DUFF & NONSENSE!

Au revoirs, mes enfants!

Off to France tomorrow - at 05.30!!!  Like the good boy scout I never was, I am fully prepared, by which I mean that I have my swimming goggles.  Not that I intend to do too much swimming but the last time I went to France in Spring/Summer I nearly rubbed my eyes out of their sockets with hay-fever problems and ended up spending most of the day walking around wearing swimming goggles.  The locals just rolled their eyes, shrugged in their usual Gallic fashion and muttered something about "les Anglaises . . ."  Don't ask me what it was that set my eyes off but as we are a bit nearer towards the Atlantic than before I am hoping I won't suffer.  If I do, well, I'll just have to drink more wine!

Anyway, I'm not back until 4th June so play amongst yourselves but leave the place tidy!

 

Michael J. Astrue! Who?

Who?  Yes, don't worry I heard your unspoken question - I have the Secret Power, you know!  Also, to be honest, it was precisely the first question I asked when I came across his name.  Well, Mr. Astrue is, wait for it, the head of the American Social Security Administration - oh, for goodness sake, don't nod off, I haven't finished yet!  Here is his photograph which might make you a little more interested.

Hmn!  Take that as 'no', shall I?  Well, again, I share your almost terminal tedium at the sight of this slightly plump bean-counter in the American civil service.  But then I read this:

 

 

 

Please flood her nerves with sedatives
and keep her strong enough to crack a smile
so disbelieving friends and relatives
can temporarily sustain denial.

Please smite that intern in oncology
who craves approval from department heads.
Please ease her urge to vomit, let there be
kind but flirtatious men in nearby beds.

Given her hair, consider amnesty
for sins of vanity; make mirrors vanish.
Surround her with forgiving family
and nurses not too numb to cry. Please banish

trite consolations; take her in one swift
and gentle motion as your final gift.

I keep re-reading that and as I blink back the tears I shake my head in amazement that in this day and age we still have poets prepared to cage themselves inside the classic regimen of the Shakespearean sonnet form.  Three quatrains rhyming abab, cdcd, efef and then a final rhyming couplet, as it were, to underline the developed thought.  It is, in my opinion, not just a deeply moving poem but also witty and true.  It is, as you will have guessed by now, the work of the dull-looking, bureaucratic fellow above who writes under the pseudonym of 'A. M. Juster'.  Lest you think all his poetry is on the gloomy side you will be surprised to find out that Mr. Astrue ('Juster') carries a sharp knife, a metaphorical one, of course, as befits a poet:

Here lies what’s left of Michael Juster,
A failure filled with bile and bluster.
Regard the scuttlebutt as true.
Feel free to dance; most others do.

I chuckled at that and thus, like the ignorant fellow I am, I totally missed the pun at the end of line 3!  Here is another of his sonnets which hints wistfully at a mysterious and now vanished life:

He hardly ever spoke; we thought his name
was Robinson and watched him from afar
for fear of yanqui guile. When he first came
to town, he played piano at the bar—
some Friday nights—jazz riffs that blended
into weary talk—though soon he grew
more scarce. He drank more and the concerts ended,
which is what exile and tequila do.

One day his landlord said he didn’t know
if Robinson had skipped out on his rent.
We kept an eye out while the tide was low
and poked around the canyons when we went
out walking, but a search was never done.
We had no reason, and desired none.

Yet again I am deeply grateful to the Stakhanovite editors of Arts & Letters Daily for pointing me towards an essay in First Things which uncovered this most unlikely of treasures.  If any of you wish to follow up here is a link to his books on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Language-Women-Richard-Wilbur/dp/093098255X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274627076&sr=8-1

Lazy? Yes I know but it's in the 80s outside!

So, if you think I'm going to sit in here all day chewing the end of my quill pen as I struggle to provide you with samples of the wit and wisdom of David Duff, you can think again.  Instead, I am going to cut and paste a letter to the NYT by the always estimable Donald Boudreaux from Cafe Hayek who does actually possess both wit and wisdom:

Criticizing libertarianism, you assert that “It was only government power that ended slavery” (“Limits of Libertarianism,” May 22).

You’re mistaken.  Slavery was common throughout history until the age of industrial capitalism.  Only then did this heinous institution disappear.  Slavery was killed by capitalism because that institution puts a premium on creativity, initiative, and good judgment (which even the mightiest slave-master’s whip cannot extract from its victims), and because the ethos that gives life to capitalism – free-market liberalism – is hostile to the ownership of man by man.  That the first-to-industrialize English were the first abolitionists is no coincidence.

In North America, pressure brought by capitalism to end slavery was countered by the very agency that you praise as slaves’ liberator: government.  From 17th and 18th century slave codes to the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and of 1850, government in America actively deployed force on behalf of slaveholders.  Without this force, slavery would never have taken root as deeply as it did in the U.S. and would have died away sooner and with less bloodshed.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Here’s a column I wrote several years ago on this topic.

I hope that his links work but if they don't - tough!  There's no way I'm going to sit indoors fiddling about with this computer-wotsit with the sun shining outside.  Er, have a nice day!

A Friday mumble

Normally when my concentration wains and my imagination wilts I save up a collection of (almost) one-liners which I grudgingly dribble out under the heading of "A Sunday Rumble".  However, today, with the temperature in the high 20s, I really do not have the energy or the inclination to delve in depth into various topics so instead I shall simply mumble quietly - and briefly - about a few of them.

Lying liars:  What is it about (mostly) Democrat politicians that makes them into such lying liars?  We all had a good snigger at the ridiculous John Kerry  bragging about his Vietnam war service - until some of his ex-comrades told the truth.  Now we have some braggard bozo from Connecticut who for years has paraded his Vietnam war service record and now we learn that he was in the Marine reserves and never left the good ol' USA!  As George Neumayr points out in The American Spectator, the American liberal Left has gone from spitting on the Vietnam war and anyone who was in it, to desperately trying to climb on the bandwagon.

The wages of laziness . . .   Is to be pipped to a post by Matthew Parris in The (original) Spectator (no link yet so go and buy a copy or better still take out a subscription - that's an order!)  Where was I?  Oh yes, WOTP!  That is the acronym invented by Matthew Parris for that obscure entity we call the Will Of The People.  More like the Will of the Wisp according to Parris and I agree with him.  Ever since the election ended, all the 'talking heads' and 'tapping fingers' have been going on and on about the WOTP which Parris maintains, and I agree with him, simply does not exist.  I really did mean to write something along those lines myself, honestly I did, but my terminal idleness held me back.  Anyway, I couldn't have expressed myself anywhere near as elegantly and intelligently as Parris does so perhaps it's just as well I haven't embarrassed myself - again!  Keep an eye on The Spectator site because it will probably appear in a few days.

'You never 'phone, you never call, you don't love me any more'!  Another good reason to buy The Spectator this week is an essay by John C. Hulsman who is one of those tremendously learn-ed types who fill up the ranks of various strategic studies groups.  In it, Hulsman offers some long-overdue commonsense into the so-called 'Special Relationship'.  The love-in between Bush and Blair is dead and buried - how could it be otherwise now that we have a president whose view of this country is at best neutral and at worst positively hostile.  If I may blow my own squeaky trumpet, I did warn some considerable time ago that America would become increasingly pre-occupied with the Pacific at the expense of its interest in the Atlantic.  One aspect that Hulsman does not touch upon but which I think is important is the unbelievably huge influx of Hispanics into American society who have no particular reason to worship at the Anglo-Saxon origins of their new country or its progenitor in the Old World.  Thus, a more realistic assessment needs to be taken of our mutual relationship, and that need not be a bad thing.

Oh, please, spare me the details!  Surely this must take the prize for the least appetising headline of the year:

Woman died after doctors failed to spot toilet brush in her buttocks

I have left the link open for those with a stronger stomach than me. 

Judge 'Cocklecarrot' Pallet:  Why are so many well-educated women utterly useless?  They have degrees and qualifications spilling out of their handbags but they couldn't spell the word 'commonsense'.  This particular dim specimen is acting as the Coroner at the inquest of the people killed in the 2005 terrorist attacks.  Under pressure from the families she has agreed to include enquiries into the actions of MI5 prior to the attacks.  There have already been two, or is it three, enquiries, so all this silly woman will achieve is to drag security service officers away from their important jobs to answer silly questions from a woman with little or no understanding of how intelligence services work.  Of course, it is perfectly possible, even likely, that mistakes were made, that is the nature of war - and it is a war they are fighting on our behalf.  Another spectacularly stupid woman, a journalist for AP News, described it as "a victory for victims' families".  Why?  How?  Even if some MI5 officer is criticised for not seeing as far into the murky crystal ball as hindsight allows - what does that achieve?  And how is it any sort of victory.  For fuck's sake, they're on our side and it's the terrorists who are the enemy!  (Sorry, I don't normally lose my temper like that.)

