DUFF & NONSENSE!

The Sunday Rumble: 31/8/08

The king of the caper yarns: I followed the little 'Memsahib' into our local library the other day.  I try to avoid libraries because the pile of 'to-be-read' books that I have purchased is becoming something of an embarrassment.  Most of them are somewhat abstruse and were I suddenly to drop off my perch the person tasked with clearing my study would think that I was an old bluffer (don't bother, Larry!) who bought high falutin' books and never actually read them.  Anyway, I entered the library with iron determination but the first thing that met my eyes was the 'Just Returned' trolley and with my usual unerring accuracy I instantly spotted a Donald Westlake.  I haven't read one of his for ages; I seem to have been seduced by the new (to me) kids on the block - Harlen Coben, Michael Connelly, and the like.  Anyway, my determination turned from iron to jelly and I'm now one third through it whilst my copy of "The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904-1914" remains closed with a wilting bookmark hanging out of one side.  I'm pathetic - but Westlake is terrific, no one tells 'em the way he does!

'Shock-Horror' ignoramuses: Talking of pre-war diplomacy, Sky News and their young reporters have their knickers in a twist because some one has discovered an old file in the Public Records Office indicating that "Old Etonian and fascist sympathiser James Lonsdale-Bryans" had attempted to contact the Germans in 1939/40 and 'negotiate' a deal in which Germany would be given a free run in Europe whilst we, er, ran the rest of the world! (No mention is made of what the Japs or the Yanks would have had to say about it.)  The FO, or, the 'Foreigners' Office', as we fondly think of it, became very agitated because of possible links between this Old Etonian twit and Lord Halifax, then our Foreign Secretary and possible contender as Prime Minister.  All tosh, of course, because everyone knows that Halifax was minded to see if a deal could be cut with Germany and the history books of the period point to various, usually self-appointed, emmissaries who claimed to have the ear of the Fuehrer.  They were usually allowed a free run with minimal support from London just in case they turned up anything interesting.  In any case, it was the duty, then as now, for the FO to keep links with our enemies even if they had to wear rubber gloves and a peg on their noses!

The nobbiest Roman of them all: I have a special technique when it comes to watching 'footie'.  I sit reading a book facing in one direction, whilst the TV, with sound off, plays at an angle of 90 degrees.  This has the advantage of not interfering too much with my reading, but the dis-advantage of me missing most of the goals!  In a particularly tedious pair of matches this afternoon there were only two goals and I missed them both, but I was immensely cheered to catch a view of Mr. Roman Abramovich, the Russion 'zillionaire' owner of Chelsea Football Club, upon which he has lavished millions and millions of his ill-gotten gains.  I just hope all those elderly folk in Russia who were laid off and saw their pensions rendered worthless, whilst the likes of Mr. Abramovich became richer and richer, appreciate that the overpaid, over-fed and over here fancy boys who proudly play in Mr. Abramovich's colours, are a bunch of cloggies who couldn't kick their way out of a paper bag.  The doleful expression on Mr. Abramovich's disconsolate face was worth a few roubles.  With his worried frown and rueful smile, all he needed was a bowler hat and a fat friend who would twiddle his fingers and mutter, "This is another fine mess you've got me into, Stanley!"

Dammit, I like America!

Dammit, I like America!  Yes, yes, it has its faults, and being America, they tend to be writ large but still, its virtues are equally immense.  Take all this election razzmatazz, for example.  My dears, sooo ghastly, brash and common, all that hoopin' and hollerin', and how do those politicians manage to keep on smiling and smiling and smiling like the rictus on a death mask?  So unlike our own, very dear Gordon whose sudden smiles come and go in a flash and usually appear at the most inappropriate moment in his speeches.  It is of course, a great boon that our own elections are done and dusted in three weeks, where-as our American cousins take nearly two years.  And how wise they are!  It is difficult for us Brits to comprehend just how huge America is and it takes enormous time and energy for the candidates to work their way round the country.  Of course, they have TV to get their message across but it is still very necessary to see, and be seen, in person, to face ordinary voters not just news reporters.  Most Americans, like most Brits, are not that interested in politics, they are too busy getting on with their own lives and once they have done their civic duty and voted they just expect the politicians to get on with it and not bother them for another four years.  Given the immensity of the USA you can see the necessity of whipping up, with the help of national TV, a sustained electoral frenzy, so that gradually, over time, the mass of the people cannot avoid taking some view of the candidates they see paraded before them, smiling, always smiling, night after night on their TV channels.  The genius of it is, that after a while you do begin to see through some of these people, or at least, you have no excuse for failing to do so.  What a contrast to the government-rigged farces that take place in the likes of Russia or China where they try desperately these days to emulate American electoral democracy but the end result is as phony as those copy-cat products they produce by the zillion.

I have no idea who will be a more effective or intelligent president, McCain or Obama, but then, nor does anyone else.  The job finds out the man!  However, I gain the distinct impression that the people who surround Obama are not nearly as clever as those around McCain.  True, Obama was forced to fight a wounding battle with Hillary Clinton and, naturally enough, picked up a few cuts and bruises in the process.  Nevertheless, I sense a vacuum, or perhaps, a confusion, at the centre of his campaign.  Some of his younger advisers, I guess, want to keep on pressing the buttons that produce the juices from die-hard, Left-wing Democrats, whilst older heads are insisting that he shift to the centre. Thus, we see his extraordinary choice of Sen. Biden as running mate - more like shuffling mate, at his age - which seemed to me to be an admission that he, Obama, was not quite old enough for the job and needed a veteran to hold his hand.  McCain, by contrast, began his campaign knowing that the antediluvian Right was never going to be happy with him as a candidate but, hey, who else are they going to vote for - a Left-wing Obama or, horror of horrors, another Clinton?  So McCain, in line with his slightly maverick political history, always had the advantage of some independence of thought and action.  Thus, he was able to execute the brilliant political coupe of appointing a young, and very Right-wing, lady as his running mate, knocking Obama's convention speech off the TV news and giving the Republicans a terrific shot of excitement for their convention next week.  That was very smart politics!

As I told (with only a modest amount of relish!) my e-pal, 'Fallenmonk', a good egg but a hopeless Lefty, there are some ill-omens for the Democrats in the choice of this remarkable lady as VP. If, as some Right-wing American commentators are predicting already, McCain does win, the Republicans will have a young, attractive and experienced, female candidate ready to stand for president in 4 years time which could mean that it will be at least 12 years before the Dems get anyone in the White House.  Oh dear what a pity never mind!  According to Hank's excellent graph of graphs, Obama has enjoyed a slight up-tick in the polls - but McCain's is even steeper!  It is quite remarkable that at the end of what most Americans see as a failed Republican administration, an elderly Republican is up there slugging it out toe to toe with a young, charismatic Democrat.  Truly, America is a marvelous country!

