DUFF & NONSENSE!

And they didn't even send me a food parcel during the war!

Look, I'm not one to complain, as you know well, and also, when it comes to our American 'cousins' I am the first in line to express my admiration and liking for them but, to be honest, I could do with a bit of gratitude in return for all we have given them.  I mean, they owe us - big time!  And no less a personage than H. W. Crocker III says so.  Who he?  Well, I'm not too sure, there is no Wiki entry for him but I like the cut of his jib especially as the author of a book entitled The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War in which the first section is entitled 'Why the South Was Right'.  I like his 'jib' (what the hell is a 'jib' anyway?) even better given his most recent book reviewed in The American Spectator by himself and entitled The Politically Incorrect History of the British Empire.

Written for Thanksgiving a few days ago he reminds his fellow Americans that the thanks they should be giving is to the British Empire:

As we Americans celebrate on this day of gluttony, football, and prayer (not necessarily in that order), we might offer up thanks for the institution that gave us our glorious traditions of liberty and prosperity. That institution would be the British Empire, which not only put us here, but gave us Christianity, limited government, and a system of rights founded in British common law. Somehow many of us tend to overlook that -- something to do with 1776, most likely, and the idea that we rebelled against the tyranny of effete, toffee-nosed British snobs.

He's quite right in suggesting that the myths of the American War of Independence are now deeply ingrained in the American psyche but, even so, efforts should be made to reveal some home truths to go along with the home cooking on Thanksgiving Day:

As every American schoolboy should know, but probably doesn't, the British colonies of North America were the lightest taxed, most liberally governed (in the classical small government sense), freest, most prosperous, and most equitable portions of the eighteenth century world. The very rights the colonists believed they were fighting to defend were the traditional rights of Englishmen.

Indeed, many of the British generals assigned to put down the rebels agreed with them, and only parted ways with the colonists, and then reluctantly, when rebellious Americans took up arms against representatives of British authority.

Of course, some Britons -- equally devoted to British ideals of freedom and limited government -- scoffed at talk of "oppression" and mocked colonial hypocrisy. Samuel Johnson famously quipped in his essay Taxation No Tyranny, "how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"  (My emphasis)

Rudyard Kipling had it about right, too, and even old King George III wasn't as mad as they made out:

"Our American colonies, having no French to fear any longer [after the French and Indian War], wanted to be free from our control altogether. They utterly refused to pay a penny of the two hundred million pounds the war had cost us; and they equally refused to maintain a garrison of British soldiers…. When our Parliament proposed in 1764 to make them pay a small fraction of the cost of the late war, they called it 'oppression,' and prepared to rebel."

In this view, the War of American Independence was actually the War of American Ingratitude. King George III saw things as they were: "The rebellious war now levied [in 1775]… is manifestly carried on for the purpose of establishing an independent empire."

With mischievous ease scholastic exactitude, Mr. Crocker III, reminds his American readers how tempting the notion of an American Empire was to the grandees of the, er, 'revolution':

George Washington referred to America as "our rising Empire." Thomas Jefferson wrote of America as an "empire of liberty." Alexander Hamilton in Federalist One called America "an empire, in many respects the most interesting in the world." And John Adams and Benjamin Franklin both envisaged that the United States -- because of its potential wealth, size, and resources -- would become the seat of a greater empire than the British. The Founders were not opposed to "empire." They merely wanted an empire of their own, and were in fact appalled at British attempts to limit the colonists' expansion west across the Appalachians, which the British had designated as Indian territory in the hope of avoiding costly Indian wars.

And they haven't stopped trying for an American Empire ever since, until now, that is, because suddenly they are realising, as we were beginning to learn in 1766, that Empire is awfully good for the ego, old boy, but disasterous for the purse!  I should add, as yet another duplicitous Brit, that I am all in favour of an American Empire, the bigger the better, just so long as I don't have to pay for it.  Cynical? - of course.  French, even? - mais ouis!  But that's the way of the world, as those miserly, tight-fisted settlers demonstrated back in 1766!

Anyway, as Mr. Crocker III, points out, the 'cousins' did very well out of us so if any of them see fit to send me the food parcel I never received during the war I'd be very grateful, no, honestly, I would!

 

Klee time, children!

With all the current 'doom 'n' gloom' I thought you deserved to be cheered up so here is a Klee for today. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A nice little girl who looks as though she is skating and enjoying herself.  Well, except for those thick, dark slashes of black which seem a bit threatening.  Ah, well, that's artists for you!  But hang on, here's a typical piece of Klee whimsy, this should cheer you up:

There, feeling better, are we?  Oh, take that as a 'no', shall I?  Well I tried.

 

Strike? What strike?

Stuffed and puffed as they are with their own ridiculous and risible self-importance, the public sector workers (or some of them, anyway) are on strike and, as I could have told them, no-one noticed.  Kids enjoy a day off but they have too many days off already so parents are used to coping.  Civil servants are absent for a day but the only difference is that this time they don't have a sick note.  Patients have their minor ops put back which is probably for the third time anyway.  The word from Heathrow is that far from chaos everything is moving better than a normal day. 

The very best piece of joyous news to be heard in Osborne's speech was that the number of public service employees to be laid off will almost double.  Christmas has come early this year.

I'm trapped in this horror story!

I have what looks like a cracking good thriller next to my armchair, written by Jo Nesbo, the Norwegian writer but, for a change, this is not one of his police procedurals.  I have just started it and it looks as though it's going to be a corker, and I really do want to finish it, but . . . but . . .

Although it's hard work, although I keep erupting in either fury or anguish, although it's bloody heavy to hold, although it runs to nearly a thousand dense pages, I just cannot tear myself away from Allies of a Kind by Christopher Thorne.  It tells the history of the war with Japan.  I'm only on the first few chapters which describe the run up to war and I don't know whether to burst into tears or hurl the book out of the window!  Here is crass stupidity piled upon blind folly with more than enough to go round all the nations involved and their principal actors.  Roosevelt, and some of the crafty dunderheads around him, come out as small-town politicians, not fit for purpose.  To be fair to the president, he never lost sight of the fact that the American public were acting as one almighty sheet-anchor against anything he might try but his lack of clarity and purpose was almost criminal.  Equally, Churchill comes out of it as an antidiluvian, romantic imperialist stuck somewhere in the early Kiplingesque era of the 19th century.  Most of those who surrounded him, at home, or even worse, out in Singapore, were brain-dead from the arse both ways!

And so, slowly but inexorably the great wheel turns, the ratchets meet the cogs, and war looms and no-one is prepared, no one has a plan, all is left to chance.  "Oh the horror, the horror!"

 

Did George Osborne go to the UEA with Phil Jones?

I only half-watched little Georgie Osborne, with the sound off, as he gave his Autumn statement.  There were no surprises, at least none to readers of this blog who have been told by me, courtesy of The Coffee House, that there have been no cuts and that borrowing was rocketing despite all the flim-flam from the Treasury.  Here again are some diagrams from the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) which illustrate matters better than my words - or Georgie's come to that!

 

Mind you, the OBR figures, although constantly more pessimistic than the Treasury, are still way out.  Perhaps their 'experts', too, went to UEA along with Phil Jones and George Osborne!  For example, I would not bet the deeds of the house on the wishful thinking forecast of growth in 2013, '14 and '15.

And as for our mounting national debt, little Georgie is forecast to outdo Darling's last estimate as a Labour Chancellor when you measure it as a % of GDP:

And he has virtually equalled it when you measure it in money terms:

But nowhere do I sense that any of them in Westminster or Whitehall realise that things are going to get even worse than they might imagine.  The European banks under the lash of instructions from the Euro-Bureaucrats are busy slashing their loan books in order to comply with strict new regulations ordering them to recapitalise in the New Year.  The three measures of money supply, M1, M2, M3, are declining fast and as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports in The Telegraph the money-men are becoming alarmed:

"This is very worrying," said Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research. "What it shows is that the implosion of the banking system on the periphery is now outweighing any growth left in the core. We are seeing the destruction of money and it is a clear warning of serious trouble over the next six months."

Better just pencil in those estimates, George, don't use ink!  Mind you there was some gallows humour to be had watching and listening to 'Blinky' Balls trying to strut his stuff.  The man can't even deliver a written speech coherently; and his (temporary?) leader sitting next to him with his big panda eyes gazing up in admiration and his head nodding like one of those plastic dogs you used to see in the back of Cortinas gave every appearance of being sub-normal.  What a shower!

 

Damn, I almost forgot !!!!!

SET YOUR 'DO-FLICKER-RECORDING-THINGIES' NOW - and that's an order! 

Tonight at 11.45 on Sky Indie Ch. 312 they are showing the Argentine film The Secret in their Eyes.  Absolutely NOT to be missed.  It provides an ending to a complex tale that evolves over several years which is both deeply satisfying, and, horribly cruel.  You are left questioning your own moral certitudes. Not to be missed!  And when did I ever lie to you?

Meanwhile, back in Berlin/Brussels . . .

Well, I provided you all with 'a fast boat to China' but now it is time to return to Europe.  'SoD' provided me with a startling theory aired by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Daily Telegraph in which he offers, in all sincerity, the mad possibility that given the fact that the European leadership has frozen in the headlights of the oncoming truck laden with TNT, the American Federal Reserve should step in and take over!  With 12 months to go before a presidential election?  I don't think so!  The idea smacks of some late-night, well-oiled, economic theorising to me!  But who knows in this lunatic, Alice in Wonderland world today.

However, for a thorough review of just where matters stand at present and the pros and cons of the rapidly diminishing number of possible actions, you can do no better than read this report in Der Spiegel.  The panic has begun.  It reminds me of Napoleonic warfare where commanders absolutely depended on the ruthless application of discipline in the ranks by NCOs and young officers to ensure that everyone stood firm under fire because they knew that within minutes, seconds, even, of one unit breaking and running, an entire army would melt away before their eyes.  Thus it is with the nations of the euro-zone today.  Not only are the 'usual suspects' under pressure but it has spread even to the strongest (allegedly) in the zone.  All the world's financial institutions, not just banks, but insurance companies, investment groups and even national funds are stepping back:

It is now clear, however, that a broad retreat from the crisis-stricken countries is underway across almost all investor groups. "It's no longer just the banks. Now insurance companies, pension funds and even sovereign wealth funds are selling off euro-zone bonds," notes Joachim Fels, the Morgan Stanley economist. The fear of losses and of a breakup of the euro zone is driving investors away -- as are the politicians who have fueled this fear through poor decisions.

Mind you, they might say they are selling off euro holdings but who's buying them?  I suspect that they are simply down-grading what they own and cannot give away with gold bars whilst simultaneously refusing to touch any more irrespective of whether they are Italian bonds or even German bonds.  Financially, euro-Europe stands huddled on its own like a bunch of lepers being stoned by onlookers!  In a post 'down there' somewhere I ventured that the crash would occur by Christmas and indeed, Spiegel reminds us that before the year-end the banks must close their books and shareholders will be asking severe questions of management if too many euro-zone debts are included.  With all that and much more in mind:

Hans-Joachim Voth, an economic historian who teaches in Barcelona, feels that the euro's days are numbered. He considers it advisable for economically strong countries like Germany to withdraw from the euro, because, so he argues, "not every stupid economic idea has to be defended to the bitter end." In theory, says Voth, the upcoming Christmas holidays could be a good time to take this step, because, as he argues, it's important to take the markets by surprise.

Sounds incredible but remember:

The question of how much longer the highly indebted peripheral countries can last is becoming more and more pressing. Close to €9 billion in Italian government bonds will mature this week, while more than €30 billion will come due by the end of the year.

When governments can no longer place their long-term debt with investors, they plug their holes with short-term loans. But investors are also demanding higher and higher yields for short-term bonds. On Friday, Italy had to offer rates of at least 6.5 percent for six-month bonds. By the first quarter of 2012 at the latest, when more than €112 billion in Italian bonds will mature, this short-term strategy will no longer work.

And there is one more crushing financial blow that the euro-zone will have to suffer, in the morning I will be taking my left-over-from-holiday euros, approximately e23.50, to the bank to swap them back into sterling - you can expect turmoil in the markets tomorrow!

 

Willis Eschenbach calls Dr. Phil Jones "a liar": now it begins!

Pheeew!  I have just read a long and damning indictment of Dr. Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia (UEA) written with great lucidity by Willis Eschenbach at WUWT.  In it, he accuses Jones, several times, of being a liar, not a metaphorical liar, but the real thing, an out-and-out, deliberate teller of untruths.  I am conscious of stepping into a legal minefield here so I reproduce one of the less inflammatory passages to give you the flavour:

You gave lots and lots of explanations to me, everything except the truth—that your records were in such disarray that you could not fulfill my request. It is clear now from the Climategate emails that some records were there, some were missing, the lists were not up to date, there was orphan data, some stations had multiple sets of data, some data was only identified by folder not by filename, you didn’t know which data might have been covered by confidentiality agreements, and the provenance of some datasets could not be established. The unfortunate reality was that you simply couldn’t do what I asked.