Additional:  Needless to say, another silly woman, Rachel of North London, whose blog had fallen into disuse, has suddenly lit up again - I would have put money on it!  Another 'me, me, me' merchant busy exhibiting the sort of stupidity which anyone with an ounce of self-awareness would keep hidden.  Here is an example of what passes for her thinking:

This was never about blame. [Oh yeah!] This was always about one thing: my hope that this never happens again, and that other ordinary members of the public do not have to go through what I have seen my friends go through. [Of course they will, you silly woman, this is a war and it is going to last for decades and there is no way casualties can be avoided.]  I pray that those tasked with keeping the public safe from harm will answer questions honestly and fully [They will do their best whilst their minds are really back on current operations aimed at avoiding imminent attacks - of the sort you want to be stopped.]  and in doing so reassure the public whom they are sworn to serve and protect that after the terrible events of 7/7, they have learned and implemented all the lessons that will save lives.' [Do you really think no lessons were learned, and are not continually being learned, in this hideously tricky asymetrical warfare?]

Why do I just know that 'Rachel of North London' has a degree in plasticine modelling from 'Uddersfield 'University'!

Go, Sarah, go!

Today my hope, if you like, my dream, has begun to take on some visibly hard edges and on that slightly wobbly basis I suggest to you, tentatively, that Obama's lease on the White House will run out after four years.  Within a few months of his ascendency I suspected that he would be a one-term president and everything that has followed confirms my opinion.  Dammit, even from 'over here' he is so obviously un-American, not to say, downright anti-American.  He really does dislike his own country - and the American people are beginning to see it and resent it.  Hence, the primaries held on Tuesday indicate a disaster for the Democrats in the November Congressional elections, and perhaps even worse in the 2012 presidential race.

However, more seasoned observers 'over there' suggest that this contrarian mood amongst the American electorate goes deeper and wider than just a recoil from Obama and his regime.  There seems to be a general anti-Washington mood abroad which, if I may remind you modestly I suggested some time ago, shows that what people are looking for is 'authenticity' rather than any particular brand of politics as gift-wrapped and presented by the 'usual suspects' in the political hierarchies.  Matt Bei, in the NYT describes it neatly:

What all this probably means is that we are living in the era of the upstart.

He also makes the deliciously ironic point that it all began with Obama, himself!

This should have been clear to everyone after 2008, when Barack Obama, shunned by most of his party’s major contributors and its Washington establishment, simply shrugged off endorsements and raised more than half a billion dollars from his own constituencies.

But he who lives by the internet looks likely to die by the internet!  The Democrats, trembling in their bunkers take comfort from their belief that this tide of contrariness is going to swamp both parties equally, but C. Edmund Wright in The American Thinker believes they are kidding themselves:

It is true that there is fierce anti-Washington fervor. But pundits are dead wrong in claiming that this means both parties are affected equally. Washington is a liberal Democrat city -- and not only by the standards of the current makeup of the administration and the Congress, though that is very true.

It goes deeper. The very notion of Washington as a control center and hub of intellectual power and great solutions is by definition a liberal ideal. Washington is Mecca to the Democrat liberal base. By contrast, the city and all it represents are anathema to progress and prosperity for the Republican base voters...you know, the tea party types. Yesterday was another sound rebuke of Washington as defined by liberals and thus another big day for the mindset of the tea party movement.

His final conclusion should worry the party establishments:

So what does this mean? Does it mean that people are simply fed up with Washington and all elected officials? Not exactly, though there is an element of truth in that analysis.

The real meaning is that people are fed up with this president, this Congress, their party, and the attempt to destroy a country and an economic system that have done more for freedom and good than any other country or economic system in world history.

If he's right, then 'my darling Sarah' should be concentrating her mind.  It was loyal of her to lend her support to her 'old boss', John McCain, but now her slate is clean she should go nowhere near any of the old-fashioned machine pols.  She is an original, copper-bottomed Washington outsider with the advantage of having national exposure.  Fortune favours the brave and the sooner she shows her hand the better - not least because these polls and the ones to come in November are going to throw up a plethora of similar independent candidates.

 

Interesting times, and we should remember 'over here' that what happens 'over there' crosses the Atlantic even faster these days.

 

The Magoo gang strike again!

Yesterday in Paris the infamous master-thief and criminal, Mr. Magoo, struck the Museum of Modern Art and amongst other well-known paintings stole this picture by Picasso:

He should have gone to SpecSavers!

 

 

Fat, black humbug gives us all a laugh

I woke up feeling a bit grumpy this morning because I was expecting sunshine and all I have is cloud, but then I heard on the radio that Diane Abbott, a big, fat, black clown from Hackney has put up for the Labour leadership contest.  Talk about laugh, I nearly nicked myself shaving!  This is the prize humbug who is MP for Hackney, an exceedingly run-down suburb of London, and who purports to be a true comrade of her impoverished constituents.  In return, the ungrateful beasts ran a campaign about her expenses, according to Malcolm Coles' blog:

By common consent the schools in Hackney are rubbish but, of course, under the benign leadership of 'Tony' Blair ("Education! Education! Education!") they have no choice, and are told to just shut up and be grateful!  Except, that is, their local MP who sends her son to a £10k a year private school after previously criticising Blair and 'Harry Harperson' for doing the same thing!  According to Wiki:

Fellow Hackney Labour MP Brian Sedgemore condemned Abbott for the "hurt and harm she had caused to local people in Hackney" who didn't have the means to make a similar choice, suggesting that Abbott would "never be taken seriously again".

This ghastly woman combines humbuggery of the highest order with stupidity of the lowest - again, from Wiki:

In 1996 Abbott was accused of racism when she suggested that "blonde, blue-eyed Finnish girls" in her local hospital in West London were unsuitable as nurses because they "may never have met a black person before". Ms Abbott's comments were supported by Bernie Grant , a fellow black MP whose constituency, Tottenham , borders hers."She is quite right," he said. "Bringing someone here from Finland who has never seen a black person before and expecting them to have some empathy with black people is nonsense". Conservative MP Ian Bruce stated that he had "never heard such racist rubbish from a Member of Parliament in recent years". Abbott was also accused of ignorance by the Anti-Racist Alliance. Marc Wadsworth, executive member of the Anti-Racist Alliance, who is himself half-Finnish, pointed out that at that time the Miss Finland, Lola Odusoga , was black, of Nigerian and Finnish descent. "She's a black Finn like me," he said. One of the Finnish nurses at Abbots local hospital was believed to be black. Abbott apologized for her remarks and said her main priority was to ensure that her constituents received medical treatment from the very best people "irrespective of race".

^{If I add that this pompous and ridiculous woman leaped to the defence of homeopathy when it was criticised by the House Science and Technology report it will tell you that she is also a banana short of a bunch!} 

^{All this, of course, makes her an emminent choice for leader of the 'People's Party'.  Hitherto, I have supported the candidacy of Mr. 'Ed' Balls on the grounds that he will ensure that Labour never wins another election and also for the constant opportunity of cheap jokes at the expense of his name.  (We can only afford cheap jokes, here at D&N, so wattya expect, when you pay nuttin'?!)However, Ms. Abbott's late entry changes everything.  She will provide even more laughs and were she to win there is a real chance that 'Mr. Gumbey' Balls might implode!}

^{Photo courtesy of Guido}

^{Additonal:  News just in - remember, you read it here first!  Two new candidates have entered the race for Labour's leadership in a bid to out do the 'Ed 'n' Dave Bean' brothers.}

Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters

 

Cameron? Hm, don't care for the cut of his jib, you know!

I keep telling you all, it's the little things that give them away.  Cameron has just proposed two little things and they tell you all you need to know about his sense of propriety and tradition - formerly virtues to which at least most Conservatives bowed their heads and paid lip service.  First, he is attempting to change parliamentary rules by insisting that only a 55% vote of 'no confidence' could force a government to resign(*).  Second, he has proposed to the 1922 committee, hitherto an organisation whose membership is restricted to backbenchers only, that henceforth it includes the payroll vote of ministers and their lackeys, thus making it indistinguishable from the parliamentary party as a whole, including the government.  As I write I do not know whether the current members, many of them 'newbies' just elected, have volunteered for this mass sterilisation and emasculation.  Their decision, either way, will tell you all you need to know about them, as well!

(*) 'DM' spotted my deliberate mistake (stop sniggering at the back!) and points out that a 'no confidence' motion can be passed by the usual 51% but 55% is needed for a dissolution of parliament.  Mind you, I fail to see how a government could continue which has failed a 'no confidence' vote, so why Cameron is pushing this beats me.