Chateaux Duff? More like shattered Duff!

We had a buffet party for fourteen people last Wednesday, all of them old and dear friends.  I am only just recovering so please excuse the absence of posts.  We have always been a fairly convivial couple but when we retired down here we reduced our entertainment to the occasional supper for four, or perhaps six.  Catering for fourteen meant relearning a lot of old tricks.  Fortunately we work well together.  I am no cook (except for breakfasts, at which I excel!) but I am definitely the 'King of the Canapes'.  God bless Waitrose and all who sail in her because their deli' counter sells fresh anchovies in oil and vinaigrette sauce, and herring pieces with onion in a sweet sauce.  Usually I bake my own tiny crostini from little roundels cut from a French stick brushed with extra virgin olive oil but this time, given the numbers, I used ready-made blinis. A dab of creme fraiche with the anchovies crossed over the top, or a piece of herring with a blob of mayo' - Hellmans, of course - on top.  I also made a dish of scrambled egg and smoked salmon sprinkled over with what I call 'Bullshit Beluga', or lumpfish eggs to you!  I broke up some ready-made bruschetta into bite-sized bits and asked people to dip into the egg dish.  Plus, of course, the usual nuts, olives and sundry garlic-soaked bits and pieces that I would not touch with a beanpole!

For the main course, the little 'Memsahib' made her usual potato salad - just tiny new potatoes (peeled, took hours!) and plenty of chopped onion mixed in mayo' - plus a tomato and onion salad suitably dressed.  She then made a 2-bean salad with red onions, green peppers, garlic and dressing.  She stuck to an old favourite (at my insistence), what we call 'Swedish' chicken, which is just morsels of cold chicken mixed with fresh apple slices, banana and mayo' and served on rice.  She also produced a sausage flan, and then, the star dish of the night - Provencal Tart!  At the end of this litany I shall provide you all with the recipe.  One of our friends had, by arrangement, produced a home-made summer pudding, whilst we offered a small chocolate mousse-type pud, as well.  Finally, there were three cheeses on offer, one of which was an extremely lively brie that attempted to ooze itself off the cheese board - honestly, I swear I saw it move!

A very pleasant evening passed and we had the double doors on the small conservatory open so that the smokers could step outside for 'a drag on a fag'!  However, I am forced to admit that the effort of producing all this to the standards insisted on by the little 'Memsahib' was fairly knackering!  Happily, because they were all old friends, we used paper plates which went straight in the bin as they were finished with, thus cutting down on the clear up and the washing up.  It was perhaps a cruel indication of the passage of time that people began to go home around the time that, twenty or thirty years ago, we would have been beginning to party!

Now, a terrific recipe especially for summer: Provencal Tart:

Pastry:

Don't be proud, or silly, just buy ready-to-roll dessert pastry.

Filling:

4 Tab spns olive oil

6 Large ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped

2 Tab spns tomato puree

1 T spn sugar

Garlic clove finely chopped

3 Spanish, ie, red, onions, sliced

2 Tab spns butter

Fresh Rosemary, chopped

2 Tab spns grated parmesan

2 tins of anchovies, drained

Olive oil

Fresh ground pepper

Beaten egg

Small black olives

 

Cooking:

Cover your shallow baking dish with the pastry.  Pierce the base all over with a fork and cover with grease-proof paper weighed down with pellets and bake at 200 for 15 mins. Remove, brush with a little beaten egg and allow to cool.

Heat oil in pan - add chopped toms, tom puree, sugar, fresh ground pepper (to taste), and cook on low heat until excess moisture removed - mash occasionally to form puree.

Cook onions and garlic in butter with a little Rosemary until soft but not brown!

Sprinkle bottom of pastry in its baking dish with the parmesan; add onions, and then the puree.

Arrange the little anchovies in a lattice pattern over the top and place a small black olive in each square.

Brush lightly with olive oil, bake at 350 for 30 mins. May be served warm or cold.

"And so to bed!"

 

 

 

Cormac McCarthy: A Second, Cautious View

Somewhere down below I wrote a post praising Cormac McCarthy's book No Country for Old Men.  However, I did wonder at the time whether I was still under the influence of the Coen brothers' film and the tremendous performance of Tommy Lee Jones.  Both the book and the film are a long lament for past and passing times.  The malevolence of the monstrous hit-man character is quite literally, diabolical, and the story is almost Lear-like in its bleak nihilism.  Anyway, to check my first impressions, I bought a Picador paper-back edition called The Border Trilogy which contains the following stories: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, excellent value for £10.99.  I have just finished reading the first book.

I do not claim to be much in the way of a literary critic.  As most of you know, I do not 'do' novels; my reading is either cheap 'pulp fiction', or non-fiction, so if I make a chump of myself - again - just put it down to inexperience as well as lack of literary taste.  The first thing that leaps from the page is McCarthy's intense romanticism.  He loves the deserts and mountains of southern Texas and Mexico and such is his exactitude in using the correct names for the flora and fauna, that it makes it hard work for an outsider to know whether he is referring to a tree, a cactus or a shrub.  I had assumed that he had grown up in that area but according to his biography on the net, he only moved there fairly late in life.  This explains his passion - it is the passion of the convert! 

Days to come they road through the mountains and they crossed at a barren windgap and sat the horses among the rocks and looked out over the country to the south where the last shadows were running over the land before the wind and the sun to the west lay blood red among the shelving clouds and the distant cordilleras ranged down the terminals of the sky to fade from pale to pale of blue and then nothing at all.

Similarly, the bond between man and horse is stressed repeatedly and with great emotional force.  In contrast, the emotional love (I use the word because 'friendship' seems inadequate but I should stress that it is not in any way sexual) between the two teen-age  lads of his story is never explicitly stated.  They are both almost monosyllabic in their speech, so it is mainly by their actions that you understand their love for each other.  Finally, there is the love of the young hero for the daughter of a Mexican grandee which holds the centre of this tragic, Romeo and Juliet tale.  Again, McCarthy forgoes hyperbole and allows the reader to feel the power of their love for each other mostly by simply narrative.  But again and again, McCarthy returns to the land, the rivers, the (again) Lear-like storms, the brilliant sunsets and dawns, and the long horizons.