Jones and/or the UEA are faced with a deadly decision - to sue or not to sue.  Failure to do so will leave the accusation standing in the public record.  I urge you to read Eschenbach's letter and judge his side of the story.  Now it gets 'down and dirty'!

 

Where I lead 'The Wall Street Journal' follows!

Just yesterday I warned that all was not well in the People's Republic of China and today The WSJ says the same.  Or to be precise, it reports that the analysts in the big investment banks are pushing Chinese stocks as hard as they can.  Does that bring back memories?  It should do because it was exactly the same type of behaviour they displayed prior to the dot.com bubble in the '90s:

In bullishness reminiscent of the technology bubble of the 1990s, analysts who work for investment banks based around the world rate nearly every Chinese stock they cover as a "buy." While these analysts generally are a bullish lot, they are far more positive on Chinese banks, tech companies, retailers and the like than they are on companies based elsewhere.

Of course, the fact that big investment banks are always looking for corporate business would have no effect on their analysts' briefings, er, would it?  I don't know, but for sure, if you followed their advice and invested in their recent recommendations then overall you would have lost money:

Investors who followed analysts' bullish recommendations haven't fared well this year. The Shanghai Composite Index has dropped 15%, and in Hong Kong, where Chinese companies account for two-thirds of the trading volume, the Hang Seng Index has fallen 23%.

The short-sellers, on the other hand, who bet their own money on their belief that a company's share value will drop, have been doing exceedingly well, not least because they have been sniffing out corruption and other misdemeanours which are endemic in many Chinese corporations:

Last Monday, claims by short-seller Muddy Waters Research LLC against Chinese advertising company Focus Media Holding Ltd. sent the company's shares down 39% on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Analysts still have 11 buy ratings and no sell ratings on the stock. A short seller bets that a stock price will fall. Focus Media disputed Muddy Waters's claims, saying the short seller's report misinterpreted LCD-display numbers and financial data. The shares gained back about 14% by the end of the week.

As for me, personally, I just wish I had a ton of money invested in Chinese companies.  But if I did, I'd sell it before lunchtime!

 

'The Killing II' needs the kiss of life!

So, that is four of the ten episodes of the second series of The Killing on BBC4 that I have watched and, alas, my lurking fears have been confirmed.  It does not match up to the first series, not anywhere near!  I suspected as much when it became known that they had halved the run-time, thus, forcing the writer(s) into a tight spot.  The pleasure of the first series was the almost leisurely way the complex story lines unfolded week by week, a bit like 'Tinker, Tailor', than which, etc.  This allowed the camera time to wander in and out of people's lives, showing us something new, a clue here, a hint there and always the tension of not being sure if we have missed something crucial.  Also, brushing up against the lives of so many people and families added a rich mix to the warp and woof of the society that was portrayed.  It allowed the extraordinary Insp.Lund to almost hide in the 'undergrowth', so to speak, so that her eccentricities, verging on psychopathy, only appeared gradually and, given the horror of the killing itself, one almost sympathised with her fixation.  But this story is so straighforward that one can almost see it coming, and the only personal tale within it (so far) is the wife and the ex-soldier on the run and frankly it has not captured my interest.  Damn!  Why can't these TV money-men realise that time and patience and infinite care, plus a dash of real talent, is what makes a classic series.  Sikke en skam.  That's 'what a shame' in Danish which you would know if you were a first class 'googlinguist' like wot I am!

 

Never mind Europe, keep your eyes on China

This week Sky News ran an item on one of those huge cities in China built from new with major dual-carriageway roads running in and out, and shopping malls and industrial estates all ready for occupation.  The problem is that no-one is occupying any of it!  The place could be described as a ghost town except that no-one ever lived there long enough to die there so there are no ghosts.  All it lacked was tumbleweed blowing down the main highway.  It reminded me, although it was on a much larger scale, of the south coast of Spain which, back in the '80s/'90s, was a forest of cranes as housing estates and blocks of appartments went up on every piece of open ground.  I can remember asking myself at the time where on earth were all the people who would buy these properties.  Well now we know, there weren't any, or at least, not anywhere near enough.  With China, of course, you have to multiply everything by a hundred thousand and my guess is that when their property market finally melts, taking most of their banks with it, the shock waves will make Europe look like a 'little local difficulty'.

Also, the Chinese are yet to feel the full backlash from the slowdown of their biggest customers, America and Europe.  As always it will be 'the little people' who will suffer the most but the problem is, using my 100,000 multiplier, there are simply zillions of them.  They have all just begun, and some of them have become accustomed to, enjoying the better things of life.  This new prosperity is only a generation old and if, suddenly, their prosperity is snatched from them the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be in big trouble.

According to this report in The WSJ, the CCP are increasingly on the backfoot when it comes to preaching austerity to the masses:

One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Beijing, and the son of one of China's top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo. 

Bo Guagua, 23, was expected. He had a dinner appointment with a daughter of the then-ambassador, Jon Huntsman.

The car, though, was a surprise. The driver's father, Bo Xilai, was in the midst of a controversial campaign to revive the spirit of Mao Zedong through mass renditions of old revolutionary anthems, known as "red singing." He had ordered students and officials to work stints on farms to reconnect with the countryside. His son, meanwhile, was driving a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and as red as the Chinese flag, in a country where the average household income last year was about $3,300.

The 'old guard' of Mao-ists had the intelligence to keep their luxoury living very private, but this current crop cannot hide their affluence, indeed, they seem ready to flaunt it:

The episode, related by several people familiar with it, is symptomatic of a challenge facing the Chinese Communist Party as it tries to maintain its legitimacy in an increasingly diverse, well-informed and demanding society. The offspring of party leaders, often called "princelings," are becoming more conspicuous, through both their expanding business interests and their evident appetite for luxury, at a time when public anger is rising over reports of official corruption and abuse of power.

That sort of thing will last only as long as the mass of the people continue to improve their standard of living.  The minute it stops, is the moment the prawn balls hit the fan!  China is a giant nation but it has a flaw running through it from top to bottom - corruption.  Again, everyone will put up with it so long as their fair share continues to flow but in the long run corruption multiplies like cancer cells and the inefficiencies grow and slowly but surely weaken the body-politic.  America, too, is weakening but, provided they have the sense to vote in a free-market Republican next year, there is every chance that it will regain its original vigor.  With China, on the other hand, the only alternative to the CCP is the army!  Yes, quite so!  And you're right, it's 'being so cheerful as keeps me so young', thank you for asking!

 

Oh God, I wish I'd never begun . . .

I'm really depressed and it's all my own fault!  I have decided to design another of my military history PowerPoint talks.  It is some time since I created the last one and I have forgotten most of the ins and outs of PowerPoint - but that's not the reason for my depression.  Before I can begin to lay down the outlines of the talk I have to re-read the history, and when I tell you that the title is How the Japanese Lost WWII in the First Six Months some of you will guess from whence my misery springs.

My first source is Ronald H. Spector's book Eagle Against the Sun.  For those Brits, and there are many of them, already wired for maximum, lip-curling disdain for American stupidity, Spector provides plenty of it.  Indeed, it is precisely his ice-cold gaze at the follies of his own country's military and political leadership prior to Pearl Harbour which makes me trust him as a historian.  However, no sooner has he finished with the self-flagellation than he turns his whips onto the Japanese leadership and its very own, not very inscrutable, blind ambition, arrogance and stupidity worthy of comparison to pre-1914 Prussia-Germany.

Happily, in the early chapters at least, we Brits, not being the main subject of the book, are allowed to escape.  But then I had to turn to Christopher Thorne's  book Allies of a Kind which takes a much wider but also deeper look at the whole period leading up to the war with Japan, at which point, British idiocy of the very worst kind is all too toe-curlingly apparent.  Perhaps summed up by Churchill's romantic but delusional decision to send HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse out to Singapore to stem the probable Japanese attack.  Suffice to say, that on one grim day whilst serving myself in Singapore, I flew over the hulks lying on the sea-bed but plainly visible from the air.  I think they come under the heading of a 'gallant but futile gesture', the sort of thing we Brits do so awfully well!

I will almost certainly return to this subject because apart from its inherent historical interest, it also produces contemporary vibrations in a world with an apparently weakened America and a rising power in the east - this time China.  Here are three quotations chosen by Thorne to open his book:

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT:  I do not want to be unkind or rude to the British, but in 1841, when you aquired Hong Kong, you did not aquire it by purchase.

OLIVER STANLEY (Colonial Sec.):  Let me see, Mr. President, that was about the time of the Mexican War, wasn't it?

...........................................................................................................................

WINSTON CHURCHILL:  Why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority [to other races].   We are superior.

............................................................................................................................

Each of our friends has his defects so markedly that to continue to love him we are obliged to seek consolation for those defects - in the thought of his talent, his goodness, his affection for ourself - or rather to leave them out of account, and for that we need to display all out goodwill.  Unfortunately our obliging honesty in refusing to see the defect in our friend is surpassed by the obstinacy with which he persists in that defect ...

Marcel Proust: A la recherche du Temps Perdu

.............................................................................................................................

I had no idea that Proust was such a witty fellow, he almost cheered me up!

 

Dammit! Jeannette Buckley proves me wrong. 'Wimmin', heh!

And who is Jeannette Buckley?  I'll tell you that in a minute but before I do let me confess that I am somewhat prone to issuing forth generalised pronouncements - oh, you've noticed!  Happily most of them are short-lived because usually some wise-acre instantly proves me wrong.  However, some of them pass scrutiny unopposed, perhaps because my friends and aquaintances, and even my enemies, simply can't be bothered to put me right.  I am dimly aware of the occasional exchange of glances accompanied by some discrete eye-rolling as, usually around the port or brandy time, I give them the benefit of my opinion on this, that or the other.  One of my favourites is "photography isn't art"; and that brings me to the attractive Ms. Jeannette Buckley.

Her brother Kevin left a comment here last night and as his name contained a link, out of curiosity I clicked on it.  I was transported - I use the word deliberately - to his sister's photographic gallery called Temps Perdu Photography.  I browsed - and I blushed - no, really, I did! - for my previous foolishness.  Some of these photos are extraordinarily beautiful.  I have tried to cut and paste one or two over here but the technology is quite beyond me, although that is, perhaps, a good thing because it means you will have to go over there to have look.  I urge you to do so.  Under the general heading of 'Sea', take a look at 'The Cob' which I assume is the one at Lyme Regis.  Notice the way she gets the four elements into the composition, sky, sea, pebbled beach and man-made stonework, all perfectly balanced with the curve of the cob contrasting with the straight hoizontal lines of the seascape.  That is a wonderful picture.

One of my complaints about photography is that it frequently appears to be accidental, although it must be admitted that sometimes it will capture an evocative and memorable image, particularly in war photography.  However, for me, the 'accidental' part rules it out as art - and here I am conscious that I really should try and define what I mean by 'art' - perhaps I will save that for another day.  Anyway, Ms. Buckley demonstrates that many of her creations - again I use the word deliberately - are anything but accidental.  Click on the 'Captured Flowers' section and take a detailed look at 'Lines and Light I'.  This is a terrific composition.  The rounded bowl and the natural irregularities of the flowers contrast with the angled straight lines of the blinds and the shadows cast by the blinds.  Simply superb!

So, OK, I was wrong - again!  Who's surprised?

I try to cheer them up but do I get a thank you . . . ?

I have been exasperating the excitable kiddies over at Deltoid.  This is an 'Ultra-Warming' site and needs to be approached with care!  They are in a fair old strop over 'Climategate II' and despite my efforts to be, er, helpful they show no gratitude.  If you have nothing else to do you can start at Comment #90 in which I reply to an earlier comment.  You can then jump to Comment #102 in which Jeff, a true believer, takes me to task.  I reprint my reply to him below because it sums up, in rather blunt terms, much of my re-action to 'Greenery' in all its forms.  I should point out that in the original, somehow Jeff's name mutated to Jeremy, another contributer to Deltoid, but I have corrected it here.  Also to aid your understanding, my first paragraph refers to the not too surprising story that two years ago the 'scientific experts' all agreed that the Canadian caribou had disappeared and, natch!, it was all the fault of Man/global warming/oil exploration or whatever.  None of these experts bothered to ask the local natives who would have told them that the caribou always went off to some other place at certain times.  Anyway, lo and behold, they're back and hopefully Sarah Palin will have plenty of targets if any of them are foolish enough to wander into Alaska.

Well done, Jeff, exasperated, of course, but sticking to the point, by and large. I'm just a little hurt that you failed to thank me for the good news on the missing mooses, or caribous, or whatever you call those great hairy things that have the temerity to shit all over Canada. They're safe and sound!