 

HMG, DNA, DBC

For those confused by my alphabet soup, allow me to explain: Her Majesy's Government, DeoxyriboNucleic Acid and Don't Bloody Care!  I bring the subject up because young Clegg from the Upper Fifth has become very excited about doing away with various police and security measures, mostly, I suppose, because it upsets the readers and writers of The Guardian.  Like most people I automatically mistrust governments (of any colour) but try as I might I cannot see what objection there can be to collecting DNA from anyone who is arrested by the police, irrespective of whether or not they are subsequently charged.  On the other hand I can see all too clearly the advantages when I read regularly in the prints that some scrote or other has been arrested for a vile crime because his DNA is on record, or in some cases, because a very close relative has been tested and the reading points the plods in the direction of certain families.  Honestly, I cannot see any harm or threat in the government having a DNA record base but if you know of one then tell me.

Nor do I object in principle to ID cards given that all of us carry ID cards of one sort or another, driving licences, credit cards, passports and so on, and as we all appear on a huge variety of databases I really cannot see that one more would make much difference.  My only objection was cost and the fact that no matter how sophisticated the design we all know that within a matter of months anyone would be able to buy a very good forgery from Nigeria!

As for surveillance cameras, they do not disturb me in the least.  If I was minded to get raving drunk every Saturday evening and stagger out of pole-dancing clubs prior to starting a major punch-up, then I might have some worries, but as I don't, I won't!  I have been mightily impressed with the tremendous evidence gathered from these cameras after various terrorist attacks in our country.  I also suspect they are immensely useful for tracking suspects at a distance and in circumstances where human surveillance would be exceedingly tricky.  If anyone doubts, let me assure you that following someone on foot or by car, unlike what you see on TV or in a film, is actually enormously difficult and hugely expensive in man and woman hours.

I'm not saying that we should all sit back and relax and allow the government to do whatever they want by way of intrusion but I think the nervous twittering of the 'Guardianistas' should be ignored.  And young Clegg should grow up!

 

Lear rears his old white head

I gave one of my Shakespeare talks last night, part of which deals with King Lear.  The old boy still festers in my mind despite the disappointment of not being able to direct the play last year.  I think, perhaps, you have to be either old or to have suffered grievously to really understand Lear.  I qualify on the former count but happily I have had the luckiest of lucky lives and I need all of my imagination to conceive of true suffering. 

Obviously part of my talk concerns the famous scene in which the old man is thrust out of doors by his family onto the heath in the middle of the night in a howling gale, thunder, lightning and torrential rain.  I reminded my audience that in a theatrical performance where special effects are limited they really did need to use their imagination for that scene.  I asked them, and most of them were exceedingly elderly, to imagine how they would cope were their families to eject them from their comfortable h0mes and out onto the middle of Dartmoor in a storm.  I was about to go on to describe Lear's re-action, a final outburst of absolute fury of the sort which was, at least partially, part of his downfall, when suddenly a rare shaft of light entered the denseness of my mind.  Anger is one of the deadly sins which Shakespeare frequently uses as a fault line in the character of his tragic heroes - see Coriolanus - and Lear's anger on the heath is epic.  However, what had never occurred to me before was that it was also - heroic.  Seen from his point of view, the fates? - the gods? - the cosmos? - had reduced him from kingship to nothing - and the word 'nothing' and its variations crops up over and over again in the text giving us a clue as to Shakespeare's philosophical pre-occupations.  But does this angry old man give in?  Not a bit of it.  He hurls back his defiance.  He shakes his puny fist at the universe and dares it to do more.  It is magnificent!  Of course, it comes under the heading of futile last gestures but in a way that makes it all the more admirable.  Shortly there-after he loses his mind and now he truly is - nothing.

Later, he recovers his sanity and at last his anger and pride have been dissipated, his eyes have been opened to the truth and he is reconciled with his young daughter, Cordelia.  At that point, Shakespeare changes the traditional ending of the 'Lear story' which in every other version ends happily and instead Cordelia is hanged and Lear, on discovering her body and lacking now the strength of his former anger and pride, he subsides "gently into that still night".

There is no doubt in my mind that King Lear is the very greatest of all Shakespeare's plays.

 

What are they putting in the water?

There must be something in it, either that or I'm hallucinating all on my own!  What's the old fool on about now, you ask, so let me tell you that I'm sure I read somewhere that over in New York, in that splendid icon of the New World Order, the United Nations has just voted to give Libya a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, and, last month they elected Iran on to the Commission on the Status of Women.  Eh?  What?  Iran and the status of women?  What will they insist on, bigger whips or bigger stones?  See what I mean - I'm surely hallucinating.

And just to confirm that someone is messing with my water I could swear I heard someone on BBC radio telling me that two Pakistanis arrested under the Terrorism Act cannot be returned to their home country because it would breach their human rights.  According to Justice Cocklecarrot Mitting in The Daily Mail:

'For the reasons stated, we are satisfied that Naseer was an al Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the UK and that... it is conducive to the public good that he should be deported.'

But he added that the tribunal was allowing the appeal because 'the issue of safety on return' made it impossible to deport Naseer to Pakistan.

This pair were arrested in a hurry because ex-Cdr. Quick of Scotland Yard flashed a secret document to the world whilst hurrying into No. 10, and thus insufficient time was left to build a case to put in front of a jury'.  So this pair will be free to roam the streets of Britain. 

Surely none of this can be true, it defies all commonsense, so I must assume that my water is being tampered with, thus, from now on I will take my Laphroaig neat!

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1279350/Al-Qaeda-operative-security-risk-deported-judge-rules.html#ixzz0oIafgT3e

 

Things for the No. 10 bin - not to be recycled, of course!

One or two things occur to me as being ripe for instant disposal by 'Dave 'n' Nick' but please, dear reader, fell free to add to the list.  I would start with most of the top rank creeps in the Treasury who rose like scum to the surface after Brown and Balls culled the independently-minded civil servants who refused to go along with their various Ponzi schemes.  These top Treasury men are as guilty as their political masters and "I was only obeying orders" is no defence.  Then he could turn to the BBC with chainsaw in hand and savagely hack it back to size.  Or better still, just sell off the whole thing.  None of us trust governments further than we can piss into a gale so what is the point in having a quasi-governmental news organisation?  Next to go on to E-Bay should be the 'not fit for purpose' Met Office.  When all this nonsense blew up about Icelandic volcano ash two phrases leaped out at me amongst the stream of news blather - "Met Office" and "computer modeling" - and I knew instantly that it was all BLX.  Let the Met Office try and earn a living out in the real world then they will find out the true meaning of 'a cold wind'!  I have mentioned in previous posts my hope that Education Authorities and the Association of Chief Police Officers should be chopped off at the knees but I would like to add to them all those regional investment agencies who seem to me to be the last word in fat cats' homes!  The ridiculous but eye-wateringly expensive Arts Council should be disbanded and all its funds put back in the Exchequor.  The whole 'Arts Industry' in this country is like a swollen corpse infested with fat maggots who contribute nothing but who wield enormous power in their piffling domains.  The Human Rights Act and all those rules and regs designed to force us all to pretend to love each other should be swept away and binned.  Finally, the Football Association has managed, single-handedly, to lose us the prospect of hosting the World Cup - for which we must all thank and praise the 'Intelligent Designer' - so now it is up to 'Dave 'n' Nick' to show 'true grit' and cancel the Olympic Games.  No, I am not holding my breath, thank you for asking!

Additional:  (Just at the moment, pushed for time, I do not have any additions to make but I know, oh yes, I just know, I will think of some more - so watch this space!)

#1: See, just 5 minutes after writing that I smote my forehead (smote - I love that word!) and with a shudder thought of 'Squeaker' Bercow who later today might well face a challenge to his position as Speaker of the House.  He must go!  But will those poltroons in parliament have the nerve?

'Footie' is such fun!

Is there a more ridiculous sight than that of a grown man besotted with a game?  One thinks of that unshaven, sinister-looking, Russian cove who owns Chelsea football club into which he has poured 'zillions'.  Why? What's in it for him?  Even if they win a few baubles here and there, his only claim to, er, fame (or ridicule) is that he signed bigger and bigger cheques.  Still, in these grim times we all need the laughs and another old fool who has provided a bucket-full today is m' Lord Triesman, the boss, no less, of our very own Football Association, who obviously appreciates a strong, firm back line!

 

Photo from Daily Mail

If anyone in authority had read up a little of his biography they would instantly have recognised that he was a fool without necessarily knowing that he was an old fool who fancied a young woman 27 years his junior and, moreover, an old fool who failed to realise that a man in his mid-60s wearing jeans risks sniggers behind his back.  Many young men have joined the Communist party in their teens but most grow up so that by the time they are adults in their late 20s they can laugh it off as youthful folly.  M' Lord joined the CP when he was 27 - and remained in it for 7 years!  Need one know more than that to recognise that we have here a man with desperately few brain cells?

