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Notwithstanding my remark to regular commenter, 'Antisthenes', down below somewhere, that "I do the misery round here!", I can also do 'cheerful'. I am helped in this by a piece at The Coffee House by John O'Neill in which he quotes "Citi’s Michael Saunders, Coffee House’s favourite economist". Happily, me not being an economics swot, the whole thing is illustrated by a diagram:
There is a current worry, shared by me until now, that Osborne's success in growing the economy has been based on credit laxity. Not so, according to Mr. Saunders, a high-powered analyst with Citi who shows real GDP in the pink broken line compared to real credit growth in the blue line. You can see the effects of 'Brown & Balls, the Brokers Men', just before the crash of 2008 when easy credit had gone out of control.
Since then, according to Citi's research, private companies, along with individuals, have been busy paying down debt:
The ratio of household debt to income is back to 2003 levels, and the ratio of
companies’ bank deposits to debts is the highest for 50 years. Even first-time
buyers, when they get on the ladder, are only spending 11 per cent of their
income on mortgage repayments.
If companies begin to spend, particularly those that have been hoarding cash for the past few years, and if part of that spending goes on higher wages then maybe, just maybe, the Tories will reap some electoral benefit in 2015. Of course, they could help themselves by raising the income level from £41k before people have to start paying the highest level of tax - now that would go right into the pockets of their natural supporters!
Somewhere between 0.0 and -10, I reckon, based on my inability to even manage my postage-stamp sized garden. I suspect the 'Memsahib' would put it even lower! Thus, I am hardly in a position to say anything very meaningful on the floods that continue to inundate the Somerest Levels. However, I can guide you to the words of a man who should know quite a lot because he owns a Somerset farm, in fact, the farm on which the Glastonbury Festival is staged each year. In today's Mail he makes clear his withering contempt for the so-called Environment Agency which he accuses of being overly influenced by the worst sort of loony Greenies, that is, the ones whose ignorance is only exceeded by their fanaticism - those are my words, rather than those of Mr. Michael Eavis, the landowner in question. He puts it this way:
Honestly, the temptation to say, ‘We told you so’ is just about overwhelming, because those clowns at the Environment Agency certainly can’t say they weren’t warned.
We told them the Somerset Levels, or Moors as we locals call them, would flood again unless they restarted dredging the rivers 12 months ago, when the Moors were flooded by last winter’s heavy rain.
And we told them again, four months ago, when I helped launch a fund to raise the £4million needed to get dredging under way.
But the Environment Agency, increasingly influenced by the worst sort of Greenie 'groupuscles', as exemplified by that malignant organisation, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, had other, higher priorities.
Very soon, conservationists, naturalists and organisations such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds were the good guys and we farmers were the enemy.
As a result, the dredging was stopped and the money saved was diverted into conservation.
My estimate is that over the last two decades, the Environment Agency and related bodies have spent £40million on projects to encourage birds and other forms of wildlife on the Moors.
And now we’re seeing the consequences of those actions.
For more than 15 years, the rivers have been silting up and their flow rates have been falling – water- carrying capacity on the Tone and Parrett, for example, is said to be down by between a third and two thirds.
That’s a massive reduction and the result is inevitable.
Well, at least that swan looks happy, or happier than the people in the car at any rate!
Almost everything these Greenies get involved in is either mistaken, muddled, ignorant, useless or harmful. So why, oh why, does anyone take the slightest notice of what these buffoons screech about?
We all have 'egos', as the Freudians insist on calling our sense of self and the will to live. Alas, for some it so very small and fragile that suicide is their only escape. Happily, my ego is well above average in size which is more than I can say about other, er, 'accoutrements' of mine! Even so, as I bimble along in this life of mine there are moments when I am humbled, so to speak. For example, and I suspect this is very common with many people, on those occasions where I find myself out of doors on a cloudless night it is impossible not to stare at the stars and, as I remind myself that the swots insist that all we can see is but a microbe in the unseen grand totality of the universe, I am faintly irritated to be reminded that I am merely a speck!