The book is, as one might expect, I suppose, tremendously American.  Not the real America, but the ideal America from that potent mix of memory, myth and reality which lies at the heart of how Americans like to think of themselves.  The writing was too rich for me to chew and swallow at one sitting, after all, Shakespeare apart, I'm not used to literature, but taken in small bite-size portions it was superb.  Of course, McCarthy continues to despise the use of inverted commas, but you soon get used to it.  Anyway, I shall never forget young John Grady Cole, the hero of this tale, but I almost dread reading the next two stories for fear of what his fate holds.

Perhaps Putin's a prat!

It is, of course, a habit of  us in the West to denigrate our politicians as fools and asses when they are not downright villains, but at the same time to ascribe enormous cleverness and foresight on the part of their hostile, foreign counterparts.  Particularly this is so in the case of Russia, perhaps hazily based on that nation's well known ability at the chess board.  But is such admiration warranted?  Based on Putin's use of a queen to take a pawn in Georgia, I think not.

What, exactly and precisely, has Mr. Putin achieved?  He has retaken two microscopic bits of the earth's surface which contain not a single thing of worth or interest to anyone apart from its unfortunate inhabitants.  He might dish out medals to all his soldiers but the reputation of the Russian army has only increased to the extent that they actually managed to find South Ossetia.  Their military prowess was roughly the equivalent of us invading the Isle of Man!  The results of their clumsy, heavy-fisted action can hardly be to their long-term advantage.  Even the dimmest of the dim in the West are now aware that the Russian bear is anything but cuddly.  (I excuse the likes of Gabriel over at 'Unrepentant Communist', of course, but after a lifetime of lickspittling to the Soviet Union, old habits die hard!) That Hungarian dwarf who runs France has just had trousers taken down quicker than his ex-model wife could do it and as the Russians dawdle their way back home leaving hefty ground forces inside Georgia, he looks like the self-important little prat that he is.  We can now see clearly that Germany is hog-tied to Russian energy and their mutual trade with Russia is of such proportions that they wouldn't say boo to a goose, let alone a bear.   However, the Eastern Europeans who never had much doubt concerning Russian ambitions are now hyper-alert and the speed with which the Poles signed up to American missiles indicates that they have been driven further into our sphere of influence.  The Ukraine is equally on guard and even that part of its population that is pro-Russian will think twice having seen the wreckage perpetrated by the Russian 'liberators' in South Ossetia.

So Mr. Putin's little exercise might allow him to swank it around Moscow but all that he has achieved is to warn his opponents to be prepared.  Is it co-incidence that 'Oprah' Obama's lead in the polls has dropped since the Russian invasion as many Americans saw that McCain, in the spirit of the 'old west', was prepared "to do what a man has to do", where-as Obama hemmed and hawed?  According to columnist, Jeffrey Lord at The American Spectator, the Right-wing, talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, "has even assembled a tape of Obama's hemmings and hawings from a solitary press conference, stringing them together to hilarious effect." Jeffrey Lord has put his money where his mouth is and prophesied a McCain win in November.  He reckons that the 'Great American Public' prefer a 'doer' to a 'thinker' as their leader and when smartie-pants Europeans accuse American presidents of being 'cowboys', they fail to realise that most Americans admire cowboys. If his prophesy is correct and McCain wins, one has to ask if that is who Mr. Putin really wanted in the White House for the next four years?

It seems to me that Mr. Putin has strained mightily and produced a couple of rabbit droppings!

Liddle things mean a lot #2

Slightly pushed for time this morning so I will simply point you in this direction and invite you to pep up your day with a nice spoonful of Rod Liddle, yes, it will make you wince but it's good for you!  Here are the opening lines, just to give you the hilarious flavour which, of course, disguises a serious core:

"Here’s a notable first for television — a contestant on a Big Brother programme was told, in front of a television audience, that she had cancer. The woman in question was Jade Goody, whom you may vaguely remember as the coarse, thick, Bermondsey chav who sprung to national prominence for having been allegedly racist on a previous series of the programme. This time she’s on the Indian version of Big Brother called Bigg Boss — an attempt, apparently, to convince everyone that she isn’t racist at all, but is quite happy to trouser fairly large sums of money from darkies the world over."

Even Auberon Waugh would have been proud of that!

Enough shame to share round!

In a post down below I discussed the American campaign in the Pacific during WWII, as described by Ronald H. Spector in his book The Eagle Against the Sun.  I was sardonically amused when Spector pointed out that America had entered the first world war because of the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare which was then considered to be a crime against humanity.  In the second world war, the Americans started as they intended to finish, with unrestricted submarine warfare!  Similarly, airforce commanders around the world believed that pinpoint aerial bombardment was a strategic weapon system capable of winning wars.  It rapidly became apparent that with the technology of the day, the 'pinpoint' element in that proposition was incapable of being put into practice, and so what was, in effect, carpet bombing of both military and civilian targets took place.  In Japan, especially, whole cities were deliberately put to the torch by napalm incendiary attacks.  I should add quickly, lest my American readers take umbrage, that 'Bomber' Harris and the RAF were undertaking a similar carpet bombing strategy over Germany in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed.

Now, how you react to these historical reminders will depend partly on your approach to the conduct of war.  Clausewitz, for example, urged that war should be executed with extreme ruthlessness because only the utter destruction of the enemy's means of resistance would bring a war to a quick end.  However, in what I will call the 'Anglosphere' there has been a substantial reluctance to push the conduct of warfare to its extremes, indeed, it has taken the push of dire circumstances to provoke the Anglosphere nations to follow Clausewitz's prescription - but in the end we gritted our teeth, half closed our eyes and did it!  There are those, of course, who maintain that our conduct and reputation was thus reduced to the level of our enemies.  Further, they maintain that today, any complaints by America (or any other member of the Anglosphere) as to the conduct of hostile nations is hypocrisy of the first order since we are no better than they are.  It is sometimes a difficult charge to refute but the clue lies in the word 'hypocrisy'.  I am very much in favour of hypocrisy.  To be a hypocrite is to do something immoral whilst pretending to be moral yourself but, and this is the point, to be able to do that it is essential that you know the difference between morality and immorality.  Those national leaders who conduct war without regard to morality do so because they simply are a-moral, that is, they are incapable of differentiating between right and wrong because such notions have no meaning for them.  There-in lies the difference between the Japanese high command in the 1930s and '40s, and the admittedly mixed standards of the Anglosphere leaders.  It is also worth noting that even to this day some of our actions still leave a residue of shame; and shame, of course, is the critically important element in deciding whether a nation or its leadership has been able to recognise that it owes a duty, albeit in the circumstances of war, a severely inhibited duty, to all human beings not just their own citizens.

