Dave Clemo's Blog

Another PFI scam

2011-12-26T12:40:00.000Z

Back in the summer Northamptonshire County Council announced that they had to make savings of £2m a year. At the time I thought they best way to make savings was:
1. Don't pay your Chief Executive so much- and make him/her pay his own pension contributions.
2. Get rid of all the dead wood, all those people in "protected" jobs, that can't be sacked and have been downgraded but kept their big salaries. A friend told me of an instance where a woman on £50k's job had finished but because her job was protected they couldn't get rid of her, so she worked in the council call centre. All the others were on minimum wage, and she was on a thousand pounds a week- for answering the phone.

But no. They switched off half the street lights across the county. They did this in June and July, when the evenings are light and the nights are short. They switched off the lights outside my house and in the service road that runs along my side boundary. Within a couple of days a woman had fallen and cut her head, necessitating a trip to A&E. We complained and they switched our street light back on (switching another off down the street).

After a while one gets used to the gloom.

This week I received a letter from Balfour Beatty saying that they'd entered into a PFI schemem with Northants County Council where they were going to replace all the street lights. This was in some way going to save the council money (my suggestion would have saved more).

So how come we never heard about this PFI scheme? Was it already in place before they switched the lights off? Where are the figures to support their claim that this will be cheaper?

PFI schemes are scams. They are always biased against the taxpayer. Howm much will we end up paying for the lights to be switched back on?

Modern myths

2011-12-23T13:31:00.000Z

Christmas is for many people a time when they can eat and drink to excess.

But what constitutes excess? And how is it measured?

Let's look at the "Safe" limits for drinking. Where did they originate? What scientific research was carried out that led researchers to their conclusion?
According to this blog
http://timworstall.com/2007/10/20/those-safe-drinking-limits/

" Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were “plucked out of the air” as an “intelligent guess”.
The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, had no firm scientific basis whatsoever."

A best guess. That's all it could be. Surely a five foot tall adult male weighing seven stone will have a different tolerance to alcohol than a six foot six male weighing eighteen stone? So how can one standard be applied? More nonsense and scaremongering.

What about the Five-a-Day healthy eating campaign? You know we're all supposed to eat five portions of fruit and/or veg in order to stay healthy. Where did they find the scientific proof of that?

The answer is - they didn't. According to this article
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1349960/5-day-fruit-vegetables-myth-claims-nutrition-expert.html

"It started as a marketing campaign dreamt up by around 20 fruit and veg companies and the U.S. National Cancer Institute at a meeting in California in 1991"

That's right- an advertising campaign by fruit and veg companies. No bias or vested interest there then.

So- whatever you're doing this Christmas- enjoy yourself. My advice (which is worthless) is to drink moderately and only eat what you normally eat. It's up to you to decide what is moderate. We're all different. And don't you forget it.

John Galt speaks

2011-12-23T12:40:00.000Z

I saw this over at Old Holborn's site and yes, I watched it. All 15+ minutes of it.

You are no doubt aware that I'm a fan of Ayn Grant's magnificent opus "Atlas Shrugged". I will no doubt be reading it again in the coming months. Her "hero" is a character called John Galt.

Here is a video of Ryan Air's CEO Michael O'Leary speaking in Brussels earlier this year. His speach could have been written by Rand. Please take the time and watch it all the way through. See if you don't find yourself agreeing with him long before the end.

Merry thingy and a happy wotsit

2011-12-23T12:34:00.000Z

(Forwarded by a friend)

Good morning/afternoon/evening,

I wanted to send some sort of holiday greeting to friends and family, but it is difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without offending someone. So I met with my lawyer yesterday, and on advice I wish to say the following :

Please accept, with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress , non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious / secular persuasions and / or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all .

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great ( not to imply that the United Kingdom is necessarily greater than any other country ) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee .

By accepting this greeting, please be advised that you are accepting these terms :

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable on the proviso that there is no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her / him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher .

Best Regards ( without prejudice )

Name withheld ( Privacy Act )

The French have short memories

2011-12-13T20:38:00.000Z

I've been thinking back to Sarkozy's blaming of the UK for refusing to rubber stamp their lunatic scheme to save the Euro.

I think that the French President has a very short memory. He is conveniently forgetful of the role played by British troops in the liberation of his country 65 short years ago.
When bolshie French President de Gaulle withdrew France from the common NATO military command in February 1966, he ordered all American military forces to leave France. US President Lyndon B Johnson asked Secretary of State Dean Rusk to seek further clarification from President de Gaulle by asking whether the bodies of buried American soldiers must leave France as well. Rusk recorded in his autobiography that de Gaulle did not respond when asked, "Does your order include the bodies of American soldiers in France's cemeteries?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Rusk)

Perhaps Cameron might remind Sarko that his freedom was bought with British blood?

Just a thought...

2011-12-13T20:08:00.000Z

One thing about the present Eurocrisis puzzles me.

Over the last ten years Germany grew rich by selling cars to peasants in Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Now these countries are broke and will sooner or later default on their debts.

All the current strategy is based on Germany economic strength, of how it's the powerhouse in Europe. But hang on- they grew rich by selling cars. Their European market has shrunk, so who is going to buy the cars to get the EU out of trouble?

Not Ireland. Not Greece. Not Portugal. Not Spain........

Just a thought...

More Econonsense from Durban

2011-12-12T14:04:00.001Z

I've been reading up on Carbon Dioxide- you know- that vile pollutant that is destroying our planet and must be stopped at all costs- according to the WWF and all the eco-loonies that infested Durban recently. They tell me the science is settled and that the earth is going to get warmer because of all the CO2 that is being produced by filthy humans.

This is a good link to find out about CO2.
http://www.lenntech.com/carbon-dioxide.htm

I particularly like this section:

Humans use carbon dioxide in many different ways. The most familiar example is its use in soft drinks and beer, to make them fizzy. Carbon dioxide released by baking powder or yeast makes cake batter rise.
Some fire extinguishers use carbon dioxide because it is denser than air. Carbon dioxide can blanket a fire, because of its heaviness. It prevents oxygen from getting to the fire and as a result, the burning material is deprived of the oxygen it needs to continue burning.
Carbon dioxide is also used in a technology called supercritical fluid extraction that is used to decaffeinate coffee. The solid form of carbon dioxide, commonly known as Dry Ice, is used in theatres to create stage fogs and make things like "magic potions" bubble.

I've highlighted the section that says that CO2 is heavier/denser than air. I was always told and read in books/ watched in films that people trapped in enclosed spaces need to move to the top of the space they are in- as the CO2 sinks to the floor.
OK you warmists- show us where the concentrations of CO2 low down in the atmosphere are.
You can't?
Why's that?
Oh- the CO2 is trapped high in the atmosphere you say?

Really?
That must be a different sort of CO2 to the common ordinary CO2 that makes plants grow and is so essential to human life then.

Sorry you sad apologists and snake oil salesmen and bandwagon hoppers-on. The science is settled and you are wrong. So wrong.

It's not just about money

2011-12-08T14:14:00.002Z

The European debt crisis continues to dominate the news, As I write Cameron is meeting Merkel, Sarkozy and the others in an attempt to fudge yet another "cure" for the Euro. It will fail. It will always fail. And all the time the bailiffs are at the door.

Around about 2003 I started to get a premonition about the coming storm. At that time Gordon Brown was Chancellor and he expressed concern about the sluggish economy, which was dominated by consumer spending. It must have been close to Christmas. As usual, the retailers were moaning about how slow the sales were. Brown commented that he was concerned about the level of debt that the general public was running up, but at the same time expressed the hope that we would continue to spend in the shops in order to keep the economy moving.

In November 2003, Vince Cable asked Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, "Is not the brutal truth that ... the growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level?" Brown replied, "As the Bank of England said yesterday, consumer spending is returning to trend. The Governor said, 'there is no indication that the scale of debt problems have ... risen markedly in the last five years.' He also said that the fraction of household income used up in debt service is lower than it was then."

Put simply- Brown said, I know we're in a mess but keep spending (or I know we're in the shit, but keep paddling). We've lost the paddle.

I kept dreaming that we'd wake up in our beds to find bailiffs downstairs with papers to say that our building society had gone bust and had been bought up by foreigners and the new owners wanted their property back and we had but a few hours to get out before we would be forcibly evicted. That hasn't come true (thank God) but Europe is in a desperate situation.

1. We've given all our manufacturing to the Chinese who are no respecter of details such as copyright and patents. When we closed our factories, the machines were sold and exported and the factories demolished. We couldn't restart production if we wanted to.

2. We've based our economy on the Germans selling their cars to countries like Ireland and Greece who couldn't afford them, but bought them on credit. David McWilliams in his 3 part TV series "Searching for the Pope's Children" put this point most convincingly. I recommend you watch it if you can.

3. The Euro was launched under a false premise, and to his credit Gordon Brown refused to join. The UK was probably the only honest country. One of the conditions of joining was that our debt should not exceed 60% (I think) of GDP. Our debt was above that so we waited. All the other countries lied.

4. The solution to the Euro crisis is the reason why it was doomed from the start. The only way a common currency will work is if all the countries have the same economic strategies and budgets. It US dollar works because the central government sets budgets and economic policy for all 51 states. How can 17 countries with different economies, languages, cultures and parliaments share a common currency? The EU now wants to impose a central government that sets budgets for each of the member states. When we signed up to the Common Market, it was just to allow our goods to be traded across borders without the imposition of tariffs. We're a long way from that.

5. If the UK government caves in and allows Brussels to set our budget, then what?

I can see a number of threats to our way of life and to the distinctiveness of Britain.

The most serious is the threat of change in our legal system. English common law is based upon the simple premise that a man is innocent until proven guilty. Another way of looking at it is that in the UK everything is allowed unless it is prohibited.
Europe follows the Napoleonic Code where a man is guilty unless he can prove his innocence. That is the exact opposite of our legal code. Put another way- in Europe everything is prohibited unless it is allowed.
Such a change in the law will undo every statute going back to Magna Carta. Every law that is imposed by Brussels acts against our interests, and now you can see why. Their laws are based on an entirely different premise.

The UK's tradition of driving on the left hand side of the road while sitting in the right hand seat dates back to Roman times. It meant that the driver could pull his sword and wield it while driving with his left hand. Napoleon ordered his army to enforce driving on the right hand side of the road whilst sitting on the left hand seat in order to identify his troops, his supporters and his enemies- who were driving on the other side of the road. That is why the US drive on the left. They were also in conflict with Britain and sided with the French who were in Canada to the North, and Louisiana in the South.
If we become European, with Napoleonic laws, we will then be compelled to drive on the right.
Would that be a road too far?

UPDATE
I had another broken night's sleep and eventually went downstairs for a cup of tea. I switched the TV on and caught Cameron's press conference. We are now the fall guys of Europe. The EU is still doomed, the Euro is still doomed, but now they have someone to blame.
A commenter on the excellent Biased-BBC website has summed it up perfectly

"Beneath all this France and Germany cannot agree, as so cannot address the issue of the euro zone imbalances. But they need someone to blame, so the bumbling incoherent fool Cameron is just the job. He thinks he has a victory, Germany and France blame the British, and we have status quo.
I think it is as simple as this not that anything is simple with the EU

France is stuffed and can see its Banks going down the tube and wants the ECB to buy Bonds
Germany won’t allow this until there is fiscal union with budgets controlled by the EU. (Big treaty change taking forever) Austerity and punishment is all they have to offer NOW
France does not want the EU to control its budgets, as they will then have a problem with all their farmers and other small matters like that, many of which would be very similar to those in the UK truth be told.

So whatever power grab the EU is looking for they are just the hyenas circling for the scraps."
Read the complete post here
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2011/12/at-war.html

NHS and waste

2011-12-05T16:22:00.001Z

My quote for the day-
"All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self-evident." --Schopenhauer.

I saw an article on The Register's site last week. You can access it here-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/30/nhs_it_waste/

I read it with interest as I have been spending a lot of time at my local hospital. I'm currently attending three or four different clinics and I've been in and out of hospital a few times recently as well. I probably know as much about what is happening at the coal face than the bosses upstairs. Added to which is the fact that I have had a huge amount of experience in various jobs in my career. You can check out just how varied by reading my other blog-
http://dave-beentheredonethat.blogspot.com/

The problem with all political decisions is this- whichever party is in power, the decisions and strategies are always worked out by the civil service in Whitehall. So whatever the parties may try, nothing changes. Even the current upheaval in the NHS won't make the slightest difference. The bodies currently administrating it (The PCTs) have already started rebranding and working with the GP consortia so that nothing will change- except that there will be an extra level of bureaucracy to pay for.

But there is hope- and it involves thinking outside the box. In the article in the Reg we find an appalling catalogue of inefficiency regarding purchasing. Read this-

"Over the past 10 years the system, which operates along similar lines to systems available in major supermarkets, has been rolled out to departments with a stock value greater than £250,000."

Read it again. Simply by having a computerised bar code reading system this one hospital is saving thousands, possibly millions.

Again-
"Medwell says that the trauma, spinal and neurology theatres at Leeds General Infirmary saved £500,000 over three years by cutting the purchase of excess stock. The figure represents a one-off saving, but as he puts it: "You then live off the fat of the land as you use up the stock and your ordering patterns become much more stable."

The trust claims that savings are also made against the costs of running a time-consuming manual system. "We are talking about saving nursing time, stock control and stock checking which are a real bane in the life of most nurses," says Medwell."

So why hasn't it been tried before? Every supermarket chain has computer systems in place that can give information on the stock levels of every item on the shelves. It can use this information to plan deliveries, buy the correct amounts and cut waste. The supermarkets could not function without these systems.

So why do I bring this up? It's time to think outside the box. Tesco or one of the major chains should trial their systems in one or more hospital. Because the systems are proven technology they should be easy to install and get running. No more wasting countless millions re-inventing the wheel, which is what is currently happening. Once the system is up and running the savings will be apparent. Tesco did not get to be the size it is by wasting money. Then roll it out across the country.

One final thing. No-one currently working on NHS IT schemes or responsible for ordering them should be let within 500 miles of the pilot unless they are invited.

The money-pit that is the NHS can be reformed, but it will take political will and commercial acumen.

Stating the obvious

2011-12-02T21:37:00.003Z

The BBC, arch eco-activists and pushers of global warming/climate change are at it again. Stating the bleeding obvious.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15972810

I draw your attention to the first paragraph;
"The drought that has affected parts of England since June will last into next summer if there is insufficient winter rain, the Environment Agency has said."

True. But then, the sun will definitely shine tomorrow if there are no clouds in the sky.
These days my trust in the BBC's impartiality and trustworthiness has eroded to zero. I don't trust them on climate, I don't trust them on weather, and I don't trust their wild life and nature films.
OK, they were always suspect. When Armand & Michaela Denis made their wild life films back in the 50s they used to piece together the films they had shot in order to create a story. In some ways the only honest wild life film maker was Johnny Morris, who used to put words into the mouths of zoo animals. It was tosh. He knew it, we knew it. It was not a factual programme, merely entertainment.
But then the BBC wild life unit (or whatever it's called) in Bristol got hold of CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) and all pretence of factual broadcasting went out of the window. Programmes about dinosaurs are the worst.
All we know about dinosoars are a few fragments of fossils, yet there they are on the screen in full technicolour and sound. I'm all for using your imagination but these programmes are passed off as fact.....
Now dinosoars are accepted a gospel and don't anyone contradict them.
I do. I am contradicting them and their cronies at the Natural History Museum.

All we know for certain about scientific knowledge is that in time, eventually, everything we take as fact will be disproven. Anyone who disagreed with the church's belief that the earth was the centre of the universe and that everything revolved around it was a heretic. Now we know better.