A similar, but, shall we say, more fundamental example of our individual titchiness in the great scheme of things was supplied by Dr. David Grimes, courtesy of a link supplied by my e-pal, DM. The good doctor (and I really do think he is a very good doctor!) informed us all that:
We have seen in a previous post that we are only 10% human, that micro-organisms on us and in us outnumber human cells by a factor of 10 to 1.
Dammit, I have already been told by 'Archbishop' Dawkins that my only reason for existence is to act as a carrier for tiny blobs of chemical jelly which tells me constantly what to do - and no, I am not referring to the 'Memsahib'! But the good Doctor goes further and attacks one more very slight but, er, fundamental, reason for my ego to swell. (Sorry, the 'fundament' word-play will become clear as I go on but I should warn those of a delicate nature to proceed no further!) There is something enormously satisfying when one excretes a truly colossal poo! I remember a mate of mine in the army who produced a whopper of Olympic proportions and insisted that the whole platoon view it which we did with cries of congratulations and what are you going to call it?!
So on those rare occasions when I do better than average in that department it does provide a tiny addition to my ego, and thus, I was crushed, I tell you, crushed, when the good Doctor informed me that my poos are not my poos!
Most of the almost hundred trillion micro-organisms that inhabit our bodies live in the intestine. Not only are they by far the most numerous, also the most diverse and the least understood, but they seem to be of the greatest importance. Remember that about 95% of our faeces is composed of dead bacteria, with very little food waste. [My emphasis.]
What?! You mean I'm just some sort of walking, talking, mobile 'khazi' for a zillion bugaboos? I mean, is that it? Is that what my existence amounts to? Too, too humiliating! Well, I want a word with the manager of this outfit . . .
Yes, indeed, my titles become more and more obscure but stick with it, all will be revealed. I was tickled by the irony of reading a story on the BBC site reporting that the Australian prime minister had kicked ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Company) in the 'goolies' for being anti-Australian. Apparently he accused them of "taking everyone's side except Australia's". In an act of, er, 'Brotherly' unity, the BBC report repeated all the anti-Australian accusations being made plus plenty of quotes supporting the ABC by leaders of the opposition and the Green party. The only good news in it was a photo of the new acting-leader of the opposition Labour party, Ms. Tanya Plibersek:
Now, she is very attractive, definitely an improvement on that beaky-nosed cormorant who preceded her:
Even so, Ms. Plibersek has one final test before I can give my Imperial nod in favour - what does she sound like? 'Old Beaky' should have been had up for cruelty to the English language. I don't mind regional accents but that woman took every syllable out of every word and stretched them, twisted them and tortured them in order, I suspect, to sound 'authentic' having, I gather, been born in Wales. It's enough, I think, that we have to suffer with lisening to these socialist nincompoops gabbling nonsense but at least let it be in reasonably clear English!
So, today the situation remains the same here at D&N in that I am writing on a subject about which I know nothing - well, I wouldn't want to startle you all with some expertise! Anyway, I gather that 'little Georgie Moonbat' (lGM)is running a campaign against nice, cuddly 'sheepie-weepies' on account of their disgusting habit of eating anything that grows!
I am relying on Ms. Camilla Smith at The Coffee House for my information and according to her, 'lGM' wants all the sheep slaughtered (including all those lovely little baa-lambs that gambol so prettily for me as I drive past every morning on my way to the swimming pool!) but especially those that chew their way across the highlands of Britain. Apparently, 'lGM' wishes to return all that highland countryside back to Mother Nature so that trees will cover the hills again because, and this is his main point, trees and their roots soak up heavy rainfall better than anything! Well, given the flooding we have suffered this year I suppose, to quote the oft' chanted cry, 'something must be done'!
The problem is that the 'something' will be decided and implemented by government - yeeeeees quite! - and will be interfered with by Brussels. Perhaps the worst problem will be that the mouth-dribbling, swivel-eyed Greenies will push to have their say in what is decided and so you can absolutely depend on the wrong solution being applied.
