring victory to Camarade Charles.

As the revolution didn't happen and the Communist Party recieved somewhat less than 100% of the vote my Grandfather was never a member of the French Parliament.

I did find it hard to stifle a chuckle though when I went to my Oxford admission interview many years later (having, in the intervening period, been born). After a few pleasantries the politics tutor handed me a sheet of paper.

"Analyse that" was his introduction to the interview proper.

On the sheet was a breakdown of the election results for 1956 in France.

"What do you think we can tell from that?" he said.

"The revolution hadn't happened yet" I nearly said.

Mighty Monkey

2007-01-08T23:24:00.000Z

Noblesse Oblige....

It has come to my attention that people's names mean things in foreign languages.

For example a very close friend of Pickles, who he knows very well is blessed with a moniker, that if one takes his multi-ethnic names back to their languages of origin translates as either:

"Magnanimous Baseball"

"Generous Twerp" or most amusingly;

"Noble Baboon"

Word of warning to parents: Never name your children in languages you don't speak or understand. It is dangerous.

Wanna be in my gang?

2007-01-03T20:00:00.000Z

Don Paskini has thoughfully discussed some of the simple things that he believes could be done to encourage more people to get involved in the Labour Party.

"Basically, it is about coming up with simple answers when someone asks 'so, why should I join the Labour Party?' Being able to answer 'So you can vote for a leader who is anti-war', 'because it will help our campaign for animal welfare [or the equivalent]', 'because they listen more to members' or 'because they are the only ones who are trying to improve our local area, and you can help make a difference' would be an improvement on where we are now."

I think there's merit in some of this. I also think it's interesting that some of his suggestions are vaguely reminiscent of the thinking behind elements of the current Labour Party's Let's Talk, Big Conversation, Policy Forum and Supporters Network initiatives which represent the highlights of the various attempts to revive Labour's membership structures. He'd hate me for saying that though!

For example;

"When I was a councillor, I always found residents' associations much better than branch meeting to report back, answer questions and find out what Labour supporters' priorities were (I never did very well at getting people to join the party, even those who were happy to deliver leaflets, knock on doors etc.) "

"I'd have thought a lower membership fee, and particular kinds of support for people already involved in groups such as school governors and community or residents' groups would be part of this,"

But I must disagree with his analysis that it is a rightwing position to say that better local leadership and organisation would make the difference, whilst it's a leftwing position to say a change in political leadership on a national level would make a difference. From which he goes on to say that a toned down version of the latter would in some way make a difference.

Whilst I can endorse some of the other suggestions he puts, the central argument of his post, essentially that throwing a few bones to the oppositionalists within the party would make all the difference is simply not going to work. That position makes a number of assumptions which the facts just simply don't back up.

For a start, the rate of departure of members from the Labour Party is far far higher amongst those people who joined between 1994 and 1997 when Labour membership rocketed as old Labour dragons were slain. The big picture also looks at Labour membership in the wider historical context and the wider European context. Membership is not startlingly lower than it was when John Smith was leader, let alone Michael Foot. Indeed the decline under Harold Wilson between 1964 and 1979 was, in comparison, truly frightening.

Secondly I just don't accept that if the government "gave way" on just one issue a year it would get a massive increase in support from disgruntled former members. I know that there are people who have left because of issues that have upset them. I respect some of their positions. Some I simply don't respect. But as I've already pointed out, the fall in Party membership under Wilson (who, for example, didn't send British troops into Vietnam, or effectively challenge any old Labour sacred cows - not that I'm saying in and of itself that should be an aim of a Labour Prime Minister.) was frightening. And, under Wilson, the Labour Party conference and membership had a considerably stronger grip on the manifesto than it does now.

The reality is that some people simply cannot cope with being in a party of government. That might be for very good reasons. They may well be completely wedded to an ideology that no succesful government could demonstrate any commitment to. They may be psychologically more comfortable criticising the particular with reference to the universal, or acting as the voice of the voiceless or unjustly treated. That's all fair enough. But no governing party can cater to their whims. It's simply not possible.

It is a fool's errand to spend your time throwing bones willy nilly to try to keep all of these many and varied interest groups happy. Don Paskini's analysis presumes that there is a corps of "real/old Labour policies" that can be taken off the shelf to assuage the gripes of a united, disaffected, body and ideologically homogeneous ex, or soon to be ex, members. Insofar as there has ever been such a dogmatic brethren it has been a pernicious and destructive influence that no sane party leadership could ever wish to pander to.

But the reality is that, most of the time, it has been a myth. Nobody with any familiarity with any of them would argue that Michael Foot, Linda Bellos, Derek Hatton and Tony Benn ever had much in common. And they were all high profile figures on that "traditional left" of Labour between the mid 1970s and mid 1980s who are supposedly so disenfranchised and disillusioned.

Leaving aside the fact that, in most people's view, a policy that disillusions that quartet is quite likely to have something going for it I think it would be very difficult to have any kind of electorally and politically succesful, genuinely Labour, genuinely effective on behalf of the poorest in society policy that would keep those, and their followers, happy.

I just don't think it is a plausible answer

The way to stem the flow of members that, in historical terms, is seemingly inevitable for governing parties is not to play gesture politics. And, frankly, this is a problem for the whole of British politics and not just for the Labour Party. The Conservatives spent 18 years in government and, for 13 of those years they had far more popular support from the country (from the evidence of general elections) than, it pains me to say than the current government, and yet their membership suffered an even more catastrophic collapse (again, before Black Wednesday).

So what are the things that can be done to maintain party membership for governing parties?

Well, that's another story, but this post is long enough as it is. having said why I disagree with the Don's analysis I'll return with my own positive suggestions later. But suffice to say I don't think those who have left the Labour Party in recent years would be satisfied with a few scraps from the New Labour table. I don't think chasing after them with a few forlorn gestures that likely as not will alienate a whole other set of members is going to turn the clock back.

Blogging from my sofa...

2007-01-03T01:11:00.000Z

Yes folks, I'm back.

I'll tell you what happened to Afarfetchedresoltion. I'll tell you, and you'll listen.

Essentially it boils down to us living in a nanny state which means that my work computer has all kinds of blocking software on it so blogger goes stare crazy bonkers when I try to use it there. And no T'internet at home.

Which means I have no t'internet blogging access since there's frankly no way I can be arsed to go traipsing round looking for other options.

So there we are.

How've y'all been?

Since I last posted:

1. Getting down to business at work. Some interesting stuff, some not. Local government has it's attractions, but ultimately it comes down to arguing about bins. Important, yes. Fascinating, occasionally. But, frankly, if politicians don't worry themselves about all this malarky then nobody else is going to - and i'd rather it were my kind of politicians than others, and anyone else as they do BAD THINGS and our lot do GOOD THINGS. The law says I can't be more specific I'm afraid.

2. Settling into new flat. A few teething problems - i.e. a rodent, named Rodney. But he was carried out of the flat in a Tesco bag by my slightly less wimpish housemate, who proceeded to put him in a bin near the slightly posher houses round the corner. And pest control have established that it was probably a one-off but blitzed the place with poisoin anyway. So that's a relief as I frankly can't stand the thought of the little bastards.

3. Bought and assembled thus far: 1x Wine Rack 1x Shelving unit 1xChest of drawers 1x bedside cabinet.

4. Housewarming party passed off without incident, although I believe a good time was had by all.

5. Myself and the beloved Emily are yet to make our inaugural trip to Monkeyworld to visit Tikko. But this is coming soon.

6. We did however go and see Happy Feet, the story of a tap-dancing penguin who saves the world. Twice. The second time we went to see it at the IMAX. Emily likes penguins, although I new years' day we played a game of scrabble Penguins v. Monkeys and monkeys won - which I think proves that they're better.

7. More to follow...

For some reason this new Beta blogger thing means posting from most of the computers I have access to simply doesn't work. Blog to return when sorted.

2006-12-15T10:37:00.000Z

Meet Tikko

2006-11-25T14:52:00.000Z

As yesterday was my birthday, Emily bought me a reak genuine Chimpanzee. It's *because* she loves me. And it's also a very large part of *why* I love her even more than I did before.

This is Tikko. He lives in Monkey world. He is now mine. I sponsor him. Which means I get to go to his tea parties. Indeed as part of the deal of owning Tikko I get to go to Monkey World for free for a WHOLE YEAR.

Here is Monkey World's description of Tikko:

"Tikko is a male chimpanzee who was smuggled into Israel for the illegal pet trade. He arrived on 28/08/96 and we estimate he was born during 1994. Tikko is very sly, following the ladies around unless Rodney is watching. He is very political and gets on well with everyone in the group. "

I'm so lucky to have a girlfriend who buys me Zionist ladies-man monkeys.

Blogger has gone mad...

2006-11-25T14:42:00.000Z

First of all all the picturey and linky stuff works now that I'm using someone else's computer...

second of all the posts don't work - the title comes up and nothing else works.

Bizarre...

The White House wasn't won last night

2006-11-08T11:11:00.000Z

In 1994 the Republicans gained control of the Senate and House in one evening in dramatic style. The Speaker of the House, Democrat Tom Foley lost his seat. And yet in 1996 Bill Clinton whooped the behind of Senator Bob Dole in the presidential election.

The fact is that what is extraordinary isn't that Bush's party suffered losses in the 2006 mid-terms, but that he made such staggering gains in the 2002 mid-terms. That was unheard of - losing seats like this in your second term is par.

If the Democrats are to win in 2008 they are going to have to sort themselves out on Iraq and get some kind of clarity on what they stand for domestically. Nixon was able to win in 1968 and 1972 not by pledging to be conciliatory to communism but by being even more concerned about reds under the bed than the Democrats - and he was the one who pulled them out of Vietnam.

The same isn't possible for the Democrats - they've been seen as soft on security and soft on pretty much anything since the 60s, in fact probably earlier. Going around saying "This strategy of being hard on security isn't working" is only going to work if they can say something convincing about how their alternative doesn't look like surrender. When Democrats pull out of somewhere it looks a lot more like surrender than when a Republican does it - that's just the nature of US politics at the moment.

The idea that this is some sweep of leftist opinion rising internally against US warmongering is simply not credible. Remember that flurry of excitement when Lieberman lost the Connecticut primary to an anti-war Democrat? Well, who's the senator for Connecticut this morning?

The independent Joe Lieberman.

So let's not get carried away. Nancy Pelosi is the biggest winner this week - but she is seen as the very epitome of coastal state, liberal, soft Democrats. If the Democrats are to win the big one in 2008 that's not going to win it for them. The US electorate is the most conservative in the western industrialised world and it's simply not the case that an unpopular war can overturn that.

The GOP candidate in 2008 is not going to be George Bush, Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld.

Errr...HELP!

2006-11-03T11:52:00.000Z

Prevously, when I when to 'create' or 'Edit' posts I was able to edit the format of the text, and create links in the text. There were a menu, which included uploading pictures and so on.

This has disappeared.

Any thoughts?

House warming

2006-11-03T11:30:00.000Z

As part of the long drawn out process of moving in we are going to have a house warming.

When I lived with friends in Brockley, which was the last time I actually (jointly-) hosted a party I was most definately third in line as party organiser and had little to do with the nuts and bolts of any of our gatherings.

That was also years ago. I can safely say that the last time I organised any kind of house party was many years ago, when I was in my mid/late teens at home. I think I got away with it - my mum probably knew but we never actually broke anything massive.

But things are a lot simpler when you're a teenager at home. You have one lot of mates, you invite them. They've got nothing better to do (it's your house party or sipping cider in the park after all) so they all turn up. Sorted. You're not even expected to cater or provide any booze - they just turn up with their cheap ropey tipple of choice. And, being teenagers they are all sheep and like exactly the same things, right down to a particular method of tying their shoelaces.

When you've had two different stints at uni, two jobs and have moved away from home a long time ago, it all gets a lot more complicated. As do the arrangements. The age range of the people I will be inviting is in excess of 10 years difference, probably closer to 15. The range of music, drink and food tastes is, shall we say, diverse.

And the enmities between friends and acquaintances that one is both aware and unware of are a minefield.

I have decided that in the interests of having a good time I'm going to throw caution to the wind and not try to ensure there are no meetings of people who might have "history" with each other. It's just too complicated - and, frankly, they're all grown ups. In a manner of speaking.

Speaking of warming houses, Jo has been talking about this. I too am having complete chaos with the boiler in our new house. Although this is more self imposed. The thing clearly works - and it does respond to pressing buttons and twirling the knobs on it by changing how hot the place is. But the fact is I have absolutely no idea what button does what.

I have currently managed to eat and sleep in an un-heated house on at least 50% of the evenings I've been there, and in return the boiler has heated the place on at least full day's work when there was nobody there. I cannot wait until my more practically minded scientist flatmate turns up with some idea of what button might do what.

There is a timer things that looks very complicated. I know that when one bit reaches another bit the heating will turn itself on if it's off or off if it's on. But the problem is I have no idea which.

HOUSE!

2006-11-02T10:22:00.000Z

No...I haven't just won the bingo.

...I have a HOUSE! no...I haven't just won the bingo...I've just moved into my HOUSE!

I moved in monday, and spent tuesday unpacking and building shelves (actually I built a wine rack first).

It's really great. Unfortunately, my stark raving bonkers landlord's failure to get it sorted by the weekend means that my flatmate, tim, who was relying on his mum and a van to get his stuff moved, has a problem. His mother leaves for East Africa on Saturday. No lift for tim.

Thanks landlord.

Freedom to read...

2006-10-27T12:57:00.000+01:00

There are considerably fewer readers of this blog these days, since I took a two month rest from posting, and stopped posting about monkeys. (what is it with y'all and monkeys!?)

So, now that I have an "elite" readership I thought I should have some elite topics of conversation. This means no more moaning about my flat situation (GRRRR...). I want to talk to you about the future of socialism. Or rather "The Future Of Socialism".

Since I have been very vigorously not doing a degree for most of the past 6 years,I have read very little of what I would call politics for pleasure.

Obviously I have had *some* time for casual reading - it's just that it was only by convincing myself that i couldn't possibly have the the time or energy to read anything remotely serious that I persuaded myself it was ok to ignore my degree.

A prime example of a book I really feel I should have read, but haven't since it wasn't directly relevant to cramming my entire degree into 5 months, is "The Future of Socialism" by Tony Crosland. Since everyone always cites it as Old-New-Labour writ large and since that's what I sometimes think I would identify as, it's a bit of glaring omission.

Now, I'm not someone who thinks that the answer to the world's problems is in books. I've always believed that, to paraphrase, "politics isn't played on paper".

But the fact is that most of the people you're dealing with have probably read some or most of it, and sadly, far too many of them think they've found the answer in one or other book they picked up along the way. It makes it easier to spot them (and tell them to shut up) if you've read it too.

And there are always ideas, thoughts and views about the world that you may have, and which it is inspiring to read that others share, and to gain new insights into them.

So, what I want from you, dear "elite" readership, is this;

Tell me the books that inspired you. Those political tomes, biographies, pamphlets or other, in history, theory, philosophy or policy that you find yourself automatically paraphrasing whenever someone asks a difficult question. The one that gives you the metaphors and similes you use in everyday life. The one that you think about when you're wondering if it's all worth it. Or the one that makes you angry.

I don't want an obscure academic debate about some turgid theoretical text on a sub-set of postmodernist verbiage. I want real tub-thumpers and appeals from the heart. But they also have to actually say something concrete about the real world.

A few samples of things I have read which I would recommend, but not necessarily agree with, were I you and you were reading my blog;

- The Open Society and It's enemies, by Karl Popper
- Confessions of a Philosopher, by Brian Magee
- The Affluent Society & The Culture of Contentment, by JK Galbraith
- LBJ's three volumes(so far) biography, by Robert Caro
- Intellectual Impostures, By Alain Sokal and Jean Bricmont
- The Gnostic Gospels, By Elaine Pagels
- The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins
- Tony Benn's diaries
- Any of Goldthorpe & Lockwood's studies on "the Affluent worker" in the 1950s & 1960s
- Robert Skidelsky's 3 voume biography of J.M. Keynes
- Friends & Rivals, by Giles Radice
- One Of Us, Hugo Young's biography of Thatcher
- Why I am not a Conservative, article by F.A. Hayek
- Rationalism in politics, article by Michael Oakeshott
- Reflections on the revolution in France, by Edmund Burke

Post any responses in the comments - a good argument might be all the more illuminating.

Housing is the bane of my life...

2006-10-26T19:19:00.000+01:00

Now...

Housing issues come up a lot in work. But I wouldn't want you to think from the headline that for some reason housing issues had been going very wrong in the general sense recently - although you might think that if you were so inclined.

I'm more concerned by housing in the particular.

I.e. Whether I have a house.

My landlord has, at barely 3 days notice, delayed my move-in date to Monday. Which has the happy consequence of meaning that I have to move in on a work day. This would be ok if it meant moving in one go in one day. But he's timed it just so, so that I have to effectively miss two days' work.

At three days' notice.

And of course, all prospect of any help moving my stuff goes out of the window when it's a weekday. Not that any normal person can drop everything and hire a van to lug your stuff accross town with you at three days notice, weekday or not.

So thanks, landlord.

This comes on top of having been in bed for the last two days with a killer cold. Grump.