One hundred and forty years ago the best scientific minds believed that space was filled with a mysterious jelly like substance called "ether". Einstein disproved that theory but was mocked for years by people who thought they knew better.Now we know better.

One day we may know more about evolution, but for now it is only a theory.

Back to the BBC's article. Some parts of the country don't get much rain. Well tell me something I didn't know. This has always been the case. 30 years ago there was talk about doing something about it. Now that successive governments have sold off the water boards who built the reservoirs we rely on, it's going to be difficult to fix. difficult but not impossible.

The rain falls in the North West, but not the South East, where the people live (mostly because it's not raining). The rainwater drains into the rivers and then to the sea. Our Victorian forefathers created a network of navigable rivers and canals that criss cross the country. It is possible to travel in a boat from the North West to the South East by canal and river. If that is the case then it is surely easy for water to be moved using the same network? A few pumps to move the water up the lock systems and a few miles of underground pipework similar to that which links Rutland and Pitsford reservoirs and the water could easily flow.

People keep claiming that the world will run out of drinkable water. Nonsense.
80% of the world's surface is covered by water. Although most of that is seawater, modern technology can easily convert saltwater into fresh.

According to Wikipaedia:
"A typical aircraft carrier in the U.S. military uses nuclear power to desalinate 400,000 US gallons (1,500,000 l; 330,000 imp gal) of water per day." A big ship with a large crew floats in sea water and converts sea water to fresh water as required. We are an island surrounded by sea. Why not convert sea water to fresh?

There are several methods of desalination, but two that spring to mind are:
Multi-stage flash distillation which accounted for 85% of production worldwide in 2004; and processes that use membranes to desalinate, by applying reverse osmosis technology.
Membrane processes use semi-permeable membranes and pressure to separate salts from water. Reverse osmosis plant membrane systems typically use less energy than thermal distillation, which has led to a reduction in overall desalination costs over the past decade. (Source- Wikipaedia- desalination)

OK so they use a lot of energy and won't solve all the world's problems, but in the UK, an island where no-one lives more than 100 miles from the sea, they could be useful. The nuclear power stations that are sited next to the sea could supply the energy, and an underground water pipeline could move the fresh water to where it can be stored and used.

I envy the Victorians and their "can-do" attitude. If they'd have had access to our technology, they'd have sorted it all out. Everything would have been built to last and not jerry-rigged as cheaply as possible. It would have worked and would have looked great as well (even the insides of the Victorian sewage works- where no-one would see them- were designed to look beautiful).

I'm convinced that there are people in power who want this country brought to its knees. Who want it to fail. Who want it destroyed. 60 or 70 years ago they would be condemned as traitors. Call me old-fashioned, but that's what they are.

Ayn Rand was right...

2011-11-30T19:41:00.001Z

In her masterpiece "Atlas Shrugged" ten years in the writing and published over 50 years ago, Ayn Rand paints a picture of a future where the state controls everything and the individual is unable to create wealth or to use his natural talent to progress.
My life experience tells me that her premise is right. Despite what the equality legislators would have us believe, we are not all equal. Some people are better than others in business, while others are better athletes, some can sing or are virtuoso musicians. Passing a law cannot change that.
Our education system has held back the gifted whilst discouraging the ordinary in a vain quest for homogenation, for making everyone the same.
We're not. We can never be the same. We are all different.

I was listening to the radio the other day and every singer sounded different. They each had a unique sound to their voice. It has to be that way. What people remember about Sinatra, or Ella, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Bryan Ferry, Annie Lennox, Amy Winehouse was that they were instantly recognisable by the sound and quality of their singing. When all the fuss about their private lives has subsided, what will remain is the quality and distinctiveness of their voice. We are not all alike. We can never be. We should never aspire to be the same as everyone else.

So why is it that when I turn on some TV shows or open up my paper I'm confronted with an image of someone who's apparently constructed from an identikit?
The same hair, the same fake tan, the same makeup, the same teeth...and as for the women.......

Since I was a teenager I've smiled at the absurdity of young people eschewing school uniform is a vain attempt at individuality, only to dress in t-shirt and jeans, and thereby looking exactly the same as everyone else. I almost laugh out loud at the fat useless lumps of lard walking around town in sportswear, trying to look cool when it's pretty apparent that they couldn't even run for the bus, let alone do anything remotely sporting.

OK, I've made it clear that I don't want to be one of the herd. I don't want to look like them, dress like them, act like them and most of all, think like them.

This makes me potentially dangerous to the state. Because government policies are worked out by sociologists who have studied the behaviour of large crowds, they can cope with a few like me adding static to their graphs and charts. But what if there were more like me? What then? What if the masses refused to conform? What if the masses refused to consume what they were fed, whether it be in the supermarkets or through the media?

In my life as a musician, I've tried to avoid following the crowds or the latest fashion, except when it suited me. The music that excited me was never played on Radio 1 or shown on Top of the Pops. I discovered it for myself, through underground and specialist press and word of mouth (usually John Peel's).

In my working life I've tried many jobs. I'm pretty adaptable and can turn my hand to most things but the fact still remains that when up against a naturally talented businesman he beats me hands down. When up against a skilled painter and decorator my rudimentary DIY skills leave me at the start line. My friend (a painter and decorator by trade) could finish painting my living room ceiling before I had the lid off the paint tin. People are different, have different skills and therefore have different earning potential.

I had quite a lot to do with young people in recent years. As my son grew up I got to know his friends and for a time I was involved with a church youth group. In my working life I met and worked with a lot of young people. About twenty years ago I noticed that the youth seemed in my eyes to be more compliant, less rebellious, less questioning than my generation back in the 60s. That may seem a surprising thing to say, but remember, my generation changed the world. I think the education they received stunted their enquiring minds.
More recently I've been working in a solicitor's office and I regularly receive CVs from students seeking job experience or a training contract. I sometimes laugh out loud at what they write. The grammar is either non-existent or cut and paste googlespeak. I'm not certain if these young people writing and sending out these flowery pieces of fiction actually comprehend exactly what is written. Yet I also sense an air of expectation, of entitlement, that somehow they deserve a job, just because, well, just because of who they are.

Which brings me rather circuitously back to Ayn Rand. One theme that recurs in her book is the sense that various characters deserve a break, deserve a job, deserve a good wage, deserve the same as the hard working hero who earned his wealth through his own enterprise, hard work and imagination only to have the state steal it from him in the name of equality and fairness.

Life isn't fair. Let's get that straight. I may play a musical instrument and sing a bit, but that does not entitle me to the same riches as Paul McCartney or Elton John. I may not have had the same success as those two, but I cannot expect to have, because I didn't travel the same hard road as them, I didn't get the lucky breaks as them (mainly because I didn't put myself in the right situation or meet the right people). Most of all, I didn't have anything like the same talent as them.

The thinking that Rand rails against is the idea that somehow legislation should be passed that forces the better and more successful musicians to give up their wealth or squander their talent in order that the little guy like me might have a chance.
What nonsense. Yet governments still try to do this.

So what can little insignificant me do about this?

More soon

Been away for a while

2011-11-30T16:15:00.000Z

Without boring you too much, I've been doing other things so haven't posted on here for a few months. Here's one reason why-
My new band

Check us out on FB and on my other blogs.

Skiffle- the music of change

2011-05-09T13:09:00.000Z

I have a theory about how and why music styles change. Each decade since the end of WW2 has seen incredible advances in musical playing technique and performance- followed by a "back to basics" revolution. Music runs in ten year cycles. The Forties ran from 1945 until 1955, the Fifties, from 1955 to 1965, the seventies from 1975 to 1985, etc. And each decade ended with the overthrow of the old and the establishment of a new and exciting music style.
Let me elaborate. The Forties was the era of the big band. 18 piece bands packed with star soloists playing out of their skin. Who wouldn't like that? Well, the youth for a start. What's the point of listening to music that is so technical it goes over everyone's head? By the mid fifties the big bands of the day were bigger than ever, louder than ever, more technical than ever, and yet..

Within a year or two they'd been swept away. What started the revolution?
Skiffle.

It started out as a novelty interlude in a jazz band's concert. The rhythm section would play a few songs to minimum accompaniment. People liked it. It was easy to get into, and more importantly, easy to play. Anyone could buy a guitar and form a skiffle band.

I remember hearing the sound of do it yourself music everywhere in the little town in the far west of Cornwall where I grew up back in the mid fifties. The skiffle craze reached every corner of this country. Most bands were awful, but a few skiffle groups spawned a host of stars. The Quarrymen in Liverpool became the Beatles. Two young lads from Newcastle came to London to enter a skiffle contest and never went back. Their names? Hank Marvin and Bruce welch of the Shadows.

A simple, easy to play music form gave young wannabees a chance to learn their trade and make music that would change the world.

By the mid sixties the beat boom had run its course. Skiffle had evolved into rock n roll, which had then evolved into beat music.

Psychedelic drugs and big amplifiers heralded the Sixties- a decade of afro haircuts and long guitar solos. Cream, Hendrix and the Who morphed into Emerson Lake and Palmer and Yes, and suddenly the music had become overblown and technical. It was time for a musical revolution. It was time for punk.

More later, but for now a couple of videos to show the difference. First up is a recording from 1971 of Buddy Rich's band playing "Straight no chaser" which could have come from the 1950s

And a clip from 1957 featuring a very young Jimmy Page.

Positive feedback

2011-05-07T21:49:00.000Z

We played a couple of shows this week. The first was on Thursday at Raunds Cricket Club where we took part in an open mike night to celebrate the start of the Raunds Music Festival. It was hosted by our good friends Stevie Jones and Mark Gill and also featured an appearance by Moulton Morris Men. I loved watching them perform, especially as they played the "Princess Royal" my favourite Morris Dance tune (which I first heard back in the 1970s when I bought a copy of "Morris On" an album by Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchins, Dave Mattacks et al. It's hard to find these days, but I recommend you search it out.)
We were able to secure an early slot and we played a set that was well received but which I felt hadn't come up to the standard we'd set ourselves. There were too many little mistakes and scruffy endings.
Luckily enough, we had a standing invitation to play a set at the Dukes Arms in nearby Woodford, so we loaded up and drove over. They were pleased to see us and put us on to close the night.
This time we didn't make a mistake. It was spot on. We played exactly the same set only without the niggly mistakes. We came off stage feeling like we'd done a good job, and the reaction of those who stayed on afterwards to chat bore that out.
We're doing this for the love of the music (but with an eye on paid work as soon as we have enough material)and the positive feedback and encouragement from your fellow musicians is very welcome.
This Sunday we head off to pastures new when we play a pub in Northampton. I wonder what they'll make of us?

May Day

2011-05-02T19:25:00.001Z

We played another showcase today at a local pub in Kettering. These shows serve more than one purpose. Firstly we're providing live entertainment for a good sized crowd that turned up with their families. They had bouncy castles and face painting out in the garden, and live entertainment inside.
The second reason we asked to play is that we're looking for bookings and this gives the landlady a chance to check us out. She liked what we heard so we're hoping to pick up some bookings in 2012.
Lastly, a live show is worth ten rehearsals.

Here's a clip from today's show.

And another

We have over an hour of good-time music now. Only another hour to sort out!

Busy busy busy

2011-04-30T20:29:00.000Z

It's been a couple of months since my last posts and I've been busy with a new band.
We played our first show in March and went down really well. Here's the first tune we ever played live, an instrumental called "Jummy Allen"

The band are myself on guitar, mandolin and vocals, Vince Gorman on guitar, cittern and bodhran, Dave Walker on double bass and Chris Clemo on cohon. It's a great sound even if I say so myself. My friend Teresa Brown guested with us and played a mean fiddle.
The band follows on from my 2007 "covered" album where I set out to play songs by one artist in the style of another different one. Here's our version of a well known 1980s song

Since then we've been adding songs to our repertoire and now have over an hour's worth ready to play, with a load more in rehearsal.
The other week we were featured artist at Stevie Jones' Open Mike night at the Artichoke in Moulton and he filmed a couple of minutes of one of my songs "Any Road".

We'll be playing a lot more shows in the coming months. I'm excited about the band. We're versatile and it's a real joy not to have to lug loads of amps and speakers and drums around. And it's also a pleasure to play without hurting your ears.

Watch this space, as they say...

Atlas Shrugged

2011-02-12T19:24:00.001Z

I've been a bit busy and haven't posted for a while. However I saw this link to the long awaited (by me) film of Atlas Shrugged which opens in the US in April.
If it is half as good as the book it will be great

And here's an interview with Ayn Rand from about 50 years ago. Like it or not, what she warns about is coming about. Isn't it time we listened to what she is saying?

Dave Clemo's Family Tree

2010-12-29T11:29:00.000Z

I've been doing some internet research on my family history. It may only be of interest to a tiny few, so I've created a separate blog.
Here is the link
http://daveclemofamilytree.blogspot.com/

And here's the picture that started the quest

Time to end the bias at the Met Office

2010-12-24T15:51:00.001Z

It's been very cold in the UK in the last few weeks. Indeed it could be argued that as Winter didn't officially begin until Dec 21st, we have witnessed the coldest Autumn since records began.
And it's not just the Northern hemishere. Australia has just had snowfall during their summer!
OK, it's weather. And they keep telling me that weather is not climate.
Europeans have climate. The British have weather.

We're an island off the coast of mainland Europe that is washed by the Gulf Stream, which means our climate is generally warmer and wetter than mainland Europe. It also means that our weather is more variable than the mainland.
Being variable, it gives us British something to talk about.

So why does a few inches at most of snow cause the UK to grind to a halt, (although the BBC insists on using centimetres despite the UK official measurements being in miles, feet and inches)?
Why is it that we are as unprepared today for bad weather as we were three years ago?
Why is it that local authorities have bought less salt and grit than they did last year?
Why is it that Heathrow Airport closed because they didn't have enough snow-clearing and de-icing machinery?

Where do they get the information to base their buying requirements?

The Met Office.

Compare and contrast with London's Transport system. They've had little disruption, apart from re-routing some buses away from hillier routes.
They didn't use the Met Office predictions.

Can you see a picture emerging?

Here's a link to an interesting article
http://www.thegwpf.org/uk-news/2086-gwpf-calls-for-independent-inquiry-into-met-offices-winter-advice-.html

Here's some of the text
"The Global Warming Policy Foundation has called on the Government to set up an independent inquiry into the winter advice it received by the Met Office and the renewed failure to prepare the UK for the third severe winter in a row.
"The current winter fiasco is no longer a joke as the economic damage to the British economy as a result of the country's ill-preparedness is running at £1bn a day and could reach more than £15 billion," said Dr Benny Peiser, the GWPF's Director.
"It would appear that the Met Office provided government with rather poor if not misleading advice and we need to find out what went wrong. Lessons have to be learned well in advance of the start of next year's winter so that we are much better prepared if it is severe again," Dr Peiser said.

And here's a few of the questions the GWPF would like answered

1. Why did the Met Office publish estimates in late October showing a 60 per cent to 80 per cent chance of warmer-than-average temperatures this winter? What was the scientific basis of this probabilistic estimate?

2. Has the October prediction by the Met Office that this winter would be mild affected planning for this winter? If so, what is the best estimate of how much this has cost the country?

3. Last year, the Met Office predicted a 65% chance that winter will be milder than normal. Has the Met Office subsequently explained what went wrong with its computer modelling?

8. Although the Met Office stopped sending its 3-month forecasts to the media, it would appear that this service is still available to paying customers, the Government and Local Authorities for winter planning. What was their advice, in September/October, for the start of winter 2010?