I should add that I, personally, tend rather more toward the Clausewitzean philosophy but with one large proviso.  Outright brutality and cruelty does not always work, indeed, quite often it has a detrimental effect on your own side.  For example, killing prisoners in order to strike terror in your enemies will probably result in hardening their resolve to fight on, where-as a policy of treating prisoners well and even generously, whilst ensuring that the other side knows this, will encourage them to throw down their arms.  Similarly, the German blitz on London only resulted in an increased determination to resist, and my guess is that our subsequent onslaught on German cities had a similar effect. So, in my view, like any other tactic or strategy employed in war, extreme cruelty needs to be judged on one criteria - does it work?

'Dimmer up North'

My title is a gentle tease aimed at Susan Press, the owner of  'Grimmer up North'; and my tease is, indeed, gentle because she is a nice lady who puts up with my occasional visits to her site and never, well, hardly ever, hints that perhaps I am less than welcome!  Usually she ignores me which is wise of her.  So, it is a matter of some regret that she does not apply her wisdom further and wider.  Susan (I hope she will forgive the familiarity) is at the very Left end of Labour where she clings like a limpet despite loathing almost every policy of her government along with all of the cabinet and the vast majority of the parliamentary party.  Even so, she persists, filling her life with a heavy schedule of meetings, demos, agitation and the writing of minutes, and motions, and amendments to motions, and so on ad infinitum, and all to absolutely no purpose at all because no one of real political influence is ever going to pursue her pie-in-the-sky policies for the simple reason that no more than about 2.5% of the population would ever vote for them.

And who could blame them?  Just recently Susan advocated that the government should buy up houses where the mortgagees have been evicted for failing to keep up their payments and the houses should then be rented back to the previous occupants.  To be fair, the idea was not hers but 'Tony' Benn's - need one say more?  I felt impelled to point out to Susan a simple but brutal fact - her government is broke - skint - forced to search down the backs of the settees in No. 10 to find a few bob - and in considerable danger of being repossessed like those unfortunates who cannot pay their mortgages.  Like them, 'Incapability Broon' is running up, day by day, colossal debts on his 'credit cards', as you might call the international money lenders.  (Incidentally, you and I will be paying back the interest and capital on these loans for years to come.)

In today's Spectator, Martin Vander Weyer, a former merchant Banker, spells out the grim news.  He quotes a Treasury Official moaning in the Evening Standard, "Is there an economic plan?  If there is, we haven't been told about it or shown it ..."  Vander Weyer makes clear that on the monetary side nothing can be done with interest rates because, as 'Broon' keeps, or rather, kept, boasting, he handed over the job of setting rates to the Bank of England.  The words 'hoist' and 'petard' spring to mind!  Only a huge drop in oil and commodity prices would allow the BoE to cut rates - don't hold your breath! Fiscal quick fixes are out, too, because the government is already breaking its own rules (er, 'hoist' and 'petard', again) as the tax-take drops and the welfare claims start rising.  According to Vander Weyer, if the present trajectory continues the IMF is likely to step in and insist on - dread words! - government spending cuts and tax rises.  None of the quick-fix ideas for getting the housing market moving again is worth a bucket of cold spit.  The government cannot afford a universal stamp duty holiday costing billions to the Exchequer, and any attempt to let first time buyers off stamp duty will be quickly gobbled up by a rise in house prices.  Nor will a so-called 'windfall tax' work, either.  The energy suppliers will simply pass the extra charges back to the consumer.  Also, and strategically crucial, the government is desperately seeking foreign firms to replace our elderly and ailing nuclear power stations.  Slapping on unexpected taxes will only drive up the prices they quote, or, just drive them away altogether.  Needless to say, one ineffable commenter, another Northerner, at Susan's site came out with the usual mantra: "higher taxes which should be levied on the better off".  Honestly, there are times when you wonder what era these people live in, but just to spell out the 'bleedin' obvious', "better off" people don't sit around waiting for the tax man to come and rob them, they simply jet off to somewhere where there is a government which understands that rich people are an asset to a country because they spend their money where-ever they are domiciled, and therefore they ensure that their tax ambiance is easy and welcoming.

Needless to say, being a cruel and heartless man, I could not help reminding Susan that she was almost certainly one of those who cheered and clapped when 'Incapability Broon' chucked billions into the NHS and the Education non-Service.  Now that the coffers are empty she should take a look in the mirror if she is searching for a scapegoat.

Opera Buffa and a couple of buffoons!

I am incredulous, and slightly nervous, that tonight I find myself joining together two of the most disparate men in public life.  Never would I have thought it possible to imagine the former Tory MP, Mr. Terry Dicks, side by side on these pages with the 'uber-Whig' hack, Oliver Kamm.  To be fair, which tonight I am not minded to be, these two are facing each other in opposition.  Mr. Dicks, if my creaking memory serves, was an exceedingly fat and foolish man.  The late Mr. Tony Banks, former MP and wag, once described Dicks as "living proof that a pig's bladder on the end of a stick can be elected to parliament"!  Even so, it is, I suggest, beyond the bounds of possibility that even a fat fool like Dicks can be wrong about absolutely everything.  Certainly he was absolutely and completely right in his implacable opposition to the tax-payers supporting 'the Arts'.

Now Mr. Kamm is the opposite of Mr. Dicks in every respect, bar one, which I will come to in a minute.  Mr. Kamm is not at all fat as far as one can judge from the head-and-shoulders photo on his blog, and he is very definitely not a fool - hence my nervousness at, metaphorically, pelting him with rotten veg tonight.  Nevertheless, he is the opposite proof of that provided by Mr. Dicks, in that despite being absolutely jam-packed full of brains, he can still, on occasion, come out with a load of complete cods!

Shivering, I take cover behind Mr. Fraser Nelson in the Spectator Coffee House, who attracted Mr. Kamm's disdain in the first place, when he wrote the following:

"Great moment on the Today programme this morning when John Major – without irony – told James Naughtie how great the National Lottery was because an opera lover like him could benefit from the money poured into the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden."

He continued;

"[W]hy have British taxpayers subsidise the singing of songs written a hundred years ago in Italian or German? If the usually-rich people who tend to watch opera do not wish to fund the real cost of it, I have never seen why hard-pressed taxpayers should cover a chunk of the ticket price."

Nor have I! 