As to your first main paragraph, are you telling me that my description of bird species as waxing and waning and then, perhaps, waxing again is not an accurate description of their history? And are you also denying that there is some controversy over the fact that those giant windmills are damaging birds?

Also, let me assure you that we have no disagreement that climate change has an effect on different species of both animal and plant life. That, in fact, is the entire history of this planet - it was ever thus. Also, I did not suggest that the "dustbowl" [of the '30s] was the same as the conditions current in Texas, my point was that if it isn't 'one damn thing' it's another! By and large, central areas of big land masses suffer big weather and geological effects. Again, it was ever thus.

Finally, and at this point I must urge you to sit down with a large scotch to hand, let me spell something else out to you. You are quite correct to maintain that human activity has had an effect on living things. Some of it has been deleterious and at this point you can reel off the names of several cuddly animals to weep over but let me tell you bluntly that I, personally, couldn't give a stuff! Even worse, I don't give a stuff about polar bears! What I do see is that through human efforts more and more humans are living longer and longer because they are healthier and healthier. And, this will come as a bit of shock to you, Jeff, I actually think people are far more important than, say Natterjack Toads, or, some flower that lives in a desert and comes up once every ten years. I cannot stress this too much, people are more important than anything else! (How are you feeling? Have a sip of scotch, it'll help.)

Don't misunderstand, I don't wish other living things to be destroyed; if there are sensible ways to preserve them (which increasingly there are) then by all means do it. But, if it comes down to a straight choice then polar bears don't even get a look in!

Now you may suggest that such wanton behaviour will lead to the destruction of people as well. I would suggest that you are wrong. Because as well as causing harm, people also do good. Just two silly/simple examples, dogs and cats thrive because of Man. New types of crops, some bio-engineered, are now feeding more and more people. I could go on but you take my point.

So, I hope that positive ending has cheered you up, Jeff, because I do think you are a tad too dismal - no, no, don't thank me!

Flying in circles

Sometimes, just sometimes, I really do have some sympathy for politicians.  I am always conscious as I scribble out these blog posts providing you all with quick but brilliant solutions (sorry, didn't quite catch that ...) to the problems that beset us that were I actually in power and had a dozen 'courtiers' whispering in my ears things might not appear as simple as they do from the comfort of my garret. 

Take this extra runway problem for London as an example.  I will take on trust (for the moment) that the 'experts' are correct in saying that there is a real need for an extra runway.  When I heard the suggestion put forward that it could be built at the far end of the Thames estuary I thought that was rather an intelligent solution given that it would disturb few people and presumably transport links could quickly be connected to the eastward reaching links made and improved for the Olympics.  However, according James Forsyth at The Coffee House, that plan is stillborn because it would depend on Dutch permission being granted because they control, by international treaty, most of the North Sea air space.  And anyway, they are unlikely to be helpful given that London airport(s) are competition to Schiphol.

The only other two possibilities are Heathrow or Gatwick.  Both are subject to massive NIMBY re-actions likely to cause the government grief.  Indeed, the current Transport Minister, Justine Greening, is MP for Putney, one of the constituencies already plagued with aircraft noise.  And of course, rural Sussex is stuffed full of natural Tory supporters who moved there from London partly, no doubt, to avoid, er, noise pollution!  Also, Dave is firmly and undeniably on the record for opposing another Heathrow runway.

To me the solution is simple - build it at Heathrow.  This giant airport has been there for decades and anyone who lives around it knows the score by now.  Also, I need the laughs watching Dave eat his words!

 

Our impartial BBC? You're having a laugh!

Here's a corker I came across on Climate Audit but which first appeared in the comments somewhere on Bishop Hill's site:

4894 is interesting. From Alex Kirby at the BBC to Phil Jones if I have read it correctly, in the run up to COP-10 [the Copenhagen conference] in 2004:

-

Yes, glad you stopped this — I was sent it too, and decided to spike it without more ado as pure stream-of-consciousness rubbish. I can well understand your unhappiness at our running the other piece. But we are constantly being savaged by the loonies [er, that's you!] for not giving them any coverage at all, especially as you say with the COP in the offing, and being the objective impartial (ho ho) BBC that we are, there is an expectation in some quarters that we will every now and then let them say something. I hope though that the weight of our coverage makes it clear that we think they are talking through their hats. (My emphasis)

Do bear that one in mind when next you receive your demand for TV licence money!

Gradually this monstrously huge release of e-mails is being trawled through by the blog-hounds and more and more embarrassing - well, they would be embarrasing to most people if not the likes of the insufferably smug Alex Kirby - gaffes and admissions are coming to light.  And remember, the scamp who nicked them is still holding back several thousand more!  Give him a knighthood!

 

Peer review: choose your own reviewer!

A constant refrain from the HAFs, particularly the technicians (I refuse from now on to refer to them as 'scientists'), is that any criticisms or propositions from blogs can be dismissed because they have not been 'peer reviewed'.  This imprimatur, in which at least two other scientists/technicians must first study and then act as referees to either approve or not any paper offered for publication to a science magazine, is considered to be absolutely essential.  The fact that if you print a paper on the internet everyone and his brainy uncle can criticise it, is neither here nor there.  The gold standard remains the peer review system.  So just how 'golden' is it?  This, from an exchange of e-mails between an editor of a scientific magazine and 'Jones the Techie':

Glenn McGregor Chief Editor of the International Journal of Climatology and Phil Jones paper

1524.txt

Referee 1
“…I recommend to reject this manuscript, it is well below the standard acceptable in IJC or any other refereed journals. The manuscript did not contribute to the area of research, and the methodology used for comparison is naiveEand unaccepted in scientific publications…”

McGregor
“…In view of the comments of the referee(s) your manuscript has been denied publication in the International Journal of Climatology….”

Jones
“…I’m afraid these two reviews will definitely discourage me from submitting more papers to IJC! The two reviewers have not realized the novelty of this paper…You can ignore this email if you want. I won’t be submitting this paper to IJC again…”

2288.txt

McGregor
“…As I am not able to read every paper in detail I have to resort to taking a decision based on the reviews. In this case both were rather negative, hence my decision. Based on your response what I would like to do, with your permission, is to send the paper to a 3rd reviewer and request an opinion within 3 weeks…”

Jones
“…Can I make one suggestion? Good if the reviewer were a Brit – then they’s know something about the context. Possibilities would be Rob Wilby and Nigel Arnell…”  [My emphasis]

McGregor
“…Phil Thanks for the useful suggestion…”

2452.txt

McGregor:
“…I managed to get a third reviewer to look at the comments on your WG paper. Have pasted these below. I will rescind the decision of “reject” and change it to major revisions. Hope you are satisfied with this…”

“3rd Reviewer’s Comments
“…I think both of these reviews are very reasonable and not overly harsh, especially the lengthy and measured remarks from Reviewer 2. My major criticisms have all been noted by one or both of the reviewers:…”

I think the moral of the story is simple: if at first you don't succeed, choose another referee.  Honestly, would you buy a second-hand car from any of these wretches?  And remember, as a result of their scare stories, the Lesbian-straightener is going to whack another £280 a year on your energy bills in order to give handouts to windmill-makers which don't work when the wind is too high or too low which is most of the time.  Have a nice day!

I am grateful to commenter 'Intersting Times' at Climate Audit:

ADDITIONAL:  And here, from the same source as above, is yet another cosy exchange between a member of the editorial board of The International Journal of Crapulata Climatology(IJC) and a co-author with 'Jones the Techie' of a 'paper' which is actually a critique of another paper due for publication.  See how they 'fix' the problem! 

4235:
Osborne to Santer and Jones:
“…I’m on the editorial board of IJC. Phil is right that it can be rather slow (though faster than certain other climate journals!). Nevertheless, IJC really is the preferred place to publish (though a downside is that Douglass et al. may have the opportunity to have a response considered to accompany any comment).
I just contacted the editor, Glenn McGregor, to see what he can do. He promises to do everything he can to achieve a quick turn-around time (he didn’t quantify this) and he will also “ask (the publishers) for priority in terms of getting the paper online asap after the authors have received proofs”. He genuinely seems keen to correct the scientific record as quickly as possible. He also said (and please treat this in confidence, which is why I emailed to you and Phil only) that he may be able to hold back the hardcopy (i.e. the print/paper version) appearance of Douglass et al., possibly so that any accepted Santer et al. comment could appear alongside it. Presumably depends on speed of the review process…”

0455
Santer:
“…The editor of IJoC, Glenn McGregor, has agreed to treat our paper as an independent submission rather than as a comment on Douglass et al. This avoids the situation that I was afraid of – that our paper would be viewed as a comment, and Douglass et al. would have the “last word” in this exchange…”

What an absolute shower they are!  And if you don't believe anything you see in the papers, then certainly don't believe anything in a 'techie' magazine.

 

John L. Daly is not forgotten

John Lawrence Daly was a straightforward, straight-speaking Aussie whose clear-eyed intelligence saw through the bluff and bluster of the HAFs and their manic forecasts that the end of the world is nigh.  His premature death in 2004 silenced a much-needed and persistent voice expressing commonsense.  There can be no better example than this e-mail brought to light by 'Climategate II', the second release of a huge number of pirated e-mails from East Anglia University.

For those not familiar with this old battlefield, one of the problems facing the HAFs was their inability to know for sure what global temperatures were prior to the 19th century when measurements began.  Of particular concern to them were the indications of two historical periods, the Medievil Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA), which if confirmed would break Michael Mann's (in)famous 'Hockey Stick' graph which had become the global icon of the HAF religion:

As you can see, this 'reconstruction' of ancient temperatures shows them as virtually flat up until naughty Mankind got the furnaces blowing, so to speak, in the industrial era, at which point Anthropological Global Warming (AGW) began.  This iconic graph forever associated with Prof. Michael Mann of Penn State University became the badge, the 'regimental colours, if you like, of the entire Global Warming movement.  The entire construction depended on the use of physical proxies, that is, ancient but still existing items such as ice cores and corals.  However, the proxie of prime importance in confirming Mann's hypothesis was tree rings whose pattern is altered by alteration in temperature.  By taking cores from very old trees we would be able to look back in time and see the temperature fluctuations, if any.

Sounds good when you first think of it but, as John Daly demonstrated, it only takes a second or third thought to realise the proposition is bollocks!  Here, in plain language in an e-mail from February 2001 he explains why:

Take this from first principles.

A tree only grows on land. That excludes 70% of the earth covered by water. A tree does no grow on ice. A tree does not grow in a desert. A tree does not grow on grassland-savannahs. A tree does not grow in alpine areas. A tree does not grow in the tundra We are left with perhaps 15% of the planet upon which forests grow/grew. That does not make any studies from tree rings global, or even hemispheric.

The width and density of tree rings is dependent upon the following variables which cannot be reliably separated from each other. sunlight – if the sun varies, the ring will vary. But not at night of course.

cloudiness – more clouds, less sun, less ring.

pests/disease – a caterpillar or locust plague will reduce photosynthesis

access to sunlight – competition within a forest can disadvantage or advantage some trees.

moisture/rainfall – a key variable. Trees do not prosper in a droughteven if there’s a heat wave.

snow packing in spring around the base of the trees retards growth temperature – finally!

The tree ring is a composite of all these variables, not merely of temperature. Therefore on the 15% of the planet covered by trees, their rings do not and cannot accurately record temperature in isolation from the other environmental variables.

In my article on Greening Earth Society on the Hockey Stick, I point to other evidence which contradicts Mann’s theory. The Idso’s have produced more of that evidence, and a new article on Greening Earth has `unearthed’ even more.

Mann’s theory simply does not stack up. But that was not the key issue. Anyone can put up a dud theory from time to time. What is at issue is the uncritical zeal with which the industry siezed on the theory before its scientific value had been properly tested. In one go, they tossed aside dozens of studies which confirmed the existence of the MWE [Medievil Warm Era] and LIA [Little Ice Age] as global events, and all on the basis of tree rings – a proxy which has all the deficiencies I have stated above.

The worst thing I can say about any paper such as his is that it is `bad science’. Legal restraint prevents me going further. But in his case, only those restraints prevent me going *much* further.

Cheers

John Daly

I should add that it was this controversy over tree rings which became one of the main attack platforms for Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit as he persisted with his forensic examination of the 'evidence' and the conclusions drawn by the HAFs in regard to tree ring cores.

John Daly was your archetypal, intelligent outsider.  He thought, and then he wrote, and he wrote with great clarity - I miss him!

 My thanks to Anthony Watts and Rick Werne of WUWT.