10. Is it appropriate that the chairman of the Met Office is a member, or a former member of climate pressure groups or carbon trading groups?

And finally-

13. What plans has the government to privatise the Met Office?

Influencing modern music 1950-1985

2010-12-10T07:22:00.001Z

This is my list of the top ten people who most influenced popular music from its birth in 1950 until machines took over in around 1985. It's entirely subjective, and you're free to add your own comments

1. Les Paul.
Les Paul has to be at number 1. As well as being the link bewteen the old and the new (he jammed with Django and Charlie Christian in the early 40s, had his own radio show, became Bing Crosby's musical director before singlehandedly inventing every aspect of recording that we take for granted today.
Multi track recording- Les Paul
Vari-speed recording- Les Paul
Sound on sound recording- Les Paul
Mixing desks- Les Paul
The solid electric guitar- Les Paul
You get the idea.

2. Ahmed Ertegun
He founded Atlantic records in 1950. He was there at the beginning of Rhythm & Blues. His achievements are too great to be listed, but he signed Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Led Zepellin and was a major player throughout his long career. He died after falling at a Rolling Stones show in 2006. A giant.

3. Sam Phillips.
Owned Sun Records. Recorded Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash. Say no more.

4. Jac Holzman
Founded Elektra Records in 1950. Discovered Judy Collins. Elektra Records had the best roster of artists in the mid- late 60s including Love, The Doors, Tim Buckley and the Incredible String band. He went on to sign The Stooges and Harry Chapin. When I was a teenager in the late 60s, most of my record collection comprised LPs on the Elektra label.
His protege Judy Collins discovered Leonard Cohen and gave him his first gig. Judy became Steven Stills lover and was the inspiration for "Suite- Judy Blue Eyes".

5. George Martin
Not just the fifth Beatle, but a brilliant composer and arranger. He also produced Jeff Beck's album "Blow by Blow", which was the first instrumental album to sell more than a million copies.

6. Joe Boyd
Started off by inviting long forgotten blues artists like Howling Wolf and John Lee Hooker to play at his college in the early 60s. Became European tour manager for US blues and jazz musicians. Was stage manager at the 1965 Newport Folk festival when Dylan went electric and changed folk music forever. Became UK A&R man for Elektra Records and signed the Incredible String Band. Opened the first underground music venue UFO where the house band was Pink Floyd. Produced Pink Floyd's first single. Discovered Fairport Convention and Richard Thompson. Single handedly created English Folk Rock. Discovered Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan. Went into films and produced the soundtrack to "Deliverance". "Duelling banjos" is his only number 1, but he hated it so much he refused to have his name on the credits. And on and on.

7. Andrew Loog Oldham
Created the Rolling Stones. Created the cult of the pop music manager. Created Immediate Records. Created the idea of living your life as if you were in a film, with a music soundtrack playing constantly (he wanted to be Laurence Harvey). Disowned by the Stones who have tried to erase him from their official history, but love him or hate him, you can't ignore him.

8. Joe Meek
Created the most amazing sounding records using home made equipment in a flat above a shop in North London. Openly homosexual at a time when it was still against the law, he broke every "rule" of music recording. His records still sound great today, while his distractors are long forgotten.

9. Quincy Jones
Musician, composer, arranger and record producer (and all round good guy). His first band was with high school chum Ray Charles on piano while played trumpet.
His arrangements include the swing version of "Fly me to the moon" as recorded by Frank Sinatra (the original was a waltz from the 1920s)
Film scores, hit songs, you name it- he's done it. He has been nominated for a Grammy Award no less than 79 times, winning an astonishing 29 times.
He's produced for Frank Sinatra but is best known for producing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album, which has sold 110 million copies worldwide. If anyone deserved the title of legend, it's Quincy Jones.

10. Cass Elliot
Last but not least, we have Cass Elliot. Her life was cut short just as she was entering a new phase of her life. She had a great voice and sold a lot of records both as a solo artist and as a member of the Mamas and the Papas.
She's in my list because of her gift of hospitality. She was a great hostess, and her house in Laurel Canyon was a magnet for musicians. Legend had it that David Crosby, Steven Stills and Graham Nash met at Cass Elliot's and sang together for the first time. Neil Young was always there. Joni Mitchell met Graham Nash at Cass's place. It can be argued that the whole West Coast music scene had its roots in Cass's home. It may have taken David Geffen's Asylum Records to bring the music to a worldwide audience, but it all began at Cass's.

How I lost £800GBP through Paypal

2010-12-08T15:48:00.001Z

This is a true story.
About six weeks ago I put a pair of JBL bass bins on Ebay. We'd bought them for a PA rig, but hadn't enough funds or work to complete the project. Chris' VAT was due, so we reluctantly put them up for sale on a "Buy it now" for £800.

Tuesday Nov 2nd was an eventful day for me. First of all I got the all clear from the Haematology Clinic and decided to go back to work the next day. Later that evening I had a call from someone called Barry to tell me that he'd just bought my speakers.
These are big bulky items. I purposely advertised that they were "buyer collect" only. When I checked my emails I saw that I'd received an email from Paypal saying that they'd received £800. The email text says quite clearly that I could send the items. I arranged with ny buyer that he would send a courier to collect the speakers the next day, and sure enough I had a call to say they were on their way, so I left work and met the courier at home.
No problems so far. Everything was exactly as I'd experienced many times before. There was one slight niggle. The speakers were to be delivered to Greenwich rather than Slough (where "Barry" lived). I only knew this because the postcode that he gave to the courier wasn't recognised by her satnav. As luck would have it, he rang me and I was able to give my phone to the courier and she took the full address.
She drove off and I went back to work.
Two days later I had an email from Paypal advising me that my payment had been frozen while they investigated a complaint from the real Barry, who said that someone had hacked his Paypal account and used it to buy a number of items including my speakers.

I'd like to say that Paypal were most helpful, but I'd be lying.
Their useless automated system doesn't allow for any deviation from the script.
I had to supply proof of postage. How could I? The item was collected.
I contacted the person whose account was hacked. He was adamant he hadn't bought the item.
I contacted Ebay and told them. Their useless automated system lurched into action.
A couple of days later and I had discovered that my buyer had registered about four hours before buying my speakers. He'd used a false name, incomplete address and spurious telephone number.
He hacked into Paypal to pay for my speakers and got away with it. There is no address for the guy, his phone number is false and Ebay protection only applies when you buy goods, not when you sell them.
Paypal tried to tell me that the email saying that I'd received £800 didn't come from them. So how can they explain the £800 in my Paypal account?
No reply.
They refused to accept any blame. They have returned the money to the real Barry, but I'm out of pocket to the tune of £800 plus my Ebay listing and selling fees.
Both the real Barry and myself are victims. He got his money back but I didn't.

It appears that sellers on Ebay and Paypal have no protection from thieves who steal your goods.

My Paypal account is overdrawn and I can't buy or sell on Ebay until that's rectified.

My advice to anyone selling on Ebay is to insist on cash only.
I may never use it again.

Dead Horse Strategy

2010-12-07T21:15:00.000Z

This has been around the internet for a while, but I think it's good, as worth passing on.

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

However, in modern business, because of the heavy investment factors to be taken into consideration, often other strategies have to be tried with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders.
3. Threatening the horse with termination.
4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.
5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired.
8. Change the form so that it reads: “This horse is not dead”.
9. Hire outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
10. Harness several dead horses together for increased speed.
11. Donate the dead horse to a recognized charity, thereby deducting its full original cost.
12. Providing additional funding to increase the horse’s performance.
13. Do a time management study to see if the lighter riders would improve productivity.
14. Declare that a dead horse has lower overhead and therefore performs better.
15. Promote the dead horse to a supervisory position

Showtime

2010-11-29T01:06:00.000Z

Some time ago I was asked if I would sing a few songs at a local church. Having received the all-clear from the hospital I was anxious to get out and about playing my songs again. Who knows? I may have already played my last ever show, so each invite puts off the inevitable last show into the future.

To say the arrangements were haphazard is something of an understatement. My contact neglected to tell me where to turn up until I prompted him several times, and I was never really sure what the evening was in aid of until I arrived on the night. I was also told that the sound check would be between 5 and 5.30 (but wasn't told what time the concert would start).

Anyway I was late arriving. We pulled up at about 5.45 and parked in a side street. I saw a light and rang a bell. Someone came and opened the door. I asked where the concert was being held and I was given directions. When I arrived the soundman was busy wiring mikes. I'd met him before but a long time ago. It was a bit disconcerting that I had to shout to attract his attention- his wife said it was social deafness but I'm not so sure.
As I was the only act there I did my soundcheck. I'm very low maintenance. My mike and guitar settings are very straightforward. I'm so used to doing my own sound that I just set the kit up and leave it. I move in and out of the mike as required and control my guitar volume from the guitar. It should be so easy.

But no.

Then my friend turned up with his guitar. Silly me, I allowed him to use my DI box and therefore my guitar settings. Normally it would not be a problem, except that he keeps his guitar settings flat and relies on the soundman to eq the sound. No wonder my guitar (which sounded great in the soundcheck) sounded so awful and tinny during my spot. All my settings had been changed.

Then a woman who was so obviously a music teacher turned up with about ten teenage girls. This choir was to open the show. It was now about 6.30 and the show was to start at 7.00. She wafted in, said that the electric piano had to be moved as she couldn't direct her girls where it was and then disappeared. The soundman was on the balcony. Apparently there was a powerpoint presentation that he hadn't been told about. I enlisted some help and we moved the piano on to the stage, and I plugged it in and managed to attract the soundman's attention by shouting through the PA. I don't play piano so I pressed the "demo" key and made sure that I could hear it while sitting at the piano. I then went looking for the schoolmarm to ask her to soundcheck the piano. I found her out the back. She was warming up the singer's voices and said she'd check it afterwards. She never did.
She did however, try to commandeer my music stand and walked off with my guitar lead. It was only the intervention of my wife that saved the day.

Meanwhile I was introduced to a man who was to be the MC for the evening. He insisted on calling me David and introduced me to the audience as such. The only time I've been called David was when I was in trouble with my mother.I was past caring by now. He was given a radio lapel mike (but not soundchecked).

The audience were mostly in their seats and the first we knew the show was about to start was when we heard a burst of feedback and a muffled tinny voice calling us to order. I looked around for the source of the noise. It was the MC. Eventually the MC's mike was sorted and he introduced the choir.
Schoolmarm and her gels walked on to the stage, trampling the guitar DI box underfoot. She sat at the piano, not having touched it since she arrived. My wife and I looked at each other. What if it were too loud? Too quiet? The wrong setting?
Schoolmarm had no such worries as she kit the keys and led the choir through a selection of vaguely spiritual songs, including "Hallelujah", "Let it be", "Lean on me" and o joy of joys- "You lift me up"

O bliss.

Eventually it finished and the MC came on stage to introduce me as David Clemo- singer songwriter. It was by now 7.30 and I normally haven't left the house at this time, let alone started playing. In fact, the only places where the doors open this early are theatres and churches.
I started my first song. Now I admit I made a mistake by putting my music stand (which I keep very low down so as not to obstruct the view) on my right instead of on my left. I know all my own songs by heart, but I still have the words there just in case. I'm not alone in this. Perry Como was a huge star back in the 50s and 60s. He was renowned for his easy going and relaxed style. What wasn't common knowledge was that he had all the words to his songs written out on huge boards just out of shot. These days the stars use an autocue, a kind of celebrity karaoke but with a live band.
The first song was OK. And the second. I'd not sung the third song before. I'd been practising it all week, but I had a problem with the middle8, specifically the second line. That's when the words would have come in handy, but they weren't in my line of sight. From then on it was downhill, as far as I was concerned. I fluffed the lyrics to my final song as well, and I was glad to get off stage. Not my favourite performance. I struggled to get into the zone, and Sue said that my mike volume kept changing. I suspect that the soundman was fiddling, trying to anticipate me and constantly adjust the settings. Please- just don't OK?

I don't remember much more. My friend came on and played guitar while some people sang. The first song was apparently a reworking of an old hymn. I didn't know it, and neither did my friend the guitarist. The second song was apparently a new one. I couldn't tell you anything about it, except that it was a bit too long.
Then the speaker came on to the platform. I've done dozens of these type of event before. If you add in church services then it's hundreds.
Even so I was gobsmacked when the "speaker" started to sing to a backing track. And not just any backing track, but a real "Frank Sidebottom" effort, with drum machine and casio keyboard sounds.

I let out an audible groan. Sorry. Just- couldn't help it.

Anyway, we sat through the presentation. Then we were all invited to have a cup of tea and some refreshments. I packed away my guitar and followed the throng into another room. I was buttonholed by someone who insisted that if I sang with a couple of people that he knew it'd be really good. If you say so mate.

Sue and I exchanged glances and sneaked out and away when we thought no-one was looking.

I've played a lot of churches in my time. It probably wasn't the worst organised event we've been involved in, but it was pretty close.

Maybe I'll write about the worst gigs I've ever played.

Or maybe not. I'll probably get nightmares or die of embarrassment or both.

Islam and the West- my Facebook thread

2010-11-24T06:12:00.000Z

I found this video recently courtesy of Cranmer

Cranmer begins his article like this ""When you're asked an awkward question, you can either distract and deflect as the politician does; you can ruminate and reflect as the philosopher does; you can equivocate and obfuscate as the diplomat does.Or you can answer the question explicitly and directly, as the soldier does."

A comment on Cranmer said "There are moderate Muslims but there is no such thing as moderate Islam".

A view I heartily endorse, so I posted it on Facebook. The replies came back over the next day or so, so here's the thread:

Mike started with
"Watching this video prompted me to consider the similarity between the Koran, Mein Kampf and Das Kapital. The authors of at least two of these were probably madmen, and all three authors presented a totalitarian system that can only exist i...n its own enviroment, making it an imperative to destroy any opposing system. The concept "hate the sin but love the sinner" is incomprehensible to such a system, which can only understand "hate the sin and destroy the sinner". The old adage "kill or be killed" presents a dilemma to the Christian, since if we choose to "love the sinner", the sinner will still try to kill us, so we are presented with a choice that challenges our ethics: do we pray or fight, or even do both? This calls for a great deal of wisdom and faith, and total trust in God. Is the cry of Jehoshaphat enough "we don't know what to do but our eyes are on You" ?"

My reply "Islam cannot exist without the West. Where else would the arabs go when they want to get drunk and go whoring? And they do, oh yes they do!"

Mike: "I know they go to Mecca every year, do you reckon they do more than just play bingo there, then?"

Richard chipped in with "Where's morality in the Bible though?!"

I replied "I'd be happy to sit and go through the Bible with you any day. I'm happy to point out all the inconsistencies and bits I don't agree with. I will however, also show you all the consistenies, the continuous narrative, the fulfilled prophesie...s, the bits I can't argue against, and the undeniable (to me) fact that it has the ring of truth.
Morality is an absolute. If it's not, if morality changes to suit the conditions, then it's not absolute, and it's not morality.
Which makes me a sinner in need of grace and salvation. Over to you."

Mike came back with "You could start with the 10 Commandments, Richard. And could I ask you where the immorality is in the Bible?"

Richard came back later with "I suppose you could start with "Stone disobedient children" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) and go from there really...Leviticus makes interesting reading as well. I'm no expect in these texts but I certainly don't consider the Koran to be any more immoral than the Bible."