The big chill

2006-10-23T09:51:00.000+01:00

It has come to my attention that there is no cure for the common cold. This is unfortunate.

As is the fact that my physical self (nothing wrong with a bit of Cartesian dualism on a Monday morning) appears to have made the classic linguistic error of equating "common" in this context with "frequent". I am on my 4th cold this month.

The sooner I get my own warm, non-dusty, close to work and homely place to live the better. I believe the nomadic existence is better suited to the Negev desert than to Peckham in a wet October.

It's the final countown (again)

2006-10-20T15:00:00.000+01:00

Yes, ladies, gentlemen, and internet weirdos. I have a date.

Not a 'date' date. I don't do those any more since I'm deeply in love with Emily and we don't do 'dates' as such.

I never really did 'dates' anyway.

And I'm not referring to dates as in the fruit either. They are nice though. Call me weird but whenever I eat one I can't help imagining myself like Roman emperor or some kind of Persian Satrap on a couch somewhere lounging around munching them all day and ordering gruesome executions for the amusement of my flatterers and hangers on. A bit like olives.

No. Readers of this blog...the moment you have all been waiting for has arrived...I can now confirm the official time and date at which I will cease to be homeless.

At 2pm on Saturday 28th of October I will sign a contract for a flat overlooking the Oval cricket ground. This is a very very good thing. I can't wait.

There will be no persian style couches or flatterers or hangers on unfortunately. Although the landlord has promised us a bijoux coliseum in the back yard with a couple of circus lions thrown in.

A moving story

2006-10-19T16:45:00.000+01:00

My delightful potential landlord (impossible to get hold of, impossibly, nay hilariously verbose once you do) has finally come clean and admitted that this Saturday is frankly, beyond ambitious for a move-in date.

Looking likely it will be the weekend after. Which has advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is I now have a relatively free weekend. One disadvantage is having another week of living in someone's spare room.

I might change spare rooms this week in order to further the spirit of variety, which I am told is the spice of life.

I have never had so much trouble moving house in all my life. I started looking on the 29th August, with money in place for a deposit and no fixed ideas about moving date. It has taken nearly two months and I still don't even have a fixed date to move in.

Appalling. Landlords are bad people. Estate agents are bad people.

National Throw Stuff Away Day

2006-10-19T12:55:00.000+01:00

The great thing about working in a small office with only a few people in it is that you have a certain amount of control over the office environment.

Yesterday I declared it "National Throw Things Away Day" and, although an investment in a skip was deemed (by me amongst others) an extravagance too far we have so far filled 10 large refuse sacks and are moving on to the crates in the other room.

A redecoration and the ceiling falling in simultaneously has combined with my arrival in a grump about filing and paper to cause a 'perfect storm' of frustration with the age-old filing and we have collectively stretched out our hands to touch the dream of a paper-less office.

And before anyone makes a worthy tree-hugging comment - the papers are all being kept secure until a nice bunch of people from the recycling company come and take them away.

A roof over my head...

2006-10-18T17:44:00.000+01:00

Avid readers of this blog, or your friendly local rag (if you live in...west Norwood. Or Brixton. Or Bermondsey. and so on. ) will know that I've recently had a couple of run-ins with ceilings and roofs (Rooves?!?)

However, it is not the predominance of overly-proximous ceilings which troubles me today. It is the lack of a roof over my head.

I have been dossing and making do for accomodation since I came down to start my new job on the 18th September whilst wrestling with the combined incompetence of the entire estate agent/landlord class of South London.

I am now tantalisingly close to establishing a new home, with a good friend of mine, somewhere in Oval. However, in this particular instance the incompetence of the propertariat is manifesting itself in a rampant inability to pick up their phone.

Mr BROWNE - ANSWER YOUR PHONE! AM I SUPPOSED TO BE MOVING IN ON SATURDAY OR NOT!?!!?

He Lives!

2006-10-15T22:08:00.001+01:00

Yes my dear dear readers.

I know. It is a long long time since you removed me from your blogroll. A long time since you checked if I'd posted recently. A long time indeed since you actually thought "Pickles: Blogger extraordinaire" instead of "Pickles: Person who used to have a blog"

You had given me up for lost. And to some extent I am lost. For the political voice of Pickles is no more. Pickles shall no longer concern himself with the political, merely with the amusing and diverting. For Pickles cannot take the risk of pissing off his employers. They speak. He "supports and enables".

Those of you who know Pickles know that silence on matters political comes easily to him. So worry not.

Meanwhile. If you're wondering what I've been doing this past couple of months...

I have started 1 job, been to 1 Party conference, had 2 flats fall through, slept in 2 spare rooms, been very drunk on only a few occasions (mainly birthday parties of friends, of which there have been in excess of 6 at the last count) , Been back to Oxford for two different reasons (i. To stay with beloved Emily who organised the most splending OULC freshers drinks where more people were recruited than...well..ever ii. To graduate; which was nice),

And had one office ceiling fall on my head in my first week at work. I support and enable but some things are supposed to support themselves. Ceilings for example.

(Yes, I know, they are mainly supported by walls. But a certain amount of the rest of the supporting stuff is done by ceilings themselves. This ceiling was entirely at fault for it's collapse - in collusion with the roof and the weather - and the walls' efforts really cannot be reproached)

Job...

2006-08-23T20:12:00.000+01:00

Well folks,

I have "Got on my bike and looked for work". Having been a free agent now for a number of months I shall be changing things a little on this blog - I have the sensibilities of employers and so on to be concerned about. At the moment this blog doesn't really show up you google me, so I suspect they haven't seen it, though it's hardly the most excitingly revealing thing they'll ever have read.

But anyway, I shan't be revealing too many details of my job just yet as it's all conditional on references and so on and I haven't agreed a start date. But I'm very very much looking forward to it. It does mean moving back down to London and looking for places to live and the like, which is all good fun.

Small talk

2006-08-20T00:30:00.000+01:00

Job interview yesterday. Went well. Lots of smiling and nodding from the assembled panel which I interpreted as a good sign. But then I think they probably smile and nod at everyone, since it's rude not to.

Hearing monday whether I got the job or not. Here's hoping. It would be a really exciting opportunity and the attractions of mooching round the house and filling in job applications are beginning to pale. I also got the feeling from the interview that a lot of the people I'd be working with would be really good fun too - some pretty on the ball people but none of this macho-competetiveness you get in stereotypical "high-flying" environments where everyone spends their time high-flying up their own backsides rather than working together to get stuff done.

Anyway, if I did get the job it would threaten some of the political content of afarfetchedresolution.com as it's a position where mouthing off about the issues of the day is frowned upon. So we'll see. Most of the people (person) who read afafetchedresolution moan that I spend far too much time sticking it to Cameron anyway.

A few observations on the interveiw:

1. The small talk with the other people who turn up to the job interview is hilarious. There are those who clearly know nothing about the job and are there on the basis of a whizzy CV but are blatantly going to be found out in the interview. There are those who know the ins and outs of everything and think that's going to clinch them it, and are very keen for you to know that. And then there's little old me who managed to spill water all over the table in the waiting room and was busily mopping it up with toilet paper when they came to get me for the interview.

2. The fact that they are supposed to ask all of the candidates several of the same questions and that I was second to last to be seen meant that there was a sort of production-line feel which I tried to break by cracking a few jokes. About bins. And the private finance initiative. Don't knock it - they laughed.

3. Aptitude tests and other "objective" skill tests could only be better on average at identifying the right "skill-sets" if the people who appoint are incapable of normal social interaction and reasoned thought. They are clearly designed for the kind of person who would phone in a radio show specifically to say they agreed with the previous caller.

"You're not very good"

2006-08-18T04:27:00.000+01:00

A good friend of mine went to a football match (I believe it was Oxford United) and was so taken by one of the chants used ("You're not very good, You're not very good [repeat]") that he adopted it to sing at Liberal Democrats whenever he got the opportunity.

I thought of this when I heard about John Prescott's thoughtful and insightful analysis of the strengths and weakness of the US Presidents' character.

Once I'd though about that a bit, it got me thinking about something else. Can Prezza so eloquently sum up the virtues of every world leader?

If anyone isn't on holiday at the moment, suggest me some (tasteful) four-letter summings-up of the foreign and domestic policies of the leading lights of the international stage. We might submit them to Prezza for his forthcoming book on international relations; "Thinking about Peace and War".

I'll start you off with a very loyal New Labour one in a desperate attempt to provoke some reaction in the dog-days of August:

Tony Blair: "Firm"

Students at St Bodgerington Fotheringtons, Surrey, do well in exams (again)...in the face of insurmountable social & economic challenges I'm sure

2006-08-18T02:30:00.000+01:00

I'm really stupid. Why is that whenever it's A level results day all the photos you see of celebrating young people feature attractive girls from minor private schools with good press officers?

When a group of us got a load of good results from my Comp in Liverpool my mum wrote to the papers.* She pointed out that whilst this had gone unreported, a series of identical results from the local private girls school was front page news. For something like the third year running.

It's just so blatant. It really shouldn't take much for a journalist to ring up the head of sixth form from one of the big comprehensives every other year and ask "you got any good news stories for us this year" or something. I sometimes get the impression journalists have some sort of code of conduct which forces them to sit their behinds on their wheelie office chair motionless, until some vested interest or other rings them up or faxes them a press release they can chirrup verbatim.

Of course people will simultaneously continue to harp on about how comprehensives are crap, and continue to think that kids from comps who do well only do so because of dumbing down, but should a state school actually appoint a press officer or some such then all hell would break loose about wasted government money.

* Anonymously I think. I certainly asked her to do it anonymously but I can't remember if I won that row or not.

UPDATE: I have absolutely no idea where the photo comes from (other than that it was on the BBC website - so sue me, one man and his dog read this site daily, you'll get thruppence. Just email danielamokachi12@yahoo.co.uk and say you want me to take it down) so I have absolutely no idea whether this young lady is from a minor public school.

Whether she is attractive or not is clearly a subjective judgment and my girlfriend has banned me from considering any other female of the species attractive. This was the only one left on the BBC site at this hour of the morning - there have been a succession of them up all day; all pretty young women. And that's the BBC for god's sake. I shudder to think what the Daily Mail will look like tomorrow.

It's that time of year again...

2006-08-17T15:02:00.000+01:00

Rejoining my old work Fantasy League for the new season. We do the version where everyone gets £75million and you have to bid against each other for players in increasingly frantic round of auctions (unlike others only one person can have each player in their team).

Last year I was rock bottom at the first transfer window and blew my entire mid-season tranfer budget on Michael Owen. It was enough to get me off bottom but then he got crocked. I know how Sven feels.

So this season I've gone hell for leather to get Jermain Defoe (since we may as well learn from Sven's mistakes) and also obtained me a John Terry, a Pepe Reina, a Geremi, a Fredrick Ljungberg and my favourite of all, wee Timmy Cahill. We'll not mention Lee Yung-pyo, or Carlton Cole.

I was pipped by a measly half a million to Shevchenko though. And last season my perceptive purchase of Gabriel Heinze for £4.5 million was looking good til he got crocked too. Sadly the world cup put paid to any cut-price repeat of that and I was outbid.

Presentation's what you need...

2006-08-15T16:14:00.000+01:00

I can't remember which stand up I heard doing this routine but it was really funny. It was about how some students had decided to sue their university because they're degrees had overly stressed them out as they were "too hard".

The comedian in question suggested a few other circumstances where such a complaint might be appropriate "We will fight them on the beaches...Oh but it's toooo haaarrd!" "we choose to go to the moon...But it tooo harrdd" etc.

Well I choose to apply for a job. And they choose to ask me to do a presentation. I hate doing presentations. Ask me to stand up and argue loudly about something I feel strongly about then I love speaking in public. Ask me to generally make a case for something, I can.

But then say I need to plan it carefully, make it match some hand outs I've pre-prepared and more or less act like a management consultant I just fall apart. I've got to do this on Friday - and I've got two whole days at home to do it and, basically, it's a nightmare.

It's just tooo harrdd!

Anger management

2006-08-14T17:37:00.000+01:00

When I was four years old and the miners' strike was in full swing my mum took me to Leo's Co-op supermarket on Park Road in Liverpool. I went past there today which reminded me. I used to stand outside with a bucket shaking it wildly and asking passers-by to drop coins in it to "Support the miners and their families".

When my mother opposed the 1st Gulf war I went with her on the demonstration, aged 10. I wrote a banner saying "I won't die in Saddam's war" and then I affixed a badge I'd bought from an anarchists stall at a hippy fair near Keswick which said "Stuff the Poll Tax up Thatcher's Arse".

When my government was happily letting my school buildings fall apart around mine and my friends ears, and when nearly half the people who left my school, and the school where my mum taught ended up unemployed...I joined a political party and I campaigned to change the government.

I know a lot of people who did the same. It is also pleasing to note that none of them has ever been "disappeared" or "interogated by police" or generally intimidated into not campaigning to change the government.

There has in fact in that time been at least one such change nationally, and one change of local government where I live too. Niether involved violence. In fact the power went to the people with the most votes. I campaigned in favour of one and against the other. ("campaign" here being a generic term for peaceful means of encouraging one's fellow citizens to take a view similar to yours, and to act on it)

It never occurred to me that the accepted and recommended response to things you disagreed with was to attempt to blow things up (including oneself). But now I know.

Preparing for stuff...

2006-08-10T12:54:00.000+01:00

Hmmm...

Tomorrow I'm going to London to see my Dad's exciting show (which I saw on film only five days ago and therefore know the ending of. Thanks Mum).

Emily is coming to see it too, as she is a glutton for punishment. I'm sure it will be fun.

Anyway, I've been turning my thoughts to jobs overnight, "sleeping on it" as it were and have come to the conclusion that I should just let the fates decide. If I've applied for a job it's because I want to do it. I've thought about things and the one for which I may or may not have an interview soon sounds really exciting, having spoken to people who've done similar jobs before. So I'm going to jump to it and get myself in tip-top shape for it, and see what happens.

Hopefully I'll get it - I can't moan one day that the process takes too long and then get myself all in a strop when one comes along rather more quickly than I'd thought and makes me make decisions I hadn't planned on making just yet.

So here goes.

Rumours abound...

2006-08-09T17:48:00.000+01:00

Nothing is confirmed and until I have piece of paper in my hand there is nothing to say that it isn't an error...

But if the rumours are to be believed...it would seem...

...That I have my first ever job interview coming up soon!

I have nothing official but I believe I may be on the shortlist for a job. This is exciting. I have never had a full-on proper job interview before, though I went through university interviews twice and have had more or less formal interiviews for some short term jobs. I have nothing to add on this at this stage but I will keep you updated.

There are two other applications pending of which I have currently heard nothing, for only one of which is this cause for concern.

The question I would like to pose dear readers, should anyone wish to furnish me with advice...is what happens if you are given a job following an interview? Are you duty bound to accept it there and then? Do you have a period to think about it (i.e. if you've potentially got another job you've applied for?) or what? I don't really know the procedure and don't want to accidently get a job without thinking about it properly first. Do I need to be doing my serious thinking now?

I have never been in such a position before and am feeling my way in the dark a little bit.

Summertime, an' the livin' is easy...

2006-08-08T21:04:00.000+01:00

Right, so I promised a post about what I have been up to other than filling in job applications. Here it is.

1. Emily and I have been spending time with each other. This is wonderful. I have been exploring Leeds. Actually, I've been exploring a pub in Leeds which I have now visited twice. And Pictionary which we have played with her friend and various siblings and boyfriends of siblings and so on. Twice. Emily tends to win, and as a loyal boyfriend I couldn't possibly accuse her of cheating ever. There was a particular surreptitious mime of a penguin when no-one was looking which I can categorically say that, as a loyal boyfriend, was not at all cheating.

2. I love Emily very much, even when she is miming penguins and miraculously winning at pictionary. To mark the fact that we have known each other for 6 months (the start of our "relationship" is a controversial matter so we have settled on the day we were introduced to each other as the best date to mark) I cooked dinner and purchased March of the Penguins, which we watched. There were many penguins. Emily was very happy and has apparently watched it again with every member of her family one by one.

3. Emily bought me a monkey. She really did. Made of chocolate. It goes with Chomsky, the monkey she bought me during my exams. The reason I called it Chomsky is to do with what I was reading about during the exams. When I manage to learn how to use my new digital camera I will post a picture of Chomsky and a full explanation.

4. I used to sit in the sun and watch the World Cup. Both have disappeared. Now I mooch around the house waiting for the sun to come back, occasionally watching the cricket.

5. My good friend Ellie Reeves and the wonderful Peter Wheeler were succesfully elected to the NEC which is a GOOD THING. For Ellie to get elected at the first attempt in her mid-twenties is a really really fantastic achievement and I'm really pleased for her - she'll do a fab job.

6. I have occasionally caught up with friends. But not as much as I'd like as many of them are not in Liverpool and I'm conserving energy and money for the transparently long time it is going to take for anyone to employ me by not going to London or Oxford or Abroad much.

7. I am going to London this weekend however to see my dad in a play "The Representative" which he is performing at the Finborough Theatre in Earls Court. I was watching a film called "Amen" on Sunday night with my mum who bought it ages ago on DVD but hadn't got round to watching it. The plot seemed eerily familiar to that outlined by my dad for the play he's in. It transpires it was the film of the play. So great. I get to go and watch a 3 and half hour translated German play set during the Holocaust. And I already know the ending.