 

Like a good girl she keeps saying 'no', but in the end she'll say 'yes'

That's just how it is with 'good girls', as I dimly recall from my long-lost youth.  But dragging myself away rather reluctantly from putative sex to finance, let us consider that very good girl, indeed, Angela Merkel.  She keeps saying 'no' to allowing anyone to slide their hands up the skirts of the German tax-payers but the pressure is inexorable.  I suspect that she knows this perfectly well and is simply biding her time so that on the very eve of financial Armageddon she can turn to her people and claim that she had fought the good fight but now, to quote a phrase from another blonde, "there is no alternative"!

According to Stefan Kaiser in  der Spiegel, Europe is 'squidged'!  Some of you may be unfamiliar with this somewhat technical, financial expression but it means that it is flat on its back on an exceedingly hard, concrete floor and someone is driving over it with a steam-roller!  You see, nobody, but nobody, is willing to buy European national debts, least of all the usual buyers, the European banks because they already own zillions of them having in the past given in to the importunings of politicians, probably waving national honours and medals under their directors' silly noses to help make their minds up for them!  All these zillions of bonds are now worthless and the banks are finding out the hard way how manyof their hard-up customers felt when their overdrft was suddenly cut off.  Anyway, because the European banks are standing there with their trouser pockets pulled inside out and a helpless, hapless expression on their mugs, none of them will lend money to the others.  I need hardly say that American and British banks have also let it be known that they are staying well clear. But banks absolutely depend on inter-bank lending to keep going.    So the European banks have told their governments that there is now no way they will buy any national bonds, and the international bond dealers, like Pimco, long ago said the same.  The European Central Bank (ECB) has, like a faithful hound, stretched its German dog-lead as far as it is allowed to go, not far enough, and has tried to buy up some bonds but yesterday's sale of Spanish 3-month and 6-month bonds, normally an easy pitch, was only cleared at murderous rates of interest.

It is now only a matter of time, and I suspect (and you all know of my personal, and disasterous, history of financial acumen-not!) it is only a matter of weeks, perhaps before Christmas, that the first bank goes belly-up.  That will be the pebble that sets the landslide into destructive motion, and that will also, I guess, be the point at which the 'iron chancellor' puts her euros on the table and says 'yes'.  They all do in the end you know!

ADDITIONAL:  Don't ask me why but my bet (if I had any money!) would be on a French bank going first.

ADDITIONAL#2:  Gott in Himmel!  This from The WSJ:

A German government debt auction drew some of the weakest demand since the introduction of the euro, signaling diminishing investor appetite for even the safest euro-zone assets amid Europe's worsening debt crisis. [...]

Wednesday's failed auction spooked investors, however, sending bund yields, which move inversely to price, soaring above 2%. The failed auction suggests that investors aren't interested in new issuance with such low returns. The low take-up may also reflect concern that Germany may end up having to accept the adoption of common European bonds to resolve the debt crisis.      [...]

Meanwhile, back in 'plucky little Belgium':

Adding pressure were reports that Belgium cannot pay its agreed share of the planned rescue of the Belgian-French bank Dexia SA, which is seen as placing more risk at the door of the French Treasury and adding another threat to the country's triple-A credit rating.

 

How much did Dave and George learn at The Spectator 'skool'?

Last week, The Spectator (no link yet) invited several economic 'Big Brains' to offer some advice on 'whither Britain?'  Even if they only read the first one by Arthur Laffer that would be sufficient:

Reducing the burden which government places on the economy, through tax cuts, is the surest way to promote growth.  I have never heard of a country that taxed itself back into prosperity. (My emphasis)

Louise Cooper, a senior analyst at BGC Partners, blanched at the government's proud announcement that its aim was "to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth that is more evenly shared across the country and between industries".  She snapped back:

Such a prescription is impossible.  The free market is chaotic.  Highly entrepreneurial firms and people take ideas and give them a go.  Does it matter that Silicon Valley's growth is unbalanced and too technologically-focused?

She also reminds us to keep our eyes across the Irish Sea:

Ireland kept its tax and regulations low throughout the crisis, and as a result it is growing again - still one of the most business-friendly countries in the world.

Casey B. Morgan, an economics professor from Chicago University, advises them to take an axe to the welfare budget:

This safety net - the welfare system - could safely be put back to the levels of five years ago.  As could the minimum wage.  Also, stop obsessing about the amount of new loans made by banks.  They'll start lending money again when there are good loans to be made to good, credit-worthy clients.

Of course, all the crap loans will already have been made by the 'Dave 'n' George Mortgage Company'  as I pointed out a few days ago!  Ruth Lea, Director of Global Vision and always a lady worth listening to, suggests that the 'Dim Duo' should turn their attention to the 'Green energy' policies being rammed through by the 'Lesbian-straightener', Chris Huhne - er, that's my description of him not Ms. Lea's!

'Green energy' policies already already amount to a stealth tax of over 20% for businesses (and over 15% for households) on energy bills - and current policies could push this to 50%.

In fact, Dave and George could do no better than to persuade the Lesbian-straightener to take his talents to the lonely world of lesbianism and confine his healing hands to good works there  - but perhaps the DPP has other ideas - one can but hope!

Alas, I fear that all this good advice has come to nothing.  According to Fraser Nelson at The Coffee House today, the decision has been made - keep on borrowing:

Evaporating growth means lower tax revenues, so the choice is between protecting his deficit reduction plan or keeping total spending cuts at less than 1 per cent a year.

Increasing savings to, say, 1.3 per cent a year would mean he could easily meet his deficit targets. But it seems the decision has been taken to borrow even more.

It now looks as if Osborne will increase debt by even more than that 51 per cent. Tax revenues are disappointing (corporation tax is down 7 per cent last month, against the 14 per cent annualised rise the Treasury was expecting), so this means more cuts or more debt. The government's language very much suggests that, like its predecessors, it's choosing more debt.

The next time you hear 'Blinky' sobbing - apparently he cries a lot, he tells us, at musicals like 'The Sound of Mucus' - about the ravages of vicious cuts in government spending, remind yourself that in 10 of the last 12 months the government has spent more not less:

 

Climategate II explodes like an incoming Trident missile

My thanks to 'DM', my regular commentator, for the nod and wink that Climategate II has just exploded!  The first release of 'private' e-mails between the so-called 'scientific' HAFs (Hot Air Fanatics) was enough to hole them beneath the water-line and the subsequent rise in scepticism amongst both governments and people has been perceptible.  Now a second tranche has been released by some mysterious internet site in Russia.  At a quick glance it looks to be even more damaging than the first.  I will give you just a few examples to indicate the grossly unscientific attitudes of the 'scientists' involved but to keep track of the ongoing situation go to either of these two sites:

 http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/#more-51549

http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0/#comments

<3373> Bradley: I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year
“reconstruction”.

<3115> Mann:  By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year
reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that
reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc. [Michael Mann is a leader of the AGW movement] (Emphasis added, I think)

<2440> Jones: I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process  [Jones is the principle AGW 'scientist' at East Anglia UNiversity whose activities were cleared after an 'enquiry' conducted after the first release of e-mails.

<1939> Thorne/MetO: Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary [...] (Thorne, presumably, is from the Met Office - which you and I pay for!) 

Perhaps the most interesting knock-on, or knock-out, effect will be to the slippery codgers who conducted those so-called investigations.

"It's only just begun", as the old song has it!

 

The 'Hoover Dam' gives way!

Honestly my headline 'jokes' are getting worse!  I had better explain this one away before my American readers take to their rafts.  Tom Bethell in The American Spectator has brought to our attention a book that has quite literally been hidden from sight for 50-odd years written by a man who himself is what we might call today 'a blast from the past' - Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the USA from 1929 to 1933.  The fact that he was a one-term president is a confirmation, of sorts, of the generally held opinion that his was a failed presidency.  Personally, I know very little of the man, not least because he was over-shadowed by the 'giant' who replaced him, Franklin Roosevelt.

Be that as it may, I had no idea that he went on to live into his 90s and died as late as 1964.  Also, I had no idea that later in life he had written a book, which he constantly revised, on what he considered to be the colossal strategic errors of both Roosevelt and Chamberlain, amongst others, in the lead up to, and the waging of, WWII.  For reasons not explained, his heirs did not publish the book until now*.

Perhaps his most intriguing charge is against the Anglo/French decision to issue a guarantee to Poland, thus making WWII inevitable.  This is a tricky one and I would need to read his arguments carefully, not least, to ensure that he was not writing with the benefit of hindsight not given to the actors at the time.  He also attacks Roosevelt for offering, in 1933, diplomatic recognition to the communist government in the USSR.  In Hoover's view, apparently, both America and Britain should have stayed well clear and allowed the two monstrous regimes of Germany and Russia to destroy each other as they were bound to do.  Similarly, he is highly critical of Roosevelt's handling of the Japanese problem and his "contemptuous refusal" to consider the peace proposals of the Japanese prime minister which made war inevitable.

Tom Bethel's review is well worth reading and I think perhaps I must drop a few hints concerning the book as Xmas approaches!

* Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath
Edited by George H. Nash
(Hoover Institution Press, 920 pages, $49.95)

Scare stories to yawn at!

Funny, isn't it, well, not hilarious funny, I mean, peculiar funny, how the Great Experts of the World keeping issuing these dramatic reports telling us, in essence, that the end of the world is nigh.  And yet . . . and yet . . . they do have the naughty habit of missing out the good bits.

I am grateful to Indur M. Goklany writing in WUWT for spotting a rather large ommission in the recent Shlock-Horror report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) on the subject of extreme weather events.  To the unwary they do seem to be not just increasing in numbers but also in ferocity with a mounting death toll as a result.  That false feeling, of course, is due to the changes in international news coverage in this electronic age.  So, here, courtesy of Mr. Goklany, is a Shlock-Smiley report in graphic form showing that the number of deaths from severe weather events has fallen not risen:

'Who'da thunk it'?  Well, no-one, actually, if you relied on the IPCC report because they didn't bother to put it in!  Why am I not suprised?  I should add, of course, that none of that is the slightest comfort to those whose lives have been shattered by such calamities.

Deliberately missing out important bits of good news seems to be a habit with the IPCC.  For instance,you would think it important in a report on the impacts of climate change on agriculture to include the latest figures on agricultural yields.  Shrivelled up next to nothing, you might suppose.  Wrong:

Heavens to Betsy (or you might prefer a shorter more explicit version), if world yields are shooting up the graph why are people starving?  Ah, well, at that point you need to go to the "Governmental" part of the IPCC in which you will find the biggest collection of thieves, murderers, perverts and crooks outside of Broadmoor because, of course, it is politicians who cause spurious shortages.  Take the Hungarian dwarf, for example, although to be fair he is but one amongst many, he would throw the biggest hissy-fit you have ever seen if European protectionist tarrifs on agricultural produce were removed and exposed his pampered farmers to the real world and thereby allowed poor African farmers to earn a crust.

 

'We are the very models of modern Major-Generals' - all 48 of us!

As I have paraphrased W. S. Gilbert's famous song quite disgracefully here is his first verse in full - altogether now:

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news---
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

However, returning to my title, I am grateful to John Redwood and his diary for unearthing a few facts on the major-generals and their ilk.  In this era of so-called cuts he was curious to know how the armed services were coping as the Treasury sword carved its way through their massed ranks.  Well, if you are actually 'in the ranks' it's pretty uncomfortable with thousands of redundancies and the army now reduced to under 100,000.  But what about the officers' mess, he wondered, with my added emphasis throughout:

I asked how many Majors were needed to command the units of such an army, expecting to hear it was around 800, with each Major commanding about 120 people. I was told the army currently has  4700 Majors, or  six times what you might expect.

A Lieutenant Colonel typically commands a battalion of 650 people.  You would expect 150 of them in our slimmed down forces. Instead I was told we currently employ  1780, or 12 times the number you might expect. Indeed, you could form three battalions just of Lieutenant Colonels.

An army does need some senior staff officers. You might have thought we needed around 15, given the number of brigades. Instead, I discover we employ 580 Colonels, or 38  times what one might expect.

Still, I expect at the higher level there has been some really hard pruning - wrong!

We are a bit shorter of Generals. There are 6 full General officers, 9 Lieutenant Generals , 43 Major Generals and 170 Brigadiers. If a brigade is around 200o people, you might expect 50 Brigadiers. There is one senior officer for each battle tank, and around 8  Lieutenant Colonels for each tank.

I don't object to the Help for Heroes campaign but keeping superannuated Top Brass in the style to which they have grown accustomed is not something I wish to support.  And anyway, in recent years it's not as though they have proved themselves to be particularly good at what they are supposed to do.

Dave 'n' Barry through the looking glass

Now be honest, is it any wonder that I'm confused?  And, no, it's not just because I'm on old geezer, I think even a smart young graduate (do we produce any these days?) would find the current situation as exemplified by our 'glorious leaders', either 'over here' or 'over there', exceedingly puzzling.  As far as 'over here' is concerned I am pleased to announce the birth of a new political party - the New Lib-Dem-Labour party which now runs our 'septic Isle'.  The 'Old Labour' party is, of course, no more.  It has been reduced to a sort of junior leaders training camp run by UNISON.  The only interesting thing about it, as their temporary leader gulps and gawps his way around trying to look and sound older than 14, is whether or not 'Blinky' Balls will start one of his usual subversive campaigns to denigrate his wife's ambition to be the new leader.  The divorce hearing should be a sell out!