Oliver, with magnificent Whiggish superiority, slags off the hugely popular Classic FM radio station which brings pleasure to millions without a farthing from the Exchequer, as, my dear, just "vacuous populism", and then, after checking that his bigwig curls are hanging just so and that his beauty spot is still in place, peers down through his lorgnettes and pretends astonishment that Fraser Nelson would describe "opera subsidy as a middle-class rip off".

Of course it's a bloody rip off!  I'm a pensioner on a fixed income trying hard to make sure my out-goings do not exceed my taxed in-comings and the knowledge that part of my tax is going towards the price of a seat at Covent Garden fills me with incandescent rage.

Barberism!

I've had a lot of trouble with barbers over the years. Perfectly amiable chaps, all of them, but they do have a tendency to talk all the time.  As you will have gathered from this self-opinionated blog, when, and if, it comes to talking, then I like to do most of it and on subjects which are of interest to me.  The latest triumphs, or more likely the woes, of the England football team, which appear to be a favourite topic for most barbers, do not loom large in my list of interests.  So, I developed an anti-barber-chatter tactic.  I made a habit of always going in armed with a book which, having settled myself into the chair, I opened rather ostentatiously.  This worked most times but failed with an Italian barber who continued blithely on his favourite subject - the Italian football team!

However, in old age, or 'very, very late middle-age' as I prefer to think of it, I have finally cracked the problem of the gossiping barber.  When I moved down here I discovered by accident a 'barberette' - a lady barber - not, I assure you, in one of those 'uni-sex hair salons' (dread words!) but a proper men-only barber shop, but, with a rather attractive lady wielding the scissors.  This young woman introduced me to a new experience - electrical clippers!  Consequently, I now walk in, settle myself in the chair, cry out 'number 3 all over' and I have barely found my place in the book I am carrying when it is all finished!  And, apart from saying "Hello", "That'll be six pounds, please", "Thank you" and "Goodbye", those are the only words she speaks. Bliss!

I might leave home - but not a word to the little 'Memsahib'!

'Little Willy' hardens!

See below for my other posts on 'Little Willy', suffice to say here, that he is a lad (he's 28 going on 14) who is happy to inform the world that he has a very small penis, that he is "pretty ugly" (a rather neat oxymoron) and is unable to grow a beard.  In addition, lest you doubt his 'good' intentions, his main interest is "saving the world from humankind [er, that's me and you, in case you're wondering] through progressive policies and compulsory voting with the single transferable vote".  What he actually means is that he intends to get his own back on the rest of us because the 'Intelligent Designer' (very intelligent, if you ask me) only gave him a titchy willy.  It is something akin to the syndrome suffered by the late Herr Hitler who, according to a popular song of the day, only had one ball!  'Willy' is currently studying for a Ph.D. and without doubt some ninny is going to give this particular ninny the title of Doctor of Philosophy.  Now you see why I am so very, very happy that I did not waste my time at University.

Anyway, recently he wrote a post lambasting Mr. Bjorn Lomborg and repeating the libelous statement that Mr. Lomborg had been "found guilty of scientific dishonesty" when he knew that the Danish Ministry that oversaw the work of this tribunal had dismissed their results when, upon investigation, it found that:

"[T]he committee's judgment was not backed up by documentation and was completely 'void of argumentation' for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice."[1]

The committee concerned were offered the chance to re-open the case against Mr. Lomborg but declined!  Mr. Lomborg has since been employed by the Danish government.

Always eager to support any effort to keep science honest, I pointed all this out to 'Little Willy' on the assumption, silly me, that he would be pleased that Mr. Lomborg was not guilty, but my good news was met with the following: "It doesn't make you or Lomborg any less of a twat", "The guy is a moron", "the ignorant fucks who get taken in by this crap", and so on, ad nauseum.  Anyway, I reminded 'Little Willy' that better scientists than he had pointed out that today science is only ever a "provisional activity"(2), and even Newton had been corrected in his ideas on the nature of light; so it might be wise for him to be a little less certain and more open-minded on scientific matters.  He responded, to begin with, rather sensibly: "You can hardly blame Newton for missing light's dual properties as he was working with the best information available at the time."  I was cheered, dear reader; at last, I thought, 'Little Willy' is beginning to grow up because, of course, that phrase 'the best information available' is of the very essence when it comes to scientific investigation.  But alas, this was followed by another long rant on Mr. Lomborg's iniquities.

Battling on, I sent in a final post which I reproduce here but which 'Little Hitler - ooops, sorry - Willy' has censored:

""Yes, but unlike Lomborg I'm not using it to try and sell a dangerous and unscientific conclusion to the public" [I'm not sure what the "it" is that he is referring to, I think he means scientific methodology.]

Well, that, of course, is your *opinion*, to which you are fully entitled, believing, as you do, that:

1. Global temperatures are increasing, and,

2. That the cause of it is man-made.

On the other hand, it is my *opinion* that you may, or may not, be right on the first, but that you are probably wrong on the second. 

However, let us agree (go on, give it a try!) that in this debate we must be strictly scientific and maintain ethical standards.  Thus, we can both join hands and condemn loudly the disgraceful behaviour that went on in the publication of Amman & Wahl's papers which claimed to have replicated the Mann 'et al' results and thus confirmed the 'hockey stick' graph upon which much of the global warming hypothesis depends.  The whole thing appears to be as reliable as a nine bob note! You can read a layman's summary here:

http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html

Now that was all very courteous, I felt, a reaching of hands across the great divide, that sort of thing, but, as you have probably guessed in outline, these were his final words on the subject left in place of my censored comment:

"Duff, I will not have anyone deny anthropogenic climate change here. In fact, from your demonstrable racism and climate change denial I will not tolerate you any more.

Fuck you, you bigoted, goat-fisting cockweasel."

Additional: This almost passed me by but please note his use of the phrase "anthropogenic climate change".  Until fairly recently the HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) always referred to 'climate warming' but since the millennium the mounting barrage of scientific criticism of both their methods and their conclusions have begun to score damaging hits, plus, the outcomes of their predictions are way off target (see: Hansen, passim).  Thus the HAFs have been forced to change their catch phrase to what can only be described as a 'catch-all phrase'.

There speaks a true, latter-day Doctor of Philosophy!  I was slightly tempted to say that it is unfair to saddle the wider AGW crowd with this ignorant, stupid and fanatical little viper, but the fact is that he fits in all too well.  At the very top of the AGW movement there are 'scientists' whose every word is devoured wholesale by the political class but who refuse rudely and contemptuously any polite request for the mathematical codes upon which rest the conclusions that they seek to foist upon us.  If you doubt that, please click on the Bishop Hill link above.