That's about it for now.

Your problem? You need an excitable, over ambitious, half-arsed, ex student with little if any experience and a chronic lack of motivation?

2006-08-07T23:34:00.000+01:00

But there is a solution. Me.

So time has drifted by and I haven't blogged. There are several reasons for this. But they key reason is the sheer lack of anything to blog about. I've been sort of hanging around waiting for someone to ring me up and give me a job. It's slowly dawned on me that in the real world this doesn't happen. Even when you have a degree (fluke).

So, two months having passed since I took my final exam it's time to start applying for things. And my oh my oh my is it boring. And what's more people are so slow. Most adverts come out and say "deadline in four weeks" (as if they'll ever give you a deadline that generous when they actually give you the job!). Then they say 'interviews will be, like, a few weeks afterwards or something, whenever we can be bothered'.

Presumably at this point they just hang about a bit scratching their heads wondering whether they should give you the job even though in the intervening period you've long since passed retirement age. Or rather, whatever retirement age was last time I checked. It's creeping up behind my back like the wolf in that playground favourite "What's the time mister Wolf?".

The only thing to do whilst the jobs you first spotted drag themselves out of their stupour and actually read your CV is apply for a whole load of other jobs that, frankly, you're not sure you'll ever accept in the first place. And every week the papers come out with more job adverts, some you want some you don't but feel you should apply for.

But the thing is you have to operate on a time-lag and imagine yourself somewhere in mid-December when reading it. For example, I applied for 5 jobs the first time I looked. None of them are even at the "letting you know if you've got an interview" stage. That was nearly ten days ago - and they were old adverts with looming deadlines that I hadn't looked at before due to being post-finals pissed for about 6 weeks longer than standard. If I'm offered any of these I'd be mad not to take them. That could be in about 3 weeks. By which point these other jobs coming out now won't even have hit deadline.

But if I don't get any of these jobs, what says I'll get any of the new ones? It could conceivably be 2011 before I get anywhere. So if I haven't got a job by December I should be setting my sights a bit lower and aiming for more entry level jobs that will get my foot in the door and a roof over my head. But here's the problem - if I need to make sure I've got a job, any job, by the winter and therefore need at some point to stop being picky the ridiculous time it takes people to sort this stuff out means I need to start applying for some of the more modest jobs like, now.

But I haven't even been turned down for a single job yet. It just seems like a momentous waste of time to be applying for hundreds of jobs willy nilly at all kinds of grades and so on when I could still get, and accept the first one I went for. And not a little defeatist.

This would be at least bearable if applying for jobs were a remotely interesting activity. It isn't. Each and every employer appears to believe that they, and they alone, have THE form, THE question, THE advert blurb, which will give them the upper hand in identifying that young, thrusting, ambitious candidate who will transform their murky little hobby horse into dynamic market leader in the NIMBY, bleeding heart fraternity. (I'm generally going for fluffy right-on lobbying jobs by the way - if you hadn't guessed).

Well, let me tell you, the next time I have to write "I am a dynamic...passionate... blurdy...blurdy...advocate...nonsense whatever" to someone who can't just say "bung us yer CV and pop in for a chat" and be happy with that I'll throttle someone. Probably a poor child, or an upset animal or some other worthy cause.

So. Tomorrow I will blog about the things that have filled my time in the intervening period.

Panic over...

2006-07-27T16:56:00.000+01:00

I came back up to Liverpool from London late the other day and Tipsy, my mighty moggy, had buggered off somewhere.

Convinced that through my tardiness I had caused him to mope off and die somewhere through lack of

a. Food
b. Pills (wot he eats to make him less manky)

I was a little concerned.

My mother and Neville are away and therefore the burden of sustaining the fat feline falls upon me, since I've got nowt else to do but send my CV off to people and lounge around hoping nobody gives me a job until the winter.

Anyway after nearly 48 hours panicking I located the beast in an RSPCA centre in Halewood (where, fittingly, they make Jaguars. And Lambrini. But I'm not sure I believe that.) . He is now a very stressed moggy. But he'll cope.

Here's a celebratory picture of the creature:

Packing heat

2006-07-21T02:22:00.000+01:00

Hmmm...few days in Livepool (photos to follow) at home with folks.

Friend is moving up to Liverpool so he stayed for a couple of days to have a look round for a flat. Emily came to stay too. We went to the Albert Dock to have a look round, and to the Tate Gallery (yes, we have art in the north). It was generally difficult dealing with how hot it was. Dan (Friend) was bitterly considering his luck in picking the hottest day of the year to go house hunting on foot. He was quite pink.

Lovely time had by all. Except that we lost the Willow Bank quiz on a tie-break after being, in my view controversially, denied a half point for having guessed 3 African countries on the shores of Lake Victoria, getting one right when 2 were needed. (half the answers right, half the points, surely?) A moral victory was achieved when John the quizzy announced our team as the winner and I pointed out his mistake - honesty is always the best policy. Having split the pot between the team we would have each gained a few quid; but the self righteous feeling of having done a good deed was worth so much more.

Returned to Oxford with a view to packing my room up for the big move tomorrow. However the temperature in my room is in excess of 156 degrees Farenheit which is at least a million Celsius and basically having panted and puffed for a bit I collapsed in a sweaty mess and slept soundly til about ten minutes ago.

Now it's still unutterably hot (windows wide open but it just means I'm getting different hot air) and I've got to pack in a rush. Saint Anneliese of The Wilder Bits of Scotland is supremely kindly driving me and my stuff to London tomorrow night so I can dump it in a corner of my Dad's flat whilst I contemplate my next move...

Not even really had time to mull over the end of my brief sojourn in Oxford. It's been 6 productive months; I'm currently up 1 x Girlfriend whom I love very much, 1 x Very satisfactory degree, 1 x Passable tan, 100 x stories and memories of good friends who have been on hand to give me moral support at what was a bit of a stressful time.

I took a bit of a wild stab in the dark turning down career opportunities to come a prove a point to myself that I wasn't actually as thick as all that. As a gamble it's really paid off and I'm bloody delighted I did it.

The fact that I am currently jobless and homeless should be cause for concern but I'm not really giving that much thought as it's too sodding sunny to care.

This country is going to the dogs...

2006-07-11T19:30:00.000+01:00

Our great nation, ruler of the waves, and the pink bits on the map, and factory of the world.

We were the envy of all with our armed forces feared, our navy unsurpassed, British goods in homes throughout every continent.

Men were men, and we trained them to rule an empire.

Now all of these mickey mouse degrees these days we can't even rule ourselves properly and everyone's going to be speaking French in a few years time.

That's what I think.

I mean even bloody Pickles got a 2:1. PARTAY!

By the hairs of my chinny chin chin

2006-07-10T15:30:00.000+01:00

The first thing that occurred to me at the end of the world cup final was an article I'd read a few weeks ago in the "knowledge" feature on Guardianunlimited;

"For some reason, I believe that no bearded player has ever won the World Cup," claims Jonathan Taylor. "Can this be right? And I mean full beards, not stubble, goatees or moustaches - the full works."

Strict guidelines indeed, but Olly Winkles is one of several readers to remember at least one hairy-faced winner. "Step forward Sergio Batista of Argentina," writes Olly. "He sported a full-on beard in the 1986 final...."

Olly adds that, "arguably, West Germany's Paul Breitner could be described as bearded in 1974 too," but despite an impressive 'tache/sideburns combo, we're not letting 'Der Afro' into the select band. Nor Fabien Barthez's 1998 goatie effort, or Ricky Villa's handlebar in 1978, both of which were good, but not good enough. Sadly there's a distinct lack of bushy facial features on show in Germany this summer, although should Gennaro Gattuso steer clear of a razor and Italy go all the way, then he'll surely be eligible to join Batista in the pantheon of hirsute legends."

History in the making. I texted everyone (not quite everyone...) in my phone book to let them know the importance of what they had just seen, (the second ever bearded world cup winner) and here's a selection of responses:

"Who was the other?" (most popular response)
"But what about Socrates" (most popular response from people who don't have a very good memory for these things)
"Forza Italia" (most popular response from Italians)
"Is Paul Breitner the first" (From a football geek, who was nevertheless wrong)
"Gimp" (Someone who wasn't particularly interested)
"What!?" (From someone who seems to have taken the whole thing a bit too seriously)
"A uniquely great fact...but who are you?" (from someone who has lost all of their phone numbers)
"That's knowledge! Can't believe the Italians won on penalties" (From someone who has trouble focusing on the bigger picture)
"What was Zidane doing?" (from someone who is always about half an hour behind everyone else.)

Nuts

2006-07-10T14:28:00.000+01:00

A lot of people who are talking about yesterday's World Cup final are asking the question as to whether the fourth official ("extra ref" as I like to call it, just as they're actually called "linesmen" not "Referee's assistants" and it's "injury" time, not "stoppage" time) stole a glance at a telly screen in order to be able to advise the ref (correctly) to send Zidane off yesterday.

I don't really think it's a very worthwhile debate to have. He clearly did - play was miles away and none of the other officials saw it. And they've got intercom systems so, if he saw it straight away the referee wouldn't have had to spend 5 minutes wandering around like a headless chicken until the fourth official mentioned it to him.

The real debate to have is why the fourth official had time to pull up a chair, get a cup of tea and generally mull it all over.

And that's because the Italian players seem to have started a mini riot around the referee. It was obviously worthy of a red card - but after the officials missed it and waved away the first protests that should have been it.

If and when video replays do come in then the decision to check it should be based on something more sensible than how many Italians shout at the referee.

(Whilst I haven't posted much on the world cup I feel I should point out, I am not the kind of johnny come lately once every four-years football fan that seems to get up the nose of Alistair Campbell so much. In fact, I had a season ticket at Goodison Park for four years in the mid/late 1990s until I moved away. Anybody who remembers Everton's form from that period will appreciate that "Glory Hunting" is not something I can be accused of. Also, I watched the whole of Tunisia v. Saudi Arabia.)

Idiots; Please read this. Understand it. Do not darken my door again.

2006-07-10T02:23:00.000+01:00

The minutes of the previous meeting being carried I would like to propose the following motion:

This most wonderful website expresses in a way that I only wish more people could the pointlessness and inanity of much of what passes for debate within our Party. I mandate all readers of Afarfetchedresolution (yes, that's you. And you too) to read and understand http://idiots4labour.blogspot.com/

I had a conversation over a Crispy Duck at a chinese restaurant with some friends and many of the points made on this blog were made then - but none of us could hope to reach the eloquence of this anonymous blogger who has somehow captured the sheer futility of it all.

The Old Boys (In Da Hood) network

2006-07-09T08:38:00.000+01:00

David Cameron is apparently, according to the beeb, preparing to call for...' greater understanding of teenage "hoodies" in a forthcoming speech on social justice. Mr Cameron will say teenagers who hide under hooded tops are trying to "blend in" rather than appear threatening. He will describe hoodies as "a response to a problem, not a problem itself"

It's a nice idea. Not a million miles from a worthwhile message to push with young people, if a little opportunstic (well, duh)

But in this context it raises some interesting questions.

Will he himself be demonstrating his commitment to the hoodie cause by actually wearing one? I dearly dearly hope so. Maybe we can convince him to go to Alton Towers in one.

(Muchos thanks to the virtual stoa for the picture wot I nicked)

UPDATE: From the Graun: "He will insist tough sanctions are still required for offending and that crime cannot be excused, but he will stress that 'inside those boundaries we have to show a lot more love'"

[Retch]

"Just getting in touch to let you know that I will be voting for..."

2006-07-07T13:35:00.000+01:00

A number of people have got in touch regarding the Labour Party's NEC elections. (I need to go to my dad's to pick up my ballot paper - the perils of the nomadic life).

What surprises me is the pretty silly way these approaches have been made.

They all (accross the spectrum of candidates) appear to be taking the form "I just thought I should let you know that I will be voting for..."

Is it just me or is this the most ridiculous way of going about things? I presume (hope) that most of the people who are getting in touch have done a fair bit of knocking on doors and talking to ordinary voters in their time. In which case, surely they wouldn't ever have considered knocking at No. 37 and saying "Hi Mrs Goggins, I just thought I'd pop round to let you know I will be voting Labour in the forthcoming local council byelection". It would make you seem like a bit of a dope wouldn't it?

Anyhow. For what it's worth, it will surprise nobody to learn that I made my mind up which way I shall be voting long ago. If you're interested, two people I will be definately voting for are Ellie Reeves and Peter Wheeler. My biggest obsession in the Labour Party is the hard work and resources that are needed to get more young people involved. Both these people have a record on this that simply knocks spots of the rest of the candidates in the race.

I can think of at least one young person who would never have got involved either in a local Young Labour group or University Labour Club without their hard work.

Me.

But I don't think me posting this here is going to make a whole lot of difference to the way you vote.

As thoughts turn to the future...

2006-07-07T00:30:00.000+01:00

I have spent most of the past month (and it is a month !?!) celebrating the fact that after six years I have completed my finals.

On Monday or Tuesday (Oxford's exam system is as arcane and disorganised as it is farcical) I will find out if "completed" means "passed".

I wait with baited breath. If I'm being honest with myself I'm not expecting great things. 5 1/2 years of prevarication (including: Three jobs, two general elections, four byelections, 7different homes - including two hotels- and lots lots more) followed by 5 1/2 months of feeling my way blind throught the vast recesses of political and philosophical academic literature is not ( I repeat, not) the best way to approach a degree course.

My thoughts are also turning to the future;

I currently have no job.
no home.
A little money.
No degree or post-school qualifications in anything (not even a driving license - although I'm working on that)
No work experience outside the narrow confines of the Labour Party & Labour Students. (except for a year's teaching English to school kids. In France. Not very well.)

Some might find this scary. Indeed last time I was in this position it was very scary indeed. But now I think I'm finding it quite liberating. Contact me in three months time and I really don't know what I'll be doing.

There's ideas floating around - and some jobs I could probably go for. But...well...if it weren't for the fact that the world cup is over in four days, and I'll eventually need to eat and pay rent, and the weather is likely to get pretty rubbish in around September (if not before...) then I'd quite like to carry on as things are...

Suggestions welcome.

This month I have been mostly

2006-06-27T03:20:00.000+01:00

1. Finishing my exams. Jo has good pictures (the first few are not of me...the second lot are of my friend Karim who finished around the same time as I did. My name is Pickles.) I asked her to email them to me. She posted them on her blog instead. That is evil. The tradition seems to involve throwing stuff at the hapless finalist and then making them drink fizzy stuff. The university regulations oblige you to wear white tie. It's just a total farce. See previous posts. ("Pennying" = throwing a coin in someones drink which means they have to drink it all in one go. "Being a bastard" = "Pennying" after inserting a double shot of vodka into a finalist's third post-bubbly pint)

2. Recovering from the hangover induced by excessive drunkenness induced by (1)

3. Enjoying the following facts:

a. The entire population of planet earth helpfully left plenty of drink for me to drink whilst I was otherwise engaged with work.
b. The entire population of planet earth helpfully organised the very best footballers amongst their number to play a tournament almost constantly on my television to coincide with me stopping work and (re) starting drink.
c. The entire planet has so arranged things so that it has been largely sunny here in this corner of said planet.
c. Jobs, exam results, housing, the entire future, are as mere trifles to such momentous events.

4. Blogging comes last (sorry fellow bloggers)

anyway - my head hurts. So I'm slowly rejoining the land of the living. Hello, living; It's been a while. How are you?

"As an extremist..."

2006-06-06T04:44:00.000+01:00

According to the British Election Survey 16% of the population viewed Tony Blair as "Extreme" in the run up to the 1997 general election.

By 2001 this had fallen to 15%.

I don't have the figure for the 2005 election but I wonder if these space aliens had revised their views?

Extreme!? leaving the aside what your definition of extremist is, surely the whole point of Tony Blair and the whole New Labour project is not to be "extremely" anything...did these people really think that TB was a closet commie? the mind boggles.

In love surveys. I always imagine having a pint with some of the total buffoons responsible for the slightly loopy fringes of them and asking them to explain, slowly, what wild-eyed logic led them in the split second to betray their lunacy to some bloke from MORI or wherever.

It seems that no matter how batty the question you pose there'll always be some small but not insignificant percentage willing to give their unblinking assent to something unutterably bonkers. Like the surreal percentage of people who text in "Don't know" to tv polls.

Google Alert - Monkey News

2006-06-05T22:34:00.000+01:00

I have signed up for Monkey News on Google alerts. However this has so far proved fruitless as I've usually got most of the monkey news before Google sends it to me. (Should I be worried?)

Until now:

Kids get in for £1 at Monkey World!

Unfortunately I need to get a copy of the Tuesday edition of the Dorset Echo in order to participate. And I need to actually be between 3 and 15 years old. And I need a full paying adult to come with me...

Where is Dorset? How am I going to get a copy of their Echo? Was that today's edition? I'm all flustered...

Do you ever want to grab a whole country by the scruff of the neck and shout "WAKE UP!!!"

2006-06-05T04:57:00.000+01:00

I do. I do right now.