Meanwhile, the New Lib-Dem-Labour government pursues its socialist goals.  A few weeks ago it was learned that the Treasury would, as it were, 'go into business' - well, it has such a proud reputation! - by taking over the duties of the banks and lending money directly to businesses.  Any doubts that the mandarins can actually read a balance sheet should be dismissed immediately and the notion that some smooth-talking spiv could pull the wool over the eyes of a fully-trained civil servant with a Double First in Media Studies from Hull University is nonsense.  Already flushed with the prospects of becoming bank manager to the country, the New Lib-Dem-Labour party are now set to become our national mortgage lender-of-last-resort.  Having a bit of a prob raising the 20% deposit to buy a new house?  Easy, just tap up one of Dave's local mortgage managers and he'll see you right.  And let's just be clear about one thing, the evil (evil, I tell you!) actions of irresponsible bankers in lending zillions to people who couldn't even raise a decent deposit is absolutely deplorable and should not be confused by Dave's wonderfully wise benevolent policy aimed at invigorating the moribund housing market.  So that's alright, then!  Sorry, what was that?  What's happened to the Tory party?  I'm not too sure but I just met this mad hatter who tells me it has disappeared down a rabbit hole of infinite length in pursuit of some neutrinos rumoured to move faster than light!

Meanwhile 'over there', appearances are equally deceptive, according to Victor Davis Hansen at PJMedia - and my thanks to Malcom Pollack for pointing me in the right direction.  Poor Mr. Hansen finds himself in not so much a hall of mirrors as a veritable gallery of distorting reflections.  He characterises Barry's mind as an "imaginarium", that is, a place in which is, is not; and what is not, is; and vice versa, and so on ad infinitum!  And I think I'm confused!  But you can't blame the poor chap, as he explains:

Those who now vote against raising the large Obama debt ceiling are political hucksters and opportunists; those who not long ago voted against raising the smaller Bush debt ceiling were principled statesmen. “Unpatriotic” presidents borrow $4 trillion in eight years; patriotic ones we’ve been waiting for can trump that in three.

Catching known terrorists and putting them in Guantanamo is very bad; killing suspected ones by drone assassinations — and anyone unlucky enough to be in their general vicinity — is exceptionally good. Tribunals, renditions, preventative detention, and all that were bad ideas under Bush-Cheney, but could become good ideas under Barack Obama, the law professor who often sees no need to follow the law when an immigration or marriage statute is deemed regressive.

And then there is this:

Twenty-four months of a Democratic Congress, and over $4 trillion in spending, resulted in 9.1% unemployment and near nonexistent growth. Yet the culprit for the current situation is ten months of a Republican-controlled House that has yet to approve another $500 billion of borrowing. In the imaginarium, just a little more of the massive amount that has failed will not fail. But if the Republicans are to be blamed for not wanting to waste the last half-trillion, are the Democrats to be praised for borrowing the first wasted $4 trillion?

There is more and I urge you to read it.  meanwhile as I sit here wobbling my lips with my fingers as I play with my yo-yo it is a small comfort that 'over there' Mr. Hansen is probably doing the same!

 

This is written through gritted teeth!

I am quick enough to quote Kevin Myers when, in his usual attack-dog style, he writes something which comfirms my prejudices so, although I had to sleep on it before I decided, I am duty-bound to reprint this from his column in the Irish Indpendent despite my loyalty:

FIRST things first: 40 years ago, the Parachute Regiment had become state-authorised killers in Northern Ireland. According to David McKittrick’s indispensable volume ‘Lost Lives’, the Paras killed 39 people between 1971 and 1976. Only seven of these were paramilitaries: but one of those, Joe McCann, the Official IRA leader, was gunned down, unarmed, on a May Saturday afternoon.

The death toll of 33 unarmed victims killed by the three battalions of the Parachute Regiment is more than that for hundreds of battalions of the rest of the British army and Royal Marines combined.

That’s the bloodied tip of the iceberg; what these figures don’t show were the Paras’ regimes of terror and brutality within the areas they governed.

Young men were routinely beaten by Para patrols. Hundreds of working-class houses were wrecked in random retaliatory raids.

They were a disgrace to the British army and a joy and a delight to the Provisional IRA, for which they were a major recruiting sergeant.

I didn't serve in Northern Ireland (thank God!) and I simply do not have the facts to dispute Myers's (and McKittrick's) assertions and before doing so I would need to read all the details of each and every event.  However, from my general knowledge, and it galls me to write this, I would not be surprised if much of what he says is true.  I remember trying to explain to my son at the time of the notorious 'Bloody Sunday' incident that the Paras should never have been deployed in that situation.  Urban peace-keeping is simply not something that is suited to their ethos and their training.  They should have been deployed out in the countryside in what would have been more of a soldiering activity rather than acting as 'peace-keepers'.  Indeed, the very use of a such a word applied to them is an oxymoron!  It is at places like Goose Green that you need their particular 'qualities', not in the centre of a highly sensitive civilian/military hot-spot requiring tact and discretion.  Neither of those words figure highly amongst Paras, certainly not amongst the 'Toms' and not even amongst the officers who are, if anything, more gung-ho than anyone.

However, whilst there is undoubtedly some truth in what Myers writes you will find a visit to this particular site will set the balance more evenly, particularly the very first entry describing the selfless bravery of Sgt. Michael Willets, 3 Para, who was awarded a posthumous George Cross for saving civilians from death and injury:

 http://www.palacebarracksmemorialgarden.org/Northern%20Ireland.htm

 ADDITIONAL:  Don't miss Lawrence's 'swing the lamp' tale in the comments below!

 

This is a 'MUST READ'!

No, not me, I mean Niall Ferguson at The WSJ.  He has stepped into Dr. Who's magic telephone box and shot forward in time.  He returns to us now and brings news of the United States of Europe (USE) some ten years hence.  A colourful cast includes such worthies as German Chancellor Reinhold Siegfried von Gotha-Dämmerung, Austrian Chancellor Marsha Radetzky and the new prime minister of Poland Radek Sikorski.  Apparently David Cameron is enjoying his fourth term in office because having had his arm twisted up his back by Tory euro-sceptics he reluctantly gave in to a referendum which utterly destroyed Labour and theLibDems who campaigned on the slogan "Yeah to Europe".  Give it a read, it's worth it.

Bullshit baffles brains!

Forgive my use of an old army expression but here is a perfect example of it.  As Mark Bathgate points out at The Coffee House, on Thursday 'Mili the Moocher' was moaning about 'Scrooge' Osborne cutting viciously into government spending and thereby ruining us all but a quick glance at this chart proves that he was, as usual, gobbling nonsense like a Xmas turkey:

As Bathgate makes clear:

The European Commission estimates that the UK is likely to have the second largest growth in government spending of any of the EU’s 27 members this year, clocking in at a robust 1.5 per cent increase for the year.

And as everyone and his uncle knows, all this extra government spending has achieved nothing, zilch, a big fat zero!  Do 'Mili' and 'Blinky' really believe that even more government spending will make things better?

And amidst all the shrieking and wailing over those 'very naughty boys' round the Mediterranean who have built up enormous deficits, no-one in the UK seems to have looked in a mirror recently.  Guess who has the second biggest deficit in Europe:

How long will it be before those roughnecks in the dealing rooms decide to give us a slap?  Not too long, I hope, because I am depending on those red-bracered ruffians to keep these inept public schoolboys who 'run' our country today at least partly honest.

Well, a man can hope, can't he?

 

A demagogue or a Churchill?

You choose after you have viewed this.  Sorry if I am rather late with it, I gather it has now 'gone viral' on the internet.  Still, if you haven't yet seen it, I urge you to do so.

Cameron really is a complete waste of oxygen

So what was that all about, then, Dave?  Breakfast in Brussels yesterday with a Eurocrat glove-puppet called 'Rumpy-Pumpy' and then off to Berlin for tea with the 'Kaiserin' who at least had the good manners not to keep glancing at her watch and tapping her 'Rosa Klebb' squared-toed shoes.  Even so, the whole script-written episode was about as exciting as oneof those afternoon soaps on the Telly.  Could there have been a more blatant example of the obvious truth that Britain is a peripheral factor in Europe, a bit-part player of no particular interest to the leading players in this drama.  Cameron came across as an Osric in a performance of Hamlet.  Osric is the smooth but dimwitted, foppish courtier who arranges the deadly duel between the main protagonists in this tragic drama.  Shakespeare put him in right towards the end to provide a brief moment of humour before the killing begins.  Osric is, quite literally, inconsequential, just as Dave was yesterday.

If anyone doubted our complete lack of influence after yesterday they need their bumps felt!  And yet still the dreamers, like Clegg & Co., drone on about how important it is that we sit at the top table and 'let our voice be heard'.  Let me spell it out - THEY ARE JUST NOT INTERESTED!  And anyway, another thing the Euro-dreamers still fail to understand is, THEY DON'T LIKE US!   I can't say I blame them.  This entire 'Euro-thingie' is, er, European, and we are not!  Well, we are partly, but not wholely, because we have other interests.  We are Atlanticists and we are global!  That means that we are and always will be semi-detached.  I just wish the politicians and the 'Ministry for Europeans' (that is the new name for what used to be the 'Ministry for Foreigners', otherwise known as the Foreign Office) would, to use the current jargon 'get real'.  I haven't read the papers yet this morning but if they fail to throw rotten veg at Cameron for wasting his time and making this country look even more second-rate than it is, then they are failing (again) to do their job.

 

Alright, alright, so I've never heard of Lou Reed, OK?!

I had better explain.  I may have mentioned this before but I have some strange habits in bed at night - no, no, not that sort, behave!  I sleep with an ear-piece with talk radio, usually BBC Radio5, burbling gently in my ear.  I developed this habit a few years ago when sleepless nights and chasing the thought circle became irritating.  Now, I sleep blissfully through most of it but from time to time I wake and catch part of whatever is going on before I fade away again.  The other night I came to when Dotun Adebayo, the overnight presenter, was asking listeners for tracks to go into his 'Jukebox 100'.  Someone mentioned Lou Reed and my first thought was 'Lou who?'  The name of the track was Walk on the Wild Side but already I was sinking back into the arms of Morpheus, however, as soon as that bass line started up and Reed's lived-in voice began I was awake again in an instant but, dammit, they only played an extract and ever since I have had it going round and round in what passes for my mind.  Anyway, today I found myself in Yeovil and remembered that there was an HMV shop.  Upon entering I asked the young man assistant, whilst trying to ignore his extraordinary haircut and the sundry bits of metal embedded in his ears, whether he had ever heard of some singer called Lou Reed?  He was about to roll his eyes in that irritating manner the young have developed solely for the purpose of putting down middle-aged elderly fogies like me, when he remembered his training and assured me that indeed he had heard of him and took me to a rack of CDs most of which were Lou Reed's output.  "Crikey," I stammered, "is he well known?"  Once again his training kicked in although I suspect the entire staff will be howling with laughter in the tearoom during their break.  Anyway, with as much dignity as I could muster I paid for a double album and left.

I must say that Walk on the Wild Side is a terrific number and I can't think what has kept me so busy and occupied since 1972!!! when it was first issued that meant I had never heard of it.  I like Reed's style but I don't rate him as one of the great singers, not least because he rarely if ever sings!  He tends to narrate his lines but as his deep baritone voice has an enormous amount of character in it I can listen to it for a long time.  I am not sure how much he has to do with the backing to his songs but whether it is him or someone else, they are nearly always first-rate.

Best of all, I have achieved a new first in my marriage.  I played one of the CDs to the 'Memsahib' and she has been smiling ever since; reckons it's the best music album I have ever bought.  (Dinner should be good tonight!)  Anyway, it is a truth universally acknowledged, and proven yet again, that you never stop learning.

 

Cancel Saturday - The Killing begins again!

Look, don't even think about going out, and cancel the party immediately, unless of course, you are one of those frightfully smart people (modesty forbids and all that) to whom 'Rupe' has kindly (er, he is kind, isn't he?) donated one of those 'magi-do-flicker-box-thingies' which record anything and everything backwards, forwards and even sideways, because Forbrydelsen is back!  No, no, that's not some new strain of flu, this is the Danish crime series on BBC4 starring  Sofie Gråbøl as Insp. Lund, a slim, slight, lady detective with the unstoppable momentum of a Chieften tank in top gear!  The great question which has kept middle-aged elderly men awake at night all through the summer and autumn is whether or not she will wear a different Nordic sweater in this series.  Actually, there is an even greater question which is whether it is possible for the producers and writes to come up with a series anywhere near as good as the original? My fingers and toes are firmly crossed!