Good point. Worthy of a response. Here it is.
"Touche. These laws belong to a different age, like "Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together" Deut 22:11. Everyone and anyone can point to the book of rules to justify their actions- look at council jobsworths for example. My beef with Islam is that there is no peace, no love, no forgiveness, and because Mohammed said so, no chance of ever changing it. The Old Testament pointed to the New- and you must study Isaiah to see where and how and why. Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah, Jews believe that he wasn't, and the Messiah is still to come, but Islam gives no hope, because Mohammed is the final revelation, and therefore there is no hope, only chaos and violence.
When your book of laws allows you to keep slaves, to deny women any rights and to kill all unbelievers, it pretty much gives you carte blanche to do anything you like. It sickens me.
However, I will add that all organised religion sickens me, not because of the truth they claim for themselves, but on their insistence that everyone must live according to rules they set. The unassailable fact is that the first duty of any organisation is to ensure its own survival, and the first casualty will ever and always be truth.
Politicians lie to ensure the survival of their party, church leaders lie to ensure the survival of their denomination or faith. It's what they do. It's genetically inbred.
Jesus never set up any organisation. He never founded a church. He lives his life as an example to us all. He was arrested on a trumped up charge because he was seen as a threat to the established religion and the rulers of the day. And they murdered him. Everyone who accepts the corrupt practices of religion, or thinks that any evil thought word or deed that keeps an organisation in power is OK are guilty by association.
The difference between Islam and Jesus teaching is that under Islam we must all die, because there is no forgiveness, but Jesus promised that all who believe in him can be forgiven, because when he was murdered on the cross, all the sins of the world were paid for in a way that I don't understand, or have to, because all I have to do is to say I'm sorry and accept that Jesus death paid for my sins, and follow him.

It's when the church and state gets involved that it all goes wrong.
But back to your point. Because Mohammed "married" his 9 year old cousin and had sex with her, does that mean that paedos can claim that they were only following his teachings?"

I expect there will be more.....But for now, the fact that we are able to have this conversation speaks volumes about the freedom we currently enjoy. I suspect it will not last for long. We are rushing headlong towards a totalitarian society (wrong word, try world) where children are encouraged to spy on their parents, where everything is illegal unless it is permitted, and people like me will have the knock on the door in the middle of the night to look forward to.

Playing again

2010-11-14T23:17:00.000Z

Last week I dragged myself out of my lethargy and went to one of the local Open Mike nights in nearby Rothwell. My friends Stevie Jones and Mark Gill run the evening, and they very kindly let me go on first. I wasn't sure how strong my voice would be after a long lay off, so my first song may have been a bit tentative. I sang one of my old songs "Another Crazy Day", which I wrote back in 1993, in the midst of the last recession. Somehow the words seemed appropriate.

Another Crazy Day,
The TV blares its message;
Anger and despair;
Recession and dismay.
A hurting world where
No one ever seems to care.
Feeling so empty;
Starving in a world of plenty.

Another weary day;
It’s rush around and hustle bustle,
Get nowhere.
No time to stop and say
The tender word that shows
Somebody that they care.
Tears fill our eyes;
Another day in paradise.

I’m standing on a precipice;
Staring into the abyss;
Hanging on to nothingness.
There’s got to be much more than this.
The pointlessness, the hopelessness,
Can someone tell me what it is?

Another lonely day.
How many million people
Live outside my door?
They all shrink away.
Too scared to love or
Build a friendship anymore.
We’re wasting away,
Starved of the one thing that can save us
© Dave Clemo 1993

I followed that with my version of "Hurt", as sung by Johnny Cash, and finished with "When you say nothing at all". Back in the summer Nicki Gillis played the Americana Festival in Newark. We were on during the afternoon, and the main evening act was Paul Overstreet. You may not know his name, but you've heard his songs, which include "Love will build a bridge" and "When you say nothing at all". It was lovely to sit in the evening sun, listening to Paul singing to a simple guitar accompaniment.

After I finished, I went into the bar and got chatting to some people. One asked me if I fancied rehearisng for an occasional country/rockabilly/americana band? So on Thursday I was out again, this time in Desborough, where I met Chris and his bass player and drummer. It's a bit early to say if it'll work out, but I'll go back again this week. I was asked if I could sing a song, and chose the Mavericks' "There goes my heart". I've never sung it in public before, and I changed the key to suit my voice. I'm definitely NOT Raul Malo!

Friday's work was a killer. It's not the work, but the walk around the town with the post, followed by traipsing around Morrison's to get the shopping. By the time I got home I was finished.

Saturday came around, and with it came my first proper advertised concert in over a year. I was supporting my good friend Paul Wheater at a local church. Chris came with me and sorted out the PA.

The great thing about playing churches is that they tend to start two hours before secular gigs. The doors opened at seven and we started at 7.30. (We were packed up and out by ten o'clock).

I opened with "Another Crazy Day" and also included "Hurt" in my set, along with several of my own songs. They seemed to go down well, and many friends commented that my voice has changed for the better. maybe I'm taking more care of it, or maybe the enforced rest has something to do with it, I don't know, but all compliments are graciously accepted.

Paul Wheater played his customary fine set. I love his voice and Paul is never lost for something to say! It would be great if we could put together a tour some time before we get too old. (Any bookers reading this?)

We finished off with "Amazing Grace". Paul started, I took over in the middle and we finished with everyone in the audience singing acapella. All too soon it was over. We packed up the kit and I drove Chris into town, as Chris wanted to watch the Haye v Harrison fight in a local pub. Alas, the van's battery is on its last legs, and we didn't arrive until the beginning of the fourth round. Except that there wasn't a fourth round. Haye stopped his opponent in the 3rd! Ah well.

I must make the effort to get out at least once a week and play a few songs. trouble is, the nights are cold and dark, and the house is warm and cosy. I must get motivated......

I ent bin nowhere by

2010-11-05T10:00:00.002Z

Geoff Mack wrote "I've been everywhere" back in the 50s and it's been covered and adapted by almost everyone. Johnny Cash sang it, and I remember hearing it on BBC Saturday night TV back in the 60s by, I think, The Mudlarks.

Here's my take on it. It's in the local Northants dialect, now sadly dissappearing into Estuary English.

"I ent bin nowhere by"

I ent bin nowhere by
I ent bin nowhere by
Never had no care by
Never had the fare by
Just sat here in this chair by
I ent bin nowhere

I ent bin:
Cogenhoe, Wadenhoe, Flecknoe, Farthinghoe,
Scaldwell, Maidwell, Hollowell, or Sywell,
Walgrave, Hargrave, Sulgrave or Creaton,
Hinwick, Winwick, Blatherwyke, or Teeton,
Glapthorn. Tansor, Cotterstock, or Ashton
Lamport, Draughton, Loddington or Faxton!

I ent bin nowhere by

I ent bin:
Kings Cliffe, Bulwick, Blatherwyke, or Laxton,
Seaton, Lyddington, Barrowden, or Glaston,
Rushton, Newton, Geddington, or Stanion,
Dodford, Hackleton, Piddington, or Denton,
Knuston, Duston, Wollaston or Whiston,
Overstone, Boughton, Hanging Houghton,

I ent bin:
Brixworth, Holdenby, Chapel Brampton,
Norton, Horton, Flore or Weedon
Pytchley, Isham, Orlingbury, Harrowden,
Chelveston or Raunds or Keyston
Finedon, Addington, Woodford, Slipton,
Desbra, Rowell or N’thampton!

I ent bin nowhere by
I ent bin nowhere by
Never had no care by
Never had the fare by
Just sat here in this chair by
I ent bin nowhere

© Dave Clemo 2007 with apologies to Geoff Mack

UPDATE. I posted some of these lyrics on Facebook tonight and my friend and fellow musician Bob Howe posted a picture of him and Geoff Mack, now in his eighties and still going strong.

How to reduce government spending at a stroke

2010-10-26T14:21:00.000Z

I saw this over at Burningourmoney and read it through. I encourage you to click on this link and read it yourself
http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2004&month=04

Then tell me that government spending can't be reined in. I've been in despair for such a long time about how this country is being systematically strangled whilst being simultaeneously raped and looted.
How can we kill the beast that sucks the very life out of the country?
The petty regulations that prevent jobs being created, that stifle creativity and enterprise, that make it easier to stay and home rather than earn self respect as well as money?

I didn't know the answer. But now I have read something that shows us the way.
It's so simple that it just needed spelling out.
The very principles that enabled business to adapt and change over the last thirty years just need to be applied.
Why does the government do the things it does?
Has anyone ever asked that question?
If the answer is "because we've always done it", then it's time to take a long hard look.
I recall a story about an ordinary business. An ordinary worker used to file certain documents. She'd done it for years. She'd been told to do it on her first day at work. No-one asked her what happened to the documents once they'd been filed.
Had anyone ever asked for them? No.
Had anyone ever looked at them? No.
Had anyone ever gone through the files and thrown them away? No.

She did the same meaningless task day in, day out, because no-one ever told her not to. It filled up her day, but it was meaningless, futile, unproductive and expensive. So why do it?

Apply that to government. Can you now see where to start cutting?
It all starts with a simple one word question- "Why?"

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite-

"What about regulations? The regulatory power is customarily delegated to non-elected officials who then constrain the people’s liberties with little or no accountability. These regulations are extremely difficult to eliminate once they are in place. But we found a way: We simply rewrote the statutes on which they were based. For instance, we rewrote the environmental laws, transforming them into the Resource Management Act—reducing a law that was 25 inches thick to 348 pages. We rewrote the tax code, all of the farm acts, and the occupational safety and health acts. To do this, we brought our brightest brains together and told them to pretend that there was no pre-existing law and that they should create for us the best possible environment for industry to thrive. We then marketed it in terms of what it would save in taxes. These new laws, in effect, repealed the old, which meant that all existing regulations died—the whole lot, every single one.

You see? There is hope.

Songwriting (part 2 of many)

2010-10-19T19:23:00.000Z

There must be millions of songs written,and yet the raw material is quite limited. The Western musical scale is made up of twelve notes (semitones) which repeat over about five octaves. (any more than that and the human ear can't hear them)
Without going into too much detail, these notes are organised into scales using various combinations of the twelve notes. The standard DoReMi scale uses eight notes, while the blues can be played using a mere five notes. Play a run of single notes and you have a melody, add other notes to be played and sung at the same time and you have harmony (or discord- depending on the choice of note)
Play three notes and you make a chord.
Almost all music produced in the last fifty years uses a repeating pattern of chords. Rock and roll and blues songs use three chords repeating every twelve bars. Other song structures use 8, 16 or 24 bar structures.
(That's enough music theory I think. Any more and I'll show up my ignorance).

So you have a melody played over chords. The other variables are tempo (how fast you play or sing it) and sycopation/rhythm. These few elements are used to create almost all the music in the western tradition.
(Eastern music doesn't use the same rules).

Despite this limited array of elements, it's surprising what variety of songs can be produced. If you sometimes wonder why a tune sounds like another, now you know why.

This is a video by Axis of Awesome that shows how many songs share the same chord sequence. It's very clever, very funny, and some of the language is fruity. It's still worth a listen though.

So you have the music and melody. What are you going to sing about?
That's the beauty of music. You can sing about absolutely every aspect of the human condition. It can be factual, funny, sad, sexy....

There are so many ways to write a song. There are so many things to sing about. There are so many ways to express oneself...
And yet we still hear bad songs, cliches, naff rhymes, lines that don't scan. Songs that make absolutely no sense. And that's just some of the hits....

Going back to the video. Each of those 65 or so songs was a hit, even though they all used the same chord progression. They all managed to sound slightly different, and each one had something that made you remember it, that made it stand out from the millions of similar sounding songs, that all said the same thing albeit in a different way.

So what is it that makes you remember one song among millions?
It's called a hook.

Someone once said that you need three things to make a hit song:
A hook, a hook, and a hook.
I'll have a look around the internet and come back to this again

Songwriting part one (of many)

2010-10-16T16:26:00.001Z

I'm a songwriter. I've had a few (about 60)accepted by the PRS/MCPS, but no hits to date. They say everyone has at least one song in them. Irving Berlin had aver 1000 "hits", Johnny Mercer had more than 800, while Lennon and Mccartney had over 300 together with countless others as solo songwriters. A few years ago, when Sony moved from being a manufacturer of tape recorders to a complete media organisation that manufactured the equipment, owned the songs, and then released the music though its own company, they bought the rights to over a million songs.

A million songs. How can they all be heard? And thousands if not millions added to the number of published works every year.

That goes some way to explain why the X Factor always uses an old song to launch the recording career of their talent show winner. I've not checked, but the chances are that the song is published by Sony and released through Syco (a division of Sony records).

I read "The Hobbit" by Tolkein a couple of times. Tolkein based his books on a traditional way of life that was dying out in 1930s England. As radio, cinema and phonographs became more popular, the old oral tradition of songs being passed down from generation was dying out, and collectors like Cecil Sharpe in the UK, and Alan Lomax in the US began to collect the old songs to save them for posterity. Those old songs served a valuable purpose.

I've read and studied the Bible. I'm told that the old testament prophets would enter a town, go into the market place and sing their prophesy. If you look at the different books of the Bible where prophesy plays a part, the actual prophesies are written as verse rather than prose. So songs can be used as prophesy.
Songs are also a way of remembering stories, of remembering past events, of history. Facts are easier to remember if they can be learned as rhyme. Take, for instance, how to remember how many days to each month.
This rhyme dates back to the sixteenth century, and is a perfect example of the use of song/rhyme as an aid to memory.

30 days hath September,
April, June and November,
All the rest have 31,
Excepting February alone.
Which only has but 28 days clear
And 29 in each leap year

In Tolkein's book the travellers spent the night with some people they meet along the way. The evening was spent singing songs to each other. This was a way of describing their culture to the other people and may account for why some songs turn up in different parts of the country (and as far away as the US, each with slight variations. The travelling musician brought the news in the form of ballads, and one reason why traditional ballads were so long may be due in part to the need to string the listener along (Authors like Dickens and H G Wells were first published in the Saturday newspapers and were paid by the column inch, hence the long descriptions in the narrative).

Indeed, the reason we now have songs that are limited to about three minute duration is a result of the technology available about a century ago. Wax cylinders could only record and store about three minutes of music, so songs were edited to fit the new medium. Eventually, three minutes became the norm, and I for one have become so accustomed to this that when I, for instance, sat in with a folk band playing jigs and reels whilst on holiday a year or two ago, found that tunes often went on and on beyond the "normal" three minutes. That's because the tunes were arranged for a set dance, which takes as long as it takes. Other traditional tunes like "The Masons Apron" or "Sally Goodin" have a basis tune structure which is them embellished by the performer. The prowess of the player is set by the number of different variations he/she can introduce into the basic tune.
Here's Hulda Quebe of the Quebe Sisters Band playing a traditional fiddle tune when she was about 15. I love the sponteneity of it all. A couple of players back stage amid the trucks and amplifiers just jamming. Notice how the bass player comes in after the Hulda and Joey start playing.

And while we're on the subject of traditional tunes, here's two versions of a fiddle tune called the Mason's Apron. The first is by the Chieftains, with Matt Molloy on wooden flute,a notoriously difficult instrument to play

And another, by Canadian band the Mudmen

Great tunes are not dependent on gadgets or gimmicks. But great songs need great tunes and hooks,and I hope to write about that on the next post.

The Pretenders- an appreciation

2010-10-14T21:01:00.003Z

I am a big fan of Chrissie Hynde. Anyone who can make music that still sounds fresh and relevant after 35 years in the business must have something going for her. When she burst on the scene with her band The Pretenders in the late 70s she was already "too old" to make it, according to today's pop music wisdom .
She was also smart and nobody's fool. I can't imagine Simon Cowell or Simon Fuller wanting to take her on today.
Born in Akron, Ohio, she is one of those people who was there or thereabouts during many of the events that shaped rock music history. For example, she was at Kent University in 1970 when the National Guard opened fire on the students (which inspired the CSNY song "Ohio"). Later in the decade she worked at Mclaren & Westwood's shop "Sex" and auditioned for many of the early punk bands. She was very much an intergal part of the early punk rock scene.
When she finally formed her band "The Pretenders" it was far more than just a punk band. For a start, she wrote great songs, the band were great musicians and she had a style all her own, even if she sometimes reminded me of a cross between 60s singers like Francoise Hardy, and Cathy McGowan with the backcombed hair and eye makeup.