However, my interest in 'Little Willy' goes further than mere science.  Generally I try to avoid psychology except when I read something by a true expert, Shakespeare, for example.  Before I entered 'Blogdom', I had never met a real fanatic before but suddenly they seemed to appear out of the ether like multiplying maggots.  I think of the likes of 'Lenin', 'Bionoc' and all the other shudder-inducers, and now I have 'Little Willy' to study.  What a specimen!  A real people-hater, a creature fit only for running a concentration camp in which his boundless hatred for Mankind could be fulfilled and in which no one would dare to contradict him.

(1) http://www.cambridge.org/uk/economics/lomborg/files/scientific_dishonesty_case_closed_-_lomborg_cleared.pdf

(2) The Age of Science by David Knight

I deserve a medal, really I do!

And it should be the 'Long Service and Good Conduct' medal!  I had better explain.  That Oliver Kamm started it all, as I pointed out here, by giving that Aussie twerp, John Pilger, an historical slapping over his ignorant, not to say mendacious, remarks concerning the background to the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan.  It provoked me into reaching for a book which I have owned for about 20 years and which I assumed I had once read, but on dipping into it, I realised that I had not.  The book, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with Japan by Ronald H. Spector is, as the title suggests, a fairly hefty piece of work but I suspect it was not just its weight that put me off but the fact that the publisher, Viking, had failed to provide a single map - grrrrrh!  Happily, the little 'Memsahib' has recently purchased a very handsome, and equally heavy, new atlas and so, dear reader, I have spent the last few days staggering around my house with these two giant volumes, at huge risk to my back, my arms and my hernia, in order to educate myself so that I might better educate you, in turn.

The shameful truth is, that whilst I know a little of the geo-political squabbles between the USA and Japan that led up to the war, and a fair bit more on the details of the Pearl Harbour attack, and a lot more on the intricacies of the battle of Midway, the remainder of the Pacific campaign is, or rather, was, a total haze to me.  I could not, for example, point to Iwo Jima, or Bataan, on a map - could you? - and neither did I have the slightest inkling as to exactly when and in what order these massive battles took place.  I am ashamed.  However, now, courtesy of Mr. Spector's excellent book, I am very much better informed.  Of course, this campaign was riven with controversies, and not just on the background to the atomic bombing, and so one places a great deal of trust in the historian writing the book.  In my judgment, Mr. Spector passes the test in that he points up the differing views of both the participants and the later historians before giving us his own considered judgement.  It still doesn't make him right, but in these convoluted affairs there is rarely any definite right or wrong. 

The one thing that comes through very clearly in this book, and which happily confirms my own opinion, is the almost insane stupidity of the Japanese in taking on the USA at all.  I do realise that Roosevelt, in an administrative error that could not be corrected, virtually provoked the Japanese into war by cutting off their oil supplies; but then again, the Japanese would not have been so desperate for oil if they had not gone rampaging all over China during the previous decade.  In any event, the Japanese high command, with very few exceptions, did not approach war with America in any sense of nervousness, on the contrary, I don't know what the Japanese for 'bring it on' is, but that was their motto!

I am, as some of you know, an agnostic when it comes to belief in a God or an Intelligent Designer, but were you so minded, some of the incidents in this war would convince you of divine intervention.  For example, the amazing luck that the American carriers were not in harbour tied up alongside their doomed battleships in Pearl Harbour, or, the engine trouble that delayed a Jap reconnaissance plane which, if it had taken off on time, would have spotted the American carriers at Midway.  Of course, all that 'divine intervention' stuff is nonsense; the war was won by the huge industrial might of the USA, the extraordinary courage and stamina of its fighting men, the intellectual brilliance of its code-breakers and the intelligence and diligence of many of its middle-ranking officers.  I deliberately exclude most of its senior officers because, on the whole, they were rubbish!  As Spector puts it, more politely, "Because of its material superiority, the United States could afford such expensive - and occasionally dangerous - luxuries as divided command and the lack of an overall strategy in the war against Japan."  (I hope that none of my American readers assume that I think we, the British, were any better - indeed not, but that is a separate tale of folly!)

As to the 'dispute' over the decisions to A-bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I remain convinced that Truman took the decision reluctantly but in the correct belief that it was needed in order to shock the Japanese into a surrender that a large majority of the high command was not prepared to concede, and also, to save very many more lives that would have been lost had the Japanese fought to the last man, as most of their military wished to do.

 

Oh, oh, oh, what a lovely war!

One of the few good things to have come out of the Russian-Georgian slap-down is that it provided a mini-test for the two presidential candidates.  I regret, and am surprised, to say that Obama came out best!  McCain rushed in where only fools would dare to tread and tied himself hook, line and sinker to President Saakhasvili, a man whose dexterity in a tight position has been found wanting.  Obama, on the other hand, obviously hadn't got a clue, and who could blame him, so he kept his mouth shut, by which I mean, he mumbled platitudes - very wise!

Gregory Djeredjian  (and don't ask me how you pronounce it!), an American international financier based in London, has run a very thoughtful and intelligent blog for many years but earlier this year there was a very long interregnum because of pressure of business.  I had failed to spot that he was back 'on the air'.  His latest post deals with McCain's 'cowboy' response - sorry, that is a cheap shot aimed at an American politician of the sort usually favoured by the Trot-lot, but I can think of no other - and he stands it in direct contrast with the words of the late George Kennan, a man who knew a thing or three about the Russians:

"(E)xpanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold war era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking."

He reinforces the message with the words of another shrewd operator, Henry Kissinger:

"Confrontational rhetoric notwithstanding, Russia's leaders are conscious of their strategic limitations. Indeed, I would characterize Russian policy under Putin as driven in a quest for a reliable strategic partner, with America being the preferred choice...But the movement of the Western security system from the Elbe River to the approaches to Moscow brings home Russia's decline in a way bound to generate a Russian emotion that will inhibit the solution of all other issues. It should be kept on the table without forcing the issue to determine the possibilities of making progress on other issues."

What we have to face in the immediate and medium term future, apart from virulent Islamism, is the rise and rise of two great rival powers, China and Russia.  It is essential that we divide them, not drive them into each other's arms as McCain and, I regret to say, my e-pal Oliver Kamm would do, here, and here.

In the meantime, please bookmark Gregory's site, always a very worthwhile read.