I'm agin it! Why? Well, I, wisely, bought a house next to a church which has not been washed away in a thousand years, so stuff the rest of you even if you have to paddle a canoe from the sitting room to the kitchen! Second, and just as important, I love English lamb, in fact, I love to lower the car window as I drive past the gamboling lambkins and shout, "Spring lamb!" at them. So that settles the matter - end of!
"London: a nation not a city": Thus, wrote Disraeli and if he was right then he is even more right today. I stepped out of the Embankment tube station yesterday and walked over the Thames on the pedestrian bridge. The sun was shining and the view was simply superb. On the north bank were the neo-classical traditional London buildings and on the south were the first, not entirely successful, efforts at 'modernism' undertaken post WWII. In the middle distance was St. Paul's in all its pristine glory but behind was the fantastic (in all senses of the word) skyline of the new 21st century City of London. As I strolled along the South Bank on my way to meet 'SoD' I wondered again who in the past had been responsible for safeguarding that promenade and thus holding off the rapacious demands of the post-war developers who would have built right up to the water's edge. The tide being out, not the least of the delights is the sight of dozens of people people, including children, down on the muddy ground between the river wall and the river's edge scrounging for any interesting finds. If any of you find yourselves in London with time to kill, just stroll along the South Bank from the 'Eye' to the Globe and back again.
'Tate Modern' tits! Unfortunately, part way along you will have to pass the Tate Modern gallery which, if the IRA had lacked a target 'back in the day', I would have urged them to do their best-worst on it. It is a hideous building which looks more like an armoury than an art gallery. Most of the art in it is total tripe but, as in all things, there are the occasional exceptions of which the Paul Klee exhibition was a prime example of beauty inside a beast! Needless to say, we entered the fortress and whilst there were plenty of big posters advertising the Paul Klee exhibition there were absolutely none telling us where it was situated. A security guard pointed the way to the lifts and stairs leading to the first floor where, he assured us, we would find it. Arriving at that level, again we looked in vain for any sign to tell us where they were hiding his works and again we had to ask for directions. Do the people who run the Tate Modern have their heads so far up their arses that they never give a thought to the visitors? Needless to say, a huge collection box asking for £4 a head by way of charitable contribution to the gallery was prominently displayed - and determinedly ignored by me - tits!
Yet more 'tittery': The choice of paintings and the layout was superb because they ran from his early pre-WWI efforts as a young man through the inter-war period up to his death in 1940. Thus, you could see the way he experimented with different forms, how he analysed the individual elements that go into a painting - line, shape, colour, composition, texture and so on - until in his later years he brought them altogether in forms that delight and excite the senses. Looking at the very best of Klee's works is like looking at the universe, or looking at the world of sub-atomic particles. Each of the small linked galleries had works from different periods of his life and very large wall-mounted information boards giving background detail of his life at that time. Needless to say, the 'Tate tits' placed these by the entrance/exit between galleries so that the passage was filled with people trying to read the information and other people trying to get in! Anyway, yesterday was my Christmas present from 'SoD' and it was terrific!
'Dr. Dalrymple' knows best: And not only does he know best, he tells it better than most, as well! Here are three quotes via the good excellent offices of In Pursuit of Copiousness from his book "Our culture, What's Left of It":
"Many a man is the Macbeth of his own little world, and the measurement of evil is not the same as a body count."
"Those who think that an understanding of the double helix is the same as an understanding of ourselves are not only prey to an illusion but are stunting themselves as human beings, condemning themselves not to an advance in self-understanding but to a positive retrogression."
"... four centuries before neurochemistry was even thought of, and before any of the touted advances in neurosciences that allegedly gave us a new and better understanding of ourselves, Shakespeare knew something that we are increasingly loath to acknowledge. There is no technical fix for the problems of humanity. Those problems, he knew, are ineradicably rooted in our nature; and he atomized that nature with a characteristic genius never since equalled: which is why every time we moderns consult his works, we come away with a deeper insight into the heart of our own mystery."