Her first single was a cover of a Kinks song "Sobbing". I must admit I heard it and wasn't that impressed, dismissing her as just another wannabee one hit wonder. I was wrong. Two things happened to change my opinion. Firstly, our drummer's sister Karla started singing with a local teenage band, and aged 16 auditioned and joined our band as keyboard/vocalist. We started playing Pretenders songs.
Secondly, The Pretenders released their first album and had a smash hit with "Brass in Pocket". Everybody started to cover her songs. Grace Jones did a stunning version of "Private Lives".
It's one thing to write hit songs for your own band, but when other artistes start covering your songs, then you are something special.
I was lead guitarist in our band Conspiracy, and I had to learn how to play the many and various hit singles that the Pretenders had in the late 70s/early 80s.
They were very clever and well put together songs. I particularly like this song "Kid"

I love that guitar solo. I'll come back to this song later.
The original band consisted of Martin Chambers on drums (who left for a while and is back again), plus Pete Farndon on bass, and James Honeyman-Scott on lead guitar, with Chrissie taking lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Boy could they rock. Here's some footage from an ABC tv show "Fridays" where they played live in the studio, and boy, they looked great and could really kick ass.

No lipsynch to backing tracks for Chrissie and her band!

I saw the Pretenders play live at the DeMontfort Hall, Leicester in the early 80s. At around this time she was involved with Kinks songwriter Ray Davies, and had a huge hit with his song "I go to sleep" (yet another song I had to learn how to play- by lifting the stylus on and off the record and playing each phrase over and over.)
This tour would be the final tour for this lineup of the band. Two members, Pete (bass) and James (guitar) had serious drug habits and Pete was sacked from the band in 1982. Two days later James died of heart failure associated with cocaine use.
Here's a radio broadcast of a live performance of "I go to sleep" recorded in LA in 1984

Thirty years on,and Chrissie and the Pretenders are still going strong. She'll be 60 next year, and she still rocks. She is one hell of a talented lady, fronting her band through highs and lows, and writing some great tunes. Here's the song she released soon after James Honeyman-Scott's death (and just a few months before Pete Farndon od'd on heroin and drowned in his bath)

Back on the chain gang. Keep on rocking Chrissie!

There's a score of great songs I could have included, and there's some great video of the band out there, so why not check her out for yourself? As she once sang
"I'm special, so special, I'm gonna have some of your attention baby, give it to me!"

In closing, I believe that the mark of a truly great song is whether it be played with minimal instruments.
Here's Chrissie and her guitarist playing "Kid" on acoustic guitars a couple of years. This is a great song, a great performance by a great artist.

Rulers and leaders part two

2010-10-12T19:35:00.000Z

My first post was a bit of a ramble that tried to tie in the threads of top-down vanity projects and ruling by consent. I just re-read it and, like many of my blogs, starts as one thing and becomes a stream of consciousness that goes where it will.

So I'll try again to pull together all the different thoughts going through my mind these past few days.

Question- how do you know if you're a leader?
Answer- people follow you. If they don't follow you then you're not a leader.

Which is why our rulers have to resort to the law or the threat of force in order to get us to go where they want us to go. But then they're not leading us, they're driving us. Or they may appeal to some concept like tradition, respect, allegiance to a flag or organisation. So instead of following the man, you follow the flag, or the party. (I use the term "man" in a non-gender way)

We've just endured the Party political conference season, a bunch of staged events put on for the media's benefit. I don't know how many people are actually members of these parties. The Conservatives refuse to disclose the numbers, so it must be pretty low. I expect that Manchester United fan clubs have more members than any of the political parties, and some church denominations would probably have more as well. These conferences are so boring and predictable that many MPs don't bother to attend, unless there's a chance of appearing on TV. It's a bit like professional cycling. Every now and then a no-hoper goes to the front of the field, not that he has any chance of winning, but just so that his sponsors can see their logo on TV. Meaningless apart from showing the face/brand/logo. An MP gets his face on TV and it gives the impression to his constituency that he is "getting the job done" or "representing his voters". All windowdressing and meaningless.

There were only two newsworthy items in all the three weeks of conferences. The first one of note was the speech by a deputy head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh. Here it is:

The second was the interminably boring election of a new Labour leader.
The reason it was boring was because of:
the quality (or lack thereof)of candidates;
the length of time from nomination to the result;
and the sheer irrelevance of it all.

I read a lot of books and one of my favourite authors is Kurt Vonnegut Jr. About forty years ago he gave an interview that was published in a magazine which was subsequently republished in a book called "Wampeters, Foma and Grandfalloons".
He was asked why a particular candidate lost a presidential election and his answer was simple and to the point.

"People vote for winners and he was a loser"

The reason the Labour leadership election was so boring was that it was electing a bunch of losers to lead a party of losers.

The second reason is was so underwhelming was that although the contest was about electing a "leader", none of the candidates could in any way be described as natural leaders. This country has had very few natural leaders in the recent past. Churchill was one, and so was Thatcher. Bliar was more concerned about his "legacy" and how good he looked on TV, and the least said about Brown the better. There are plenty of natual leaders in industry and commerce, but so few in politics. Why is that?

The third reason for the lack of interest in the Labour leadership election was to do with the voting arrangements. As Vonnegut famously said, people vote for winners, not losers, but the top losing candidate (the one who came second) was declared to have won.

So a party of political losers ended up with a loser as a leader.

Except of course, he is an unproven leader. He has no identifiable leadership skills. He has no charisma, no spark of whatever it is that makes other people want to follow him, to risk everything if necessary. All he has at his disposal is patronage. And as any newly poor person will tell you, you don't need those kind of friends, those who befriend you for what they can get.

Rulers and leaders part one.

2010-10-12T05:50:00.002Z

It’s been a week or more since my last post. I’ve had other things to do.

The Commonwealth Games has been on the TV and I haven’t bothered to watch any of it, and I’m an athletics fan. It’s all to depressing to read about to actually want to watch it. Vanity projects almost always fail. Look at the Millennium Dome. When Labour to power in 1997, they could have scrapped it. It was by then already running late and over budget, but Bliar was always more interested in his legacy, so he gave the order to continue with it.

(As an aside- the Dome concept was identical to Wonderworld, which was to be built in an old quarry at Corby. For years the only evidence to any progress was a fading sign alongside the A43.)

There’s an old saying that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. The same with vanity projects. The same with any top-down decision. Just because our rulers want a big circus to show off how great they are, doesn’t always translate into willing bums on seats.
Look at the sites of the last two Olympic Games. Athens is deserted and ruined, and some of the arenas in Beijing have already been demolished.
In Delhi they didn’t even complete the damn eyesore. The stars of track and field have planned their programmes through to 2012 and Delhi was not part of their plan. No amount of money would persuade them to change their minds, so it was always going to be second rate.
Then there’s the audience, or lack of it. When you displace thousands of people to build your vanity project, you can hardly expect them to spend their own money coming to support it can you? When you factor in the publicity about the filth and bridges falling down and bits falling off buildings, the real risk of a terrorist attack…. It’s no wonder that people stay home.

A few thousand miles North West, in Afghanistan (another vanity project, this time costing lives and broken bodies as well), our soldiers, fighting an unwinnable war with outdated equipment against an invisible enemy, see the local population making themselves scarce, and they know that an attack is imminent. Was I the only one who looked at the empty arenas and made the same connection?

We may be witnessing the final Commonwealth Games. Our Queen is now in her eighties and commands respect and receives love from all of the world’s people. Her son does not. Australia has made it clear that they are happy to have the Queen as the monarch, but less happy about having Charles/George succeed her. I expect the Republicans to win the day there, closely followed by Canada and New Zealand. Once they become republics, the Commonwealth is no more.

Charliegeorge is not a popular man. He blew it when he dumped Diana for Camilla. I recall the headline in Bristol’s main newspaper on the day his wedding was announced. It said “Tetbury man to wed”. In any other age that would be tantamount to treason, but no-one objected. No-one.

Rulers aren’t always leaders. There’s a great scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail that sums it up nicely. It’s the first two minutes of this clip.

Rulers may rule, but only with the consent of the powerful.
More to come on this.

Graffitti

2010-09-30T09:32:00.001Z

I woke up this morning to find that someone has tagged my front wall.

So today's task is to buy some remover and clean it off.

We live in a quiet residential area of town and what graffiti that can be found is usually in the alleyways or down by the shops. I'm pissed off basically.

We'll email the police as it's a waste of time to phone them. They won't want to know because graffitti is somehow beneath them, when they've got charts and forms to fill in, and diversity awareness courses to attend. I discovered long ago that's it's so easy to fill your working day with busyness, and be worn out at the end of it, but without actually having accomplished anything. Whole careers in the NHS and "public service" have been built on this principle. I tried working in the public sector once when I was temping. I can't believe how much time these people waste....

But that's another story.

A few years ago I watched a docusoap on TV about the police trying to identify a persistent "tagger" who would cover anything that was bolted down with his unique identifying design. That's the whole point of tagging isn't it? You place your mark on the environment, so that people know that you've been there.

The police identified that culprit and prosecuted him. He got off, because the court decided that the man's unique tag wasn't unique enough, that is to say- they couldn't prove that the accused was the perpetrator. As no-one had actually seen him at work, they couldn't prove he did it.

It's nonsense of course. It's not beyond those that make our laws to rule that a graffitti tag is as good as a signature, as DNA. If the testimony of handwriting experts can be relied upon in court, why not that of a graffitti expert.

But no, we shrug our shoulders and clean it off. No-one gets prosecuted, no-one gets punished. Some even get lauded. I for one never understand what people see in Banksy's "art". All successful art spawns imitations, so by legitimising his graffitti, all you have done is make it socially acceptable, and it can be debated, raise the "quality" of the vandalism.

It's my wall. I paid for it to be built. I do not want any yob with a spray can cocking his leg up my wall and leaving his spraint thank you.

UPDATE-
A few days later a plastic bobby knocked on the door. He was investigating the graffitti attack. (My neighbour had rung the police after they sprayed a line of white along his wooden fence) He commended us on the good job we'd made of cleaning the paint off, but wondered if we'd taken a photo?
As it happened, we had , so I printed on off for him. The PCSO said that the vandals had caused some damage along a neighbouring street, and one of the houses had CCTV, so there is a chance that they could be identified from the footage. (Once the video had been converted to a format that the police could use, that is...)
I'm not holding my breath.

Non religious Christianity

2010-09-24T19:55:00.000Z

Faith is defined as believing in something that you can't see.
Everyone has faith. You can't see radio signals, but you believe that by plugging a radio into the mains and switching the electricity on (something else that you can't see), you will hear music or speech. We believe that a red light will stop the traffic, although it has no actual power to do so.
People will tell me that science can explain all these things and avowed atheists will also tell me how the world began- with a big bang apparently, but without explaining who pressed the button or flipped the switch to start it off.
Some people will say that science has done away with the need for a god, a creator. Knowing how something works somehow relegates god to the margins, to the unknown. As someone said, he has become the god of the gaps (in our knowledge).

As I write this, a survey has found that over 70% of the population would consider themselves to be christian (with a small c.)
Anti-christians seize on the fact that as less than 10% attend a church regularly, the Christian faith should somehow be marginalised or even discriminated against. People no longer join organisations. They don't join trade unions or political parties. Some still belong to clubs and societies based on a particular pasttime, but on the whole we in the UK are not joiners of anything. Churches will always remind us that more people attend church on a Sunday than go to football matches on a Saturday by the way.

I used to attend church regularly. Not any more. My Christian friends wonder why, and it's hard to tell them without sounding anti-christian. I'm not anti-Christian, just anti-church. I don't enjoy doing churchy things anymore.

I've pondered this for a few years. People tell me that being in a church gives you a sense of belonging, of community.

But what if you're a loner by nature? Or a recluse? Someone who doesn't enjoy being in a crowd?

When Jesus needed spiritual refreshment he went off by himself. Yes, he went to the Temple to fulfil a religious obligation, but on arrival he chased the money lenders out. What was his opinion of church?

St Francis of Assisi was a loner, yet they made him a saint and a whole religious order was named after him.

So what is it that requires Christians to attend a church or to belong in one?

I've been a member of a church, several in fact. It was the great Victorian preacher Charles Henry Hadden Spurgeon who said "If you find the perfect church, don't join it because you'll only spoil it".

So I won't be joining any church any time soon. Joining a church won't make me a good person, so will not joining a church make me a bad person?

And what if I were to look for a church? Which one? It's not that simple. At the last count there were over 40,000 denominations worldwide. Each one claims to be THE true church. Each one claims that the others have it all wrong. So how does one choose? Do you have to go down the lists of theological points and tick the ones you like? I know of churches in the UK that draw people from upwards of fifty miles away. What does that tell me? That they serve great coffee?

Or that people will travel miles in order to have their religious prejudices legitimised?

What does God say? In one famous Old Testament passage he speaks through the prophet Amos (Amos 5:21-24)

21 The Lord says, "I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them! 22 When you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will not accept the animals you have fattened to bring me as offerings. 23 Stop your noisy songs; I do not want to listen to your harps. 24 Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry. (Good News version)

That's pretty clear I'd say.

I grew up in Cornwall in the 1950s. It was still a Christian country. We ate fish every Friday and my parents packed us off to Sunday school, partly, I suspect, to have the house to themselves for a while. The chapel was just down the road next to a short terrace of victorian houses. Before our estate was built, it must have looked a solitary sight, next to the old main road that ran up the high ground from Penzance to Camborne and beyond. When they built the causeway and opened up the road from Penpol to Copperhouse, thus creating the town of Hayle, it became ever more isolated. I always wondered why they built such a large chapel for such a small settlement, but then I realised that it was built to serve the tin mines that were everywhere. Once they failed, the population emigrated to Canada, the US, Mexico and Australia, and the dwellings fell down or were demolished, leaving an isolated and decaying chapel.

The chapel was built by the Bible Christians, and it's worth studying this aspect in order to understand why we have so many denominations.

It all goes back to the mid 18th century, when John & Charles Wesley visited Cornwall and Methodism was born. While Wesley was alive, he considered himself to be an Anglican, but on his death his followers adopted the nickname that was given them by their detractors and became Methodists in 1795. By 1811, it had become bogged down with building churches, employing full time professional ministers, pension schemes, foreign missions, etc etc, and many believe it had deserted the poor and illiterate. In short, it had become middle class and conservative.
The Methodists split over this, and the Primitive Methodists were formed, adding to the other post-Wesley Methodist denominations like the Wesleyans and the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion.
You see how complicated it has become?
Within 20 years of Wesley's death there were different denominations, each with their fiercely protected emphases. As well as the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christians were formed in 1815, and were to be found mostly in North Cornwall, Kent and on the Isle of Wight. Their membership was drawn mainly from farm labourers and miners, and was distinctive in that they allowed female preachers, which the Methodists had condemned/banned in 1803.
So my old chapel was built on or around 1850 by a breakaway group of Methodists, who themselves had broken away from the Anglican church just over half a century earlier.

Is it any wonder that people get confused?

So no, I won't be joining a church anytime soon thank you. If I found one that ticked all my boxes, it'd have a congregation of precisely....one.