 

But will the 'nasties' shrivel under the gaze of the mutitude?

In my previous post I speculated on the rise, or not, of the 'nasties', that is, those glib demagogues capable of leading a mass movement into mischief - or murder - depending!  Of course, I look back and think immediately of Lenin and Hitler.  One interesting facet shared by both of them was that they never led a majority party until they had seized power.  It was only necessary for them to win over a sizeable minority, just big enough to lever open the doors to power.  However, to remind you that it was a very different world back then is to state the 'bleedin' obvious' in capital letters!  Today, there are forces at work which the demagogues of old never had to face.

I have been made all too aware of this by the current campaign for the Republican party presidential nomination.  It has been a classic example of an election campaign in this 21st century.  Under the unblinking eyes of the TV lenses the various candidates have endured a seemingly endless series of debates with each other until they must yearn for the good old days when all they had to do was kiss a few babies and make the same speech 100 times at differnt cities.  I have almost lost count of how many of the presidential hopefuls have led the race in the opinion polls only to falter under the combined attack of the MSM and the internet.  They wriggle like lab rats but there is no escape and bit by bit their flaws are exposed.  It's a rough and ready business but no-one can deny its efficacy.  In fact, post-Obama (especially post-Obama), perhaps it is dawning on more and more people that there are no perfect men - or women - and dreams of a great saviour, dare I say - The One - must be confined to Disney and/or The West Wing!  If indeed that is a lesson that has been learned it is one of great importance indicating, as it would do, that the public, or some of them, are beginning to understand politics.

 All this makes life exceedingly difficult for the evil demagogue who must share with the ordinary 'scurvy politicans' the unrelenting investigation and questioning of every part of their lives with any exposed faults sent round the globe at the speed of light.  However, even if I am right, that still leaves the ground, or at least, the undergrowth, free for the outright terrorist 'nasties' to chance their arm.  Oddly enough I do not fear them in general terms because the sophistication of modern security techniques gives the advantage to the authorities which is why no terrorist organisation has ever succeeded in over-throwing a western government.  There is a possible exception to this comfortable view and that is the possibility that one of these days some group will lay hands on chemical or biological weapons but even in that desperate case it is unlikely that a handfull of fanatics will overthrow a state.

So I leave you with a surprisingly comforting conclusion, albeit, a somewhat depressing one.  I don't think the 'nasties' will take over but that means we shall have to put up with the incompetent, lying liars we have at the moment.  Oh God  . . .

 

Will populism become, er, popular?

I ask because it is sort of taken for granted that when the euro finally collapses, or when the sub-German (I use the term advisedly as well as ironically!) peoples finally grow sick of 'ze German vay', then the 'nasties' are likely to come out of the woodwork.  By 'nasties' I mean those ranters who, unlike all the current politicians and technocrats who seem to have failed to find a solution to the woes of life, have an all too obvious and glib answer for everything.  And their solutions often have a new ingredient which somehow by-passed the old-style politicians like, for example, blaming and then killing all the Jews, or, blaming and then killing all the bourgoisie! 

However, Daniel Korski over at The Coffee House rather doubts that these 'nasties' will appear this time.  He suggests that we are simply re-running old scenarios and projecting them into the future.  And he points out that even back in the 'bad old days' of the 1930s recession/depression, the 'nasties' never made much headway in Britain or America.  In modern times, the Japanese have suffered through a 10-year period of stagflation without the political scene being disturbed unduly.  Der Spiegel is becoming very excited by a gang of vicious terrorists who certainly had murderous ambitions but then again, every few years Germany manages to produce yet another group of anarchist thugs to the point where it is now looking like a traditional minority sport!  In Spain the election, to be held this weekend, seems to be proceeding without too much heat - or light, come to that - and the Conservatives are likely to take their turn at the tiller and prove to be as helpless as their Socialist predecessors.

Anyway, Korski remains unfazed:

If the Euro crashes it will have profound effects on European politics. But in our modern, interconnected world I can't see a repeat of the 1930s and even think the EU — and the single market — would survive the Euro's demise. For now, the fears of a ‘populist’ wave seem exaggerated.

Well, I hope he's right but personally I am more doubtful.  We have only just begun.  The Greeks, the Spanish and the Italians are going to face a decade of hardship - and I do mean 'hardship'!  And everyone will suffer, from the elderly with their pensions slashed to the educated youth with no job prospects.  Perhaps Korski should have looked across the Mediterranean to see what has happened there during this year rather than looking back to what happened in the '30s.

 

It's nice to know that the Kennedy family tradition runs on

That's a tradition of graft and corruption, of course, which began with good ol' Joseph P. Kennedy who by a variety of means both fair and foul managed to become one of the richest men in America.  Then there was his son, Edward 'Ted' Kennedy, a man who couldn't draw a straight line if he tried, and not just because he always had a glass in one hand and a dame in the other!  And now today we have Robert Kennedy Jnr., the nephew of President Kennedy who, according to Breitbart, has his hand in Obama's back pocket, or to be precise, the American tax-payers' back pocket.

Kennedy Junior owns a company called BrightSource which, if it operated as its name implies as being a source for huge amounts of Federal cash, would be very 'bright' indeed.  However, like all the best scams around today, BrightSource is a solar panels company, you know, folks, the people who assure you that sunlight is free and all they need is a few zillion bucks to make it pay!  According to a book, written by Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer:

In 2010, BrightSource, whose largest shareholder is Kennedy’s VantagePoint Partners, was up to its eyes in $1.8 billion of debt obligations and had lost $71.6 million on its paltry $13.5 million of revenue.

So how lucky was Kennedy when one of his partners, Sanjay Wagle, was instrumental in 2008 in raising 'loadsa' money for Obama's election fund?  Then, guess what?  In 2010 the Good Fairy touched Mr. Wagle on the shoulder with her magic wand and, lo and behold, he was appointed by the White House to the Dept. of Energy advising on - yes, you guessed - energy grants! 

Ironically, in 2008, Kennedy wrote a CNN article praising Obama as reminiscent of his famous father and uncle.  The article, titled “Obama’s Energy Plan Would Create a Green Gold Rush,” proved prophetic. However, the “green gold rush” came in the form of $1.4 billion of taxpayers’ money flowing into the pet projects of rich venture capital investors like Kennedy, not average citizens.

Now I'm not one to rub it in to my 'cousins over there' but could I just repeat that amount - $1.4 billion - that's, er, - $1.4 billion, in case you didn't see it first time round because your eyes had welled with tears!  Still, my American readers can console themselves that it was money going into "a green jobs creator".  Indeed, it was but using the very best employment figures offered by the company it works out, a ccording to Breitbart, at about $1 million per job!

Look, it's no good you brandishing that Colt .45 at me, you voted these rascals in, and, to be honest, I've got my own problems with this lot 'over here'!

 

My new best hero - Jens Weidmann

Alright, I know he doesn't look like Superman or James Bond but he is the 'real deal', the man who is going to save the world, or at least, the European bit of it!

Photo DPA

He is, of course, the President of the Bundesbanke and rather like his brave predecessors who fought so tenaciously to hold back the Soviet armies in 1944/5 he is conducting what must seem to him to be a single-handed battle to keep the Euro-pols honest.  According to Der Spiegel:

Politicians still hadn't done their homework, the Bundesbank president said critically. He assigned the blame for the crisis of confidence in the euro zone to politicians and said that they were jeopardizing the central bank's independent position. And then came the statement without which no German monetary watchdog can complete an appearance. The ECB, Weidmann said, has only one purpose, namely "to keep prices stable."

He has taken on not only just about every political leader in Europe - and Obama in the States - but also many of his collegues who sit on the board of the ECB by refusing to allow the ECB to buy up anything but a minimum amount of national bonds issued by the likes of Greece and Italy.  Part of the reason why the Italian government succumbed to market pressure last week was because the ECB only bought a derisory amount of Italian bonds in a futile attempt to keep the yield below 7%.  However, even changing governments is beginning to look as futile as the sticking-plaster remedies tried so far because yesterday the markets moved ominously against not only 'the usual suspects' but also, as The WSJ reports, against Austria, the Netherlands, Finland and France!

For months, a worst-case scenario of European policy makers has been that the crisis, born in heavily indebted countries, would infect otherwise healthy countries at the heart of the monetary union. Tuesday's trading suggests that could now be happening. If investors go on a buyers strike of European debt, that could raise borrowing costs, and eventually threaten the solvency of much of the euro zone.

However, our brave new hero is not only faced with a fight to his front against the massed ranks of the Euro-pols but also to his rear from his own leader, 'Kaiserin' Merkel, herself!  She has dithered consistently since this calamity first began but having seen for herself that sticking-plaster solutions simply are not working she has, according to another story in Der Spiegel, taken a truly momentous decision.  She intends to change that Holy of Holies to the German people, the Constituion, otherwise known as The Basic Law.  The purpose is to move the euro-zone countries into a single financial area:  

Now, it looks as if Merkel herself may order an overhaul of the German constitution. At the party conference of the chancellor's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) which commenced on Monday morning, Nov. 14, it is expected to approve a plan that could change the face of Europe -- and perhaps make it necessary for the Germans to rewrite their constitution.  

This operation to amend the constitution has already become one of the government's most delicate political initiatives. If it succeeds, it would remove one of the euro's biggest problems: The 17 euro-zone countries have a common currency but do not have a common finance policy, a fact which partly explains why the euro is teetering at the edge of an abyss. This is tackled in the key sentence of the new paper. "We need more Europe in key policy areas," it says.

If she succeeds, Europe will be changed irrevocably.  She intends to impliment her policy in two stages:

As a first step, they want to amend EU treaties to allow notorious debtors in the euro zone to be placed under mandatory supervision by Brussels. [My emphasis]  They aim to make the Stability Pact more binding in the future. That would mean the European Court of Justice could take action against budget offenders. If necessary, even a Brussels cost-cutting commissioner would be able to keep budget offenders on a short leash.

'Ve haf veys of making you behave'!

As a second step, Merkel and Schäuble want the EU to move towards becoming a political union. This entails transferring more sovereign rights to the EU -- and it would mean amending Germany's constitution. This could either be accomplished under Article 23, requiring a two-thirds majority in Germany's federal parliament, the Bundestag, as well as the Bundesrat, the upper legislative chamber that represents the states -- or, as a more challenging alternative, under Article 146 of the constitution, in other words, through direct participation by the people. Article 146 is a tool that allows for the drafting of a new constitution following a national referendum.  [My emphasis]

Got in Himmel!  A German referendum on Europe?  'Dave' won't like that if it happens because there is no way that he could then refuse one here.  Incidentally, I notice that 'Irrelevant Dave' has gone off round Europe to give the benefit his opinion to 'Merkozy & Co', none of whom will be the slightest bit interested.  In fact they are more than likely to have their existing irritation with Britain increased by receiving unwanted advice from their 'semi-detached' neighbour.  Gideon Rachman of The FT points to yet another example of anti-British feeling throughout Europe when he attended some 'European 'gabfest' attended by 'the Great and Good of the Project': 

I was surprised by how much anger there was directed at Britain.  This seemed a bit odd to me, given that Britain did not cause this crisis and is not part of the euro-group.  But there was much denunciation of us, for not taking part in the bail-outs, for blocking a transaction tax and for generally being a haughty pain in the neck.

Well, I am even more surprised that a seasoned observer like Gideon Rachman is surprised at European hostility.  I never get to attend all these grand meetings held here and there in the capital cities of Europe but I realised long ago that dislike of the British (and the Americans) is endemic across Europe.  I don't blame them, I don't like the Brits all that much either, but surely the insiders must recognise it and take it into account.  I mean, 'Irrelevent Dave' surely doesn't think he can use his Old Etonian charm on 'Merkozy' to any effect.

Anyway, in this particular Danse Macabre the music is playing faster and faster and soon it must end with a crashing, smashing, finale - take cover!  And in the meantime, let us send out very best wishes to my new Aryan hero, Jens Weidmann: Kampf gut, mein Freund!

 

Singing in the bath!

Well, it was as close as I could get to Gene Kelly's magical dance sequence when he was, literally, Singing in the Rain.  They showed it on the 'telly' over the weekend and once again I was entranced.  I think of Gene Kelly as the dancing equivalent of George Gershwin; they were both men who took their commercial creativity into the classics.  The story, of course, is a load of delightful old tosh and perhaps the lack of even a slightly dark thread is the reason I don't rate it quite as highly as some other musicals - Gigi or Caberet, perhaps.  Even so, the choreography by Kelly is a work of genius.  The apparent simplicity of the Singing in the Rain sequence is a living, dancing, singing proof of the old adage that the essence of good design is simplicity.  Apparently, Kelly danced that sequence over two days of filming with a temperature of 103 degrees!  And poor old Donald O'Connor was hospitalised after his Make 'em Laugh number which still amazes even after this amount of time.  Poor little Debbie Renolds, who before the film was a trained gymnast not a dancer, ended one sequence of filming with bleeding feet.  The three of them were perfection but I cannot leave out Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont, the dreadful screechy blonde caught out by the invention of 'talkie' movies.  According to Wiki, the scenes in the film where both her talking and singing voice were apparently being dubbed by Debbie Renmold's character, in actual fact they were spoken and sung by Hagen herself.  Judged on that performance she was an excellent actress but she never quite made it to the big time.