Not 'Black Monday' but 'Interesting Monday': And in international financial affairs, 'interesting' is a more ominous adjective than 'black'! So-called 'emerging markets' like Argentina, Turkey, Brazil and India have seen their currencies take big hits and that caused the 'Noo Yawk' stock exchange to drop 310 points by Friday's close of business. The London market dropped 1.6% to its lowest for five weeks. This is the FTSE 100 which these days indicates global sentiment rather than the domestic British situation.
Ever wondered what an out-and-out liar looks like? Well here is a splendid portrait supplied by Fraser Nelson at The Coffee House:
Yes, not a pretty sight, I agree! But that is Ed Balls in the process of undoing your braces without you feeling a thing, until your trousers hit the floor and you stand their like a chump because instead of paying attention you were entranced by his honeyed words. Happily, Fraser Nelson exposes the deception by pointing out that raising the rate of tax to top earners produces less income not more. Thus, Balls' claim to reduce the deficit will take longer! Not, mind you, that he intends to reduce the deficit because when he talks of 'balancing the budget' he just means the regular, annual ins-and-outs of government spending. However, that does not include - dread word! - investment! Oh dear me, no; Ed Balls will continue to borrow like a loonie to build his own favourite icons and call them 'investments for the future' - yadayadayada!
'The Sound of Mucus' causes Dave to blackout! Well, that's how I read the headline in The Mail although what it actually said was:
Engineers sent to David Cameron's house after he suffered blackout while watching The Sound of Music -
Serves him right, I thought, anyone who volunteers to watch that load of nauseating old kitsch deserves everything they get. And, I wondered, what in the name of hell was our prime minister doing watching it, hasn't he got better, or at least more important, things to look at? But then I read the rest of the headline:
- as workmen battled to restore power to 11,000 homes in county
Oh, I see, you mean that sort of "blackout". I thought his eyes had rolled to the back of head and his little plump cheeks had puffed up as he fell off the sofa and 'Sam Cam', after refusing to give him the kiss of life and who could blame her?, had called on his protection officer to do his duty! But no, it was just that the lights went out and 'Dim Dave' had an excuse for his dimness!
Another 'must read' triple corker: If you enjoy history and if you enjoy Shakespeare then Neil MacGregor's book Shakespeare's Restless World: An Unexpected History in Twenty Objects is a 'must read'! As the title implies, he takes 20 fairly ordinary objects from around Shakespeare's time and sets them in the social, political and religious milieu existing then. I am only one third of the way through but already it has dawned on me just how important it was that theatres arose in which men and women, lords and commoners, could all share an experience and imbibe a world-view - literally when you think that Drake's circumnavigation took place in 1577-1580 and the implications were quickly picked up by the playwrights of the time, especially Shakespeare. Treat yourselves to the book and learn much effortlessly from Mr. MacGregors elegant writing style.
No more rumbles
Off to the Big Bad City to see the Paul Klee exhibition. Here are a few examples to start your day with delight:
'See' you tomorrow!
This would be a blood-fest of epic proportions and I for one would pay good money to sit ringside. According to Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, he has received a fascinating letter from 'a reader'! It is addressed to 'Taki' Theodoracopulos, the 'zillionaire' author of the Spectator's High Life column.
‘Dear Ms Taki [sic],
Although the Spectator is a lovely read, I always skip your column, I’m afraid.
I am simply not interested in your social life. I know that you delight in telling readers that your friends of Prussian nobility find you hilariously entertaining company at their swanky Europoncy parties.
But it was very hapless of you to spring to Nigella’s defence last week, as she always found you toe-curlingly vile, and would have been aghast at having you as her valiant supporter.
People tell me that in your unreadable column you also like to brag that you are a Black Belt at karate. Well, me too, old boy. But apparently your ‘fights’ are genteel affairs, against other soppy geriatrics rolling around the floor in crisp white outfits, in some bit of judokai nonsense.