And I'd only attend ever now and then.

I think this sums it up nicely...

Dusty- an appreciation

2010-09-23T20:45:00.005Z

The older I get, the more I appreciate the talent of the rock/pop pioneers. Not for them carefully stage managed events where the "stars" lip synched to their records.
No, the early stars played live. Every night. They learned their craft. They earned their acclaim.
As I write this in the third week of September the producers of the "X factor" have no doubt selected the song that will be this year's Christmas number one. Now all they have to do is choose the person who will sing it. And the winner will have no choice in it. They will do as they are told.
Whoever wins this sorry spectacle of a TV show, you can be sure of one thing. They won't have played many live shows. A handful at most. Ten years ago I read that the average UK chart topping band will have played about 100 shows before they hit the charts, whereas in the US the equivalent act will have played closer to ten times that number. It shows. Boy how it shows.
I grew up with Dusty Springfield. She was an ever present in the charts, from her time with the folk trio The Springfields, to turning solo and taking the pop world by storm with her first solo release.
I watched a programme about her last night. It was broadcast on Sky Arts and as I watched it it brought home to me just how talented she was. As I grew up my tastes changed and I discovered The Stones, then The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and on into rock and folk music (Fairport Convention remain my all time no1 group).
As my tastes became more eclectic, Dusty stayed in the mainstream and so our paths drifted apart.
Looking back over 40 or more years at these clips, I'm amazed at just how good she was. In this first clip of the Springfields singing "Island of Dreams" the band are singing live into one mike with the studio orchestra in the wings. No miming, although the fake American accents are a bit much. The guitarist at the back struggles to play a Bb chord at one part. Still awesome though.

Dusty could sing anything. On this clip she's singing one of her later hits "Son of a preacher man", the original of which was recorded in Memphis with Steve Cropper and the Muscle Shoals session players. This version, once again sung live on TV,is slighty slower than the original, but still brilliant.

There are a couple of clips of her performing at the NME Pollwinners concerts. The Empire Pool at Wembley was an enormous cavern of a place, and from the look of these clips was devoid of a decent PA and lighting as well. However, that didn't matter as Dusty ripped into Inez & Charlie Foxx's "Mockingbird". Note her bass player with his Vox teardrop bass guitar, singing Charlie's part. She knew her soul music, did Dusty, and she could sing as well as any of the US originals. The song is in F, by the way

The following year she was back at Wembley. The bass player has a new Gibson EB2 guitar, and Madeleine Bell is singing backup. This performance of "In the middle of nowhere" is just brilliant. She's having fun and it shows. She has all the vocal chops. Excellent
UPDATE- I've been looking at the clip in more detail. The bass is not a Gibson. I believe it's a Vox Cougar or Lynx bass.I've not seen a picture of a Lynx bass, but the escutcheon plate is identical to that on the Lynx guitar.

Dusty had a primetime TV show in 1967. In it she had a chance to sing some different syles of songs. I'm sorry Cheryl and the rest of you wannabees, but you don't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Dusty.
As you know, Mary O'Brien (Dusty) was Irish, and like all Irish artists was not embarrassed about her musical heritage. My all time favourite female folk vocalist is Sandy Denny, but on this clip, Dusty runs her very close. This was broadcast in September 1967 and is beautiful

To traditional folk music you can add jazz! Here she sings "Peel me a grape", since covered by Diana Krall, and then "If you go away", sung partly in french!

There are a few artists that are known by their first name alone. I don't mean those artistes who have only one stage name like Beyonce or Rihanna, but artists with two names but who are universally known by just one.
Diana Ross? No. Shirley Bassey? No. Karen Carpenter? No. Dusty? I rest my case.

She was quite simply one of the best, if not the best singer this country has ever produced. She chose her own songs and took charge of her recording sessions. The producer sat back and let her get on with it. She knew what she wanted and her judgement and taste were impeccable.
Unless there's a seismic change in the music industry, there will never be another like her.
To finish with, here's Dusty predating the Blues Brothers by almost fifteen years.

Simply the best.

Guilt and Fear

2010-09-20T16:38:00.000Z

Guilt and Fear. The two main weapons used to keep the people under control.
Guilt- make people feel bad
Fear- make people afraid.

It works every time. Choose which one you want to emphasise and the ratio of one to the other and off you go.

Advertising. Mostly fear based. Prey on the consumer's fear that their washing isn't as white as it could be, their kitchen isn't as clean as it could be, that their breath may smell, or they may have body odour. Add in the guilt factor that by choosing brandX you are somehow depriving your loved ones of the very best.
No-one wants to be out of step (except me), so advertising is a great way to get people to conform.

The Environment/recycling. Guilt and fear again. You drive a car so you're a filthy polluter. It matters not that it's impossible to get anywhere and back in a day without one. You use a car. You're guilty of harming the planet.
You're made/forced to recycle your rubbish. If you don't you get fined. So you comply out of fear. It doesn't matter that your local council isn't interested in recycling commercial waste. They just dump that in landfill.
You use electricity? The power stations are polluters, so you're aiding and abetting them.
You smoke? You're an evil polluter. It doesn't matter that cigarette ends are biodegradable. They will make you feel guilty by saying that cigarette filters contain every harmful chemical known to man and therefore they're harmful to the environment. Oh Yeah? If they're so harmful why do you allow people to put them in their mouths?

Law and order. People have a wrong impression of how dangerous our streets are. The Police do nothing to change that perception. If people are safely in their homes watching TV adverts then we know where they are and they're no threat.
Terrorism is another area where the fear factor is played up. Conspiracy theorists subscribe to the idea that some attacks are "false flag", that is, carried out by our own side in order to heighten the perception of danger. The government is then able to pass laws "for our protection" that stifle our liberty, all based on a lie.

Governments rule by a mixture of guilt and fear.
Organised religion is based on a mixture of guilt and fear.
Whether it be Islam or Roman Catholicism, the adherents are kept in line through a mixture of guilt and fear. Everything we do is a sin. It's wrong. We're made to feel guily. If we step out of line we are punished, so the fear of punishment keeps the people in line. Whether it be excommunication (the Pope claims that he alone holds the keys to heaven and if he withdraws his blessing and prevents you from attending Mass (excommunication), he condemns you to purgatory)
Islam claims that anyone who kills an infidel in Allah's name will have a special place in heaven, waited on by countless virgins. It's the threat of death for apostacy and the promise of heaven for anyone who kills unbelievers that aids the spread of this religion. Guilt and Fear.

I've read the Bible from cover to cover. The first thing that Jesus said to his disciples when they saw him perform a miracle or following his resurrection was this "Do not fear".
These words are repeated throughout the Bible. Trust me. Do not fear.
To the woman caught in adultery and under sentence of death by stoning he said " go and sin no more. Your sins are forgiven." Another time he assures those listening that he has the power to forgive sin.

So why feel guilty?
And why be fearful?

Organised religion can't save you.
Government can't save you.
Buying the right product can't save you.
Wearing the latest fashion can't save you
Recycling your drinks cans can't save you.

So I won't be afraid, though I have much to fear.
And I won't feel guilty, though I have much to ask forgiveness for.

Guilt and Fear? No thanks.

Vested Interests

2010-09-18T18:46:00.000Z

Vested Interests

What do Islington Council and the Church of Rome have in common? What do the University of East Anglia HADCRUT Unit and HMRC have in common? This answer is simple. They are all organisations who have been involved in controversy in the recent past. More than that, they all employ the standard tactic when one or more of their number comes under public scrutiny. They close ranks to protect the organisation.
It’s what organisations do.
MPs close ranks when some of their members fiddle their expenses. Banks and financial dealers close ranks when accused of sharp practice, and yes, doctors close ranks when one of their number is accused of malpractice. It’s what they do.

All organisations put their reputation before the truth- even churches. And not just the Catholics, because Protestant Evangelical Christian churches also have their share of scandals that they try to suppress. My mother used to say to me “Be sure your sins will find you out” and she’s not wrong.

I’m a Christian- a follower of Jesus, and yet I don’t attend church for many reasons.

The three main world religions portray God as one who requires that everyone should pay for the things they’ve done wrong. Each religion interprets this differently. Moslems have a strict regime of praying and fasting, plus pilgrimage to atone for their sins while the Jews require a sacrifice of an unblemished lamb to appease a god who required that blood be spilt. About six centuries BC, Jewish prophets began to forecast the coming of a Saviour, one who would take the place of the sacrificial lambs. This Messiah would also save the Jews from oppression and lead them to victory.
The Jews believe that their Messiah’s arrival is still awaited, while Christians believe that Jesus was the Messiah that was foretold in ancient writings.

That doesn’t seem enough to make people go to war against each other does it?

Most, if not all mainstream Trinitarian Churches have a core set of beliefs that all Christians can accept. These are very few: Jesus is the Son of God, was born to a virgin in fulfilment of earlier prophesies, was crucified, died and rose from the dead. They all agree that his death was atonement for our sins.
But each Christian sect, denomination or sub-division has other beliefs that mark them out as different from the others. I won’t bore you with all the differences, or why they matter, but once again they are enough to make people go to war with one another. Islam also has different strains that regularly go to war against one another. No wonder unbelievers despair!

And yet many of these unbelievers support a football team and swear allegiance to them. These teams all play the same game, to the same set of rules and yet their followers are willing to fight each other. In one famous incident, two South American countries declared war following a game of football, so wanting to fight for one’s beliefs isn’t so strange.
People want to believe in something. How else can you explain horoscopes or crystal healing?

For many years I travelled the UK as a worship leader/preacher and my wife and I were invited into churches of every denomination to minister. I was welcomed into one Catholic church as a member of another faith (which made me smile), and I met and spoke with ministers from every denomination. It was an eye opener to hear these professional Christians assert that what they each believed was the truth, and that what all the others believed wasn’t.

I thought long and hard about this. Which of these different versions of the faith was correct? They couldn’t all be right, could they? Not when their beliefs were so different?
This coincided with a period of illness and unemployment. I spiralled into depression that found expression in cynicism.

They couldn’t all be right- but they could all be wrong.

The church that I was attending (when not out visiting other churches) split into different factions. In despair, I returned to the church where I’d come to faith. I was older, wiser, with a lot of experience and a lot to offer. That made me a threat to the established leadership and his followers. My offers of help were received warmly, but never taken up. I was reduced to sitting in the pew, listening to bad preaching and lousy musicianship. The reason there are so many denominations is because people line up behind personalities. They get frustrated over points of theology, emphasis, leadership and so they leave and form a new church.
All too often the Gospel gets pushed to the background while personalities struggle for power (in the name of God, of course).
I wasn’t going to cause this church to split by stomping off with my circle of fans, so I just stopped going.
And my depression lifted.

These days I’m happy not to attend a church. I won’t bore you with my many experiences- of indoctrination verging on brainwashing in one church I attended briefly; of “heavy shepherding” in another, where any and every life decision had to be brought to the leadership for their approval; of sitting in pews while lies were told in the name of Jesus; and so on.

I read that Ghandi almost became a Christian. The only thing that stopped him following Jesus was the behaviour of his followers. I’m with him on that. The Christian faith is easy to understand but hard to live out. Churches are human organisations with all too human failings. Ambitions, jealousies, personalities all cloud the fundamental purpose of what church should be about.

When church becomes yet another human organisation that is more concerned with perpetuating itself, then it has lost all relevance. Watching wall-to-wall coverage of the Pope and other religious leaders in all their splendour is about as far from the Gospel as it could be.
Mother Teresa worked single handed in the slums of India for over 30 years without coming to the world’s notice. Her selfless devotion to duty away from the glare of the world’s media was closer to Jesus’ intentions than any stage managed showbiz spectacle that we’ve witnessed this week.

No deposit, no return

2010-09-16T10:29:00.000Z

Back in the mid 60s I worked in an off-licence in London's Harrow Road. My job was to keep the shelves stocked and to take care of the empties. When a customer bought a bottle of beer he was charged 3d (a nominal but significant sum, probably equivalent to 50p today)for the bottle. When he brought the bottle back, he got his money back.
It was workable and there were no bottles or cans littering our streets.

I have a confession to make. When I was about 10 or 11 my friend and I would sneak over the wall of one of the pubs in our seaside town and steal empty pop bottles and then take them to a local shop and claim the deposit. I made a few bob and put it in a Post Office savings book. Of course I got caught. The pub landlord had seen me and waited until my next visit, catching me red-handed. I don't know which was worse, being caught, being handed over to my mum who beat me and then being told to wait until my dad got home...
He was working in London and didn't get home for almost a month. I lived in dreadful anticipation of the knock on the door from the police, and my father's return. It was a big deal. Don't steal.
Fast forward a few years and Schweppes became the first company to market "no deposit, no return" bottles, followed soon after by "Long Life" the first beer brewed specially for the can.
It was the Swinging 60s, a time of innovation and sweeping away the old. Yes it had its good side, but there were a few casualties along the way. The old breweries like Fremlins, Courage Barclays & Simmonds, Trumans and countless others were taken over and merged into a few conglomerates selling identikit fizzy beer.

Watneys Red Barrel. Ugh! I still recoil at the name.

Along with the innovation that was the Party Seven we had supermarkets selling beer, and they weren't interested in bottles with a deposit, so it all came to an end.
Over the years beer and soft drinks have become cheaper and cheaper in real terms, and the aluminium can and plastic bottle have become the preferred means of delivery.
The manufacturer used to have a vested interest in getting the bottles back. Like the old fashioned doorstep milk delivery, it was cheaper to take the bottles back, wash and reuse them than to keep buying new ones. However, that idea has gone the way of the doorstop milk delivery- consigned to history.
Single use bottles and cans can be found almost anywhere on the earth's surface. They are an eyesore and a menace to the environment. You can read about the soup-like sludge of plastic that is displacing the plankton in our oceans, and threatening the ecosystem, and you can also read about initiatives to ban the use of single-use plastic shopping bags. All good and commendable. I hardly ever take a supermarket plastic bag these days.
It didn't take long to educate me.

But what about the plastic bottles and aluminium cans that litter our streets and blight the landscape?

In today's Telegraph I read that Bill Bryson, author and honorary Englishman (and President of the Council for the Protection of Rural England) has proposed a return to the "1980s bottle deposit scheme". You can read all about it here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8004306/Bill-Bryson-calls-for-1980s-bottle-deposit-scheme.html

About time too. Those of us who are old enough to remember the scheme are also old enough to remember when our streets were free from litter. However, while it's a nice idea and one that will have widespread approval, the manufacturers, distributers and retailers of these products will have something to say about it.

While I've been writing this blog I've been thinking about how a scheme like this could be made workable. Here's my suggestion, based upon my experiences.

First of all, you can't expect the retailers to take the empties back. I worked in retail for many years and it's hard enough dealing with one way traffic of goods into the stores without having empties cluttering the place up. There isn't the room, the time or the infrastructure. There has to be another way.
I'm a fan of small government so state control has to be kept to a minimum, so it has to be private enterprise. At the moment local councils collect domestic bottles and cans (but not from commercial premises). Each council negotiates their own contracts with recycling firms, which is why it's so hit and miss.
What's needed is some private enterprise (and a financial incentive from local and central government)
The government would charge a recycling levy on each bottle or can produced. The income from this would be used to buy the empties back. If someone can earn a few pence from picking up and returning an empty can to a central point (maybe one of the thousands of empty retail units that blight our towns)
The incentive is that the money is only paid on production of the empty bottle or can. Each collector can be given a swipe card where his cans are credited.
Instant job creation. Instant incentive to clean up the towns and cities.

OK loads of flaws. But's an idea.
And most of the people who claim to lead us have no idea.