I was slightly intrigued when my favourite radio station - 'TOOORKSPOOORT' - reported a few months ago that the chap the FA had appointed as managing director had resigned suddenly and the word 'on the pitch', so to speak, was that he was fed up with the shambles at the HQ of our national religion game.  The chairman of the board was, of course, Lord T who, one suspects, had taken his eye off the ball - and now we know why!  Anyway, as we all know now thanks to the reptiles at The Mail on Sunday, the old fool blabbed and bragged to his new young 'signing' who recorded all his indiscretions including the utterly disgraceful suggestion that the Russians and the Spanish intended to bung a few 'zillion' Euros in the direction of the referees at the next World Cup.  Quite properly this has been howled down as a wicked and preposterous suggestion . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . no-one has actually investigated it in order to find out what Lord T knows, or thinks he knows, that led him to that belief.  Still, his Lordship stands high in my regard because as a result of his little spot of bother, he has helped produce the best joke (so far) for 2010.  Sky News reports that FIFA's ethics committee is meeting to discuss the matter.  "Ethics committee", oh my giddy aunt, it's the way they tell 'em.  It'll be the Zimbabwe Office of Budget Responsibility next!

"Something wrong with our bloody ships today, Chatfield"

Thus, the words of Adm. Beatty, commander of the Battle Cruiser Fleet, the "Big Cats" of the Royal Navy in 1916, as he chased Hipper's equivalent German fleet at pell-mell speed south and in doing so took a savage mauling from the enemy guns which resulted in the loss of two ships.  It is easy, too easy, to criticise Beatty.  As I read the details of the opening moves in the Battle of Jutland it is obvious that all of Beatty's faults were laid bare in the white-hot heat of battle, but part of me holds back in wonder and sympathy at the unbelievably sudden and savage catechism of fire that he faced on that sullen afternoon in the North Sea.

Like all of his naval contemporaries, Beatty was born into the height of Pax Britannica and a world whose oceans were 'ruled' by the Royal Navy.  His service was burdened, I use the word deliberately, with the memory and the mythology of Nelson and Trafalgar.  When naval officers heard the expression 'the nation expects ...', they knew it expected another victorious battle of annihilation against the queen's foes in the Nelsonian tradition.  But by the end of the 19th century technology had changed everything.  Had Nelson lived  he, above all, would instantly have recognised it and changed his methods accordingly.  Too much was, and still is, made of Nelson's dash and verve and revolutionary tactics, and not nearly enough is made of his coldly calculated risk assessment based on immense technical knowledge of the inherent strength of wooden ships and the waywardness of smooth-bore cannon fire.  Even so, his reputation was both an icon and a burden to British admirals of the early 20th century.

Adm. Jacky Fisher had knocked some of the nonsense out of the Royal Navy and by the time WWI broke out it had come to terms with the technical nature of warfare with armoured, engine-driven ships moving at high speed and rifled guns capable of throwing a 2,000lb shell 12 miles with accuracy!  But in all those years between Trafalgar and Jutland, 1805 to 1916, the Royal Navy never fought a fleet action.  All their tactics and operational methods were entirely theoretical.  Thus, Beatty, like his contemporaries, took part in manouvres and fleet exercises which themselves were forced into half-understood change as technology raced ahead outpacing the plots and plans of mere men.  It was a peaceful life, although Beatty, like many naval officers, sought action on land by attachment to the army.  Meanwhile, the fleets sailed serenely on for year after year after year under a sun which never set on the British empire.

But then, suddenly, in the space of an hour, Beatty found himself personally in the middle of a maelstrom of fire and steel.  Remember, an army general, by and large, exists in a HQ well back from shot and shell, but an admiral on his bridge, with the eyes of his staff on him, with a fleet charging along behind at high speed waiting for orders, is in the middle of a fire storm with shells bursting, red-hot steel fragments whizzing around, casualties falling, fires breaking out - and he has to take instant decisions as he is forced to think in several dimensions of space and time.  There is no doubt, in my mind, at least, that Beatty did not quite pass this test, even as I accept that it was perhaps the severest test any man could undergo.  It was not that his nerve failed him, or anything like that, but simply that he lacked that extra piece of analytical ability which would have allowed him to take better decisions.

For me, the battle of Jutland, preceded as it was by the geo-politics of Europe in general and German evolution in particular, and the march into the 20th century with rapidly changing military technology, plus the social ethos and the plethora of larger than life characters, is the most fascinating of all battles.  The fact that, in a sense, it ended with a whimper not a bang, simply adds a delicious irony to the whole thing.  I say that with absolutely no disrespect to the brave men, German as well as British, who fought the battle.

 

And now the soft cop!

It's not all doom and gloom, honestly, it just looks and feels that way but there are a few gleams of gold in the mud and sludge of our sifting pan.  Here are a few of the things that stand a very good chance of being eliminated, or at least, so weakened as no longer to pose a threat.

The monopoly power of Local Education Authorities if young Gove, 'Head of Prefects', does what he says he will do.  The self-perpetuating and self-appointing Association of Chief Police Officers could be 'nicked' if the idea of elected Police Chiefs is rammed home.  I suppose this will depend on the vigour of the Home Office which is an obvious drawback but on the other hand 'Dave' is very attached to the idea so it might stand a chance.  Corrupt and corrupting welfare benefits should fall under Duncan-Smith's axe which, after all, he has been busy sharpening for the last 5 years.

However, I have saved the best for last - Europe!  The financial crisis which has riven Europe obviously poses an immense risk to its future.  When even that Franco-Hungarian dwarf threatens to flounce out of the Euro system if Frau Merkel fails to sign the cheque then we all know with certainty that the European idea is in big trouble.  However, as I indicated before, big trouble also offers a big, fat, tempting opportunity to the Euro fanatics in Brussels.  The monetary union was always half-arsed as many people warned at the time.  Without a central or federal government with powers of taxation and fiscal control over the regions (or nations, as I like to think of them) the chances of a single currency succeeding were vanishingly tiny.  The Grand Panjandrums of Europe were quite well aware of this when they began the exercise and, in exactly the same way (but a different context) that Obama and his 'polit-bureau' know where their policies are leading, they are looking forward eagerly to the crisis as a chance to seize emergency powers which in normal times would be denied them.  Already, Greece, Portugal and Spain have ceased to exist as independent nation-states.  They are well and truly hog-tied to Brussels and its rules - which is why I wish the demonstrators in Athens all the good luck in the world.  This take-over in which sovereign governments are reduced to the status of lackeys, is highly undemocratic and sooner or later must be given a legal gloss by a change in the articles of association.  And that, my friends, is the good news, because no British government of any colour, after the blatant slipperiness of their previously broken 'promises', would dare to avoid offering the British people a referendum - and that will be our chance to escape.  With one bound we will be free!

So cheer up, for goodness sake!

Hard cop, soft cop

Have you noticed the way I'm applying the old 'hard cop, soft cop' technique on you with these recent posts?  First, I knock you down, then I pick you up.  Did the same thing when I used to sell my old bits of 'shrapnel'.  The punter would drive up in his juicy little BMW he intended to part-exchange and I'd sigh and tell him gently that it was now a superceded model and because it lacked certain features available on the current model it was going to be very hard for me to sell and his face would fall - but then, with a smile, I'd tell him that he was in luck because I did have a mate in the trade who had a customer for it so in the circs I could do him a favour by allowing him £x against the car he wanted which, whilst perhaps not as much as he expected, was well over the usual (and mythical) trade price.  See, knock 'em down and then pick 'em up!  So stand by for another knock down.

Peter Oborne in The Mail today hammers home the unspoken truth - well, unspoken by politicians but not by, er, me, amongst others - that Great Britain Inc. is skint!  The Brown/Balls house of cards is about to collapse and I really do think that people in Britian are going to be shattered by what they find when reality is exposed amongst the wreckage of deceit and pretence.  George Osborne has begun his grim sentence (I can find no other better metaphor) as chancellor rather shrewdly by appointing Sir Alan Budd as head of a new Office of Budget Responsibility and the first task he has given it is to find out exactly how much we all owe, including and especially the 'off balance sheet' debts that Brown and Balls carefully hid.  Many a time and oft' I have pointed at the unquantified pensions liabilities owed to some 6 million public sector workers but in addition there are untold 'zillions' owed on PFI schemes none of which was ever declared by the two villains who have been booted from office.  Health Warning: Please sit down before reading this - according to Oborne's 'guesstimate' these hitherto hidden debts could amount to "not far short of £2 trillion"!