Mine take place in cages, 20 feet square, unofficial little events with no gloves, no rules, and the loser being carried out, usually battered to bits. You will understand why I laughed out loud at your schoolyard boast that I should try throttling a real hard case like you.
Yours,
Charles Saatchi’
‘I am 77 years old, 5ft 9in and weigh 185lbs. I am willing to face him any time under cage-fighting non-rules, which will be a first for me. I need three days’ notice.’
Fraser Nelson has offered the garden at the Spectator premises as a venue with all ticket proceeds going to The Boxing Academy in East London. Now, if only 'Taki' could entice the lovely Nigella to be in his corner what a punch-up we could all enjoy! And even more enticing if Saatchi could get his latest 'squeeze' in his corner then the girls could indulge in a bit of cage-fighting themselves. Oh dear, I'm becoming rather excited . . .
I am obliged, yet again, to my Aussie e-pal, Andra, for bringing me highly important medical information but before I begin, Gentlemen, a short exercise break is required:
Alright? Feeling better? Good! Now where was I? Oh yes, this startling new break-through in medical science which has important . . . but before I continue, another quick break:
By jove, that's certainly very invigorating. Now then, back to business, this new medical breakthrough is of vital importance to us chaps and we must thank Dr. Karen Weatherby who undertook this challenging investigation, although why she failed to enlist my assistance I do not know. However, time for another break:
Do you know, I feel eighteen all over again! Anyway, Dr. Karen Wetherby has discovered, and frankly I put it on a level with the discovery of penicillin and if she doesn't win a Nobel Prize for medicine there's no fairness in this world ... but, hang on, another dose of medicine is called for:
Oh God, I'm never going to finish this story so I had better give you the original for you to read for yourselves:
All I can say to Dr. Wetherby is thank you, thank you, thank you and show us your tits!
Pics from http://stephaniebe.wordpress.com/topless-tuesday-girls/ and don't all rush!
Now I know I am right: If I had any doubts at all concerning my conviction that we should leave the EU as soon as possible then this headline from 'The Graun' courtesy of EU Referendum banishes them forever:
"Ken Clarke, Danny Alexander and Lord Mandelson warn against EU exit"
Everybody is wrong from time to time, even - and I know you will be shocked to hear it - this distinguished blogger but to go on and on and on being wrong in the face of a whole mountain range of contrary evidence verges somewhere between mania and eccentricity.
Where Arkansas leads, America follows - I hope: This is dedicated to my e-pal JK, an 'Arkie' from his hand-made riding boots to his holster where-in he 'conceals and carries' a bottle of 'good ol' Jake's Special Brew. In a sense this is parish-pump news but according to the report it has very much wider implications because it is:
an early bellwether on the fight to protect the state’s Medicaid
expansion, as well as Democrats’ chances in the November election.
Anyway, in this traditionally very strong Democrat county, the Republican, despite being out-spent 3 to 1, romped home: 57% to 43%. I expect a full psephological analysis from my frontline correspondent in Arkansas, er, just as soon he 'gits hisself back down from them thar hills where good ol' Jake has his still'!
See! I told you those moon landings were phoney: I have been telling you all for years that those so-called 'moon landings' were actually all faked in a secret film studio in the middle of the desert in Nevada. Now here is the proof - a 'before' and 'after' photo of a piece of ground on 'Mars' (heh!) taken by one of those explorer machines which hasn't moved for months.
So how did that rock suddenly get there? I reckon that new continuity gal at the studio dropped, er, a rock, don't you? And if you doubt the sort of trickery these Hollywood types can pull off go and see 'Gravity', absolutely brilliant but as phoney as one of the 'full service histories' that came with my second-hand cars!
The Potemkin Olympics: Old habits never die, they just re-invent themselves in new clothes. I am obliged to 'SoD' for sending me a sickening article in The Telegraph giving the low-down - and I do mean low! - of the Russian winter Olympics. It is, arguably, the greatest financial scam in history and stands (or hopefully falls) as a latter-day example of a Potemkin village which were entirely fake villages filled with 'happy' dancing peasants which were constructed by Gregory Potemkin to impress Queen Catherine II, his lover at the time, as she made one of her progresses through his area. Time to overthrow 'Emperor' Putin, I think!