Bishop smites HAFs

Bishop Hill (and it is a disgrace that I have still not put him on my links, mea culpa), has excelled himself, and done us all an immense service, by writing a clear and easily understood summary of the long, and scientifically complex, argument between Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit and the HAF proponents of the 'hockey stick', that mythical graph which purports to show centuries of even temperatures until the beginning of the 20th c. when suddenly they rocket upwards so that it somewhat resembles a hockey stick lying on its back.  It is a longish read but enthralling, and it will demonstrate, even to the most ardent Hot Air Fanatic, the unscrupulous chicanery that so-called scientists will stoop to in order to produce results that conform to a political agenda.  This story of McIntyre's tireless crusade to force the HAF scientists to disclose their methods will go down in the history of science as perhaps more important to science than any number of other discoveries because of the way in which it has forced scientists to be honest.

Read it and weep - er, that is, weep for yourself, as Gordon Brown uses this HAF propaganda as a means of taxing you to the hilt!

"Italia! oh, Italia!"

Of course, you all recognised that quotation from Childe Harold, didn't you?  Oh, you didn't!  Good, neither did I, but thanks to my trusty Oxford Dictionary of Quotations I found it.  Frankly, I find Byron a bit hit and miss even if I admit that at his very best he is sublime.  The full quotation is as follows:

Italia! oh Italia! Thou who hast / The fatal gift of beauty.

Well, if anyone could spot a beauty at a hundred paces it was Byron but I am not concerned here with poetry, but with the nation of Italy which has been a sad disappointment to me.  I have warned you all before that you will never make money backing my prognostications and Italy serves as an example.  Some time ago, I forecast, with an excess of confidence over wisdom, Italy's imminent departure from the Euro which I prayed would lead to a mass exodus and the collapse of the whole rotten edifice.  Oh, well, wrong again - so no change there, then! 

Even so, like Byron, I cannot resist a beauty and so I was a little encouraged by an essay from an unknown writer (to me) called Tim Hedges, who won a writing competition at the Spectator's Coffee House site, in which he explains very clearly the dreadful endemic problems that beset that most alluring of countries.  He gives Berlusconi the benefit of the doubt in dealing with Italy's difficulties, if only on the grounds that the Italian Left have absolutely nothing to offer by way of change.  He also thinks that the current economic malaise with which everyone is suffering might be the excuse Berlusconi needs to take Italy out of the Euro and thus prove beyond doubt that David Duff is a great seer!

Definitely worth a read, including the comments.

 

Georgia on my mind

Everything I write here is strictly provisional whilst "events, dear boy, events" continue towards some sort of conclusion.  However, so far I have to give Putin top marks for a masterful example of real-politik.  We should all be grateful to him for blowing away some of the silly froth that bubbles forth on a fairly constant basis from the soppier sort of opinion makers like the Grauniad.  It will act as a salutary reminder that there are statesmen out there who could not give a fig for 'world opinion' (whatever that is!) and will therefor pursue their aims with ruthless determination.  Was there ever a more complete waste of oxygen than the vapid, useless witterings of the so-called Security Council in New York?  And how delicious to see the puffed-up pretensions of the European 'Union' exposed in all their pathetic fear and feebleness.  The fact is that they are already in thrall to Russia because of their dependence on that country's supply of oil and gas.  All they can afford to raise is the tiniest of tiny squeaks!

Of course, I have no views on the rights and wrongs of the issue, not only because I have virtually no knowledge on the subject (before the weekend I would have had considerable difficulty pointing out Georgia on a map), but also because rights and wrongs, as I keep repeating, have no place in international affairs; that is to say, I do not deny that they may exist but that when push comes to shove they have no importance - except possibly as propaganda for either side.  Putin recognises that in this particular dispute he doesn't even have to bother too much about propaganda because no one can lay a hand on him.  Those people, and here I point at the White House, who may have given the Georgians rather too much in the way of encouragement in the past deserve some of the blame for providing Putin with an opportunity to get away with daylight robbery.  Equally, the Georgian government deserves a bucket full of blame for imagining, even for a second, that all those so-called 'friends' in the West would lift a finger to help when the Russian army marched in. 

The really interesting question is what happens next?  Success to people like Putin can often lead to hubris which then produces tragedy, so watch carefully what happens in the Ukraine over the next few years! Meanwhile all the leaders of those small nations previously part of the old Soviet Union will be re-assessing their geo-political options.  And perhaps, just, perhaps, there might be one or two of the soppier sort of Lefties who now realise that all the evil in the world is not centred in Washington.

In the meantime, and I stress again, provisionally, were I a Russian, I would be rather pleased with this little exercise.

Peking bling

From the bits and pieces I inadvertantly saw as I passed my TV (always on Sky News with the sound off) the opening of the Olympics demonstrated a rather obvious pedigree.  From Barnum & Bailey to Max Reinhardt via Joseph Goebbels through Las Vegas and finally to Peking.  My dears, simply too, too vulgar!

More war - take cover!

The American Conservative, Patrick Buchanan's house magazine, should be required reading for every British and European policy-maker.  It represents a strand of geo-political thinking in America that, should it gain greater support, would be the cause of immense difficulties and dangers for us over this side of the Atlantic.  In fact, for those delusional Anglo/European politicians who strut their stuff about the international stage, it could be the equivalent of an ice-cold shower in reality.  The man himself, Patrick Buchanan, has just published a book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, which I have not read, but in this post on the magazine's site he has invited seven different foreign affairs experts and historians to write essays on it, so a good flavour of thing can be obtained.  I would urge you all to read these essays.  It is obvious, even from Buchanan's title, that he is merely the latest in a long line of American isolationists who deplore their country's involvement in foreign entanglements - although curiously, as one of the writers points out, Buchanan was, apparently, very keen on intensifying the cold war against Stalin.  In this desire for a policy of 'Fortress America', of course, he is joined enthusiastically by every trouble-making gangster-regime in the world, which doesn't necessarily make it wrong, but it does provoke one to think hard before swallowing it!  I shall probably buy the book one of these days but whilst reading it I shall bear in mind a sub-text I discerned from these generally supportive essayists, that is, that their real beef is not with the machinations of an evil Churchill who subverted an innocent, minding-its-own-business America, but with an even more evil President Bush.  In other words, this mighty tome of 20th c. history is tailor-made to beat in the heads of Bush and the neo-Cons for their mistakes in the 21st c.  And that ain't no co-incidence!

Stop this 'War for Oil' before it starts!