Drugs- supply and demand

2010-09-14T10:08:00.001Z

There's an interesting article in today's Mail. An "expert" has come out with a new theory on how to solve the cannabis problem. You can read about it here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311819/Legalise-cannabis-sales-cut-crime-save-NHS-millions-says-expert.html
This is what he has to say:
"The Aberdeen University professor, who has dedicated the last four decades to researching the drug, said that the current prohibition clearly isn't working and feasible alternatives include producing branded products that undergo strict safety tests. Made under licence, they would be free of contaminants and sold in shops, removing the risk of users also being sold harder drugs.
Those who wanted to use the drug could apply for a licence.
Professor Pertwee told the British Science Festival in Birmingham: 'We have to have a car licence, we used to have a dog licence, so why not have a cannabis licence so you can only take it if it is medically safe to do so?
'That would exclude some people who are have a risk of becoming schizophrenic.'

This won't work for very practical reasons. The government are able to tax alcohol and tobacco because they have access to every part of the supply chain.

Can you for one moment imagine the drugs barons allowing the government access? Or giving away a proportion of their profits?

If so, then what we have have is the drugs barons buying off the police and government in return for registering for VAT?

What about if the government set up its own cannabis supply chain to be sold through Tesco? They would then become one of the world's largest drug manufacturers and suppliers and I can see that going down well on the world's stage.
Prohibition doesn't work. banning something makes it more attractive to some people.
The first and probably only thing I learned at school when studying economics was to do with supply and demand.
When demand is high and supply is low, the price goes up.
When supply is high and demand is low, the price goes down.

Prohibition didn't work because it tried to cut supply without the corresponding cut in demand. Only a cut in demand can reduce the supply permanently. Why manufacture something that no-one wants to buy?

The decline of this country's manufacturing capacity can be traced to a lack of demand for the product they were offering. The competitor's products were better and cheaper and so manufacturing ceased.

So how does one eliminate the demand for cannabis and other drugs? Shouldn't this form the focus of the expert's studies and research?

As an aside, and I'm not suggesting that this is the answer for everyone,I read a lot about the Welsh Revival of 1904/5. Here's an article about it:
http://www.openheaven.com/library/history/wales.htm

"According to the London Times of February 2nd, 1905 due to the Welsh revival many men abandoned dens of iniquity. Employers noticed a great improvement in the work produced by their employees. A judge named Sir Marchant Williams said that his work was much lighter especially regarding drunkenness and related offenses."

The argument against the long term benefits of the 1904/5 revival is that it did nothing for the long term decline in Christian attendance and observance, but they fail to take into account the huge loss of life in the trenches of the First World War, when every church, every street in every town suffered loss. Loss of the young, the strong, the energetic.

Alcoholics Anonymous use belief in a higher being as a cornerstone of their treatment, so maybe that's the way forward for some.

Perhaps some thought should be given as to why people take drugs and drink themselves senseless?

Is it for the same reason as to why some people absorb themselves in the minutae of other's lives- the cult of the celebrity, played out in dozens of weekly magazines?
Is it anything to do with the vast population of this country that have no part to play in the daily outworkings? That are powerless, thoughtless and hopeless- without hope?

Maybe we need another religious revival....

Anything but beige

2010-09-03T21:53:00.001Z

We travelled over to the Scilly Isles earlier this week and I found the experience underwhelming. Yes, it was pretty, but most villages in Cornwall are equally so. Yes it was warm and sunny, but so was the Lands End peninsula. We had about 4 hours or so on St Mary's, which is either too short or too long, depending on your viewpoint.
They don't make anything on the islands, although they do grow flowers, so they rely on tourism. Everything is geared to the arrival of the Steamer (as the daily visit by the Scillonian is nicknamed)Before 11.30 and after 4.30 the island goes to sleep again.
Some people will like that. We didn't.
Because everything has to be imported from the mainland, prices are higher. Two pasties cost £7.00. Two ice creams cost almost £4.00.

However, that wasn't why I didn't go overboard for our boat trip.
So what was it?

I'm quite used to being the oldest in my group of friends and musicians. I'd say I was quite young at heart, although a bit cranky and creaky.
No, make that very cranky and creaky.
I felt like one of the youngest all day (I know I wasn't- but I was surrounded by beige and polyester crimpelene all day)

The boat had a stairlift. While we were waiting to disembark these words kept going through my head
"There's a lady who's told that she's getting quite old
And she's buying a stairlift to heaven"

Hardly rock and roll is it?
I made Sue promise never to let me wear beige- ever.
She rather spoilt it by reminding me that the Clarks trainer type shoes that I've been wearing for the last few years are beige.....

OK I'll make that one concession to comfort and anti-fashion.
But no beige. No polyester.
No cruises. No coach holidays.

I've managed 60 years of being awkward and out of step. Let's keep it that way.

Holiday time

2010-09-02T22:55:00.000Z

Here we are again in our favourite corner of the UK. We've holidayed here for many years and we still get drawn back to the area time and time again.
Maybe it's the combination of the rugged landscape, the sea views, the familiar faces... or the local pasties and clotted cream teas.

We camped on this site many times. We started out on the camping lifestyle a dozen or so years ago by heading west without any preconceived ideas about where we'd stay. One year we headed along the M5 to Taunton and headed south to Lyme Regis, then travelled westwards along the coast, stopping at camp sites along the way.
The next year we turned off the M5 at Bridgewater and headed for the North Somerset coast. We stopped one night near Minehead and continued westwards for the next ten days, and every night we managed to camp with a sea view.
Each year we ended up near Lands End. One year we discovered this campsite and from then on decided to cut out the meandering travel and just head straight here.
That was the year after Boscastle suffered a flash flood. We were camping a few miles up the coast and we saw the storm gathering as we drove into the area. That night the tent was almost blown out of the ground and we took refuge in a local farmer’s barn. The next day we heard about the effects of the storm as we listened to the car radio as we drove along the A39.
Suddenly we were hit by a torrential downpour and the rain was so hard that we couldn’t see beyond the car bonnet. Luckily we spotted a layby and got off the road and waited for the storm to pass.
Needless to say, we stayed in a B&B that night and gave camping a rest.
The next day we found this campsite. Our experience had been that the further west one travelled, the worse the campsites were. That may be unfair, but the good sites are more expensive the further west one travels, but there are loads of very cheap, very basic sites. This site was in the middle. Reasonably priced, with good clean showers, within walking distance of the coastal path and just a mile from St Just.
We've returned for year after year, through three changes of ownership and having progressively bigger tents.
When we started camping about 15 years ago we borrowed a tiny two man tent and a couple of sleeping bags. We were playing a small music festival, so it was no problem slumming it for a weekend. As time wore on and as our bodies got creakier with age, we changed our tent for one that you could stand up in. As time wore on, the tents got bigger until we had a six berth tent with an electric hook-up just for ourselves. We also had a blow up mattress, reclining chairs, electric kettle, tv, fridge…..
Our love affair with camping ended a few years ago when, after enduring a miserable gale blowing straight off the Atlantic, we returned to the campsite to find that the wind had ripped the tent and the rain had got in. Everything was soaked. Our clothes, our bedding, everything. The tent was flapping in the wind and the weather forecast was for more of the same, so we reluctantly called a halt, loaded everything into the van and headed home five days early.
However, our hosts told us before we left that they had plans for some static caravans to be placed in one of the meadows, so last year we booked one for a forthnight, and this is our second year of staying in one.
It’s not the same as camping. Nothing beats sitting out on a sunny day, reading a book and watching the world go by. You are connected to your neighbours- you can hear some of them snoring two fields away! Everyone is very friendly and honest. I’ve never had any suspicion of strangers entering our tent, and a closed zip is as secure as a locked and alarmed front door.
The downside is that you have to get dressed if you need the toilet in the middle of the night, but even that has its benefits. Our campsite is far from any street lights and the sight of a star filled night sky is breathtaking. There’s nothing like sitting out and watching meteor showers on a warm clear night.

I'm not sure if we'll go camping again. We'll have to buy all the kit and our increasing age and attendant aches and pains may mean its all a bit too much. My recent health problems and the need to maintain strict hygiene may also count against a return.
Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.

Weather isn't climate, and computer models aren't reality

2010-08-20T12:18:00.002Z

Earlier this week I posted about the Met Office's shiny new computer that takes as much power to run as a small town, and which predicted the non-existent volcanic ash clouds that grounded Europe's planes and caused untold delay and misery earlier this year.

The problem is that computers are only as good as the information that's fed into them. The first law of computers is GIGO:
Garbage In = Garbage Out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_In,_Garbage_Out

I learned this when working for the bank over 40 years ago.
Nothing has changed. That law is eternal.

These days little direct observational science is carried out. Data is merely fed into computers and sophisticated programming is used to predict outcomes.

In Formula One computers are used to predict the efficiency of bodywork components before they are manufactured. They are able to do this successfully because they have data going back over many years. This data was obtained by observing actual components in wind tunnels over a long period of time (relatively speaking). Human hands, eyes and brains were there from the beginning to observe and record and work out the scientific principles involved.
That is good science.
Likewise, ship builders use computer programmes to design ship hulls. They obtained the data to build the computer programme from direct observation and measurement of the behaviour of actual model hulls in a water filled tank. This is also good science.
So far so good. In both the cases the principle of GIGO was taken into account. The data was obtained by direct observation, measured by trusted and trained individuals,and a computer programme was written that simulated the effects of those observations. At all times accuracy was uppermost. The data had to be 100% trustworthy.

Now we come to environmental science, notably weather forecasting and climate predicting.
In the case of the non-existent ash clouds, NO DIRECT OBSERVATIONS WERE MADE.
The aircraft that could have flown into and around the clouds to measure the extent of the problem was grounded, under repair.
The only data they had was guesswork.
Remember the first law of computers?
That's right- Garbage In = Garbage Out.

When will these people learn that computers are only as good as the data that's fed into them?

Now I come to my second and more important gripe- Global Warming or Climate Change.

Firstly- I do not dispute that Climate Change is occurring. It's always occuring. It always has and it always will.
Historians and archaeologists show us that Britain was much warmer a couple of thousand years ago. Sea levels were much higher then. Go back a few thousand years and Britain was joined to Europe. The North Sea was a large land mass that archaeologists have dubbed Doggerland. Fisherman often dredge up stone age artifacts from the sea bed. Climate changes and sea levels change.

The worrying new development is a whole new brand of "science" has emerged that claims to be able to predict the future based on the past and using only computer models. This is an alarming trend that cannot be allowed to happen unquestioned.

We all know what happens when computers are allowed to predict the future without accurate data. They get it wrong. 100% of the time.
Remember GIGO?

Over at Wattsupwiththat, Anthony reports on the latest climate model that NCAR has rolled out. You can read about it here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/19/ncars-new-2010-climate-model-for-the-next-ipcc-report/

The Press Release says this:
"The CESM is one of about a dozen climate models worldwide that can be used to simulate the many components of Earth’s climate system, including the oceans, atmosphere, sea ice, and land cover. The CESM and its predecessors are unique among these models in that they were developed by a broad community of scientists. The model is freely available to researchers worldwide."

First and foremost it must be stressed that this is a computer model. And the results are but a simulation of what may happen. Using the first principles of computing, namely GIGO, we have to be convinced that the data being used is 100% accurate, uncorrupted, unmanipulated and trustworthy.
Following the "Climategate" scandal of 2009, when scientists at the University of East Anglia admitted to "adjusting" the data, we cannot be sure that any outcome predicted by the computer can be in any way trusted.

Unfortunatley, to air that legitimate view is to be called a "denier". But consider this, is it not the same to argue that anyone who accepts conclusions derived from dodgy data also a denier?
Remember the first law of computing
GARBAGE IN= GARBAGE OUT.

Exam results time

2010-08-20T10:53:00.000Z

Yes it's that time of year when the media is full of pictures of our little darlings celebrating passing their GCSE and A levels.
Every year the pass rate goes up and up,and every year we hear the same old story that the exams are not being dumbed down. Yeah right.
I've worked with a few of the "brighter" students and I'm staggered by two things.
One is their lack of knowledge, their lack of basic grammatical and numerical skills. In short, even the bright ones can't read or write or spell.
Secondly, I'm amazed at their arrogance. They believe the hype and publicity. They honestly believe that they are somehow superior to the rest of us. I've also had the misfortune of employing a few university graduates. Their arrogance is multiplied tenfold and their usefulness diminished by the same factor.
All those years of sitting in classrooms and they're unemployable.
And that's the bright ones.

The Daily Mail recently ran an article with some 11+ Arithmetic from the 1950s:

Read the following:

1. 3,755 is multiplied by 25 and the result is divided by 125. Write down the answer.

2. A motorist leaves home at 10.15am and drives at 32 miles per hour. He stops for lunch from noon to 1.45pm and then continues his journey at 30 miles per hour. How many miles has he travelled by 5pm?

3. An aeroplane uses 100 gallons of petrol for a flight of 150 miles. How far could it fly using 40 gallons?

4. Write in figures: twelve thousand and twelve.

5. A race started at 23 minutes past three and finished at 23 minutes to four. How long did it take?

6. Simplify:

a) 1,000 - 10

b) 25 x 12

c) 615 divided by 3

d) 0.5 + 0.75

e) The fractions 4/5 - 7/10

7. Of 800 people living in a village, half are men and half women. A quarter of the men leave the village to join the army. How many more women then men now remain?

8. Multiply 7,296 by 479.

9. Which of these numbers is divisible by 4 without any remainder: 214, 230, 226, 224, 218?

10. Add all the odd numbers between 12 and 20.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1030673/Could-pass-11-plus-Exam-papers-used-1950s-puts-family-test.html#ixzz0x8qLStZF

Understandably, only the very best could pass that exam at the age of eleven. But then the Grammar Schools were only interested in the very best. The Grammar Schools provided school leavers who went on to run industry, the Civil Service, and even to run the country.
I left school just as the changes were introduced that have destroyed this country's educational standards. First of all, they abolished the 11+ exam, saying that it created inequality.
Bollocks! It identified the bright and separated them from the also rans. That's not inequality. That's affirming the undeniable fact that we are not all created the same. Some people are more intelligent than others. Fact.
Then they abolished streaming in schools.
When I went to Grammar School, it soon became apparent that even among us brighter ones, some were brighter than others. They were moved into the top ability stream and took their O Levels a full year earlier than the others. That meant that they could take their A levels one year earlier and get into university one year earlier. If you were a bright pupil the last thing the school wanted was to slow you down.
Now look at it. All the kids are mixed up together. The Educational experts say that this gives everyone an equal chance when the opposite is true. The bright kids are held back by the duffers, and the duffers get frustrated because they can't keep up. So you get two sets of bored and disaffected students, both the bright and the thick. My son hated school. He couldn't wait to leave. He was frustrated by the inability and unwillingness of the school staff and management to control the unruly elements. He was bored. He'd turn up late and sit at the back. He wouldn't do his homework. And he wouldn't revise for his GCSE exams.
He still achieved ten passes.
So how come?
Here's a link to a 2009 modular maths exam paper.
http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gcse/qp-ms/AQA-43051-FA-W-QP-NOV09.PDF
And another one
http://www.gcsemathspastpapers.com/Examples.htm

Have a look at them. Then have another look at the 1950s 11+ exam questions. Remember that calculators weren't invented back then, so all calculations had to be shown on the paper.

It seems to me that the 2009 questions aren't that different from the 1950s 11+ questions.

Now tell me that educational standards haven't declined.

Visit this website to view more old exam papers.
http://www.burtongrammar.co.uk/?cat=19

H/T to Old Holborn

2010-08-17T10:13:00.000Z

Not long before our holiday.....