David Cameron is busy charging round the country (actually not this country, he mostly charges round Norway) telling everyone the Conservative Party has changed.

He's doing what the Labour Party did so succesfully in the mid-1990s, neutralising his negatives. He knows nobody will really ever trust the Conservatives on health and education, but he's just trying to reassure people that they aren't going to wade in their with a big Tory axe and smash the NHS up, so it's safe(ish) to vote Tory.

Well, Pickles is here to tell you it ain't. In 1982 Margaret Thatcher said that the NHS is:

"Safe with us"

A year later Neil Kinnock said:

"If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday– - I warn you not to be ordinary - I warn you not to be young - I warn you not to fall ill - I warn you not to get old."

Unfortunately Margaret Thatcher won on Thursday. And then another Thursday. In 1997 nearly 1.2 million people were on an NHS waiting list. Today nobody (or near as dammit) waits longer than 6 months.

So, when at some point in the next few months or years David Cameron tries to claim that the NHS is safe with the Conservatives, or when George Osborne claims he can't promise tax cuts because of the economic conditions (is that the economic conditions which have seen more than 50 quarters of consecutive growth, the best ever?) and we know he means that it's because he doesn't think public service cuts will wash in the manifesto and they'll have to be done by stealth. I warn you, don't be taken in.

For much as the pledges on tax that Labour made have been kept, Labour has also found ways and means to pay for better public services. That's because that's what Labour is about. Just as the Tories will find ways to do the opposite.

Spending on the NHS is going up more than 8% a year at the moment, in real terms. That's nearly triple the annual increase under the Tories. Health spending will have doubled - in real terms. All of this talk of "where's the money gone" is so much disingenuous twaddle. Some of the money has gone to improving the pay and conditions of staff (good thing). Some of the money has gone to reduce waiting lists (remember the pledge to take 100,000 off the waiting lists - done. five times. By 2004.) Some of it has gone on better cancer care and heart treatment, cutting deaths by thousands. Some of it has gone on making sure that every patient now has the choice of hospital, a guaranteed GP appointment within 48 hours, and a maximum 4 hour wait in accident and emergency. I went to a drop in centre at an A&E department a few months ago. I was in and out in 45 minutes. I did the same 6 years ago - it took 7 hours.

But more importantly, much of the money hasn't been spent yet. The big increases are scheduled for the 2006,7 & 8 budgets. That's the whacking great 8% plus per year ones. This is good money after good. Today nobody waits more than 6 months (there were hundreds of thousands of people waiting over 18 months only 8 years ago). By 2008 nobody will wait longer than 18 weeks.

We used to say that long waits and "rationing" in the NHS were inevitable. We used to say that the model was permanently broken.

We used to have a Flu crisis every winter with the elderly sleeping on trollies in corridors. We used to have people living for years without a hip replacement on the NHS they'd paid for in their taxes and National Insurance.

I'm proud of what this government is doing for the NHS. You can shout about job cuts in some trusts, about MRSA, about lots of things that are really unfortunate and regrettable that have happened in the NHS in 10 years. I've got to say, in an organisation that employs over a million people, we just need to remember that some (not all) of the people who raise their heckles at these issues have got an agenda. It's one based on persuading people that the NHS is permanently broken and that their money is being wasted.

So that's why they're moaning about the lack of results from the investment when the results are clear, and the investment has hardly gone in.

I say don't listed to them. And I say remember, that in 1982 Margaret Thatcher told us that the NHS was safe with her. And remember that when smarmy Cameron tries to tell you it's safe to vote Conservative again.

Kids...they say the darndest things!

2006-06-01T01:51:00.000+01:00

Guardianunlimited Vox Pop re: Peter Crouch's robotic dancing at Old Trafford

The Grimes family - Jamie, 10, Shaun, 10, Jackie, 30, Liverpool:

Jamie: "When I saw him doing it, I thought he must be crazy, but I think I'm pretty good at it too. I'm better at dancing than he is but I don't think I could score a goal like that one. Can we get the Guardian from a normal newsagents?"

A Desmond or a Douglas?

2006-05-31T03:04:00.000+01:00

I had my British Politics and Government Since 1900 exam this week - it was supposed to be the good one that might drag the other 7 dog-awful ones up a bit. It was ok - but not sure about good enough frankly.

I answered these three questions, which I thought might provoke a bit of debate (I'm paraphrasing since I've lost the copy of the exam paper which I stole):

1. Could the "Progressive Alliance" before 1914 accomodate the sectional interests of the Labour Party and the Radicalism of the New Liberals? (My Answer: yeah but no but, probably not forever)

2. Is there evidence of Thatcherism before 1974? (My Answer: Sort of Heath tried but failed, but actually Enoch Powell in the 1950s, and Callaghan killed crap Keynesianism first)

3. Is the Labour Party after 1994 the political heir to the SDP? (My Answer: No way, dirty Lib Dem scum. And anyway, half the cabinet worked for Kinnock.)

These weren't really the best questions that could have come up for me - I was kind of hoping to be asked a comparative question between Thatcher and Blair, Something about Macmillan and the Economy, and Something about the extension of the Franchise in 1918. But if you could pick your questions I suppose they wouldn't really be exams would they?

Exams trundling along anyway. Only three more to go and I'm really getting that low 2.2/3rd feeling.

A Desmond or a Douglas?

Just 2 words for you all; "Monkey" & "Forest"

2006-05-29T21:45:00.000+01:00

"Welcome to Monkey Forest at Trentham in Staffordshire

Experience this unique opportunity to visit 'Monkey Forest' an exciting walk amongst 140 free roaming Barbary macaques.

You will be able to discover this amazing species as they exhibit their natural behaviour with no bars or cages to hinder your view.

Freedom !

At Monkey Forest the Barbary Macaques roam freely in a 60-acre forest. As you enter the park you will feel privileged to observe the monkeys living in their fascinating society as they would in the wild .

Trentham Estate woodland is situated on a beautiful site, but it is the relaxed atmosphere of the monkeys that strike the visitors straight away. That's how it should be! Here, the animals reign supreme! They have large home ranges and will play, pose for pictures, interact with each other, and climb trees right in front of your eyes … and cameras! A unique experience in a unique setting! "

Thoughts thus far...

2006-05-29T00:45:00.000+01:00

"Whooah, we're half way there
Livin on a prayer
Take my hand and we'll make it - I swear
Livin on a prayer"

4 down, 4 to go. See you on the other side.

update: I've just realised that when you write that down...it really doesn't scan at all does it? It's alright shouted drunkenly on the dancefloor of some indie dive, but it's clearly got a few syllables missing which Jon Bon just improvises grunts to fill.

Nefarious Monkey Business

2006-05-23T22:36:00.000+01:00

This blog will probably be very quiet until the weekend (when you may get a halfway update on my exams...i.e. I'll let you know exactly how blankly I stared at the exam paper on discovering the 3 days wasn't enought time to learn the history of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant).

But in the meanwhile reflect on this:

Supposed "comrades"* have arranged a trip, together, to the zoo of all places...

DURING MY FINALS !

What is more they had the front to actually invite me! This has to stop. What next? These people have had a lifetime of waiting for that ultimate zoological experience - surely a few more days wouldn't have hurt?

* Supposed Comrades:

Comrade 1
Comrade 2
Comrade 3
Comrade 4
Comrade 5

Monkey Insurgents (Monkey News 6 - Monkey under siege)

2006-05-21T14:04:00.000+01:00

In this leaked video some US soldiers, I think in Iraq or Afghanistan (there's Arabic writing in the corner of the shot) are taunting a local (monkey). The response is hilarious.

Is this a metaphor? I don't know. It's definately really funny.

I don't want to be held accountable for the contents of the rest of that website though. It's a bit risque frankly.

Class in Britain

2006-05-21T02:28:00.000+01:00

Tonight I've been reading about class. It's presently 2:30am and I intend continuing reading about class, but with a glass of wine. Which is poignant in so many ways.

I have been mainly reading David Cannadine's "Class in Britain". I intend answering a question on class in my exam on British Social History on Friday so I thought I ought to read up on it. As you do.

I remember buying this book in about 1997 for Neville's* birthday , which he shares with me. This coincidence allows us to send non-too-subtle hints via my mother as to what we expect from each other present-wise. Hence a 16 year old buying someone a work of sociological history as a birthday present. I have however fallen down in recent years by failing completely to honour his birthday in the manner I'm sure he'd expect. I don't even have the excuse of forgetting it. I'm generally a pretty inconsiderate person.

I had however, never read the book. Which is why, when I recognised it on the reading list I decided to tackle it first. I think it's really rather interesting. The basic thesis appears to be that there are three models of class identification in Britain:

1. Upper, Middle and Lower/ Aristocracy, Bourgeoisy, Proletariat
2. Us V. Them
3. Organic/traditional heirachy of individuals each with a determinate social position.

[Correction: I don't mean determinate here as in, 'inevitable' or 'scientifically determined' or anything. It's clumsy wording but I can't think of what I should have put instead.]

He appears to be arguing that actually none are true, and that all three are true. Essentially that in reality social relations are far more complex than class divisions can capture but that what has defined our relationship with class has actually had far more to do with how our politicians talk about it, and how we see ourselves. (I.e. the Inter-war political consensus was very much about perpatuating the 3rd for fear of falling victim to the 1st).

I've not read the final chapter regarding developments up to the present day (or, rather 1997) but I'll let you know how it progresses. I feel this may have me thinking...

*who shortly afterwards, married my mother. I'm not sure what
this says about anything really.

Wine report, Chomsky can F**k off & A Date for your diary

2006-05-20T03:06:00.000+01:00

Have Opened a bottle of the "McGuigan's Estate" Chardonnay I recommended further down this board and am presently sipping gently on a glass of it as a reward for having read Chomsky, Mackie & Bennett waffling on about the innateness of our ideas & language blah-di-whatever until three clock in the sodding morning. This is my first read-til-your-eyes bleed night but, sadly this will not be the last. The exams start on Thursday.

For those of you in Oxford (and judging by Tracksy that's about 60% of you, although how many of those are actually just Steven Longden checking in every 5 minutes from different computers in the Social Sciences Library is something I'm yet to work out) or those of you who, like me, can't quite beleive I'm actually going to be finishing finals and just want to be there to witness the momentous occasion here are the details:

I will be leaving the "exam schools" (Old building, Oxford, where the exams are, trots occupy them occasionally in protest at things) at 1730 hours on Tuesday, June the 6th.

It is traditional in Oxford to be met out of your exams by a posse of people who give you nice things like:

1. Alcoholic drinks
2. Hugs
3. Banter
4. Encouraging noises about how a 3rd isn't the end of the world
5. A hand shake.
6. Flowers

And who absolutely do not THROW ANYTHING AT YOU AT ALL NOT EVEN CONFETTI.

The wine, by the way, is not as amazing as I remembered it. (I did though first drink it having an enchanting night in with the beloved watching Blues Brothers. I can't believe I'd never seen it and it's now one of my favourited ever films. Especially the car chase at the end. So that's probably why I remember it so fondly.) But nevertheless it's a really reliable Chardonnay which does exactly what it says on the tin. And you can't say fairer than that for less than £4.

Get your paws on it if you can. Here's to more nights in front of Blues Brothers - when these sodding exams are out of the way. Hi Ho, Hi Ho.

"Planning of the Apes" (or "Monkey News 5 - better than Police Academy 5")

2006-05-19T20:40:00.000+01:00

Plannin g of the Apes
From Sciencemag

"Anybody who has been stuck without a bottle opener at a beach picnic knows the value of future planning. But is planning a uniquely human trait? Perhaps not. A new study shows that bonobos and orangutans can save tools that help them access a future snack."

"The findings suggest that cognitive precursors to human foresight may have evolved in great apes more than 14 million years ago."

"First, the animals spent five minutes in a room with two suitable and six unsuitable tools for a food apparatus that the apes could see but not touch. Then, the researchers led the animals to a neighboring room, letting them take along any tools they wished, and left them there for an hour while an attendant cleared out the remaining tools from the test room. When the apes returned to the test room, the apparatus was accessible, and the apes could get food from it as long as they had the right tool with them."

"Finally, to ensure that the animals were not making a simple association between tool and the reward, the researchers removed the apparatus from the test room before the animals returned for the second visit but still rewarded them if they came back with the right tool. The animals started bringing wrong tools more frequently under this condition..."

UPDATE: The monkey in a hammock is a Bonobo. (I'm allowed to call apes monkeys because monkey world does.) I know it looks a lot like a Chimp but Sciencemag insist it is a Bonobo. And I'm not going to argue.

Monkey world does not have Bonobo. (Bonobae? Bonobabas? Bonobos? ...Who knows...) But it does have Chimps. It does not have Gorillas either and this is a more tragic loss - but Gibbons, Orang Utans and others are all present. As, of course, is the Woolly Monkey.

Charity set up for Old Etonians - Donations welcome

2006-05-19T17:35:00.000+01:00

This has got to be some kind of sick joke...

Eton, Harrow, Westminster etc (the "top fee-paying schools") have admitted breaking competition policy by exchanging "information" between the years 2001 & 2004. As a result the Office of Fair Trading has let them off lightly - fining them £10,000 each.

So far so fair enough. But get this; The Independent Schools Council their representative body is said to have proposed the deal that got them such light treatment. Part of that deal is a "charitable" donation of an average of £50,000 which is to go to a seperate charitable body.

Now my first thoughts were that this money would be used to let in some more pet poor people into these establishment safe-houses. That would at the very least be a nice gesture - even if I am innately suspicious of any attempts to legitimise ingrained privilege by giving it a "meritocratic" lick of paint.

But no. This "charitable" donation is going to a far more needy group. The BBC says

"A charity set up to help pupils who attended the schools during the years 2001 to 2004 gets £3m. The settlement was co-ordinated by a steering group led by Independent Schools Council general secretary Jonathan Shephard.

He said: "The settlement reached represents a sizeable cost to the schools for inadvertently breaching competition law by continuing to share information in a manner which had previously been perfectly legal."

So...in order to right a small wrong (infringement of a minor bit of regulation) we're going to perpetuate a much bigger wrong.

"It is estimated that roughly 40,000 people will benefit from the fund, which will be used for educational purposes and would pay out before the pupils' 30th birthdays. "

According to the Guardian the money "will be used to benefit students who attended the schools during the period that the cartel was in operation."

Well...I'm glad some good has come out of all of this.

Sub-Fusc Farce

2006-05-19T11:41:00.000+01:00

Sub Fusc is the academic dress of Oxford University. However unlike any university I've ever heard of you're not only supposed to wear it for your graduation (touch wood) and for your matriculation;

But you're obliged to wear it for ALL of your exams. I think this is beyond ridiculous. The students union has never even managed to get strong policy against it as every time they try to have a referendum the young Tories and Hooray Henrys manage to mobilise against it.

Whilst the rest of us, sensible and reasonable though we are, have absolutely no choice but to turn up looking like penguins and sitting deeply uncomfortably in eight three-hour exams over 8 days.

I don't own that many white shirts. Or a white bow tie. This is a total farce and frankly, an outrage.

(Cheers to St Cross College for the photos)

Monkey Latest (Monkey news IV - a new hope)

2006-05-18T23:34:00.000+01:00

I am such a good Monkey-Marketter. Maybe one day I could work for a monkey ad agency.

It would seem that I have anticipated a development in the naming & publicising of monkeys so as to engender support for endangered simians. (say that pissed). Here's what I wrote but a few short days ago on discovery of a new genus of Monkey, the inappropriately named 'Rungwecebus':

"Apparently it's endangered - so "Save the Rungwecebus" is a cry likely to be heard from many a loud hailer in the coming months and years. The scientists who found it are making a big deal about how we need to save it, but I can't help feeling they could have given it a more Sale-able name, like "Cuddly Monkey" or "Cute Monkey" in the interests of public relations."

Well here is a story that was pointed out to me by my beloved long-suffering Emily (who's resigned herself to humouring me & my monkeys - having long given up explaining that there are in fact more important things in life).

From MSN: 'Little Sucker'

"He may be only a couple of months old, but we're real suckers for baby woolly monkey Julio. The cute animal is being hand-reared at an animal sanctuary after being rejected by his mother. He was found clinging to his dad Bueno after mother Kuna abandoned him immediately after giving birth on 16 March"

"WOOLLY MONKEY" - now there's a good name for a monkey. None of this Rungadungapalaverwhatdjemecallit. "Woolly". and. "monkey". You don't need a biology degree to picture something that is both woolly and a monkey do you? It's words-as-pictures marketting-genius. It almost makes calling the baby "Julio" superfluous. Although the question
occurs; which Julio where they naming him after? My money is on Julio Arca the Sunderland wing back - but a number of people have already texted in suggesting Julio Iglesias. Any suggestions in the comments box.

The BBC have also reported this and they spoke to Dr Alison "comforts Julio by making woolly monkey noises" (!?) Cronin who looks after Julio who told them:

"He's doing fine - he's sitting in my lap right now. He's actually teething and just getting the last couple of molars in. He is also learning to stand up - that's the new thing - and he's very chatty"

You can read their full story here. But there's one key fact about Julio the Woolly Monkey which I have kept from you, dear reader. For this is the the most important of all of the facts an I wanted to keep you in suspense. Julio lives....you guessed it....