Well, that's what the Trot-lot will start yelling any minute now as the Russo-Georgian dispute threatens to escalate and involve the West.  Being totally ignorant of the issues involved I have wondered during the course of the day what, apart from Russia wishing to dominate their former 'colonies' (and why not?), was the bigger issue that lay behind it.  I am obliged to Richard Beeston of The Times for mentioning that magical word without which no war these days is worth fighting - oil!   According to Beeston:

But the help [from the West] is also partly a means of protecting the oil pipeline across Georgia that carries crude from the Caspian to the Black Sea, the only export route that bypasses Russia’s stranglehold on energy exports from the region.

That's good enough for me - so let's hear it for plucky little, er, what was it called again - oh yes, plucky little Georgia, splendid chaps, every man of them!  Ooops, and women, of course!

A load of pilgers well and truly kammified!

Additional 11.7.08: Alas, Oliver Kamm's site suffered 'the unkindest cut of all' and went off-air for a few days.  It is now restored but he lost some posts including the one to which I link below.  In any event, it is up and running now but in a few days it will be migrating to The Times website.  I will post the link when it happens and I intend to write a few words on Oliver's record as a blogger.

From the DED (Duff's English Dictionary):

To pilger: v., to tell lies in support of a political ideology (see, David Irving, passim).

To kamm: v., to expose pilgering.

You can see perfect examples of both these activities over at Oliver Kamm's site, beginning here but continuing for a further two examples above the original post.  I have no need to be involved further in this particular fracas except to shout out to Oliver Kamm, "Give 'im one for me!" 

However, in pondering on the subject matter of the dispute, that is, the massive strategic decisions taken by all concerned in the run up to the dropping of the A-bombs in Japan, I was struck by the similarity of psychology, and thus of actions and re-actions to events, by the Japanese High Command and the German High Command in 1918.  Both groups shared certain characteristics.  The German General Staff were a select elite in the German army; even worse, they were an intellectual elite, demonstrably so because entry to the War Academy was strictly by competitive examination - and we all know, do we not, how dangerous intellectual elites can be!  (See, global warming, mad cow disease, the liberal elite, and so on.)  It is arguably true that the German General Staff at the beginning of the 20th c. constituted the greatest brotherhood of military expertise the world has ever seen, before or after, and they succeeded in losing, not just one, but two, world wars.

I am not so knowledgeable on Japanese society in the run up to WWII but from the little I do know, the Japanese army (and navy) claimed a special relationship to their god-emperor, in much the same way that the German General Staff insisted on a symbiotic relationship with their king-emperor.  Again, just like the Germans, this allowed them to choose their own ministers with direct access to the emperor to represent their service in the government of the day, irrespective of which bunch of politicians were in power.  Both the German and the Japanese military saw themselves as separate castes within their societies; the Japanese, thus:

These sons of petty landowners and small shopkeepers felt far less assured of their place in the social hierarchy than did the aristocratic lords of the Choshu and Satsuma clans who had dominated the army high command before WWI: they were thus all the more ready to embrace ideas which re-assured them about the unique role in the nation.  Some 25 to 30 percent of the officer corps had attended official military preparatory schools [...] where, from an early age of twelve or thirteen, they had been "immersed in preparing for a military career ... in surroundings totally isolated from ordinary society".(1)  Their education stressed the 'mission' of the army officer.(2)

It is an indication of the blind stupidity of the Japanese military leadership that they even contemplated waking the sleeping giant that was America in 1941.  I realise that there were economic and political imperatives but these could have been contained if the military had been able to see through their red mist of arrogance and hubris.  It was their war,  they dreamed it, they planned it, they finessed it and they invested in it all their hopes and beliefs.  They half lost it when they failed to take out the American carriers at Pearl Harbour, but then they truly lost it six months later when their crown jewels, the Japanese carriers and all their precious trained aircrews, were lost at Midway.  Like the Germans after September 1914 which had seen the failure of the Schlieffen plan, it was now only a matter of time before they were defeated.  But in both cases, too many deeply-held convictions and too many reputations would be shattered by defeat and so it was resisted.  It is an indication of the stubborn and stupid myopia of the Japanese military leadership that even after the second A-bomb at Nagasaki, they still refused to accept surrender.

What are the lessons to be learned from these sorry examples?  I would suggest, first, treat all experts with caution; second, never allow your military elites to become separated from your civil society.

1: Quote from: "The Role of the Japanese Army" by Fujiwara Akira, contained in ...

2: "The Eagle Against the Sun" by Ronald H. Spector

Olympics? Bah! Humbug!

My prayers to the 'Intelligent Designer' appear to be working because TV coverage this morning shows a very nice, dense smog has settled over Peking.  My joy will be unconfined if the druggies in the 100m race cannot see the finish line, and the marathon runners lose their way.  You will not be surprised to know that I shall not be watching the farrago that opens these disgusting 'games'.  I am not a killjoy, I enjoy the spectacle of genuine sporting endeavour, but the sheer, mind-boggling expense of these 'games' is vomit-inducing.  Any potential pleasure turns to dust and ashes when you contemplate the misery of hundreds of thousands of poor Chinese forced from their homes or dismissed without compensation from their jobs because their factories have been closed either for demolition or in a frantic panic to cut down on pollution.  Many of them lack even the means to get back to the poverty-ridden countryside from which they came in order to get work.  If that fails to make you queasy then just remind yourselves that a tiny, miniscule fraction of the multi-zillions spent on this disgusting freak show would buy half a dozen Mercy Ships.  I have added one final prayer to the 'Intelligent Designer' - please let there be a small earthquake in Peking, not enough to bring down buildings and kill people, but just large enough to make all those 'fun palaces' unsafe and un-usable.  Better still, that would mean they would have to be demolished or made safe thus giving back jobs to all those migrant workers.

Additional: Dearie me! (By the way, whatever happened to him?)  Where was I?  Oh yes, dearie me, I regret to say that the 'Intelligent Designer' has taken my prayers a little too far by starting WWIII on the same day as the Olympic opening ceremony.  Apparently the Russians and the Georgians are going to war and it can only be a matter of time before some other hot-heads rush in.  Whilst, I am delighted for anything that subverts the preposterous and vulgar extravaganza in Peking, WWIII seems a touch excessive!

Sorry, 'bin' skivin'!

Sorry, sorry, I should have told you, I have been away for a long but, alas, not very dirty weekend.  Just returned, and 'she who must be obeyed' informs me that I will be out most of tomorrow, as well, so you must contain your impatience for a little while longer whilst I try desperately to think of something interesting to write.