Quite apart from the financial problem of how to deal with it, Osborne faces the delicate task of deciding how to deal with it politically.  Sir Alan's office must report within a month so as to provode the information needed on which to base a budget, so how will Osborne break the news.  Indeed, will he break it?  Perhaps in fear of what the markets would do - burst into a tantrum and scream for mummy, or the financial equivalent thereof - he might decide to 'do a Brown' and keep 'shtum'.  On the other hand, he might decide to spell it all out on the basis of getting all the bad news out quickly and early in his government's life and then keep repeating loudly and endlessly the truth that it was all Brown/Balls' fault - they are the guilty men!  His decision on that will tell us all whether he is a strategic thinker or a mere tactician, a brave man or a coward.

Now then, how are you feeling?  Oh dear, well, have a nice cup of tea, so soothing on the nerves . . .

ADDITIONAL:  This extract from Oborne's piece is fascinating - provided you have a strong stomach!

Crucially, those massive loans have not been declared in the public accounts - something that would be illegal in the private sector - yet it is we taxpayers who are going to have to foot the bill.

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were aided and abetted in their financial skullduggery by the Treasury Permanent Secretary Sir Nicholas Macpherson, who may now find himself with some very tricky questions to answer.

It should be born in mind that one of the key reasons that Gordon Brown got away with this deeply questionable conduct was that he sacked or moved all the honest and independent-minded officials who stood up to him.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1278581/PETER-OBORNE-Does-George-Osborne-dare-reveal-TRUE-size-Britains-black-hole.html#ixzz0o0PPO2xh

"Always look on the bright side of life te-da, te-da de-dah de-dah"

Bit down to day, are you?  Feeling a touch gloomy after reading my post yesterday?  Then cheer up because, despite it all, here at D&N we always strive to bring you good news.  Consider the last couple of days now that we have the D&N show - no, no, not Duff & Nonsense but 'Dave 'n' Nick' - that amusing press conference and then the sight of all those Tory toffs and LibDem tarts gathered round the cabinet table.  Yes, it's easy to sneer and no doubt 'Dearieme' is poised to warn me in Caledonian terms that it's a charade and we're all doomed, but consider the up side.  Do you not share that immense feeling of joy that Gordon Brown is gone?  He's been hanging around my life for what seems like forever, rumbling away in that baritone voice with his craggy, saggy face and that little octopussy mouth with its occasional rictus smile that disappeared the minute you noticed it.  What a sad sack!  And not just him, but also the rest of that gang.  The execrable 'Ed' Balls with his 'flight lithp' and his blinky eyes - gone.  The two completely inter-changeable Bean brothers, 'Ed' and 'Dave', who at least added very slight relief because of their obvious gormlessness - also gone.  The thinking man's stale bun, 'Harry Harperson' - gone.  And our favourite glove puppet with the strange eyebrows, Alistair (ain't my) Darling - also gone.  All of them, the whole rotten crew - gone, gone, gone.

Instead we have a pair of well brought-up public school boys and, like 'em or hate 'em, you have to admit they do have that effortless charm and style which makes you smile appreciatively even as, in time honoured style, they shake you by the hand whilst deftly removing your wallet with the other.  But at least they look and sound cheerful.  The fact that there is absolutely nothing to be cheerful about I put down to good, old-fashioned, British pluck - or utter dimness - of the sort which is only learned on the playing fields of Eton.

So "reasons to be cheerful - one, two three ..."

This post carries a health warning!

Feeling alright, are you?  Got over your election blues?  Looking forward to summer and feeling really rather cheerful?  Then don't read this post!  And don't blame me, blame my e-pal Allan Sullivan who pointed me in the direction of an essay by 'Spengler' in The Asia Times.  I am not going to attempt to paraphrase it, I will just copy and paste some of the essence of his thoughts whilst urging you all to read it in full:

This was supposed to have been the final triumph of John Maynard Keynes, the crisis in which governments actually did what he urged them to do during the Great Depression, the proof that an elite of puppeteers in control of monetary and fiscal policy could make the innumerable actors in economic life march wide-eyed toward recovery.

Keynes' idea is simple; in fact, it is simple by construction, for it focuses on the very short term within a closed economy. If consumers won't spend, the government will spend for them; if businesses won't invest, the government will invest for them; and if investors won't take risks, the central bank will reduce the yield on low-risk investments to almost nothing.

Nowhere was this seized upon with more enthusiasm than the socialist regime of Barack Obama:

The Barack Obama administration, like most of the world's governments, decided on a massive dose of Keynesian medicine, taking the budget deficit to an unheard-of peacetime level of 13% and keeping short-term interest rates at near zero. [...] And it all seemed to be working. [...] American consumers, right after suffering a US$6 trillion loss in wealth in the form of household equity, and right before the greatest retirement in American history, decided that they did not have to save after all. The savings rate fell and consumer spending rose. American corporations in the S&P 500 index stripped down to skeleton staffs and stopped investing, and declared a 60% rise in profits between the second quarters of 2009 and 2010. And the latest employment data show real improvement in the labor market.

So that's alright then, we can crack open the champagne and relax.  Not according to 'Spengler, we can't!  Keynes' model works perfectly in a closed economy and amongst people who only think in the short term but today we have a global economy and not all investors just think short term.  The daily trading markets, of course, do only think short term which is why they are perpetually taken by surprise when long term factors suddenly bite them in the bum.  And today some of those very factors are about to bare their teeth.  Governments have spent the last two years issuing their own debt which is fine provided that the long term prospects for repaying it are good.  Here in Europe those prospects are grim given the multiplying number of people who are no longer productive and who are utterly reliant on the state, that is mainly the elderly:

The elderly portion of Europe's population [over the next 4 decades]will rise from 24% to 49% of the total, an insupportable burden. Who would want to buy 40-year European bonds?

Especially Greek 40-year bonds given that their population statistics are even worse with an elderly dependency population growing to 59% by 2050.  In the USA, Obama's regime continues to ignore the realities (or perhaps it sees them all too well and is actually looking forward eagerly to the coming catastrophe - but that's another story) :

The premise of Obama's Keynesian exercise is that the US can run a deficit equal to 13% of GDP with a savings rate at 2% of GDP, by borrowing the difference from the rest of the world. The "rest of the world" in effect means the world banking system because most countries have adopted the same sort of deficits.  In fact, two-thirds of the US deficit, according to available numbers, has been financed by foreign banks during the last quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010.

And now you can begin to see why the merry-go-round is beginning to wobble on its axis:

Financing long-term purchases with short-term leverage in countries that cannot hope to repay their debt at the 40-year horizon turns out to have been a dicey idea. In September 2008, when the banking system was about to fail due to the collapse of its investments in US mortages and similar things, governments bailed out the banks. But who bailed out the governments who bailed out the banks? The banks bailed them out, by buying their paper. That is why banks that hold large amounts of weaker sovereign paper may go bankrupt all over again. The stronger governments therefore will support the weaker governments. But there is a limit to how long the charade can continue. [My emphasis]

At least I can say with modesty that here I was ahead of 'Spengler' because I have raised this piece of typical Brown/Balls trickery before:

Once the long term casts its chill shadow on present expectations, investors are shocked - shocked - to encounter financial scams that they previously had ignored. Estimates are now circulating in the press that the United Kingdom actually has public debt equal to 150% of its GDP, rather than the 53% figure usually reported, if unfunded pension fund liabilities are taken into account. [My emphasis]

And, of course, 'Spengler' does not know of the money owed by HMG (or you and me to be precise) on the various PFI(*) schemes which is another piece of Brown/Balls, off-book accountancy malpractice that would see a company director in jail were he to try it on.

So, as you stand on the economic beach you might just notice a very strange phenomenon, the sea, instead of lapping gently round your ankles, has mysteriously withdrawn right back over the horizon - what can it mean?

(*) For some reason probably not unadjacent to the glass of Glenmorangie by my elbow, I originally wrote "PPP schemes".  Must take more water with it!

 

No, but seriously . . .

Well, I've enjoyed my bit of knockabout electioneering fun but now I want to try and take a serious view of the outcome, not so much for your benefit, dear reader, because you will read much wiser summaries in the op-ed columns but because I want to try and clarify my mind on what is, after all, an intensely complicated situation.

First, let me make clear that although I accuse Cameron, Clegg and company of lacking much of a political philosophy, because it is so obviously true, that is not to say that the political "marriage of true minds" in this coalition is therefore wrong and unprincipled.  I am a tory (small 't') by inclination and and thus I do have a healthy suspicion of ideology and I recognise that the world being a confoundedly complex and always surprising place, a good dollop of pragmatism is essential.  Everyone was caught out by the election result and it needed practical men of affairs to set aside some (apparently!) cherished principles in order to cut a deal and get the government of Britain moving.  In that situation we could not have done better than Cameron and Clegg, neither of whom seem likely ever to weep over a lost point of principle!  However, it is at times of peril, not just war and peace but also internal strife and upheaval; times when the practice of laying down a steady course in one direction is impracticable and overthrown by new and hitherto unsuspected 'alarms and excursons' that leaders need a philosophical model to guide their re-actions.  Given the experimental nature of this joint venture, that will be the time when the bonds of the 'union' will be tested to breaking point.