Aches and Pains: There is nothing more tedious than listening to old men complain about their aches and pains, er, except this old man whose complaints, of course are fascinating - sorry, didn't quite catch that! However, for the past two months I have been suffering with what I call 'flare-ups', that is, pains in various joints but, and this is what strikes me as odd, these pains move around. For a couple of days its a finger on my right hand and the knee on my left leg, than they fade away and it's my right elbow and my feet, and so on. Yesterday I visited 'Newgate News', always an interesting blog, and read a post on the side effect of statins which I have been taking for 30-odd years. One of them is muscle pain! Two months ago my 'quack' advised that I double the dosage. Hmmnnn! I thought last night when I went to bed with pain in my left fore-arm and wrist and both knees, sod that for a game of soldiers, I'm not going to take my statin pill. I woke this morning completely pain-free. Of course, I might keel over with a heart attack tomorrow but still, it makes you think. It will certainly make my 'quack' think when I get to see him next week and tell him the story of his life!
The problem with saints who aren't quite saintly: Thus it is with the 'saintly' Martin Luther King, I gather from Deadline.com, because two film projects, with distinguished writers, based on his life have crashed and burned because they indicated the truth which is that the great man could have shagged for America at the Olympics! The people entrusted with safeguarding his reputation and who own the copyright to his speeches refuse to allow them to be used for any film that fails to 'canonise' him. Such a pity, he deserves better and wiser guardians than that.
Promises, promises, that's all you get from 'Warmers': Honestly, these 'Warmers' never stop with their promises, promises which, after all these years, are now the equivalent of that other much-used line, "If you let me put it in I promise not to move!" But, according to The Mail, they're at it again, promising us ferocious heatwaves in the Summer. Bring 'em on, I say, but then the weasel in charge of this high-powered 'scientific' forecast adds: "However, there's quite a bit of uncertainty
about how fast changes might happen." Yeeeeeeeeeees, quite, heard that one before!
No more rumbles today - I'm off to bed!
Instead of reading this rubbish you would do much better to read Matthew Norman's witty summary of the rise and rise and just possibly the fall of Bernie Ecclestone, the man who turned what had hitherto been a hobby for petrol-heads into a global industry sport. No one tells it better than Matthew Norman but I will add my own personal memory of Bernie, a man, so they say, who were he to shake your hand you would be wise to count your fingers afterwards! As we all know, he is shortly to stand trial in Germany for bribery. Well, sharing as I did with Bernie, membership of that exclusive gentlemen's club, the second-hand car trade, I was shocked, I tell you, shocked! However, if you fancy a little punt I would advise placing a few quid on Bernie to beat the rap.
Anyway, here is my personal memory of the one and only time I (sort of) met him. Years ago I took 'SoD', then a nipper, to the British Grand Prix where I managed to get a photo of him next to his hero, Carlos Reutemann, one of the great drivers of the period. Somewhat surprisingly given my ineptitude with cameras, the photo turned out rather well so I had it enlarged and took it back with 'SoD' to the next British Grand Prix. We waited patiently by the Brabham paddock for Reutemann to put in an appearance so that we could ask him to autograph it. Alas, no sign of the great man but who should tootle by but no less than Bernie who owned the team.. He spotted the photo, snatched it from 'SoD's hand, took it into the garage and re-emerged with it duly signed by Carlos Reutemann. The photo with autograph was framed and I think 'SoD' still has it.
Funny how you never forget little kindnesses like that, so here's wishing you the best of luck, Bernie!
Sorry to return to this tedious subject but I am somewhat taken aback by something I thought impossible, that is, an increase in my detestation of the 'il-Lib-non-Dems' (iLnD). As we all know by now, Lord 'Fatboy-not-so-slim' Rennard has been accused by four 'iLnD' ladies of 'inappropriate behaviour'. I have been searching for the details of this 'inappropriate behaviour' because you need only consider the all-encompasssing nature of the accusation to realise that it could be something or nothing.