What a truly great film, it remains in my list of Top Ten Films - along with the other 28!

 

Alright, if not a 'coupe d' etat' then 'force majeure'!

My e-pal, Ortega, in a comment thread, takes me to task for suggesting that the governments of  Greece and Italy have been overthrown by the EU hierarchy.  I can only point out that the two, democratically elected prime ministers of these two nations have, by diktat from Brussels (for which read: 'Merkozy'), been replaced by two former EU apparatchiks, Lucas Papademos and Mario Monti.  Neither of these men have ever stood for elected office.  In both cases, the governments, and the leading opposition parties, of the countries concerned were forced to accept these appointments by threats from Brussels either not to transmit the next agreed loan, or, to support a critical bond sale.  In both cases, the parliamentary parties concerned simply surrendered - but only for the time being - probably because none of them were too keen to pick up the poisoned chalice!  Neither of these two 'Gauleiters' intends to use parliamentarians in their cabinets, instead they are appointing their own 'techocrats' to take over the high offices of state.  Now, with the very greatest respect to my friend Ortega I think it is impossible to describe this as anything other than a take-over of parliamentary democracy.

I should make clear that I have absolutely no admiration for either of the governments concerned (or their predecessors) because in both cases they have behaved at best with gross irresponsibility and at worst with criminal negligence.  However, they were chosen by their own people and it is only the people concerned who have the right to throw them out.  Perhaps my description of the Brussels action as a "coup d' etat", with its military implications, was too exaggerated, but I would certainly call it the application of "force majeure".  Like all small steps to Hell it will be excused and explained and described as being done for the very best of good intentions but Hell is where it will end up.

For the moment, the Italian people are relatively quiescent not least because many of them were disgusted by the antics of Berlusconi and are glad to see him go.  However, they have yet to feel the EU fingers squeezing their throats.  The experts generally agree that Italy absolutely has to change its long-lasting - and much-loved - labour laws in which virtually nobody can be fired.  Various other social security blessings once handed down to them by governments eager to please will also be withdrawn and all of that will happen just as recession, or more likely depression, hits and unemployment rockets upwards.  The Italians might, just might, have taken this medicine from an elected government but does anyone, outside of Brussels, think they will take it from a foreign-appointed 'Commissar' acting, as the people know full well, on behalf of the  'Merkozy' interest?  I don't think so!

My question to Ortega is quite simple.  If (or perhaps,when!) this happens in Spain, how will he feel?

 

The considered view from 'The Ministry for Foreigners'

In today's Telegraph we have the considered and undiluted view of 'our man in the FO', Charles Crawford, actually he's ex-FO now but was formerly HM Ambassador in Sarajevo (1996-1998), in Belgrade (2001-2003) and most recently in Poland (2003-2007).  However, my legal advisors, Messrs, Whyte, Lippe & Tremblin, have advised that I should issue a Health Warning because reading his piece of unbelievably smooth, wrinkle-free tripe could be dangerous if you already suffer from heart or blood pressure problems!

Faced with the current crisis in Europe this ex-mandarin steals his advice from Cpl. Jones - don't panic and don't do nuffin'!  Had he been at the helm of the Titanic, no doubt this worthy would have advised playing with a straight bat and steering a straight course and for goodness sake pay no attention to the warning signs.

Reading this endless flow of utterly smooth and sophisticated policy options I realise that no where, not once, not even hinted at, is there any suggestion that we should simply walk!  We live in a global world in which information, which equals money, travels at the speed of light.  Out entire history is one of global trading not regional encumbrances, but this Grand Panjandrum insists that our future is irrevocably tied to this "German racket"!  And I know, don't ask me how, I just know, deep down in my guts, that he and his sort are the ones forever whispering into our government's collective ear.  The only slightly good news is that he gets a very well-deserved slapping in the comments thread.

 

How I tried to be a rat but failed because of Conan Doyle!

I am provoked to this post by a hero-worshipping essay in The Paris Review by Michael Dirda on the subject of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930).  I, too, loved the man but not for his famous Sherlock Holmes stories which I don't think I have ever read but for just one book, an early one by him, The White Company.

My mother was not a religious woman.  As an illegitimate (and subsequently the mother of yet another - me!) she no doubt felt the scorn and whips of the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk and probably for that reason she made no effort to inculcate Christianity into me.  (Although oddly enough, she kicked up when told that I was to be married in a Roman Catholic Church - 'I'll nae set foot in a Papist kirk', she muttered darkly until I spelled out a few home truths!)

So my admittedly rather dodgy morals were self-taught, or to be precise, they arose from my constant reading of Wizard and Hotspur comics in which mostly public school types, with a profound sense of honour, did amazing feats of bravery whilst maintaining at all times a lip stiffer than a rod of iron and accompanied at all times by a strict modesty which would allow of absolutely no boasting!  Then, aged 11, I attended my first 'big school' and the first book given to us for study was Conan Doyle's The White Company.  God, how I loved that book!  I even stole it - see what I mean about my dodgy morals?

However, the adventures of young Alleyne Edricson and his 'boss' Sir Nigel Loring enthralled me.  These were men of action and men of honour.  They had to kill in the English cause, the book is set in the Hundred Years War, but they did so to a strict code.  All idealistic clap-trap, of course, but inserted into the mind of a young boy it introduced notions of right and wrong such that, whilst I have committed many a wrong, I am at least ashamed of it and recognise it for what it is.

If any of you have young children or grand-children you could do them a great service by buying them a copy of this book for Christmas.

 

Ill omens

Regular readers will know, because not only do I not hide the fact I positively boast of it, that I am a regular listener to TOOOORKSPOOOORT radio.  I write it thus because it is usually growled out by a man with a deep voice speaking estuary English.  You can actually listen in if you follow the link I have provided and click on the appropriate area.  Should you do so you will rapidly learn everything you need to know about 'footie' - and wished you didn't know!  However, unlike listening to the BBC 'news' programmes you will not find yourself shouting obscenities at the radio as it sails across the room having been hurled by you.  Instead, you can listen to the nail-spitting diatribes of disaffected fans as they lay into this, that or the other owner/manager/coach/centre forward-down-to-goalkeeper/referee (delete as necessary).  The fact that you, personally, do not give a stuff about any of it actually leads to a sort of inner serenity, rather like those Buddhist nuts who sit around, cross-legged with fingertip to thumb tip, humming.  You cease to worry about all those despicable Euro-apparatchiks, our 'not-fit-for-purpose' government, the fact that the greatest defender of freedom in the world is slowly but surely going down the toilet and the looming presence of several trillion disciplined Chinese.  All you worry about is the state of Wayne Rooney's hairpiece!

However, I have noticed during their commercial breaks a very worrying factor indicative of our worsening economic plight, and that is the increasing number of adverts from the 'Shylocks', by which I mean, those companies offering short-term loans to the hard-up.  Now I know from personal experience what it is like to be hard-up.  The knowledge that bills must be met and the desperation because of the absence of money to pay them.  My mum, a working, single mother bringing up a child after the war, certainly knew all about it as I was dimly aware as a youngster.  I married and became a father whilst I was a private soldier in the army and, to make matters worse, when I transferred from the Paras I lost £2.12.6 a week in jump money which was about a quarter of my pay!  After the army I began my somewhat 'harum-scarum' career (don't laugh!) in which things were frequently very tight.  So, I know what families are going through today and how in sheer desperation they are likely to fall into the hands of the 'Shylocks'.  I am not suggesting that these companies are crooked or overly harsh because lending to unsecured creditors is the riskiest business in the world and they need high interest rates and charges to make it pay.  However, I would urge anyone approaching that predicament to seek good independent advice first before borrowing.  Better by far to cut, and cut deep, into your style of living rather than fall into the hands of the loan sharks.

 

A 'coup d'etat' has occurred without a shot fired - for now!

I give you, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Mario Draghi (ECB), Christine Lagarde (IMF), Jose Manuel Barroso (EU Commission president), Olli Rehn (his economic advisor), Jean Claude Juncker (PM of Luxembourg and head of the 17-state eurozone) and Herman Van Rompuy (EU 'President'), the gang of eight, or, if you prefer, the politbureau of  die Neue Frankenreich, the New Frankish Empire.  Actually, Fraser Nelson, in this week's 'Speccie' (no direct link yet), calls them the Frankfurt Group which is not unreasonable given that at the G20 meeting in Cannes, its officials wore badges identifying themselves as Groupe de Francfort (GdF), so we are not dealing with some secret cabal beloved of thriller writers and the loonies on the far Left.  These people are more or less open in their activities and it has been as clear as the smug smirk on Nick Clegg's face that in the last fortnight they were intent on toppling two democratically elected leaders - and they succeeded.    Now the posts are filled with two apparatchiks with absolutely no democratic mandate and whose actions are not tempered in the slightest by public opinion because they have absolutely no intention of ever appealing to it. 

That so-called 'Liberals-Democrats', like Clegg, Huhne and Cable, in this country could continue to extol the virtues of this European Union (if by union you mean being gripped by the throat and held) indicates to me that it is no longer sufficient to write off their delusions as idealism or lack of foresight, the only explanation is that they are actually in favour of this coup d' etat and all that it will, inexorably, lead to.  But where are those other supposed defenders of the 'working class', the Labour Left?  Here they have a prize example of 'working people' having their 'rights' attacked and, even worse, their pay and conditions ransacked by unelected appointees and they remain silent, unless you count the glotal gulpings of their leader as he strives, like an importuning beggar snatching at your sleeve as you pass, to get people to listen to what he has to say.  I mean, if you actually passed Ed Milliband standing on a soapbox you would be justified, I think, in saying, "Piss off, kid, and get yourself a proper job!"

We are in for testing times, not just us, the poor saps who are likely to be on the receiving end, but also our very own home-grown politicians!  Over the next year or two our so-called leaders are going to be forced into the most uncomfortable and, to them, distasteful position of having to take a clear decision.  Either we remain inside this budding Neue Frankenreich which, it is now clear beyond doubt, is run entirely for the benefit of Germany and France, or we get out.  There is, to quote a phrase beloved in certain circles, no third way.  Either you stand for British independence and democracy or you don't!  If you don't, then you must quickly learn to bend the knee to the Berlin-Paris-Brussels axis.  Our politicians must decide and they must be judged by their decision.

Careful readers will have noticed the ominous addition to my title, "for now", which is meant to suggest that the lack of shots being fired today will almost certainly not apply tomorrow!

Tommy Atkins R.I.P.

As regular readers know, I am not above a bit of larceny from OPBs (Other People's Blogs) when they write something witty or intelligent or moving, although I do try always to acknowledge the source.  However, on this, the most solemn of days, I will forego my petty thievery and instead urge you all to pay a quick visit, it should take no longer than two minutes which is entirely appropriate on this day, to Anna Raccoon's site and read her musings on The Unknown Warrior.  It is superb.

http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/requiem-for-tommy/

Tom Watson MP: A Big Fat Waste of Oxygen!

Intermittantly I have watched bits and pieces of James Murdoch's interrogation today by the parliamentary committee of which Tom Watson is the fat, smug, publicity-hogging, leading lady!  Alas, I couldn't listen to too much of it because young James Murdoch has a voice like a Dalek with a sore throat.  However, I caught part of Mr. Watson's effort and it was pathetic.  Having failed to even make Murdoch minor blink, he then produced what he thought was a deadly piece of evidence from his hat which consisted of a transcript of a conversation (supposedly confidential, so now you know how far you can trust Watson's word!) between Watson, himself, and some other supposed ne'er-do-well as they discussed yet another but absent ne'er-do-well.  Watson, who will not even have to wait until I die to be proclaimed the worst actor in the world, was quite incapable of reading this "mess of pottage" in a manner which would have made it understandable.  Even one of his colleagues had to interrupt to ask him to clarify who was saying what to whom!  Needless to say, Murdoch Jnr simply steamed on gently straight over the smug little podger without the slightest deviation in his course.  So utterly useless was Watson's 'interrogation'  that in the end he was reduced to likening News International to the mafia and accusing James Murdoch as being a member of this mafia bound by the rules of omertà.

He was so bad I actually felt embarrassed for him!

 

 

Bugger the Balkans!