IN MONKEY WORLD!

Here's the last sentence of the paragraph I included from MSN above, although this time I've not cut out the killer fact;

"He was found clinging to his dad Bueno after mother Kuna abandoned him immediately after giving birth on 16 March at Monkey World rescue centre in Wool, Dorset."

There's two things that I want answers to.

1. Why have only discovered that heaven is in Dorset when I am in my 26th year?

2. Is the fact that the Woolly Monkey lives in Wool a coincidence?

Answers in the comments section. My trip to Monkey world is going to be so so so exciting. I have decided to up your excitement level, dear reader, by committing to learning how to upload pictures from my phone or alternatively borrowing a digital camera and making my visit to monkeyworld my first photo story. I spoil you.

Bird news

2006-05-17T15:09:00.000+01:00

Our anonymous source reminds us of the time he drove us to Cornwall for dinner.

We passed Stonehenge - but also, in a remarkable echo of "Monkeyworld", "Birdworld".

"Britain's largest bird park and gardens"

"Birdworld has a large restaurant (open 10am - 5pm BST, 10am - 4pm GMT) serving a wide range of food, from snacks to a full meal. Visitors are welcome to visit the restaurant without paying to go into the park. The restaurant is in pleasant surroundings with views over the wildfowl pool, fountain and the first section of the park. Bookings for parties are welcome for our special meal deals, roast dinners and cream teas. Don't forget birdworld for that special birthday party."

What do they roast? Chicken? This opens a whole new perspective on Monkeyworld.

Monkey News III

2006-05-16T11:37:00.000+01:00

My anonymous source continues....

"A colleague known only as "The Doctor" received a birthday present from friends for his 30th birthdayof a year's sponsorship of an ape being held at Monkeyworld. That's right - you can sponsor monkeys/apes who have been run through the mill (drugs testing,etc) and need a bit of sanctuary; and you can sponsor them as a present for friends and loved one's. "The Doctor" even went to visit his little one (who was named "Mercedes") in the monkeyworld (he's the one who has actually been inside) and, im sure, would be happy to furnish you with more information."

Watch this space.

On a related note - the controversial Oxford Animal Lab is being built on my street. By the sounds of it Monkeyworld's residents would have strong views on the matter...

Monkey (& Tank) News

2006-05-16T00:57:00.000+01:00

Writes my anonymous source:

"Monkeyworld does indeed exist. Not only do i have this on reliable evidence, but i've driven past it....Right down the road from Monkeyworld is Bovington Tank Musuem.

And when i say right down the road, i mean like half a mile. We went to a place for NewYear's just 8 miles away and, in the midst of the drunken ramblings that inevitably
occur when you have 18+ drunken 20 somethings within a short hikingdistance of a tank museum and monkeyworld.

Talk quickly grew of whether wecould try and merge the two: either by breaking out the monkeys with use ofthe preconfiscated tanks or (ideally) by somehow releasing the
monkeys andgetting them to break into the tank museum and take charge themselves of thetanks' exit (1000 monkeys on 1000 tanks, etc). It was all very exciting."

indeed. The plot thickens. And my post-exams day out just got more exciting.

Although - what kind of New Year's Party was that?!

Wine News #2

2006-05-16T00:18:00.000+01:00

Myself and Emily went down to London on Sunday evening to see my Dad, Anna and Monkey (Nina). Dinner was fun, with Nina her usual troublesome self. She's learning a Norah Jones song on the keyboard and entertained us with several renditions of the intro - which was very impressive, although I do hope she's progressed by next time we go as the intro is quite repetetive after a while.

Emily and Anna ended the evening debating access to university and various related issues - which I will probably end up blogging about before I leave the dreaming spires as it's long been a bugbear of mine. Dad got a call from his Director (he's doing Toby Belcher/Claudius in As you Like It/Hamlet in Southwark which hopefully I'll catch after my exams.) Anyhow he had a surprise run through and had to sneak off before dessert (MARS ICE CREAM!) in order to learn lines. He finds it harder these days - "the decay of a human mind".

I got a couple of bottles to take down.

I got this Cotes du Rhone 'Parallele 45' Paul Jaboulet Aîné from Oddbins on Little Clarendon Street - not my usual Oddbins. The young man working there didn't meet up to the usual standard of friendly and informative oddbins staff. He was pretty patronising, quite rude and actually wrong on a couple of key points. As a result I'm minded not to recommend this too highly. Although it wasn't bad at all.

Oddbins say: "Dark cherry colour with intense red fruit aroma and a round and harmonious palate with a long, warm, spicy finish."

And that's about right. Having said that he claimed that this was likely to be about 60 -70% Syrah (Shiraz) which sounded a lot to me. True enough the Oddbins website confirmed it was 55% Grenache, 45% Syrah. This is a fact that is totally irrelevant to me. But it's a little victory that the oik has been found out bullsh*tting since he was so rude.

Also he recommended this to go with a mild curry - and in my personal opinion for a couple of quid less I could have chosen myself a big bastard Aussie Shiraz that I would have enjoyed more. Sadly I can't really slag this wine off properly though, since it was pretty good and went well with the food.

He also recommended this Alsace Tokay Pinot Gris Cuvee Reserve Caves de Turckheim, that the ladies claimed was very nice. But having tasted it myself I think they were either;

a. Being polite
or b. Already pissed from the bottle they'd polished off first

Now I admit I was ready to just take his recommendation and get out on this so I should have been more awake. Frankly I knew that Alsatian wines were very sweet. Now he claimed that the Pinot Gris grapes would work with that and make for an interesting wine. But it wasn't quite enough and this was not "my bag".

Oddbins say this:
"A lovely wine from Alsace - the driest wine region in France. This Tokay Pinot Gris is packed with stone-fruit flavours and displays good varietal character and complexity."

UPDATE on previous post. The excellent wine which Emily brought round a few weeks ago was the McGuigan Estate, Limestone Coast, Chardonnay 2005 which Sainsburys have on offer here in Oxford right now. It's list price is £8.99 but they've gots shelves of the stuff for £3.99. Now that would normally make me run a mile since it's a hell of a reduction and if it were any good you'd imagine it would go. But this was really really good. Definately grab a bottle of this if you see it. It ain't worth 9, but 4 quid is a steal.

Amusingly however I found last year's vintage of this wine reviewed in 2005 as reduced to £3.99 too - so clearly Sainsbury's have some plan here to make this look like more than a bargain than it actually is. Still it's got to be worth it for what this bloke in Manchester calls (admittedly last year's vintage) "the straightforward light oak of McGuigan Estate Chardonnay" from what he calls "a consistent if not exciting producer". At less than £4 consistent is all you're going to get - but that's not to be sniffed at.

Monkey News: Update

2006-05-15T18:47:00.000+01:00

A friend with more time than sense gets in touch with further details of Monkey World & its environs. These will drip-fed into the public domain in an attempt to create a sense of "momentum" for Monkey World.

In the mean time...The first new genus of monkey for 83 years has been discovered...

This has *got* to be big news in Monkey World.

It's certainly big news in the monkey world.

"The monkey, first described by WCS scientists who found it in Tanzania last year, was initially believed to be related to mangabeys. However, DNA work published in this recent study reveals that the species is truly unique, marking the first new genus for a living monkey species since Allen's swamp monkey in 1923. The new genus, Rungwecebus, (pronounced rung-way-CEE-bus) refers to Mt. Rungwe, where the monkey was first observed. Perhaps 500 remain in the wild."

"The monkey is brown, with a long, erect crest of hair on its head, elongated cheek whiskers, an off-white belly and tail, and an unusual call, termed a 'honk-bark' by the scientists who first described it. It stands about 3 feet tall (90 cm). The monkeys occur as high as 8,000 ft (2450 m) where temperatures frequently drop below freezing; its long coat is probably an adaptation to the cold."

Apparently it's endangered - so "Save the Rungwecebus" is a cry likely to be heard from many a loud hailer in the coming months and years. The scientists who found it are making a big deal about how we need to save it, but I can't help feeling they could have given it a more Sale-able name, like "Cuddly Monkey" or "Cute Monkey" in the interests of public relations.

Scientists. Typical.

I'm also fascinated by "Allen"; who he was, whether it was he who found the "swamp monkey" and what one has to do in order to acquire possession of a swamp monkey as Allen appears to have done.

Any swamp monkey experts do please get in touch.

Monkey News

2006-05-15T02:39:00.000+01:00

I know, I've nicked the title. But at the end of the day this is bloody well worth it.

First, monkeys have caused me to find God. I mean it. I know i've posted a bit of secular gubbins in the past few days but I am now a firm believer in Him, the Un-caused cause, the Prime mover, the omniscient noumenal being, the Lord God Himself.

Why? well this leads me to the first bit of Monkey News for the week.

I, and those who know me well will confirm this, am possibly the world's biggest monkey fanatic. I love monkeys. Actually it's mainly apes, but, and this will be relevant later, apes and monkeys are confused often enough and other than when it's part of the excellent phrase "ape-shit" 'ape' is an inferior word to 'Monkey' all told and therefore I consider it legitimate to call myself a 'monkey fanatic' when in fact my fascination is as much with apes as monkeys.

It's important that you understand the esteem in which I hold our fellow primates. This story won't make sense unless you do. A couple of days ago I was wandering down the street near my current abode. I was pretty down it must be said - exams aren't going as well as I'd hoped etcetera. Up ahead two young women were having a very animated conversations, one was clearly disgruntled and the other had a consoling air. As I drew level with them my mopey nosey self tried to make out their conversation in order to distract myself from the tasks of the day.

And this is what I heard...

Agitated Woman: "fsdinfosinaoihfdoifhsf...."
Consoling Woman: "I know, and you're going to Monkey World tomorrow" [Strokes arm sympathetically]
Agitated Woman: "mdjas9dijaoifjddsiofdoifhtfruio..."

Yes. You read that right. "You're going to monkey world".

My feelings on this miraculous vision are very difficult to put into words. I think the best chance I have of transmitting the impact this snatched phrase has had on me is to draw up a list of the thoughts that have occurred to me since this momentous event...

1. Why is a woman who is clearly a student going to "Monkey World" in the middle of term time?
2. If she's going to "Monkey World" tomorrow, who's she going with? It sound like a chore...
3. Why is the person with her consoling her? Is Monkey World actually a metaphor for some kind of trauma centre?
4. Does "monkey world" even exist?
5. Did the conversation even happen? was I dreaming it? Is this the medication doing this to me?
6. OH MY GOD...I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW SUCH A HEAVENLY PLACE AS "MONKEY WORLD" COULD EVEN EXIST
7. Hold on, is monkey world real? If so where is it? It's definately not near Oxford as I recently checked out the zoo related attractions in the Oxfordshire area (long story).
8. What If I googled" Monkey World?"
9. What the HELL is Monkey World?
10. I've googled "Monkey World". It exists. It's near Bournemouth.
11. If it's called "Monkey World", why is it an "Ape" rescue centre?!?
12. How much call is there for "Ape rescue" in the Bournemouth area?
13. I have to go.
14. The th0ugh of this is going to get me through finals.
15. "Monkey World" has saved my life.
16. Why did I of all people walk past at that very moment? there are thousands of finalists under pressure. There's only one finalist who would have been so profoundly affected by the discovery of "Monkey World" - me. What are the Chances of me being the finalist who walked past at that point?
17. A million to one.
18. That's fate.
19. God exists.
20. I believe.

QED

Wine News #1

2006-05-13T15:25:00.000+01:00

Had some old friends up to college for dinner last night - Guest dinner in the college's v v v old dining hall is a treat I'd forgotten all about.

The food isn't bad at all - and as a "mature" student (it says so on the forms) I'm allowed to go on post-grad night which I think means it's a bit posher.

Anyhow, to business. I said when I started this blog I'd write a bit about wine and I've not done so yet. Normally because I forget what I drank once I've drunk it. Which ain't great for a wine bore in training.

Yesterday however I wrote the names of the wines on the back of a menu - thinking ahead. I've been buying pricey wine at the moment since I'm going out so little and when I do drink it's often over dinner and I want to make it worth it - and the money I save not going to the pub is therefore well spent.

I'm also trying to teach myself about wine - and it's so hard doing that when every bottle of wine for a fiver or less is branded and tastes more or less the same as another - i.e. not bad, and like it tasted last year. There's a place for it - I'll usually pick one of those up without thinking and they do the trick. But if you're trying to get a nose for different grapes, styles and so on you're basically not going to get anywhere.

I'm also only really starting out in my wine odyssey - so if you're a proper wine buff please don't scoff, just post any thoughts in the comments. We learn by doing, or in this case drinking and waffling on about it.

So.... Wine number 1. "Wither Hills" New Zealand Pinot Noir (Oddbins) 2004

This was a cracking wine - but you pay for it. If you really like red Burgundy and you're willing to pay for it - then get a decent red burgundy. I had this Santenay 1er Cru a few weeks ago when myself and Emily went to London for a meal at a good friend 's. Exactly the same price (£15.99)- and a whole class of different experience.

Pinot Noir from Chile or California isn't really Pinot Noir from Burgundy - it's good, but it's not the one. I'd heard that New Zealand was the place to go if you want that authentic complexity and - and the bloke in Oddbins confirmed that in recommending this. It didn't disappoint - but then if you pay this much for a Burgundy from a good producer (Vincent Girardin, and the Borgeot brothers are the two the Oddbins people- who've not recommended a bad wine to me yet - are raving about) and you're not going to be disappointed either - and you're quite likely to get your head blown off. This didn't quite blow me away.

I loved this though - and a great way to start the meal off. Beardy oddbins man (as opposed to bedraggled oddbins man) recommended it for exactly this purpose - in that it didn't need the same breathing time as the others. Oddbins can waffle about tasting notes far better than I can - so here's what they say:

"The aromas are youthful, complex, and ever evolving in the glass. Look for aromas of ripe black cherry and rich plum, surrounded by blueberry fruit. Spice with hints of licorice and rose petal are compelled with a bouquet reminiscent of being deep in an oak forest in the Autumn."

Wine number 2 is a Chianti Rufina; 'Castello di Nippozano' Riserva Frescobaldi 2002

This came highly highly recommended by beardy oddbins man. Frankly most of the time I've had Chianti it's reminded me a little bit of Haze or Glaze or whatever that airfreshener is called. Very herby and perfumey but none of the oomph you really want from a good red. I was willing to try something new however - I'd had a very drinkable Chianti in Leeds at the beloved's parents (although it was a very Chianty Chianti and hence controversial) and was therefore open to persuasion.

This did the trick - it had all the flowery nonsense I expected but was also really well rounded and flavoursome. I really enjoyed it . But again, I'd go back to the price (£11.99). At the end of it all I could probably have got a reasonable Claret for the price (not a great one - but a decent one) and it would probably have given me more pleasure - but then I'm not really being fair on the wine since that's just what I like. And an Aussie Shiraz for that price (or even less, like this Swan Bay one for £7.99 which I had in January) would have got me more excited - at least given me the proper "wine tingle" which this didn't.

But if you're a Chianti fan then you'd love this as it's got everything - flowery nonsense and proper grown up wine taste. And I'm probably being unfair since it came after the cracking first wine. So, for those who want a more professional description (if nonsensical) Oddbins says:

"Intensely perfumed with aromas of redcurrant, chocolate and spice. Smooth, finely structured and very long."

And it's won all kinds of awards and stuff.

If you're looking for a wine that's decent value but will go down well over the dinner table you could do worse than go for La Chasse du Pape, Cotes du Rhone. One of my friends picked up from somewhere where he claimed it was on offer - he had Oddbins plastic bags with him but I can't find it on their website so maybe it was all an elaborate double bluff. It's eminently drinkable- but I have no idea how much it was. But it's on offer. Somewhere.

"We don't do god"

2006-05-12T02:20:00.000+01:00

President Mahmood Ahmedinejad (Iran), 2006

“Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point - that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: 'Do you not want to join them?'
Mr. President, Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.”

George W. Bush (USA), 2006

“Before history is written down in books, it is written in courage. Like Americans before us, we will show that courage and we will finish well. We will lead freedom's advance. We will compete and excel in the global economy. We will renew the defining moral commitments of this land. And so we move forward -- optimistic about our country, faithful to its cause, and confident of the victories to come. May God bless America.”

Sir Karl. R. Popper (1963)

“That the utopian method, which chooses an ideal state of society as the aim which all our political actions should serve, is likely to produce violence is shown thus. Since we cannot determine the ultimate ends of political action scientifically, or by purely rational methods, differences of opinion concerning what the ideal state should be like cannot always be smoothed out by the methods of argument. They will at least partly have the character of religious differences. And there can be no tolerance between these different Utopian religions. Utopian aims are designed to serve as a basis for rational political action and discussion, and such action appears to be possible only if the aim is definitely decided upon. Thus the Utopian must win over, or else crush, his Utopianist competitors who do not share his own Utopian aims and who do not profess his own Utopian religion.”

I'm still alive...

2006-05-12T00:14:00.000+01:00

Just in case you all thought I'd died or something...

I've done the next best thing. I've spent most of the past few days in the library reading about Kant. Well get me.

Anyway - in my absence I leave you with yet another delightful picture of my fat old cat.