Fortunately the most immediate peril facing us all has been apparent to everyone for the last two years - even if the politicians have been reluctant to speak to us about it - and that is the need to pay down our national debt.  There is no soft option here, it is either massive tax increases, or massive cuts in government spending, or, and most likely, a combination of the two.  It seems to me that a Treasury/Business team of Osborne, Cable and Laws is just about as sound a team as you will find anywhere.  They will need terrific skill in applying the medicine to the right areas and in the right dosage.  Too much or too little could prove highly dangerous to the patient - and to them!

Looking at the cabinet there are three appointments I can cheer to the rafters.  Michael Gove's ideas on reforming the school system, based on the Swedish system, was really the tipping point for me to vote, reluctantly, for the Conservatives.  He has had years to work out his plans and to prepare himself for the vicious backfighting he will get from the teaching unions and the local education authorities.  I am hoping that he and Cameron and Osborne are hand-in-hand on this because one way of dealing with recalcitrant education authorities is simply to disband them, thus saving us money in the long term on salaries and pensions, as well as removing an obvious obstacle and providing an example pour encourager les autres.  To allow and encourage private people and organsisations to start their own schools is, quite simply, a brilliant idea.

Another appointment to which I attach my hopes and prayers is Ian Duncan-Smith at Works & Pensions.  He, too, has spent years looking long and hard at the bloated and corrupt welfare system and must, therefore, be ready to leap into action.  There are some hefty financial savings to be made in that department which should gain him considerable support from the Treasury team.  Of course, the howling from Labour will be deafening so the propaganda tactics need to be thought out well ahead.

Finally, I am glad that Liam Fox retains the Defence portfolio.  He has shadowed it for many years and the armed services need an experienced politician at its head who understands the issues.  A defence review will start almost immediately but the replacement of Trident is a given even if the LibDems prevaricate.  From that firm base, everything to do with our armed services needs to be looked at with ferocious concentration, for example, in this day and age do we really need the RAF to be a seperate service?  It now has no strategic role and only ever acts in support of the army, so why not encompass it within the existing Army Air Corps and lay off all those surplus-to-requirements Air Marshals?  I hope that Fox will stay in post for a long time, unlike the constant chopping and changing at the MoD which took place under Labour and which indicated more than anything else with what contempt they viewed our services.

Of course, there are plenty of down-sides, for example, we will live to regret the LibDem insistence that no new nuclear power stations are to be built and that instead the entire country will be covered in semi-useless (in that they don't work in high or low wind conditions) wind turbines.  This will leave us increasingly under various foreign thumbs.  No doubt some of my more disgruntled readers will have other complaints concerning this shotgun marriage but I honestly do think that it is the best that could be done in the circs.  I admit my doubts concerning changes to the voting system but irrespective of that I hope Cameron presses on with equalising the size of the constituencies and cutting the number of MPs.  And if things do go wrong and the going gets increasingly tough, at least we can all sit back and enjoy the sideshow as we watch the possible disintegration of the Labour party as its three seperate wings go to war - with each other - such fun! 

 

Yes, but how good are the Tarts' whips?

As I write  Sky News (and full marks to them for excellent and comprehensive coverage) are poised, almost teetering on Kay Burley's high-heels, to tell us all that 'Dave' and 'Nick' (the leader of the 'Tarts' party, so called for obvious reasons) are about to be joined in un-holy wedlock!  My only question is how will the 'Tarts' stand up to the strain when the going gets really tough, as it undoubtedly will over the next few months.  To put it in the vernacular, there are some 'right Bolshie buggers' amongst the Tarts' team in Parliament and if stern, not say, Thatcherite, steel is required to deal with militant unionists will they toe the party line?  And that, in turn, begs the question of just how good and how tough their parliamentary whips will be?  Interesting times - I fear!

Physics or chemistry?

I am obliged to Rachel Sylvestor of  The Times for providing me with an excellent metaphor for the current imbroglio in British politics.  She reports a senior Tory summing up the relationship between the Cameron Tories and the Clegg LibDems as follows:

One senior Conservative says a deal remains a very real possibility. “It’s as much about chemistry as it is about physics. The physics would lead you to believe that it’s not possible to reach an agreement that satisfies the deeply held principles of both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems on constitutional reform. But the chemistry of the individuals matters too. With David Cameron and Nick Clegg this could be a moment when chemistry trumphs over physics.”

Will chemistry beat physics?  I don't believe it for a second.  The LibDems are stuffed full of people who would not look out of place on the wilder shores of Labour's Leftie fringe and many of the MPs are all too well aware that they hold their seats because of Labour supporters voting tactically.  Any link with the dreaded Tories would damn them forever in the Labour party.  As for the Tory Right wing, it has been quiescent so far but, I suspect, will not take much more.  They have never thought highly of the self-proclaimed "heir to Blair" but have kept quiet out of loyalty and, for some of them, the hope of ministerial jobs many of which now seem likely to go to the pro-European LibDems.  I suspect that many of them, like me, think that Cameron has already lost his negotiating nerve when, under pressure from Brown's bribe yesterday, he changed his mind and instantly offered the 'Tart's party' a referendum on a change to the voting system instead of a free vote in the commons to decide whether or not a referendum should be held.

Cameron, like Clegg, is consumed with ambition.  He seems unable to realise that an inherently weak government is the very last entity a wise man would wish to lead through the forthcoming economic and social horrors that are about to hit us in 'a perfect storm'.  He should back-peddle and allow Labour and the 'Tarts' with, God help 'em, the aid of the vindictive Nats, to try and form a government and let them take the bucket-full of brown stuff that is already swinging towards them before they collapse in a heap, probably before Christmas.  Cameron should copy Jellicoe's tactics at Jutland when he turned away from the German fleet in order to avoid the torpedos and the mines in the certain knowledge that it was not necessary for him to win the the battle, only that it was utterly crucial that he did not lose.

ADDITIONAL:  I am provoked by these photos over at Guido's place to wonder whether we really do want Mr. Bean as prime minister?

 

Or indeed, whether we would prefer Mr. Gumby:

 

The democracy of choice is a truly wondrous thing!

Can we sink Gordon Brown in the gulf to stop that oil leak?

Being stuffed down an oil well at 5,000 feet below sea level would, after all, be a suitable termination of his political life given that the wretched, one-eyed incompetent has done nothing but cost me money ever since he bludgeoned his way into government.  Other than that I cannot think of a single thing he could do in retirement that would mitigate his disgraceful record in office.  His leaving of it summed up his putrid character better than a thousand sketch writers and editorials.    After 13 years in government he would really have us believe that all the time he was an enthusiast for a different voting system?  And now, in desperation, he offers the 'il-Lib-non-Dems' a constitutional change to our voting system without a referendum!  Again, I must seek a new deal with Him Up There (see previous post) as I pray fervently on bended knee for Clegg & Co to take Brown's bribe.  Such a deal, relying on Scots and Welsh Nats for support, rammed down the throats of an unsuspecting British public would demolish both Labour and LibDems at the next election which, under a combined assault from international bond dealers and militant trade unions, would probably occur within six months after London had been reduced to an imitation of Athens.  Brown and his party, the good, the bad and the downright hideous, would then be swept away for a generation.  So we are reduced to the following crucial question - just how dim is Nicholas Clegg?

Balls up!

As the GBP (Great British Public) failed for some unaccountable reason to follow the immensely wise advice offered here at D&N to reduce Labour to a squabbling, mouth-foaming rump of a minority party then we must hope that Labour can do it to themselves in the forthcoming leadership fight.  In that spirit I can only hope and pray(*) that the malignant Ed Balls wins because the next leadership battle will begin the day after that!  According to everything I read he is detested even more in the Labour rank and file than he is here, in the distinguished columns of D&N.  Should my wishes be ignored - again! - then the elevation of 'Harry Harperson' is devoutly to be desired.  This monumentally stupid woman combines gracelessness with a gallery of 'monster raving loony' opinions guaranteed to keep Labour out of office for years.  Alas, however, I fear they will follow the lead of the other two main parties and elect a young but telegenic nonentity who will bore us all rigid for the next decade.  His last name will be Miliband but whether his Christian name is 'Ed' or 'Dave' no one can be sure - and no one will even notice the difference!

(*)  I am about to go out and cut the grass in the Churchyard and as He fully understands now, nothing is for nothing, so I will be making it quite clear to Him that the grass only gets cut on the understanding that Balls wins the leadership.  Just to be sure, I will promise Him to use the strimmer round the gravestones, too, so that the place looks really tickety-boo.  I mean, if a chap can't ask for a bit of divine intervention what's the point?