Lord 'Fatboy-not-so-slim' Rennard The delicate and no doubt fragrant Ms. Susan Gaszczak
I should make clear, I suppose, that like just about every man I have ever known, I, too, have been guilty of 'inappropriate behaviour' towards ladies, although, to be honest, at the time I thought it was entirely appropriate! True, the five pints of 'black 'n' tan' I had usually consumed prior to these events might have clouded my judgment at the time but I did learn, the hard way, from the ladies concerned that I had over-stepped the mark, but the bruising usually faded after a few days! And again, to encompass the whole range of possibilities inherent in this sort of situation, there were also times when my behaviour turned out to be entirely appropriate - ding-dong! But of course if you don't steer through the seas of ap- or inap-propriate behaviour risking a torpedo as you go you will never reach the haven (or heaven!) of a safe shore. [That's enough metaphorics, just calm down! Ed.]
So, in my search for the dirty details the most I have found is a report in the Bedfordshire News, the local paper for Ms. Susam Gaszczak, one of the, er, 'victims' of 'Fat-boy-not-so-slim' Rennard. I should warn delicate readers that the ravages Ms. Gaszczak went through make for very tough reading:
Ms Gaszczak, who now sits with Lord Rennard on the party’s federal policy committee, says that at the event his (Lord Rennard’s) hand started to rub the outside of her leg. She claims that when she moved away he kept getting closer and was brushing parts of her that she ‘didn’t want to be brushed’.
When she excused herself to go to the toilet, she says he followed her and said: ‘Why don’t we get a couple more drinks sent up to my room, where we can continue this conversation?’
Golly-gosh, I bet they were all sobbing in The Guardian newsroom when they read that catalogue of horrors! It is obvious to me that Ms. Gaszczak must be in need of urgent counselling. However, I can't help wondering if Ms. Gaszczak would have been more, or less, upset if 'Fat-boy-not-so-slim' had said something along the lines of 'God, you're a boring, politics-obsessed, A1 crasher and I'd rather shag Shirley Williams than you'.
Anyway, chaps, there's a lesson in this for all of us, never, ever, stand closer that six feet to an iLnD woman and do not under any circs offer to buy her a drink. The bad news is that she might not be much of a date, but the good news is that at least she'll be cheap to take out!
Thus spat 'HillBilly' with poisonous contempt whilst being questioned by a Congressional committee on the ins and outs of the Benghazi atrocity which saw four American diplomats butchered. Today that committee has issued a detailed and bi-partisan report which concludes that the State Department had ample warning from multiple sources that security across eastern Libya was too weak, that attacks were to be expected and that extra measures were urgently needed to protect installations and people. From Fox News:
Specifically, the report said the intelligence community provided “ample strategic warning” that security in eastern Libya was deteriorating and U.S. personnel “were at risk.” The report said multiple “tripwires” were crossed signaling security problems, and the State Department should have increased its security posture in response. This included an Aug. 16, 2012, cable from Ambassador Chris Stevens raising security concerns, and prior attacks on westerners in Benghazi.
'HillBilly' and her staff simply ignored it all. Since then, it is said, the State Department has resolutely resisted all attempts to pry out of their grasp various important documents and e-mails. Assuming the GOP can actually pick a good candidate, we must all pray that 'HillBilly' wins the Democrat nomination because that disaster adn her vile, contemptuous words will be rammed down her throat right up to election day.
ADDITIONAL: I warned above that if 'HillBilly' runs she is going to have this thrown in her face on a constant basis, however, I didn't think it would start today!
This comes via The American Thinker. Oh boy, they play it rough 'over there', but then again, she deserves everything she is going to get if only for uttering that despicable, throw-away sentence.