Take it away, Tipsy.

[Finals commence in a fortnight. I have absolutely no idea what a good or a bad result will be. I could be cruising for a third, I could be scraping a 2.1. It's probably closer to the former than the latter, but we can but hope.

Kids, a word of advice. Don't try and do a three year course in 6 months. And if you do, try to be a bit more organised than I am. And if you're not...well you're probably me. ]

P.S. If anyone knows anything about the Philosophy of Science & Social Science, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, British Social History since 1870 (in particular - Class, work, unemployment, education and social mobility), and Modern British Government (with reference to the Human Rights Act, the Party system, Party funding, House of Lords reform & the electoral system) that does not already feature in Wikipedia and cannot be Googled please email.

Reflections on the elections in Oxford (and the rest)

2006-05-06T17:34:00.000+01:00

Interesting few days...

I've tried to keep working for finals but it's been a bit chaotic frankly so I'm falling behind again. Rather like Big Tony i'm trying to use this weekend to regain the initiative. Haven't really blogged for a few days so here's some thoughts.

1. Really Really Really well done to the Labour Club. Nigh on 30 activists out at 5am to get 5,000 leaflets out to the Labour promise before any of them had woken up was a startling achievement. There are at least 3 councillors here in Oxford who owe their seats to OULC.

2. Really well done to the Oxford Labour Party - a huge swing in terms of seats (probably votes too but I can't be bothered to do the maths) to Labour from 2004, against the background of the last few weeks is a wonderful achievement and a real reward for all the hard work of the past 12 months. There's one ward I know of where 50% of the electorate have been spoken to in the past month. Accross Oxford East 10s of thousands have had a call from their local councillors, from Andrew Smith MP or from local activists and the Labour Club in the past year.

3. Congratulations to Councillor Antonia Bance, representing Rose Hill and Iffley ward, now the second safest Labour seat in Oxford! Enjoy Kefalonia, but the hard work starts when you get back ;-)

4. Congrats to Rae Humberstone, councillor for Blackbird Leys where I spent the day on Thursday. a 60 vote margin over the Independent Working Class Association. I won't expand on the IWCA since I'd rather not get myself in any trouble. Suffice to say that Blackbird Leys will now have the representation it deserves - and not least thanks to the hard work of Rae, Andrew Smith MP who has lived on the estate for decades, his wife Val and all those who slogged around the estate for the past year and for 17 hours on polling day.

5. Nationally an interesting set of results - clearly not great for Labour but on the other hand not as bad as I and others had feared.

A few friends worth a "shout out":

Kirsty Mcneill elected in Southwark - well done Kirsty!
Nick Small increased his majority from 18 to over 300 in Liverpool Central Ward - good work Nick. (great results overall in those councils too, woohoo)

Bad luck to Rhodri and Ellie and Pete who I know all worked hard in Southwark, Lewisham and Haringey respectively. And To all the ex-Oxford posse in Haringey - well done, looking forward to a better Haringey ;-)

The next journo I hear or read waffling on about lack of trust in politicians...

2006-05-03T10:58:00.000+01:00

...and Who tries to blame Tony Blair, or whoever the obsession is this week...

Is getting a piece of this:

"More people trust the government in Britain than they do the media, according to a BBC-backed poll published today...

...The media scored poorly on both accuracy and balance of reporting, according to the 10-country survey, which polled more than 10,000 people."

Having said that, I may not mention this:

"Worldwide, television was seen as the most trusted source of news, with blogs the least trusted."

Which would explain why nobody believed me when I exclusively reported yesterday that it was in fact David Davis who was personally responsible for releasing most of the foreign prisoners, since he'd been distracted by an affair he was having with someone in the office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

Well done OULC

2006-05-02T21:09:00.000+01:00

I've been busily reading away in the Library for much of the past few days - although actually focusing on work has been a difficult task. I've borrowed a pair of reading glasses off a kind hearted gentleman known only as "LD" to see if they help - and if they do I'm getting my eyes tested. They probably won't. I don't think I'm seeing funny I just think philosophers write funny.

However I've been able to nip out and do the odd stint on the doorstep - nothing remarkable to report I'm afraid. Labour people still Labour and we're going to have to wait for polling day to see if there's enough of them out there to ensure that the genuine good this Labour government is doing isn't lost in a maelstrom of, what largely amounts to the odd cock up. In both senses of the word. "Odd" I mean. What did you think I meant?

It's hard frankly forcing oneself to focus on the studies when, firstly they're so bloody boring, secondly one has good friends pounding the streets fighting for something so worthwhile (not the cock-ups, the good stuff) and therefore it's really reassuring to know that my old Labour Club are in fine fettle - putting the other parties' student members' activitiy to shame. (not that anyone's grumbling).

Well done to the team - by all accounts you're putting a lot of really hard work in.

The photos are a few shots from the weekend's activities - well done on getting so many out, but with the polling day push still to come I suspect we ain't seen nuttin' yet...

Groundhog day

2006-04-30T17:53:00.000+01:00

Revelations that the Conservatives spent £1,269 for five Groundhogs plus £1,410 on a Whack-a-Mole animated game during the general election have amused me this week...

But it's Groundhog day for another reason. Antonia has already blogged the details of this but Charles Steele the Conservative candidate in the ward where I'm living in Oxford spent some time at in one of Her Majesty's local establishments the other week after having a number of names on his nominations queried, apparently by the people who's names they were.

This appears to be an unfortunate way to end one's political career before it starts. Charles Steele was President-elect of OUCA, The Oxford University Conservative association which was famously and tastefully once advertised as the largest youth political society in Europe, since the Hitler Youth. He was also pictured in a number of national newspaper Diary columns dancing hilariously with diminuitive Shadow Cabineteer Alan Duncan.

OUCA is the Alma Mater of William Hague, Boris Johnston and a host of others. But this bastion of modern, compassionate Conservative values, had a brush with the law in suprisingly similar fashion not so long ago.

"Oxford Student > TT2002 Week 7 > News > Election fraud
Election fraud"
By Amy Pickvance
It has emerged that signatures were forged on local election nomination forms for Conservative Party candidates against the wishes of Oxford University Conservative Association members.
Christian Langkamp, a finalist at Lincoln College, discovered his name had been used to nominate a Conservative candidate for Carfax in the May 2nd elections after a friend noticed his name on their website. "

I haven't been able to find anwhere on the Web anything that confirms how this sorry tale ended.

I should remember as I was the Labour candidate at that election, finishing behind both the Lib Dems, the two Green candidates and my fellow Labour candidate Tim Waters who picked up 3 votes by going to a residents association meeting on the eve of poll (whilst I was helping out in a key ward elsewhere I hasten to add) and hence beat me into a respectable 6th place. We did, however, leave the Tories trailing in 7th and 8th.

I was also Chair of the Oxford University Labour Club in the same term, as Nick Bennett, the accused candidate in 2002 was President of OUCA. I always thought he was a decent if deluded bloke and therefore was a bit sad to see him get himself into such trouble.

A hilarious incident should have alerted me to the potential for malpractice that year when a Conservative candidate for the ward I lived in at the time rang to beg me to sign his nomination forms as he couldn't find ten people. (The perils of waiting til the holidays to get nominations in a ward that's more than 90% student).

I pointed out that:

1. I was a candidate
2. I was a member of the Labour Party and would be kicked out for nominating him
3. I was in Liverpool
4. I didn't like Tories

He seemed disappointed and asked for the mobile number of a mutual friend to ask him.

So I pointed out that:

1. He was a candidate
2. He was a member of the Labour Party and would be kicked out for nominating him
3. He didn't like Tories

The poor guy sounded desperate, but we have no reason to believe that he didn't succesfully get 10 nominations as none of his ten reported their surprise at being so named.

In another amusing post-script, Nick Bennett the accused Conservative candidate was apparently later made Returning Officer for the Oxford University Students Union elections.

The now merely comical Dave "Flopsie" the Chameleon

2006-04-27T10:30:00.000+01:00

I've realised a few things.

Has anyone considered the "Karma" aspect of the Karma Chameleon charge against Cameron? Not only has Cameron been "A liberal Conservative" "Green" the "Heir to Blair" and "A true Conservative" or whatever in the past few months alone, but in a former life he was in fact Rt. Hon. Jimmy H. Thomas MP, who was expelled from the the Labour Party along with Ramsay Macdonald and Phillip Snowden for their continued participation in the National Government.

Jimmy H. Thomas (Or "Dave the Chameleon" to his mates) was, according to Wikipedia:

"raised by his grandmother and began work at twelve years of age, soon starting a career as a railway worker. He became an official of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and, in 1913, helped organize the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR, now part of the RMT) from the amalgamation of several smaller unions"

He served as colonial secretary in the 1924 Labour administration and Lord Privy seal in the 1929-31 administration. He was dominion secretary in the National government, followed by returning to Colonial secretary shortly before being forced to resign from politics for leaking budget secrets.

Wikipedia notes "It was revealed that he had been entertained by stock exchange speculators and had dropped heavy hints as to tax changes planned in the budget. For example, while playing golf he shouted "Tee up!", which was taken as it was intended: a suggestion that the duties on Tea were to rise."

Clearly, by virtue of a. Treachery and b. Outrageous corruption he had very bad Karma, which is why he's now come back as a Chameleon. What's more my history A level text book described him in relation to the 1931 betrayal as "Ramsay Macdonald, Snowden, and the now merely comical Jimmy H. Thomas."

"Now merely comical" has a nice ring to it. "The now merely comical Dave the Chameleon".

The evidence I have in support of this whole theory is unfortunately classified so you're just going to have to take it on trust.

Other things I've noticed this week...

1. Although it has taken me six years of prevarication "it" (the degree) is now down to the final 6 weeks.

2. That means I'm proper busy, hence the lack of blogging amongst other things

3. So you won't get my thoughts on the new Dave the Chameleon movie. Suffice to say it's good because a. the reasons given last week b. It's harder on the fact that he's true blue and as responsible for the blunders of the last Tory government as anyone c. And it spell out some areas where he's definately already done a total flip flop in the past year or so.

4. I love Karma Chameleon by Culture Club. I was already aware of this as I remember being a toddler and dancing to it when I went on one of my mum's school trips around the time it came out. But I really do - and I'm delighted that I get to have it played to me at Labour Party events for the next four years. Although there was that period in about April 1997 when "Things can only get better" started to become a bit demonic. It soon recovered it's gloss though, with eventualy victory. I'm sure the same will happen with Karma.

5. Dennis Skinner has already called George Osborne "Boy George" (a few months ago whilst accusing him of taking Coke in parliament, hilariously claiming "It must be true, it was in the News of the World)". This is something we should stick to. If Gordon calls him Boy George at Treasury Questions then the next election is practically in the bag.

P.S. I don't mean George Osborne was accused of actually taking coke actually in parliament. I mean the accusation was made in parliament. Clearly when Dave "Flopsie" H. Thomas The Chameleon said "Legislators should not be law breakers" the very minumum requirements of consistency (which the current front bench are renowned for) mean that actually snorting coke *whilst legislating* is a big no no.

Dick Dastardly and Muttley - Photo Exclusive.

2006-04-22T00:31:00.000+01:00

"Christ you've got bad breath. Is that tapas? it is isn't it. Urgh, fresh octopus and serrano ham. Did you go to 'Galicia' on Portobello? It's gone downhill a bit I hear...Anyway I recommend Listerine. I eat rotten meat half the year - I'd be lost without it"

What a goon. Frankly I can't be bothered to blog about this. He looks so pleased with himself. it's not cute, flopsy, it's nauseating.

Assuming he's being genuine about his concern for the environment (excuse me whilst I giggle a bit about that, but let's play his game for a while..), is it not a bit bloody convenient that he gets to talk about fluffy animals and dick around in the snow and nobody gets to ask him some simple questions like;

'Dave, when you said you'd "share the proceeds of growth", did you mean by redistributing money from rich to poor through support for poorer families with children and better public services? Or did you mean tax cuts for your mates?'

They do 19 types of Rioja at 'Galicia', Dave's "local". Apparently it comes in any colour you want, so long as it's red.

Anyway thankfully Ros Taylor at the Guardian has vented her spleen re: this yippie (Hippy/Yuppie) vagabondage here. So you can read that if you really can't bear to ignore the fool.

It's the final countdown...

2006-04-20T12:17:00.000+01:00

The exam timetable is through....

And oh dear oh dear. In in 48 hour period I have a 3 hour exam in Political Theory, The History of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant, Ethics, and British Social History in the 20th Century. I suppose I shouldn't complain. I've actually read some books for, errrr, two of those so far.

That's essentially 6 hours of exam on Thursday 25th May and 6 on Friday 26th. And that's just half of them.

On the plus side, they start on the 25th May which is a few days later than I'd thought which is a bonus - three extra days revision will make all the difference at this stage. I say "revision"...

Also my final exam ("Modern British Government" as distinguished from "Modern, Compassionate Conservatism") finishes at 5:30 on Tuesday 6th of June. So I have a target to aim at.

I've been told it is traditional to get very drunk when one finishes ones exams. Having succesfully avoided exams throughout this millenium I'm in no position to argue. All are welcome to join me. I will be starting at 5:30 prompt, and will be probably be on the piss til the end of June [looks at watch].

Dave the Chameleon hits the Roadblock to Reform

2006-04-19T10:22:00.000+01:00

Final proof, if any were needed, that the world has gone mad?

Actually I quite like this "Dave the Chameleon cartoon. (Available here.)

I remember the first locals after Michael Howard was leader there were a series of pretty strong attack ads against him used. I think the point of them at this point in the cycle is to create as much of a row as possible as early as possible in a new leader's time in office.

The aim I suppose is to cement an image of them in the public consciousness early - whilst people are still making their mind up about them. Probably very effective. I wasn't around during the mid 1980s but I imagine it was done pretty effectively against Kinnock - although the Tories probably didn't need PPBs to do it with, since they had every paper except the Mirror and the Guardian at his throat from the off.

If this gets the message accross loud and clear that you simply can't trust what Dave the Chameleon says since he's just abandoning evey appearance of being a Tory - whilst not actually changing at all - then it'll have been worth it. I think it would be fair to say this is about the next general election - as much as it is about the local elections. Which gives a lie to the fact that Tony and Gordon are squabbling with Gordon (as if!) trying to sabotage the local elections and Tony not bothered about the next general. This is a long term and agreed plan from what I can see.

And before anybody pipes up and says that it's negative and why are Labour doing this to poor David...

Why do you think he's harping on about how great Tony is all the time - and how Gordon is the "Road-block to reform"? That's their mirror image strategy. They're trying to make out that there's some mythical consensus where Chameleon and Tony love to frolick in the centre ground whilst Gordon is grumpily off to the left blocking common sense reforms out of some dogmatic fervour.

Well sorry chump. Gordon "Prudence" Brown is no rigid dogmatist. You're going to have to do better than that. Trying to paint Brown as that before he becomes leader is canny - but ultimately No. 10 is a hell of a platform from which to confound expectations. Especially in your first 100 days as a new PM. I don't know - I have no way of knowing - but I'd put a lot of money on some pretty radical stuff coming out pretty sharpish once Gordon gets his feet under the table. "Road-block to reform"'s going to sound a bit tired, and a fair bit out of touch, by the time that happens.

Meanwhile, Cameron's going to have to do a bit better than running round pretending he agrees with everyone without actually being prepared to stick his neck out on anything. As I've pointed out - it isn't enough to just ride a bike to work without pledging anything on the environment, to pledge to end child poverty without pledging the means, to waffle on about Africa. You've got to walk the walk as well as talking the talk. And right now - Cameron's doing no such thing.

And Dave, after the treatment you and your cronies in central office meted out to Kinnock in the 80s you're in no position to whinge.

It's Karma, Chameleon.

Raining Cats & Superlambananas

2006-04-18T16:11:00.000+01:00

Spent a few days in Liverpool where I succeeded in doing only marginally less work than I have been doing here in Oxford - and an awful lot less than is absolutely necessary to make finals anything other than a complete stab in the dark.

Anyway, aside from seeing the finest moggy on the planet (see photo) .....

...the dearly beloved lady of Leeds came to visit. It's testament to the rebirth of Britain's cities under Labour that she was able to comment, on seeing the (UNESCO World Heritage Site) Albert Dock and waterfront, "Oh my god, I thought Liverpool was skanky like Manchester, but it's not". Which I think says it all.

And that was before we made the pilgrimage to the truly greatest piece of public art anywhere in the word. Ever. Anywhere. The Superlambanana. It's a comment on genetic modification. And the trading history of Liverpool. But mainly it's half lamb, half banana, all yellow.

I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises...

2006-04-11T02:13:00.000+01:00

David Cameron has finally lost the plot. Apparently Oliver Letwin has committed the Conservatives to matching Labour's pledge to end child poverty by 2020. (See here - it's actually true)

I think this would be like Neil Kinnock turning round in 1987 and announcing his intention to 'Nuke them Russkies back to the stone age'. ("I warn you...")

I mean, there's "modernisation" and there's "modernisation". In 1997 Labour did move to the centre ground - but Labour didn't actually pretend to be the Conservatives - I know people liked to joke about it but, really. Labour were pledged to bring in a minimum wage. To devolve power. To abolish the NHS internal market and bring down class sizes.