To be fair (well, sometimes I try), I know very little of Sir Douglas Hurd but I do remember that he came in for a considerable amount of criticism for his real-politik approach to the recent Balkan imbroglio during which he stoutly refused to allow Britain to become implicated.  He took the view, apparently, that all Balkan problems are intractable and that outsiders should remain exactly that - outside!  I can remember sympathising with that view at the time even though it was causing problems with Bill Clinton who, between blow jobs, was all gung-ho for bombing the Serbs.  Anyway, there is a depressing but, I suspect, accurate report in The American Spectator by Doug Bandow confirming, in effect, the wisdom of Bismarck's famous saying that 'the Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier':

Yet a dozen years ago Washington bombed Serbia, which had neither attacked nor threatened any NATO member. Western nations which over many centuries fought bitter conflicts against the hint of secession went to war to support independence for the territory of Kosovo. 

The status of Kosovo, historically Serbian but with a majority ethnic-Albanian population, remains unsettled. Belgrade refuses to accept the amputation of 15 percent of its territory, Russia has blocked Kosovo's entry into the United Nations, and a majority of countries, including five of the European Union's 27 members, refuses to recognize Kosovo. Violence recently erupted in Kosovo's north, where the ethnic Serb majority remains loyal to Belgrade.

The ethnic Serbs 'trapped in northern Kosovo are defying their 'Albanian' government and demanding the right to be re-united with Serbia:

Although a U.S. diplomat called the Kosovo Liberation Army -- since charged with selling the organs of Serb prisoners -- "terrorists," the allies suppressed any squeamishness and lent the rebels their air force, bombing for 78 days and killing hundreds or thousands Serb civilians, possibly as many as the number of Kosovars who died in two years of guerrilla war before NATO's intervention. The Albanian majority then mirrored earlier Serb brutality by kicking out around a quarter of a million ethic Serbs, Roma, and non-Albanian Muslims. Earlier this year the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe admitted that the allied intervention had "led to numerous human rights violations and [had] not produced lasting solutions for the underlying problems." (My emphasis)

In other words, one bunch of unshaven, moustachioed rascals are as bad as another and anyone who interferes in their internecine - and interminable - disputes is simply wasting blood and treasure.  Mr. Bandow's excellent report leaves you shaking your head with wonderment at the folly and puffed-up pride of so-called statesmen both 'over here' and 'over there'.  Still, at least Lord Hurd comes out of it fairly well.

 

Hmmn - tricky one, this!

I give you:  Admiral of the Fleet. Lord Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS; or, Lord Louis to his friends; or, sir, to the likes of you and me!

His remarkable life was somewhat overshadowed by his hideous death in which he, and his 14-year old grandson, along with another young lad plus an octagenarian old lady, were all blown to bits by that fine body of mouth-droolers, the IRA, in 1979.  His daughter, son-in-law and other grandson survived but were badly injured.  I bring all this to your attention because my favourite Irish commentator, Kevin Myers, set off a fairly hefty bomb of his own under the admittedly ambiguous reputation of Mountbatten in a recent article.  The headline gives a clue:

Mountbatten -- a vile psycho killed by thugs

Blimey!  I claim absolutely no expertise in the life and character of Lord Mountbatten, however, my general reading of WWII history leaves me with the impression that whilst he cut a handsome and dashing figure on the wartime stage, he was not perhaps the brightest of the bright.  For example, you would have to travel the length and breadth of Canada and then you would almost certainly fail to find a single Canuck who has a good word to say for Mountbatten following the debacle at Dieppe in which thousands of Canadians died more or less uselessly.

However, Myers has obviously dug wider and deeper and his summary of Mounbatten is viciously destructive:

Firstly, the IRA gave Mountbatten the almost perfect death -- instant and without any pain, doing what he loved most of all; messing around in boats. What this vile man really deserved was to die in his own filth, which fate, of course, the IRA spared him. And secondly, his death ensured that he would remain an icon of imperturbable British heroism, instead of finally getting the reputation that he deserved; of being a vain, egotistical, inept, brutal and deceitful psychopath.

But Myers is not the only one.  In his Wiki entry, Mountbatten's biographer, Philip Ziegler, wrote this:

His vanity, though child-like, was monstrous, his ambition unbridled. The truth, in his hands, was swiftly converted from what it was, to what it should have been. He sought to rewrite history with cavalier indifference to the facts to magnify his own achievements.

I really must try and read some more on this monster, if that he be.

 

 

Degas disappointed

Without being in anyway an expert I have liked Degas's work since I was a teen-ager so I am sorry that the Royal Academy's current exhibition was a slight disappointment.  There were far too many of his working sketches which, whilst they no doubt have their interest for experts, are less so for non-artists.  Obviously, working in the rehearsal rooms amongst the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the dancers he had to work fast to capture the moment but even so the end result is hurried and only of technical interest, so to speak.  However, I do admire the fact that, whilst he did paint some 'pretty-pretty' pictures of the ballet dancers on stage in all their finery, he also painted plenty more of them 'at work', so to speak, in the rehearsal room.  I have written before on the almost unbelievable physical demands made on ballet dancers and to see these sketches and pictures of 'les girls' massaging their feet, stretching their backs, easing their shoulders and so forth is to witness rather private and almost intimate moments in their lives.  There were some finished pictures but not enough, although I do recognise the difficulty - and expense - of bringing a vast number of his paintings together.

However, all was made well by just one exhibit, this time a sculpture not a painting - The Little Dancer Aged Fourteen.

Sometimes I have been 'gobsmacked' at the incredible prices rich people pay for works of art but I have to tell you that were I a multi-zillionaire I would give almost anything to own this piece.  I walked through the rest of the exhibition fairly rapidly but at the sight of her I came to a dead halt and spent ages walking round and round in order to see her from every angle - in fact, the view of her back stretched into an arc by her arms is breath-taking, you can almost feel the muscle tension.  Also the intensity of the expression on her child-like face is beguiling beyond belief.  I love her!  I want her!  If you are a multi-zillionaire I want you to buy her for me - I mean, it's the least you can do for me, I reckon, in return for all these dazzling blog-posts I write for you!!

Before crossing Piccadilly to the Royal Acadamy we had lunch at The Wolseley which was terrific.  It really is the very best sort of London 'eaterie' with an elegant Edwardian feel to the place, lots of buzz and chatter, excellent service and above all superb food.  I had one of my favourites - calves liver, thin cut, pink in the middle - absolutely scrummy.  Only one slight disappointment when we were there, at a table to our right was David Frost and to our left was Stephen Fry and do you know, neither of them asked me for my autograph!  Typical of jealous, theatrical 'luvvies' - just because my stage reputation is fast outpacing theirs!  Sorry, didn't quite catch that  . . .

 

The next two days look bleak!

For you, that is, because I'm off to the big city today for lunch in a frightfully smart restaurant followed by a visit to the Degas exhibition.  If I have the energy tonight when I return I will try and tell you about it.  Then tomorrow I am back to my old theatrical area in Twickenham seeing various old mates and giving my Jutland talk to the local PROBUS club - poor devils - at least you can switch me off!  Try and bear up without me!

 

I demand the right to be offended!

Some further ramblings on the subject of offensive language.  If I knew, personally, a radical Muslim who called me, for example, 'a piece of white filth' I might, momentarily, be somewhat irritated but on consideration I would be glad because at least I would know for sure where we both stand in relation to each other.  I would find that infinitely preferable compared to knowing such a person but never being absolutely sure what he thinks inwardly.  Outright, even brutal, honesty is preferable to a Claudius-like ability to "smile and smile and be a villain".  Also, I want the liberty to be offensive, too - what do you mean, you noticed?! 

Needless to say, like all aspects of human behaviour in a civic society, such liberty must be constrained somewhat but in this case only by the laws of slander and the injunction against not inciting violence on the part of your supporters.  I stress that last phrase because if what you say leads to you receiving a punch in the nose, or a general brawl, then so be it and all parties to the dispute can explain their conduct to the judge on the basis of common disturbance of the peace laws.  However, if you incite your supporters to do violence then that moves the whole thing up into a much more serious level of illegal activity.

Also, I would like to dwell for a moment on the problem of differentiating between general dislike and particular dislike.  To give an example that arises from my previous post, I don't know John Terry personally, only through the sometimes distorting lens of the MSM but what I do 'know' from that I do not like.  So if I was to paraphrase his now infamous remark to a coloured opponent by telling him that, in my opinion, he was 'a footballing cunt', could that be construed as an admission on my part that I believe all footballers were despicable and detestable?  Would it indicate that I was, so to speak, 'football-ist' (which some of my rugby loving friends are!)  Well of course it wouldn't because I 'know' David Beckham in much the same way that I know John Terry, via the MSM, and what I know, faults and all, I like and admire.

When it comes to nations or ethnicities the problem of 'general' versus 'particular' likes or dislikes becomes more sensitive because of the political and/or the social history involved.  For example, many people I know, and even more I don't know, detest America and often express it by saying that they hate Americans.  Of course, they don't really hate each and every American, they are simply expressing a dislike for the political/social entity that is America.  In reverse, I like America which is definitely not the same as saying that I like all Americans!  Even so, there are some people who hate America and Americans and would like to see it and them obliterated and their language, being specific and 'particular', shows the difference between them and those with just a 'generalised' dislike.  Again, it is better for all concerned for them to say what they think and allow us to draw the appropriate conclusions.  In all of the above, of course, you may replace the words 'America' and 'Americans' with 'Blacks', 'Muslims', 'Russians', 'Jews', 'Icelanders', 'Jocks' or 'Martians' or whoever.  The main point is that it is better to hear what people 'think' rather than use the laws of the land to bottle up their thoughts so that none of us are aware of the malignancy growing in secret.

 

"Have you heard the one about the fat, black, quadraplegic lesbian . . . ?"

Have you noticed how, from time to time, certain topics come at you from all directions in a short period of time until you feel like that gloomy Dane complaining about "How all occasions do inform against me"?  For the last week or so I have been bombarded with 'Shlock-Horror' stories on the subject of s0-called 'racist' language.  It began with that well-known oaf, John Terry, in the middle of what everyone described as a heated and fiercely fought 'footie' match calling an opposition, mixed-race player a "black cunt".  Of course, it is a sign of my increasing old age that had I heard the quote first I would have assumed that the subsequent fuss and furore would have been over his use of a particularly ripe 4-letter obscenity, but no, that was perfectly acceptable, it was the use of the adjective 'black' that caused the outrage.  Again, being a pedantic old codger, who tries to use words carefully and accurately I suppose he should have been given a hundred lines because the target of his abuse was only half black!  Still, from a rhetorical point of view, one cannot expect total accuracy to impinge on the free flow of a really good rant, it would be like adding water to a particularly robust Burgundy.

Then overnight, yet another uproar has arisen over a remark which the BBC, with all the delicacy we expect from a broadcaster who allows a couple of highly-paid slobs to telephone 'on air' a grandfather in order to slag off his grandaughter, refused to repeat.  Apparently it emanated from the former caddy of Tiger Woods whilst receiving a faux-award for his exuberant celebration when, having been summarily fired by Woods after 12 years of excellent service, his new boss won a golf tournament and Woods did not.  Apparently, the caddy concerned, Steve Williams, received his 'award' at a celebration dinner and one can imagine, it being a sporting occasion, that the wine flowed freely.  In accepting the award, Williams, not apparently a man who forgives a slight easily, said, "It was my aim to shove it up that black arsehole."  Having learned from the Terry incident that expletives are no longer considered offensive I realised that to describe Mr. Woods as an "arsehole" was not the cause of the upset, again, it was the adjective 'black' which set off the uproar. 

The again yeaterday, in an exhange with quite possibly the most po-faced bunch of totally humourless zombies ever collected in one place, the fanatically zealous 'Greeny-Warmers' at Deltoid, one of them came back to me after I had suggested that they should try and get themselves a sense of humour and wrote: 

That's the same thing I hear from boors when they crack jokes about women, blacks, gays, the disabled, the obese ... in your case the butt of your jokes are science and reason.

To which I could only respond with the words that make up the title to this post:

"Have you heard the one about the fat, black, quadraplegic lesbian . . . ?"

Obviously, this word 'black' must be dealt with!  If left alone it could become a public hazard with members of the public injuring themselves as they faint each time they suffer the trauma of hearing or reading it.  I suggest this in a spirit of compromise because I know that the top item on the 'liberal' list of priorities is always to ban something or other.  Again, given their complete lack of humour the irony never occurs to them.

 ADDITIONAL:  With the sort of Pavlovian dog reaction one expects from liberal sites up to their armpits in double standards, my comment at Deltoid was censored.

ADDITIONAL, er, ADDITIONAL:  Apologies to Deltoid, apparently I wasn't banned, I was merely held in a sort of computerised 'clearing pen' whilst my words were carefully scrutinised and now they are published.  Well, hey, it's a liberal site.