A very tiny part of me wishes I had been there but the cowardly majority of me thanks the gods that I was not! It was a moment when extreme art met, well, extreme conditions hardly describes it! I refer to the first Leningrad performance of the 7th Symphony by Shostakovich in August 1942.
The Spectator has reviewed a new book, Leningrad: Siege and Symphony by Brian Moynahan and it sounds like a harrowing read. Shostakovich was present during the early part of the seige but he and his family were evacuated later on. He had already composed the outlines of the first three movements and during 1942 he finished the whole work which was premiered elsewhere but in August 1942, against unbelievable odds, it was performed in Leningrad itself.
How else to explain the successful performance of the Seventh Symphony that following August? It was a full-blooded 70-minute work for an orchestra of more than 100, performed by a radio band reduced by death and infirmity to a mere handful of sickly regulars, augmented by military-band players from the battlefront and by whatever extra wind and string players could be drafted in from the city’s dilapidated musical substrata, and directed by a conductor — Karl Eliasberg — who could himself barely hold a baton or stand upright.
[...]
For musicians, similarly, Moynahan’s account of the preparations for the
symphony performance will ring bells that soon crack. At first the players are
barely able to hold their instruments, the wind-players incapable of blowing or
even forming their mouths into an embouchure.
Gradually, under Eliasberg’s unwavering moral pressure, they manage to rehearse for short stretches. Now and then a player will simply fall over; or someone will fail to turn up to rehearsal, for the one simple, irreversible reason. The musicians begin to resent the whole process. When one player is late because, he says, he has been burying his wife, Eliasberg snaps: ‘Make sure it’s the last time!’ Yet eventually, at the final rehearsal, it all suddenly comes together, and the performance is an incredible triumph, greeted by a packed Philharmonie with a standing ovation that begins even before the end of the work, as the players falter and the audience urges them on.
Sublimity amongst the starvation and death, the blood and the body-parts! I didn't know but apparently each August the symphony is played in the main concert hall as a means of commemoration. Russia is amongst the last places in the world I would wish to visit but that might - just - tempt me.
That reversal of a famous Python question puts me in mind of a suitably Pythonesque answer - we stopped them being very naughty boys! Well, that's the theory put forward in a book by Kyle Harper called From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity
Antiquity is always stranger than we think. Nowhere does it prove to be more strange than where we once assumed that it was most familiar to us. We always knew that the Romans had a lot of sex. Indeed, in the opinion of our elders, they probably had a lot more than was quite good for them. We also always knew that the early Christians had an acute sense of sin. We tend to think that they had a lot more sense of sin than they should have had. Otherwise they were very like ourselves. Until recently, studies of sex in Rome and of Christianity in the Roman world were wrapped in a cocoon of false familiarity.
Mr. Harper's book, based on his considerable expertise as a classical historian, spells out just how riotously sexy the Romans were until, that is, those pesky Christians turned up and spoiled the party by introducing the notion of sin. He also emphasises that this licentiousness was based, in the main, on slavery. Rome was awash with slaves whose bodies, willingly or unwillingly, were available to higher Roman society and when they were worn out and discarded they became available to the lower rungs of society as prostitutes, both male and female. But what is extraordinary to me, and I have mentioned this before, is how quickly, in just a few generations, that Christian message of removing the joy of sex and instead controlling it strictly for the purposes of reproduction took over the ancient world and locked it into place for nearly 2,000 years.
However, as Ferdinand Mount pointed out in his superb book Full Circle: How The Classical World Came Back To Us (which I recommended to you back in September 2012 - you did read it, didn't you?!) it is obvious that today the Christian message is faltering, in my opinion, under the combined attack of state socialism usurping our ideas of personal charity to the 'sick, lame and halt', and the re-emergence under governments who would sell their mothers for votes of the idea that sex should be both a free-for-all, and, more or less free for all! Thus, Mount's message is that we have gone full circle back to classical mores. Is that, in the words of Sellers & Yeatman, "A Good Thing" or "A Bad Thing"? Dunno, come back in 500 years and I'll tell you!
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