If Cameron actually wants to get actual Tories to vote for him at some point he's going to have to have at least some Tory policies. But if you're promising to end child poverty how on earth are you supposed to "share the proceeds of growth" [read: slash taxes] as he's pledged to do?

What are you going to do, flipper, have a few jumble sales? no matter how many rice crispie cakes Auntie Mavis sells, the voluntary sector is hardly going to make up for the fundamental inequalities of the modern, globalised economy.

But as discussed here before, that's Cameron's vision. This is him in February;

"You cannot have a smaller state unless you have bigger, more responsible people. Growing levels of social breakdown are creating growing demands for welfare and other forms of government intervention. Limited government is impossible without renewing the forms of behaviour and social structure that prevent poverty and create community. Communities are not created from the top down, but built from the bottom up."

"Here, I don't think the voluntary sector has an important role to play. I believe that the voluntary sector has the crucial role to play."

Aside from this garbled wishful thinking, and Letwin's vague waffle about "Social Entrepreneurship" (which I think is Tory for "motherhood and apple pie") there's no actual commitment to do anything about achieving this target. Which incidently has been downgraded to an "aspiration".

So herein lies an opportunity. With the Tories committed to matching this pledge, as well as NHS spending, as well as spending on international development, there is a real chance the public will end up taking a position that a fairer tax burden is simply the only way to go to make that work. And if we can achieve that much then the next election is half way won - since Cameron will have to commit to tax cuts, having made "sharing the proceeds of growth" a leadership pledge. (nothing, of course, is certain with "Flip Flop").

At the very least this frees up a Labour Prime minister (whichever or whoever) to take more radical action to achieve the pledge (It's still a pledge on the Labour side of the house). Which, frankly, is no bad thing.

For once I agree with Tebbit - Cameron is selling the Tories down the river. And it's a pleasure to watch it. What's even more striking is how ill-thought out this rather rushed statement is. As Kate Green from End Child Poverty pointed out to the Guardian;

"If the Conservatives really want to end child poverty, they must also commit themselves to further increases in child benefit and child tax credits, alongside greater investment in things like affordable childcare and decent housing,"

So whilst I think it's a huge strategic blunder right onto Labour ground, until they commit to spending real money on real things for real kids then I'm just going to have to tell Cameron, Letwin, IDS and the rest of that rather creepy gang of patronising snake-oil salesmen that I'm just not buying it.

This is old fashioned heartless Tory populism at it's best - not compassionate Conservatism. Willing the ends without willing the means is morally bankrupt opportunism.

So come on flopsie, Show me the money. Show me the money.

Keeping track...

2006-04-10T16:32:00.000+01:00

Leeds was fun. Having compromised on writing a Norse Saga for "the parents" (poem was vetoed, as was my singing voice) I ended up reciting that for most of the first evening I was there. After that was out of the way and the ice was broken we got on famously. I hope.

The saga was appreciated I think, it's quite appropriate since Leeds is quite near Yorvik Viking Centre, after all.

Now I'm back I've been playing around with Tracksy.com which allows me to tell just how few of y'all actually read this thing. (thanks to jo for the tutorial - and for the proportion of people who come to this site from yours!)

Nothing fun has been discovered yet - other that that someone in Malmo googled "Pickles Niklas Albin Svennson" and found their way here.

I really don't know what that's about - but fair play I suppose. If you google that the second entry is called "Hot Lips Page".

All in all, I think my Scandinavian audience will have plenty to contend with. Next time they visit maybe they'd be up for contributing some lines to my next saga?

In defence of the political levy.

2006-04-07T11:38:00.000+01:00

Buried at the bottom of this article is a little gem from the new
"moderate" Cameron's Conservatives:

"Mr Cameron - himself still under fire for allowing lenders to the Tories, some of them foreign,
to remain anonymous by repaying their loans - attacked the century old
tradition of union financing as "a hangover from the corporatist past"
and demanded a token £50,000 cap on donations. "It's profoundly unhealthy
and I'm offering a solution to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown," he said.

"Here is a solution: a cap on donations applying to everybody and modest state funding that can help you break that unhealthy link with unions and help you to be a genuinely social democratic party. I'm up for it: are you?"

"Big institutional backing of parties is unhealthy. Donations have to be an individual thing," he insisted."

I don't like state funding of political parties - I think if people don't want to have a particular party governing their country it's a bit of a slap in the face to have to pay in order to be persuaded. There is always the opt-out from the political fund for trade unionists - there's no opt out from tax.

What I dislike even more is hypocrisy. The fact is that it's a lot easier for businesses to circumvent £50,000 limits on donations than it is for unions. And Cameron's still not told us which foreign sources he got his loans from - so I'm not going to take anything he says on this issue seriously until he does.

This is all about rigging the ground in favour of the Tories. And it stinks.

And it's also based on a completely false premise. Trade unions aren't faceless institutions. They are mass membership organisations - which significant democratic control. The donations they make to the Labour Party have two levels of democratic control on them - there is a vote within each union to affiliate, renewed every 10 years. And there is an opt-out option whereby any individual can nevertheless opt out of contributing even if the affiliation is carried.

Both of these restrictions were imposed by right wing governments (sometimes repealed and brought in again) with a view to cutting Labour's ground from under them. The assumption being that most workers either don't know that they are or don't want to contribute. Yet at every hurdle the union funding model has survived an encounter with the broader opinion of union members. This has been true throughout history.

In 1910 the conservative judiciary combined with a minority of conservative trade unionists in the Osborne Judgment to try to block union contributions to Labour by insisting on an opt-in process for donations. But they failed to sufficiently block contributions, and hence the rise of Labour.

That's because most workers actually want to contribute - and it's the final realisation of that that makes David Cameron so angry. And why he wants to ban them doing so.

Ironically it's that model, of many smaller donations making up the funding of political parties so that no individual has undue influence, that most sensible people I've spoken to would want to see.

I think part of the future for party funding is tax breaks for smaller donations - and I think that applies to the political levy too.

now, get cross-party consensus on that!

The myth of Sisyphus...

2006-04-06T21:39:00.000+01:00

You know the one about the guy who had to roll a rock up a hill...and then it kept rolling back again.

My greek mythology is a bit shaky - and Camus' always been a bit of a [Left] "Banker" for my liking, so I can't tell you what awful sin he's supposed to have committed.

I mention the poor fella because I've finally figured out what it must have felt like.

Every day I go into the library. And every day I read. And the more I read the more I realise I don't know. The more I realise I don't know the more I need to read. And the more I realise I need to read the more I read. And the more I read the more I realise...

Reading is taking over my life. What's worse is that If I had just a couple more months I know I'd do ok. But I don't. I suppose given this stupid degree has in fact taken me almost 6 years I'm really not in any position to moan. (6 years mostly spent in the pub, on the doorsteps of various marginal constituencies, or in an office fulfilling completely unrelated tasks - so I'm not a total loser...)

However I have had a couple of brief excursions away from library oblivion.

The first was to meet my Uncle Stan from Johannesburg who I've never actually met, and his wife Geraldine. We went for a walk in Hyde Park and then lunch at "Diana's" which is an insufferably kitsch cafe near Kensington Palace where Diana used to stop for brunch after going for a jog. (apparently. Whilst we were there, My Dad claimed further that her "usual" had been a lettuce leaf and glass of hot water. I haven't inherited his distasteful sense of humour.)

They were both really lovely. My Dad claims that Geraldine has fairly right-wing politics, for a (white) South African. Which is pretty right-wing I'd guess. But unless you count her 'firm but fair' instructions to the waiter over the lunch ("DON'T over-cook the EGGS!!!") I didn't notice anything untoward.

But this got me thinking. My Dad's uncle and aunty were imprisoned under Apartheid. My Dad left the country rather than practice law there and took up acting and writing - much of his early work dealing with the Apartheid question. My Granny Rose is pretty gung-ho for democracy and the like. Although being an 86 year old Jo'burger she'd probably be a prime case for "equal opportunities training". Basically, Uncle Stan's politics aren't exactly Aunty Geraldine's.

My Dad tells me that his brother has "reached an accomodation" with his wife's politics. I.e. he zones out and stares into the middle distance whenever she talks about it. (I noticed he did this a lot - even when she wasn't talking politics) .

So the question I asked myself was whether I could ever deal with a relationship with someone whose politics were so different from mine. Stan and Geraldine have been married nearly 40 years. I can't imagine being married that long - but I can imagine even less being married to someone with whom I disagreed on everything I felt strongly about.

I just don't think I could. But then the next question is - does that make me an intolerant person? I don't know. I don't suppose I care very much.

On a (slightly) related note - I'm "meeting the parents" this weekend. A quick trip to Leeds and a couple of days out of the Library. Wahey. Although I'm a bit scared. My plan to write a poem to her parents as a means of breaking the ice has been vetoed. So I'm not sure - maybe a song or something?

Come on Cameron - what have you got to hide?

2006-03-31T19:45:00.000+01:00

Less than 6 months as leader and Cameron's already squirming...

He's finally (a week late) revealed the lenders to the Conservative Party (totalling £16 million quid - a fair whack more than Labour got).

But oh, what's this? There's another £5 million we aren't allowed to know about...because it's been paid back!

Oh, well that's ok then. The loan, you see, has been paid back. So it's like it never happened.

What's that you say? You're not convinced? Funnily enough, niether am I. It's not like loans aren't supposed to be paid back or anything is it?

And I'm starting to get very interested in this. See, this loan was last year - and therefore not when Cameron was leader. It's perfectly credible that he knew nothing about it at the time. So if it was all going to be something a bit minor then fair enough, surely. He could just say "ooops, sorry, bit of a mistake, not on my watch".

But for the new leader ( who could easily wash his hands of it - or at least point at Labour and say "they're just as bad") to be this worried that he's prepared to take the flak for refusing to disclose it, then blimey, it must be good!

Unless he's just stalling in the hope it'll all blow over and he can go back to the same source for more?

Watch this space I reckon.

Journalists are (sometimes) really stupid

2006-03-31T12:11:00.000+01:00

From today's guardian

"Student debt doubles as top-up fees hit poorest (Matthew TaylorFriday March 31, 2006)"

"Student debt has doubled over the last six years and students from poorer families are suffering most, according to government research published yesterday.
Final year students averaged £7,918 debt at the end of their course and students from poor homes averaged £9,842, according to the survey of 3,700 undergraduates and trainee teachers at 88 universities and colleges in England and Wales.
Top-up fees were considered a key factor, and increasing numbers need help from their families.
From this autumn students will be charged £3,000 a year, more than double what most pay now."

Look at the bulk of the article. You'd read that and think that Top-up fees were causing all that student debt wouldn't you? ( "Top-up fees were considered a key factor", "top up fees hit poorest")

But the read the first three words of the last paragraph...."From this autumn"...

Can you spot the really obvious flaw here?

Actually if anything this article presents quite a good argument FOR the reforms. If the poorest students are struggling to meet their living costs under the existing system, increasing student loans and giving them grants and bursaries might be considered helpful. I'd have thought.

I also wonder who Matthew meant when he said "were considered a key factor". Considered by whom? Which educational expert did he find to tell him that top up fees had caused existing graduates to be in more debt? Or did he just make it up?

Meanwhile...in the real world.

2006-03-20T19:11:00.000Z

Whilst yet again the media-ocracy are raging at the failure of the democratically elected government of the day to topple at their every whim...

...in the real world, the real government confirms a 6% pay rise for the lowest paid in society, and a 10% pay rise for the lowest paid 16 & 17 year olds.

But anyway, back to the really important stuff, did you hear the one about the government who introduced tough new laws on political party finance and then stuck to them, to the letter?

I know, terrible isn't it.

It's almost as bad as taking bribes for asking questions in parliament. Almost as bad as lying on oath. Almost as bad as covering for your mates when they sell arms to dictatorships. Almost as bad as getting your 17 year old daughter to perjure herself to save your political skin. Almost as bad as denying you've given gifts from fugitive millionnaires when, you kind of have.

Almost, but not quite.

Back by popular demand...

2006-03-15T01:21:00.000Z

Here he is....contemplating a bit of a jump. Wondering if his tired old legs will hold his ample frame.

Silly moggy. Shouldn't have climbed up in the first place.

(Click image to see full size.)

Readers' letters

2006-03-14T01:22:00.000Z

We always appreciate feedback - and we'll attempt to reply to all your letters. ;-)

From XXXXXXX@wXXkersliberty.XXX

> Pickles,
>
> I just read your blog. Don't you think it's a bit sad that you devote a
> large part of your life to attacking "Trots" - to the extent of
> celebrating Trotsky's murder by a Stalinist assassin! - but are not only
> too afraid to debate us, but too afraid to even email to tell us you
> won't.
>
> Vicious whispering campaigns and performing for your mates is so much
> easier than actually squaring up, isn't it?
>
> XXXXX

& My reply:

Hi XXXX,

I've been a bit busy what with finals and so on, so I haven't responded to you. I would, as I told you in my previous email, be delighted to debate you or one of your Comrades. I've raised the possibility of holding such a debate with next term's Labour Club co-chairs and I believe they are considering it. I will let you know their response.

As I mentioned on my blog the timing you suggested was not ideal and I would prefer later in term, maybe 7th or 8th week since both finals and the local elections are my priorities (and in the case of the latter the club's too).

A slightly archaic debate about marxism has never been something to thrill regular members of the club in the run up to exciting local elections- even though me and you might like nothing better. I think [The outgoing Labour Club Chair] would agree that for the minority who do find that fascinating, this term just gone has given them ample to chew over in the coming weeks.

As regards my blog you have prompted me to undertake a little statistical exercise (I've counted my blog posts) and work out what subject areas I have covered. This is more for my amusement than anything else but I may post it on there.

For your information I have posted 24 times thus far.

Subjects covered include:

Blogging - 2 post
My Cat - 1 post
David Cameron and the Conservative Party - 5 posts
Dick Cheney - 2 posts
The Liberal Democrats (including Liverpool City Council) - 2 posts
The Alliance for Workers Liberty (including invite to a debate and their silly
website) - 2 posts
John Prescott - 1 post
Jewishness- 1 post
Freedom of Speech (Cartoons) - 1 post
Comedy mis-types - 2 posts
Music/pop - 1 post
Journalists/Student Tuition fees -1 post
Oxford University Labour Club elections - 1 post
Alan Woods/meeting my first real Militant - 1 post
Top 5 Least Favourite Trotskyists (in response to a discussion started by
readers of another post) - 1 post

Of these 24, Trotskyists are mentioned in 4 posts as the main subject matter and 1 in passing. In 4 out of those 5 cases this was because I was reporting on my activities in the Labour Club where I have been spending some of my evenings away from revision. This is barely 1 in 6 posts.

I don't see this as disproportionate. In the past few weeks I have met a Trotskyist for every post of my blog about Trotskyists. In that time I have met very few Tories, not counting the several I will have met in libraries or on the bus and so on without knowing. But yet I have posted more about them both in terms of number of posts and in terms of content. That is because they are the real enemy here.

If you don't want me to talk about Trotskyists, to the extent that I do, then tell your Trotskyist friends to stop trying to infiltrate my Labour Club.

In the meantime you will be delighted to know that the club is in good hands over coming terms. I am assured that an inclusive, campaigning freshers drive with lots of social and other activities to keep bringing new young people into the Labour Party and making them feel welcome is in preparation as we speak.

I for one am delighted that our club is in for a good couple of terms and I'm sure you'll join me in wishing them luck. I know that [The outgoing Labour Club Chair] hasn't yet found the time to do so - but I'm sure that's just worry over [His girl friend's] election tomorrow.

Cheers,

Pickles

P.S. As regards vicious whispering campaigns I have no idea what you mean. I would be interested in hearing more - but as I suspect this is another one of your vicious whispering campaigns then I suspect you won't be telling me.

For those bored at work...(or in the library)

2006-03-13T12:49:00.000Z

1. Name of band/artist: Blur
2. Are you male or female?: Charmless Man
3. Describe yourself: Country Sad Ballad Man
4. How do you feel about yourself? Tender
5. Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Fool
6. Describe current girlfriend/boyfriend: She’s So High
7. Describe where you want to be: Country House
8. Describe how you live: Parklife
9. Describe how you love: There’s no other way
10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish? Coffee & TV
11. Share a few words of wisdom: Look Inside America
12. Now say goodbye: Death of a Party

Via Bloggers for Labour - just pick a band and answer the questions with song titles. Don't normally post these type of games but this one was a bit classier.

Tipsy in the snow

2006-03-12T13:16:00.000Z

Sent to me by my mother from Liverpool - he's getting on a bit (17 in May!) so i'm a bit concerned that he's mucking around in the cold. But then he looks so cute in the snow...
Basically just testing out how to post pictures...

Tipsyinsnow Originally uploaded by danielamokachi12.

The future's bright

2006-03-11T17:05:00.000Z

Just a quick congratulations to all of the Labour Club people who got elected at the OULC termly general meeting on Thursday. I popped along to add my vote to the many who turned out to get the club out of the doldrums of this term.

A turnout of over 80 was the highest of the millenium - and all the right candidates won the big positions, with Emily and simon setting themselves up for a fantastic freshers term in charge.