I spy with my little eye ...

Now who do you think these characters were?

[A] gawky giant named Charles Cholmondeley, who lifted the toes of his size-12 feet when he walked, and [...] “gazed at the world through thick round spectacles, from behind a remarkable moustache fully six inches long and waxed into magnificent points.”

Dudley Clarke [...] described as “unmarried, nocturnal and allergic to children.” In 1925, Clarke organized a pageant “depicting imperial artillery down the ages, which involved two elephants, thirty-seven guns and ‘fourteen of the biggest Nigerians he could find.’ He loved uniforms, disguises and dressing up.” In 1941, British authorities had to bail him out of a Spanish jail, dressed in “high heels, lipstick, pearls, and a chic cloche hat, his hands, in long opera gloves, demurely folded in his lap. He was not supposed to even be in Spain, but in Egypt.”

One's immediate response, I suppose, is that they were a couple of escaped loonies, or perhaps a couple of characters from the 'Theatre of the Absurd'.  Not so, they were, in fact, two top men in British intelligence during WWII and it prompts the not unreasonable question of how the hell we ever won the war!  They were aided in their endevours by:

Ewen Montagu, the son of a wealthy Jewish banker and the brother of Ivor Montagu, a pioneer of table tennis and also, in one of the many strange footnotes to the Mincemeat case, a Soviet spy. Ewen Montagu served on the so-called Twenty Committee [XX Committee - twenty but also 'double cross' - geddit?!] of the British intelligence services, and carried a briefcase full of classified documents on his bicycle as he rode to work each morning.

And also by this extraordinary pair of 'super agents':

Charles Fraser-Smith, whom Ian Fleming is thought to have used as the model for Q in the James Bond novels. Fraser-Smith was the inventor of, among other things, garlic-flavored chocolate intended to render authentic the breath of agents dropping into France and “a compass hidden in a button that unscrewed clockwise, based on the impeccable theory that the ‘unswerving logic of the German mind’ would never guess that something might unscrew the wrong way.” The job of transporting the container to the submarine that would take it to Spain was entrusted to one of England’s leading race-car drivers, St. John (Jock) Horsfall, who, Macintyre notes, “was short-sighted and astigmatic but declined to wear spectacles.” At one point during the journey, Horsfall nearly drove into a tram stop, and then “failed to see a roundabout until too late and shot over the grass circle in the middle.”

This motley crew carried out the hugely successful(?) deception plan whereby the body of a supposed major in the Royal Marines was washed up on a Spanish shore with a briefcase chained to his wrist containing documents pointing to Greece and Sardinia as the next targets for invasion by the Allies who had just cleared North Africa.  You will have noted, I'm sure, the question mark following my use of the word 'successful' because, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in a fascinating review in The New Yorker, the plan was not so much a deception as an aid to re-inforce a German predilection; Hitler, for example, was convinced the allies would first attack in the Balkans and thus the armoured division sent to Greece rather than Sicily might well have been sent there irrespective of the plant in Spain.

All this is history at its very best in the sense that it emphasises both the human and the absurd.  The particulars of the operation are told superbly, according to Gladwell, by Ben Macintyre in his recently published book Operation Mincemeat.  However, Gladwell is provoked by this tale to cast a sharp and sceptical eye over the whole field of intelligence agencies and issues an extremely cogent 'health warning' to those above us who might be tempted to rely upon their 'product' too heavily - now what and who does that bring to mind?  I do recommend Gladwell's essay highly - absolutely not to be missed!

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/10/100510crat_atlarge_gladwell?currentPage=all#ixzz0nRy7wMX8

 

Manners maketh the man - or telleth you much about him!

As regular readers know, I have a hobby of giving PowerPoint talks on military history, what my regular commenter, 'JK', describes as "ops and strats chats" which is a neat definition but actually I do like to dwell on the personalities involved and point up some of the delicious absurdities which dog all great military enterprises.  As some of you may have discerned from this blog, I am a bit of an enthusiast and like enthusiasts for anything I am always keen to spread the word in the hope that others will be enthused and derive as much pleasure from the subject as I have over the years.  In particular, I wanted to try and interest the young and to that end I wrote to my local school offering my services - free - to their senior history classes.  I pointed out that my presentation was unlikely to help any pupil to pass any particular exam but that it was lively and amusing and might fire up their interest. 

I should point out that I really did not expect a positive response.  I am long enough in the tooth to know of the intense dislike in which amateurs are viewed by so-called experts in all fields of life and I saw no reason to except the teaching profession.  Still, I felt that I had something to offer and if it hooked just one youngster that would be a win for me.  Very quickly I received a courteous but non-committal letter from the Headmaster (signed by his secretary) telling me that my letter had been passed to the Head of History.  Something like 6 weeks passed without a reply so I sent the Headmaster the following letter:

First let me thank you for your courteous and prompt reply to my offer to give your senior history students a PowerPoint lecture on various military history topics which, whilst not likely to help them pass any particular examination, might have enthused some of them to take the subject further. 

 

I understand you passed my letter to Mr. Phillips, your Head of History, and as 5 weeks have passed without a response I cannot help wondering whether Mr. Phillips might be in need of some remedial English lessons!  All I was expecting, given the in-built resistance of professionals to amateurs in just about every walk of life, was something along the lines of “Thanks but no thanks”, and indeed, a positive response might have given me a heart attack out of sheer surprise.  However, in this case I find complete silence is not completely, or even partially, golden. 

Yours etc.,

A further three weeks have passed and still no response.  As I have said, many a time and oft', but usually in different circs, it's always the little things that give 'em away.  Mr. Phillips might well be an eminent historian but he has the manners of an ignorant yob.

"Almost as bad ... as marry with his brother"

Just for a change I thought I would offer you some original thoughts (well, musings, really) untainted by what the 'wiseacres' in the MSM have to say.  Usually, of course, such political insights as I possess and pass on to you are simply regurgitated opinions (oh, you guessed!) from the poor sods who spend every minute of every waking day, and night, 'Waffling for Britain' on who has done what to whom in the Westminster village.  I have just had a quick skim through the headlines from the Op-Ed pieces on the internet and I can see that the rest of the weekend is going to be filled with non-stop speculation, so before I immerse myself I thought I would offer you an untainted opinion. 

The forthcoming marriage of Cameron and Clegg is pure (or do I mean, impure?) incest.  You see, they're brothers under the rosettes!  All it needs is dear Tony to pitch in and they could all enjoy a menage a trois.  None of them has an ounce of philosophy and if by chance they trod in some ideology they would all rear back in disgust.  Cameron and Clegg are the living embodiment of that working-class 'hero' of yesteryear who demanded of a site foreman, "Gissa' job, any job!"  They just want their well-suited arses to plump down on those government benches, that is the sum total of their aims in life.  What they will do when they are there is anybody's guess, including their own. 

However, Clegg (the younger, weedier sibling, if you like) needs to beware.  If push comes to shove Cameron does not really need him, he could just insist on claiming a minority government status and dare anyone to unseat him and pay the penalty likely to be imposed by a bored, irritated and slightly fearful electorate who have just put up with one election and would not take kindly to another too soon.  Equally, if Cameron could, so to speak, enfold the LibDems in his arms and cuddle them to death it would remove the one clear obstacle that stopped the Tories from achieving a real majority - an independent third party.  In doing so, of course, Cameron might lose the hardened Right-wing fringe of Tories who do still indulge themselves with all that philosophy and ideology stuff, but somehow, you know, I think Cameron could bear the loss with a straight face (in public) - provided he had captured the LibDems.

Anyway, if this happy event takes place we might face the prospect of yet another 10 years of 'Blairism With a New Face' - same expression, mind!  You know, lots and lots of smiling unless something really serious happens like a Royal, or, dread thought, a footballer, dying suddenly at which time 'CamClegg' would wipe a surreptitious tear from their eye and, er, speak for the nation.

This is in the worst possible taste!

Those disgraceful reprobates at IHTM have really gone too far with this one, I really cannot condone this sort of thing, it is all in the worst possible taste.

They begin by wondering why all those gentlemen are so fixated by the first lady's lap . . .

. . . then they provide a possible reason . . .

. . .  which, well, actually, I find rather intriguing!  But still, that creepy Robert Gibbs should wipe the salacious smirk off his face!

 

Joke of the Year - so far!

Well, I suppose the real Joke of the Year came from some wag who 'phoned in to the BBC after all those people were stopped from voting because they didn't reach the head of the queue before 10.00 pm and reported that election officials from Zimbabwe were very concerned over the probity(*) of this British election!  However, running it a close second was the news last week that this, er, 'masterpiece' by one of the greatest pranksters of the 20th century had 'sold' for $106 million:

I place inverted commas round the word 'sold' because I don't trust any alleged sale figures emanating from auction houses.  "Bullshit Baffles Braque", as we say in the art trade.  Still, in these gloomy times I enjoyed the chuckle and thought the new owner might care to stretch the joke a tad further by pickling the whole bloody thing in formaldehyde!