The incoming team is probably one of the most talented and dynamic in years - and the most politically right-on too. But the defeated candidates in most of the elections were also assets to the club - if only some of the outgoing executive would let them alone to find their own way. (the same goes some of the old lefties who've been making life difficult for genuine hard-working sensible Labour people since I was around first time...)

All in, my old Alma Mater has a bright Labour future. Which has given me a nice cheerful end to the term - and means I can look back with smug satisfaction whilst I continue my lonely struggle with the libraries of Oxford.

Let's hope most of those people can be out on doorsteps in the coming weeks to give the Lib Dems a good whooping, like the immature left got a whooping on Thursday. A fair and friendly election internally is the kind of bracing introduction to election season the club needed.

It's now time to unite & fight. ;-) Good luck to all.

Alan Woods bottles it...

2006-03-07T01:45:00.000Z

Rumour has it that Alan Woods of Marxism.com has pulled out of coming along to the Labour Club tomorrow.

That's such a shame. I was very much looking forward to meeting my very first real, proper "Militant". Or almost my first. I've met a fair few ex-Millies in Liverpool over the years but never someone who actually came out and admitted it. Until Friday, post John Smith Memorial Dinner (cheers to Jo for the pictures).

Post-dinner we all decamped to Escape bar (so-named I believe for the yearning it induces in those who enter) . Whilst I attempted to get a round of drinks in a woman called Emma who had been at the dinner, and who seemed to be spoiling for a row after rather too much port, accosted me.

My memory of the "debate" is a bit fuzzy but I do remember it really kicked off when I wholeheartedly agreed with an OULC comrade of ours that revolutionary Marxists had no place in our Party or our Labour Club.

She seemed outraged by this arguing (with staggering audacity): "Well I'm a member of Militant - do you think I belong in the club?"

What really shocked me was that she was surprised by my reaction. What shocked me even more was when she emailed me the next day to apologise for her behaviour.

I didn't tell her what my blog was called. But I'm pleased to have got certain things off my chest - especially now that I know that Alan Woods has bottled it.

P.S. And she's from Sheffield - and argued that the city of Blunkett & co was an example of exactly how things go badly when you don't have a militant-run council. Words fail me.

Pickles in an [Ice-]pickle...oooh what to do!

2006-03-03T17:30:00.000Z

Pickles has been invited by a micro Trot-sect to discuss some of the concerns that he and others raised with Daniel Randall at his University Labour Club in a set piece debate in mid/late April.

The meeting was going to be hosted by the Alliance for "Workers" Liberty - but they have now offered a neutral platform to debate the issues.

The title of the debate, which is yet to be set would be on the topic of marxism and the Labour Party. Whilst Pickles would love to go along and bring out some of the old 80s rhetoric he can't help but think that, in mid/late April there might be more pressing engagements...finals, actually winning the local elections ('Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile').

It was then or this coming Wednesday and Pickles wants to use all his energies making things difficult for Alan "Militant" Woods of Marxism.com when he comes to visit the Labour Club on Tuesday.

It seems Sven-Goran Engelsson who runs the club until next week is trying to go out with a bang. I'm sure we can provide him with one. I think I might try and get that redundancy notice my step-dad got back in '85, from a Labour council, (a Labour council!) and brandish it whilst questioning him.

Anyway - if anyone has any thoughts on where I might tell that ship of fools to stick their pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo if I do accept their kind offer of a debate please do pass them on.

Answers on a postcard...

2006-03-03T12:06:00.000Z

My little throwaway comment on Daniel Randall being the everyones 6th favourite troskyist revolutionary seems to have got people talking....

Since I completely made it up and there currently aren't any top-ten lists of trotskyist revolutionaries, and since this site is so aptly named, I thought I would throw this out to the public at large. Please write in with your top five least favourite trotskyists. It's about time a site named after "That Speech" had such a competition.

(Please, nothing libellous and no threats of violence or anything.)

The winner will recieve ...the first bullet when we're all against the wall...

Can I make it clear that the relevant people should be members of actual trotskyist organisations secretly or otherwise.... It's not good enough to just shout "Trot" at someone who's a bit lefty.

Silence is golden

2006-03-01T17:40:00.000Z

I've not posted in over a week.

It's partly because I've been really busy but it's also in protest. There's something about blogging which makes you feel as if you have to post almost daily, or at least every couple of days.

But what if you've just got nothing you want to share with the world?

I do have something I want to tell y'all - but it will now have to wait until after I've had my little battle with Nozick for the evening, or is it Hayek...I don't know. My class isn't til tomorrow so I've got loads of time to find out....haven't I?

Suffice to say that my friendly local university Labour Club where I'm currently enjoying the odd trip down memory lane, had a visit from everyone's 6th favourite trotskyist revolutionary,Daniel Randall the other day and he made me angry.

This much I know...

2006-02-20T15:38:00.000Z

This is a long post, and I'd understand it if noone actually reads it - but I felt it was important to put my conclusions in context.

At 14 my grandfather was his workplace's trade union representative (he was it's only worker, being a leather worker's apprentice, but his boss, himself an old 3rd arrodissement Jewish Parisian leftie of the best sort insisted on him taking part in the sit ins and walk outs anyway) during the 1936 popular front in Paris. His elder brother was married and his father had passed away so he thus supported his mother, sister and younger brother through work.

In 1943 he, his mother and sister were deported along with thousands of french jews, from Lyon under the command of the infamous Klaus Barbie "The butcher of Lyon". His mother and sister never came back from Auschwitz, whilst he was lucky - masquerading as a carpenter he was able to secure a "job" under a lifesaving roof out of the worst of biting cold of the Polish winter. As a slave labourer building the chemical factory for the I.G. Farben Industrie company.

Before and after this life changing, almost shattering experience he has been a lifelong member of the French Communist Party, standing for election as Communist Party candidate for the French Parliament in 1956. He was last on the Communist list and was therefore proudly able to proclaim "If I am elected to the parliament you can trust me - there will already have been a revolution in France".

As a Communist and a proud Frenchman (albeit of Polish lineage) my Grandfather doesn't have the greatest of affection either for US foreign policy nor for the State of Israel's approach to the conflict in the Middle East. That's putting it mildly. But he has also been awarded the honour of Commandeur de la Legion D'honneur, in part as recognition of his work as a survivor and witness to the holocaust, but also his work as one of the leaders of MRAP a radical anti-racism campaigning organisation in France, founded in 1949, over a great many decades.

It is why, although after twice visiting Israel myself and the Palestinian territories my view and impression of the conflict is radically different from his own, I have the utmost respect for him, for his opinions and for what he has to say about the conflicts that blight those beautiful lands.

My grandfather is quite ill at the moment and therefore I can't have one of my regular lectures on life the universe and everything - and about that time he gave a really great speech about it. But I can't help feeling that, whilst we both sit happily at total polar opposites ends of the European left spectrum - we would both be able to share deep, deep unease at reading an article like this, from Paul Oestreicher, in today's Guardian.

I don't want to get into the whys and wherefores of the conflict here, nor do I want to challenge the central thesis of Mr Oestreicher's article, that Israel's policies are fuelling anti-semitism at, although at some point maybe I will. I just want to say a little bit about language, metaphor and analogies. I want to use two little examples from his text of which particularly angered me.

At one point Paul Oestreicher says: “Jews for Justice for Palestinians organises to give Jewishness a human face.”

I don't think it's being facetious to point out that Jews and Jewishness has a human face already. That Jews and Jewishness is not constrained by the need to apologise for the actions of the state of Israel before their race and faith can be properly accepted by the citizens of the world. As a secular Jew living in the UK I don't feel as if I should be contrained to take one side or the other in the Israel Palestine conflict in order to give me or anybody else "a human face" and I certainly won't be involving myself in any campaigns with such a premiss at their heart.

Later Paul Oestreicher makes the following observation: “Once, in the days of Hitler, there was another Germany represented by those in concentration camps alongside Jews and Gypsies, the martyrs who are celebrated today. There is such an Israel too.”

The Palestinian people are diverse like any other, there are those who want simply to live their lives peacefully and in prosperity and there are those who wish to see Israel and the Jews wiped off the map of the Middle East.

Sadly in a war things are done and said on both sides which are wrong, and which one would wish as a human being would never and should never have happened. The people and government of Israel are not saints. Were I an Israeli citizen at the next election I would not vote for the current governing party, nor would I have voted for the last 5 years of leadership. Israel's response to the situation in Palestine since the war of 1967 would not have been mine. Nor would many of the state's acts before that date.

But crucial to that phrase is the word "response". If you are to draw an analogy between the "response" of Israel and it's people to the situation they find themselves in (without taking a position on whether essentially the situation is of their own making - since Mr Ostreicher accepts the existence of the state of Israel) and the "response" of Hitler, the Nazis and large sections of the German people to the situation they found themselves in the 1930s and 1940s; then you need to talk about that word "response".

And my question is this - what is it that the Nazis were responding to? Were they responding to provocation from the Jews? even if that hypothetical provocation were in response to a legitimate grievance? Were they responding to immediate security concerns even if the security concerns were illegitimate? Were they responding to anything other than the pure genocidal hatred of a race, a people, who had done little else than to live peacefully (or at least attempt to) at their side, for centuries?

And if you agree that it is the latter of these that is the true description, how can you, as someone who is a descendent of victims of that hatred, like myself, say hand on heart that you believe it is right to draw the analogy that you have drawn between this unparralleled hatred and deliberate slaughter, and the sad, sad, situation in the Middle East?

Another babyshambles

2006-02-20T13:08:00.000Z

I know that to some extent this is old news and I know I've already posted on the baby issue, but I though I'd mention this amusing little thing wot I noticed.

David Cameron (or rather one his spin doctors - not that he's not perfectly capable of being his own spin doctor) told the world that he heard by text message whilst in a shadow cabinet meeting that his wife had gone in to Labour:

here's ITN's report at the time which faithfully repeats this heart warming story of a modern young family.

However, my mum (who as a mum is clearly a bit more knowledgeable about these matters than I am) having heard the text message story was a little surprised when she came to visit yesterday when I mentioned this (from the same PA story which mentioned Cameron's bizarre casual dress numerous shopping trips before lunchtime, which presumably coincided with the arrival of different tv cameras outside):

"He ... was delivered by Caesarean section, since Mrs Cameron suffered difficulties when she gave birth to her first child...."

As she pointed out indignantly, when one has a caesarian birth it is usually before the mother goes into labour - especially when it is a planned caesarian for pre-existing medical reasons. In such circumstances of course there would be very little need for David Cameron to be notified by text message that his wife had gone into labour - not least because she never would have done so, and secondly because he would have known a few days in advance of the planned operation.

Of course I'm not saying the nation's favourite spinning chameleon might have had the whole thing "embellished" a little bit to accentuate the modern, compassionate side to his character. But well, it does seem a little odd.

Babyshambles

2006-02-18T04:51:00.000Z

"A casually dressed Mr Cameron emerged from his home several times to go to the shops, then at lunchtime to take children, Nancy, aged two, and Ivan to the park" [Cameron names new baby, Arthur Guardian/ Press association]

"Emerged several times to go to the shops"? Before lunchtime! what's wrong with a shopping list? Can't he remember a few simple items he needs to pick up from the shop? This guy's supposed to have written the "timetable for action" [That's 1. Immigrants bad, 2. Tax bad, 3. um... Poor people bad 4. errrmm... Georgie was it drugs good, bad or none of your business this time? 5. War bad, except this one, although if you're a Liberal Democrat you're right it's awful... 6. Was there supposed to be six? I thought it was five? 7. Baby wipes]

I'm sure Sandra, or Ffion or Tabitha or whatever the lucky lady's name is again must get frightfully frustrated with him...

"Oh...you said nappies! I knew you'd said that, but then when I was on my way I realised, changing nappies is not the future, although they may have been the future once. In our future we should BE the change we want to see in the world, y'know, like Ghandi? But then I decident to be the change that changed my mind again and thought no, nappies really reflect the modern, compassionate parents I want us to be in the 21st century. But then I thought about it again and by the time I got to the shop I'd forgotten whether we'd had a boy or a girl and the nappies weren't unisex ( I mean HOW last millenium, Dude) , so I bought some baby milk instead. But then, on the way back, I realised it was Nestle babymilk so I phone Zak, MON, and asked him what I should do, and he said I should throw it at Tony Blair in protest at not being able to see my kids, I don't think he was taking me seriously since I'm taking paternity leave so I'm sure I'll get to see my kids in between trips to the shops, and photoshoots and stuff so I rang Bob since actually dodgy baby milk is more his areas, y'know Africa and things. But by then I couldn't remember whether I was in favour Africa or not, so I decided to call it a day. Do you fancy Tapas tonight?"

I hope he didn't go by car each time - that's not carbon neutral either "Dave"

I hate Journalists

2006-02-15T23:45:00.000Z

when they come up with a headline that makes out that the story is about one thing...and then you read it and they've totally contradicted themselves....

See here:

Top up fees a "turn off" for students.

You'd think from that headline that fewer students were going to university this year than before top up fees were introduced wouldn't you? from the headline. Or indeed from the first few paragraphs if you read them.

But, wait! Did you say the reduction in the number of applications this year was 3.4%? and...what was last year's increase?

[due to gap year students applying early to avoid paying the higher fees - obviously the wealthier ones who were happy to pay up front and forgo the grant]

It was "at least 8%" your honour, you'll see it in paragraph 11.

Paragraph eleven. So the fact that demonstrates that approximately 5% more people are applying for university this year than applied the year the bill was passed is, at best implied, included in paragraph 11 of your article about how the bill has deterred students from applying for university.

Interesting.

I also dislike it when journalists print stuff that is completely made up about friends of mine.

This evening I will mostly be reading

2006-02-15T23:06:00.000Z

Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France

"No experience has taught us, that in any other course or method than that of and hereditary crown, our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right."

What's really depressing is that conservatives still think this speaks to them. That's why it really doesn't bother me that I (Heart) DC is flouncing about the place trying to look all trendy with his red fleece (when was red fleece EVER cool?).

They are the party that grew out of opposition to changes to the settlement of 1688, right down to boundary changes from the orginal constituencies, having only reconciled them to even this after the event.

They remain, and will always remain, the party that stands for minimising the role of democracy, minimising the role of ordinary people in running their own lives, and minimises the right of the people as a whole interfering in the rights of the few to hoard property - purely on the basis that it has always been thus and that some mythical stability is maintained by some mythical tradition.

So the electoral map has shifted slightly with a flick of an old Etonian quiff. Davey =C= has four years to keep up the pretence - the mask will slip, he doesn't believe the people of Britain can or should be given the platform to achieve their full potential, in his heart of hearts he never will.

This year we remember it's a 100 years since the Labour Party was founded - on the simple principle that working people should be entitled to play a full role in the government of their country. That is our founding creed - what is the Conservatives and David Cameron's?

That ultimately there is something "Dangerous" in allowing people to

"1. Choose their own governors,
2. To cashier them for misconduct
3. To Frame a government for ourselves"

History is on our side on this one - and whatever shade of blue the PMQs tie is this week we'll be ready for you DC.

Congratulations on the new baby boy - I trust he'll be making full use of the "right" he has to the "Acquisitions of his parents". And their parents. And their parents before that.

How much did grandad's paintings go for in the end?

I never used to think Steve Martin was funny...

2006-02-15T23:04:00.000Z

But this is courtesy of Ol' eyebrows himself:

``Vice President Dick Cheney, while hunting wild geese in the Rose Garden, accidentally shot President Bush twice, once in the heart and once in the head. 'I didn't really shoot the President twice,' said Cheney. 'The second time I shot him, I was president.'''

And Tony thought his deputy was dangerous

2006-02-12T20:42:00.000Z

According to the BBC associated press are reporting that Dick Cheney has shot a man.

Puts prezza in perspective really.

MY HEAD HURTS!!!!

2006-02-09T03:04:00.000Z

Ok,

I know how freedom of speech, religious tolerance, islamophobia, the war on terror, cartoons, and so on and so on are like, you know, really important.

But why do we have to spend most of this week and probably next talking about this cartoon issue?

The way I understood arguments/discussion/debate/general inter-human communication was that we used our energies chewing over issues the solution to which is a. controversial or b. unknown

This whole cartoon of a guy with a bomb on his head is clearly something that raises passions - I'd be a fool to deny that.

But really - I'm yet to meet a single soul who doesn't have share this one very simple view on the matter:

"Newspapers have a right to publish what they want - that's freedom of the press, but they have a responsibilty not to gratuitously offend - that's common decency. "

So what is the controversy? If anyone disagrees with that formulation I'd like to know why and on what basis - if you agree with it I really don't want to know your particular spin on it. If that's all there is to it (and i'm yet to read anything to make me think it's more complicated than that) then I just wish this issue would go away - it's yet another forum for people to ramp up conspiracy theories and rabid speculation.

I don't want to hear how insensitive the danish/french etc press are - I KNOW

I don't want to hear how the press has the right to publish what it wants - I KNOW

If I spent my days going round shouting POO! and WEE! at people eventually people would start questioning my right to freedom of speech - does that constitute a major philosophical fracture in the 21st century liberal consensus? Err. No. It just means that if you have a right to something and you gratuitously abuse it some people might get upset. Big wow. It's called being a grown up.