(*) Spelling corrected and 100 lines written - see comments below.

Cheerio, I'm off to St. Helena!

Ah, bless my fellow countrymen, they do so hate extremism and much prefer to wallow in the luke-warm pools of the middle ground, not too hot, not too cold, so relaxing and no need to brace up, or face up, to either hot or cold.  Alas for them, they are in for a shock.  Their tepid comfort zone is about to be blasted by freezing, howling gales from the international markets and my guess is they will start to blow up today; and then later, in the summer, red hot winds of industrial strife will tear across the country.  The problem with both of these blasts of 'fresh' air is that they always go to extremes.  The markets are likely to over-react and will force whatever stitched-up government evolves to go much further than is prudent.  Equally, militant unions, especially public 'service' unions, will be determined to exempt their members from any collateral damage inflicted by the markets.  I'm not too sure that Cameron (or his successor - after all, he failed!) should rush to take over.  Let Labour (and the Lib Dems) take the heat, after all, they deserve it.

Me?  I'm off to pack my suitcases . . .

Additional:  Whilst shaving and showering and you-know-what, a couple of other thoughts occurred.  First, it might have the stench of political corruption about it but the Brown/Balls' plan hatched 10 years ago to steadily ramp up the number of people whose entire incomes rely on the public sector has worked a treat.  No-one who earns their living directly or indirectly via government or quasi-government sources was likely to vote for Cameron - and they didn't!  Secondly, there is something for us anti-Labour louts to enjoy over the coming months and that will be the internecine guerrilla war that will break out amongst the rival gangs in Labour ranks as 'Brown the Brute' fights to retain his leadership and they manouvre to have him removed and replaced with their own favourite 'prince'.  Machiavelli, thou livest yet!

"Der Tag"!

The Day!  Well, actually it's not quite 'the day', it's the day before 'the day' but it is the day on which I promised to tell a breathless world my views on the election. (Oh, do stop yawning!)  Well, mes enfants, what a jolly three weeks it has been, to be sure.  (Did you notice the immensely subtle and sophisticated way in which I introduced a bit of German, a soupcon of French and even threw in a touch of the blarney?  You really do get your money's worth here at D&N - hang on, I've just remembered you don't pay anything!)  Where was I?  Oh yes, the past three weeks.  What a colossal bore it has been.  Have you learned anything through it all?  No surprise if you haven't because, happily, in this country the MSM for all its faults provides us with pretty good coverage on political life year in, year out, and there really isn't that much new to be discovered. 

Anyway, no great secrets have been revealed except to the monumentally stupid.  For instance, the fact that Gordon Brown's loathing of us, 'The People', is only equalled by his fear, was ably demonstrated in the Mrs. Duffy incident.  Clegg cemented his reputation as a very junior, political lightweight leading 'the Silly Party' which is as equally and ferociously divided as Labour but because it lacks power no one notices.  Cameron re-inforced his image as a man who might have done better flogging second-hand 'Rollers' and Bentleys in Berkley Square.  It has long since been obvious that he draws his political inspiration not from Maggie Thatcher or Churchill or Hayek or Freidman but from the man he admires above all others - Tony Blair, the super-salesman de nos jours!  None of the smaller parties have shown particularly brightly.  UKIP remains a party of small shopkeepers run by somewhat raffish-looking 'blazers and brogues' types.  I sympathise with their main aim, withdrawal from Europe, whilst doubting their ability to run the proverbial piss-up in a brewery.  The BNP remain primus inter pares (see, Latin now - I'll be writing leaders for The Times soon!) as the really and truly 'stoopid' party.  The Greens remain, er, well, green, 'nuff said, I feel.

So, all in all a pretty shoddy, second-rate lot, really - and so no change there, then.  And no surprise, either.  In this 'democratic' era is anyone truly surprised that our politicians run true to form and demonstrate that they are mostly mirror images of ourselves - flawed, mistaken, a bit bent and dodgy and none too bright, some of them out and out crooks and poltroons, one or two of them truly outstanding and, alas, another one or two of them extremely dangerous?  In a democracy we get the politicians we deserve. 

In some ways it makes little difference who gains power.  In the immediate future, to paraphrase a rather silly saying, 'economics rules, OK'.  The markets, bless their little red braces, will insist that the previously undo-able must and will be done - or else!  As for the rest, we will, I am sure, continue the drift of the past 60 years into gentle decline in all areas as the growth of government and quasi-government grows and grows just as the tentacles of international government slowly entangles and traps us all.

So, the GQD (Great Question of the Day) is how will I vote tomorrow?  Originally, I had intended to vote UKIP but as what passes for my mind was concentrated it became clear to me that that was an action which could be described as 'gesture politics', an activity I despise.  I could never vote for either of the socialist parties, Labour and the Lib-Dems, so it was a choice for me between the Tories and not voting.  Then I heard a story which may or may not have been true, that our local Tory candidate, Annunziata(*) Rees-Mogg (of that ilk!), had originally come under pressure from the teen-agers who run Tory Central Office for her to change her rather posh Christian name to Ann so as not to put off the plebs people.  She refused - splendid woman - and so she gets my vote!  On such trivial details empires are won and lost!

Finally, there are two results which I will be awaiting with genuine excitement and expectation.  Will the voters do the right thing and, in Sun-style language - Biff Bercow and Castrate Balls?  The champagne is on ice and merely awaits the good news . . .

(*)  Ignorant peasant that I am, I originally mis-spelt her name with a 'c' instead of a 'z'.  Try as I might, I never quite cut it with the gentry!

Apoplectic old man self-ignites in Somerset

Yeah, yeah, I know I've been on the missing list for a few days but it was a Bank Holiday weekend and sundry social duties had to be undertaken - plus, I spent a day designing, and here modesty enjoins me to be understated, the most awsome PowerPoint presentation for my talk on Jutland, it's superb, it's the dog's bollocks painted gold, it's just the cleverest clever thing since the last cleverest thing!  Twenty four ships appear in six columns of four sailing down from the top of the screen heading south and then, with a click on my 'do-flicker-thingie' they change formation and end up in one line just as Jellicoe did it in 1916.  It took me hours and hours and I still have some tweaks to insert but my sheer, unadulterated pleasure at the end of the day was deeply satisfying.  Now here is the oddity.  When it comes to the usual day-to-day 'mechanical-techie thingies', like changing a plug, my patience can only be measured under a microscope, and yet, designing these PowerPoint screens will keep me happily, not grumpily, engaged for days. 

I suppose it tickles my creative side in that you begin with a blank screen and by the end you have a series of cavorting shapes and colours and images which are immensely satisfying to view - although I must confess that the little 'Memsahib' appeared distinctly underwhelmed but then women never understand the critical importance of men's hobbies.  Anyway, it has been, by and large, a very happy holiday weekend - with one exception!  Everytime I descended to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea - room service having inexplicably broken down - I passed the TV which is always on Sky News with the sound off, and everytime I caught a glimpse of the smug, despicable, grinning, sun-tanned face of Tony Blair back here helping to push Brown's face deeper in the mire keep Labour in power.  Instantly my upper lip drew back in a snarl much like my cat when it spots the neighbour's dog and I, too, want to hiss and spit.  Why can't he and his ghastly wife just go abroad with their ill-gotten gains and stay there!  Coming back and grinning at us all is more than body and soul can stand.

 

A shrewd idea - so no chance of it happening!

Simon Heffer writing in today's Telegraph offers an intelligent suggestion to whomsoever the poor sucker worthy candidate is who becomes prime minister next week.  First things first, he urges, pick up the 'phone and ring the IMF.  Like the bailiff's men in a pantomime they will come stomping into the Treasury to confirm definitely and without a shadow of a doubt that Britain is deeply in the 'S H 1 T'.  This, according to Heffer will have some excellent results.  First, the blame will be laid foursqare on the quaking shoulders of the outgoing government.  Second, the horrors to come as the situation is rectified can be blamed on the IMF - 'nuffink to do wiv me, guv!'  Third, the bond and currency dealers will stop sniffing excitable stuff up their collective noses and relax whilst the IMF does the necessary.  Fourth, and finally, Heffer tells us that it would save poor little George (and economically dim Dave) from having to try and work out what to do!

Seems like a good wheeze to me so I suppose it stands the usual snowball in hell's chance of actually happening.  Mind you, if something fairly rigorous doesn't happen pretty quick then the IMF will march in anyway.  There's a thought.  Er, have a nice day!