Cutting the Carbon Footprint

2010-08-17T07:57:00.002Z

The British Met Office has Europe’s biggest computer.
It is housed in a 1 acre climate controlled hall.
It is a new (IBM) and requires 1.2 megabytes to run it.
It takes 8 weeks to boot up.
Can perform 1,000 billion calculations a second.
Has 15 million megabytes of memory.
Cost 30 million pounds,
and it predicted the volcanic ash clouds that shut down the European skies.

The airline industry are preparing to sue the pants off the Met Office following the non-existent ash clouds that grounded all aircraft across Europe earlier this year.

Bournemouth tourism chiefs were very unhappy last year when the Met Office supercomputer predicted storms on a Bank Holiday
From The Independent, May 29th 2009:
"Although the Met Office correctly predicted that last Saturday and Sunday would be perfect beach weather for the South Coast, they wrongly envisaged thundery showers for the bank holiday Monday.
Instead, Bournemouth's long sandy beach was bathed in sunshine and the mercury hit 2C (???), making it the hottest day of the year so far. Tourism chiefs believe Bournemouth missed out on 25,000 extra visitors who would have all spent an average of £41 for the day. "

All that concrete and glass. All that electricity needed to keep in cool in summer and warm in winter. All those staff relocation costs when they moved from Reading to Exeter.
The Met Office are one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Global Warming (AGW)
They can't predict the weather more than five days in advance, and yet they forecast with confidence what the weather will be like in fifty years' time.
Can they be trusted?
This year they published a report that purports to show that "global warming evidence is unmistakable"
Read about it here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7914611/Met-Office-report-global-warming-evidence-is-unmistakable.html
"The State of the Climate report shows “unequivocally that the world is warming and has been for more than three decades”.
And despite the cold winter in Europe and north east America, this year is set to be the hottest on record.
The annual report was compiled by the Met Office and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Both the NOAA and Nasa have stated that the first six months of this year were the hottest on record, while the Met Office believes it is the second hottest start to the year after 1998.
Dr Peter Stott, Head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution at the Met Office, said “variability” in different regions, such as the cold winter in Britain, does not mean the rest of the world is not warming. "

Sound pretty bad doesn't it? But check out what other climateologists have to say. I suggest you read this

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/08/rebuttal-to-noaas-state-of-the-climate-sales-brochure/

The problem is the reliance on the Supercomputer. The data is "smoothed" before it is input. That is to say the figures are rounded up or down. Which is a big mistake. We are dealing with tiny increments of temperature and the figures are "smoothed", that is, the tiny variations of temperature are either added or taken away. Not very scientific is it?

Yes I know, weather isn't climate. But many people don't. They actually trust the Met Office. You know, they plan their work around the forecast. They plan their holidays, their days out, what they are going to wear that day.

Yesterday we read about a man in a tiny Yorkshire village who is so fed up with the poor quality of the BBC/Met Office forecasting that he has installed a weather station on his roof. So far he can only predict the next day's weather, but that's good enough for the local farmers who turn to him rather than the BBC for their forecast.

The government are considering putting the Met Office up for sale.
Honestly, who'd buy it?
There is a way to cut our carbon footprint at a stroke.
Shut the place down.

Giving aid to terrorists

2010-08-16T20:53:00.001Z

Nick Clegg is keeping Callmedave's seat warm while he has a holiday and today he described the West's level of donation to the Pakistan flood disaster as "lamentable".
So far the bulk of money raised has come from UK citizens and that is understandable as many thousands if not millions have settled in the UK since the Indian partition in the late 40s. The act of helping one's relatives is entirely laudable.

So why should any Western government be giving aid to Pakistan at all? For a start they are wealthy enough to have nuclear weapons. If they can afford those then surely they could build flood defences and a decent infrastructure?
Secondly the government of Pakistan is corrupt on a scale that is breathtaking. Last year it slipped from number 47 to number 42 in the list of the world's most corrupt nation. So there is no certainty that any money aid given will actually reach its target. And don't get me started about their president, Asif Ali Zardari, who has amassed a huge fortune at a time when the average wage of the population is tiny.Indeed, he and his huge entourage were swanning around Europe at the Pakistani taxpeyer's expense while the worst of the floods were drowning the country.

The Pakistan opposition leader Nawaz Sharif says that Pakistan does not need international relief and that the country could easily raise the money to repair the damage. read it here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7946687/Pakistan-does-not-need-western-aid-opposition-leader-claims.html
Of course that is unlikely to happen, because there are so many fingers in the pie that nothing can be done unless the West stumps up.
And why the West? Pakistan is a fundamentalist Islamic country. Where is the aid from the rich Arab/Islamic countries. Surely Islam would look after its own?
Don't hold your breath.
And can Pakistan be called a country anyway? Like it's neighbour to the North and West, Afghanistan, Pakistan is a loose coalition of tribal areas. Indeed, each area of Pakistan speaks a different dialect and seems to swear allegiance only to itself. Can political boundaries exist in this part of the world? There is currently unrest in Kashmir where the Islamic population is in revolt against the Indian government.
There appears to be little loyalty to any concept of nationhood among the tribes of this part of Asia.
In a country where kidnap is seen as a legitimate occupation, can giving money be a wise thing?

Next there is the indeniable fact that Pakistan exports terrorism. We've all seen the effects of allowing Pakistani Imams into the country to teach in the UK's mosques. All the recent terrorist atrocities in the UK, India and the US had links to Pakistan.
There are Islamic extremists in Pakistan who hate the west and want to kill us all and destroy us. And Clegg wonders why no-one wants to help them?

Christians may argue that Jesus commands his followers to love those who hate you, bless those who curse you.(matt 5:44).
I have two comments to make. The Christian faith is a private and personal faith. Jesus was speaking to the individual, not the nation. If as an individual I am wronged, then I am commanded to love those who wish me ill. That is a personal matter between the individual and God. It is not and can never be a basis for diplomatic policy.
Secondly and far more importantly- the ability to forgive is considered a strength in the Christian world.
However, it is seen as a weakness in the Islamic world. Showing weakness is unthinkable to an Afghan or Pakistani tribesman. Forgiving your agressor causes him to lose face, and to lose face is unthinkable. Instead of showing him love/care/concern for his well being, you have deeply insulted him and he will vow revenge.

I will not be giving any aid to the Pakistani people, and I strongly advise you not to either. Their opposition leader has said that he doesn't want it, that the country can sort its own problems out. Their worldview is such that to accept aid would be demeaning and they would lose face. And then honour would have to be satisfied.
They really would bite the hand that feeds it.

Robbing Peter to pay bonuses

2010-08-14T09:12:00.000Z

I'm not sure where it all started. I know that Michael Moore highlighted it in his first film "Roger and me" back in 1989.The film is a documentary about what happened to Flint, Michigan after General Motors closed its factories and opened new ones in Mexico, where the workers were paid much less.
I identified with this unsavoury fact when a firm that I worked for got into trouble through bad leadership and poor buying decisions and was taken over by a larger concern. I was very much an innocent party in all this, yet my salary percentage increase was about one twentieth of what the new CEO paid himself.

It's a form of theft. Pay your workers less, or reduce the size of the workforce. You've now made an "efficiency saving". Under the terms of your contact you're entitled to a bonus for any efficiencies made, so you take the money formerly set aside to pay my wages and put it into your own pocket.
Theft.

In Blanchard & Peake's book "The Power of Ethical Management" the authors set out their philosophy in one simple sentence.

"There is no right way to do a wrong thing"

A very powerful statement that's easy to say and, like many of Jesus' sayings, hard if not impossible to live up to.

I was reading my friend Bendy Girl's blog today
http://benefitscroungingscum.blogspot.com/2010/08/helping-hands.html
where she writes about the problems in filling in all the forms so that she can continue to receive Disability Living Allowance. I'm with her on this. I hate form filling. Fortune may favour the brave, but only those who can fill in forms get benefits.
This is what I wrote on her comments form:

"The problem in dealing with gummint is this- they spend money (on new offices, jollies, etc)without regard to the fact that it's the taxpayers cash they're spending. But when it comes to giving money to legitimate claimants then you'd think it was their own.
The prime purpose of the DHS and other benefits agencies seems to be to prevent money being given out. The more they hold back, they more efficient they are judged to be and the more there is in the bonus pot.
I've had to fill in the dreaded forms for my current benefit. I'm off sick and my SSP has run out. No doubt I'll be hauled before a "doctor" who doesn't know me or my medical history and whose main concern is to prevent me from getting any benefit, because the more they "save", the more there is in the bonus pot for them.
I go to pieces when confronted by forms. I'm reduced to a gibbering wreck when confronted to pages of questions along the lines of "when did you last stop beating your wife?".
I rang the helpline and got her to fill the form in for me. She asked me the questions and I answered them (at length) and she wrote down the answer most likely to find favour. A couple of days later a draft of my questionnaire arrived in the post. I read it through, signed it and posted it off.
Bingo. Benefits paid and at the higher rate.
Now all I need is to persuade my GP to accompany me when I have to go for my medical assessment."

There is a knack, a trick to getting benefits. How else can you explain why some people do well out of them while others are denied?
I'm in favour of cutting wasteful government spending, but it seems that Cameron is looking at the wrong place.I worked for Tesco and Superdrug, two of the most successful and profitable companies in the last forty years. They didn't grow to the size they are now by overcharging the customer and spending on fancy head offices and jollies for the directors. They kept the overheads to a minimum and only spent on the back office when it was justified.
I read that Cameron has asked Sir Philip Green to have a look at Whitehall. I fear he will have a fight on his hands.
He has to challenge a culture that goes back centuries.
A culture that defines one's status according to how many staff he/she has under him. No-one will willingly lose status by shedding staff.
A culture that defines one's status by the size of the budget he/she controls. No one will willingly lose status by having the budget cut.
A culture that encourages overspending by not rewarding prudence. No one will be prudent when his reward will be a smaller budget next year.

So saving will have to be made and turkeys don't vote for Christmas. The bosses will view their empires as sacrosanct and their budgets as untouchable, and conclude that the only place savings can be made is by denying benefits to the needy

Politics and religion

2010-08-09T20:24:00.000Z

When I was a young man my father advised me of two subjects to steer clear of when out socialising- namely politics and religion.
One of my favourite blogs of the last couple of years has been Archbishop Cranmer's.
He wrote on his blogsite
"Archbishop Cranmer takes as his inspiration the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby: ‘It’s interesting,’ he observes, ‘that nowadays politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk politics.’"
He's been silent for a couple of months and I hope he's ok.

Whatever my dad advised, it's certain that politics and religion hold a central position in the world today. We may have no interest in them per se, but they shape world events on a daily basis.

For those who don't know me, for many years I swore to god that I was an atheist. I'd been brought up in a christian environment and I even attended Sunday school as a child. School assemblies were Christian. I attended Scouts and Cubs, both of which were christian based organisations. Christianity is natural to me, so when I was confronted with the decision to believe or not, I had to make a choice.
People have said that Jesus was either mad, sad or bad.
I chose to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died for my sins.
Does that make me mad, bad or sad? Who knows and who cares?

I have no problems accepting the reality of Jesus in my life. However, almost twenty years of being a believer have convinced me that religion should be a private matter and that religion and politics don't mix. Ever.

Look at the evidence. Bliar, Clinton and George Dubya all claimed to be evangelical Christians. Jesus famously wrote "by their fruits shall you know them" (Matt 7 v16)
and it's true that there is very little fruit to be seen from their labours.

For the uninitiated, the fruits that Jesus refers to are what Paul calls the Fruits of the Spirit, namely-
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)

The leaders who bombed Iraq back into the stone age can hardly be said to have demonstrated any of the above. And yet the US would claim to be a God fearing Christian country.

As I said, politics and religion don't and can't mix.
The early Christian Church was doing OK until it was adopted as the official state religion by Constantine. OK it was marginalised and persecuted and only found favour among the slave class, but it was working.
Once it came up from the catacombs and found favour the rot set in, and has continued unabated. Now what counted was power, not in heaven but here on earth. I won't bore you with any of the details but it's depressing reading.

I was involved in church life for about fifteen years. I observed everything. True, I saw miracles. I saw lives transformed. I experienced incredible spiritual highs. I saw the presence of God as described in I Kings 8:10-11, "And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD, So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD."
I've been brought to my knees in the presence of something so awesome, so powerful, so holy. I believe.

I've seen all that. But I've also seen the other side. The lust for power, the worship of money and privilege; the manipulation of congregations, the power games, the politics- the politics.

Ah yes, the politics. When politicians start doing things for spiritual or religious reasons a line has been crossed.
Just because I went somewhere and had a religious experience it does not automatically follow that if you do the same then the same thing will happen to you.
Just because a leader speaks from a deep personal conviction he should never assume that he speaks for all of us. Why?

Because faith is a personal matter. And politics should never be about one person's interests above everyone else's, should it?

Back again

2010-08-07T20:52:00.000Z

I'm back blogging following Nicki Gillis' successful tour of the UK. I had a lot of fun and although it was tiring and sometimes painful as I fought off infections, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
I'm now undergoing my sixth and hopefully final bout of chemo prior to a couple of weeks holiday at the beginning of September.
I have a bone marrow test and CT scan booked for October, and a hopefully final appointment at the hospital in November.

In the meantime I'm fighting nausea and tiredness as the chemo takes its toll on my kidneys. I will start posting again as the fancy takes me. It'll be the usual stuff- politics, ethics, religion, global warming, hypocrisy etc etc.

I've enjoyed playing music again. It's been too long. I must get a band together and start promoting the album I recorded before all this leukaemia kicked off.

Touring with Nicki Gillis

2010-06-14T19:09:00.000Z

Almost the last thing I accomplished before going down with CLL last year was to play bass for Nicki Gillis on her 2009 UK tour.
Well, she's back again in a day or two for another tour and I'm pulling out all the stops to be fit as possible and to play as many dates as I can this time. I still have one round of chemo to go through and if the last round is anything to go by, I should be OK. However, nothing is certain.

While I'm touring I'll be posting on this site
http://daveclemo-touringwithnicki.blogspot.com/

I'll give a day by day account and post photos and videos.
Please check it out. Nicki's a talented lady.

When giving is wrong

2010-06-06T16:43:00.000Z

I very rarely give to beggars. I do buy the Big Issue when I'm in town. And I don't approve of our government giving aid to African countries.
Call me callous. I don't care.
If I give money to a drunk he will spend it on drink. If I buy a copy of the Big Issue I'm helping someone help themselves.

When the Iron Curtain came down and western agencies visited Romania they were appalled at the numbers of children abandoned in squalor in state run asylums and homes. Their understandable reaction was to try and rescue these poor unfortunate children and make their lives more comfortable. We all contributed to aid convoys in our local churches and off they went. On a personal note I began my recording career by making an album to be sold to help a missionary couple in the far east of Poland. We gathered goods and money and sent our friends off, full of hope that our efforts would make a difference. One year later and our friends were back,hurt and dissillusioned. None of the goods that we'd donated made it through to the people they were intended to help. None.The local church leader claimed them for himself and sold them and kept the money. That's the way it is.
When the Romanians saw the aid effort to help the orphans, were they shamed into doing more? Did they see that this was something they should have been doing?
No.
They left the British and Irish charity workers to it. The orphans were now our problem.
Giving aid never achieves the intended aim.
I read this article in the Wall Street Journal recently
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123758895999200083.html

The author, Dambisa Moyo makes a strong case that giving aid to Africa actually ends up hurting rather than helping them.
He writes-
"Giving alms to Africa remains one of the biggest ideas of our time -- millions march for it, governments are judged by it, celebrities proselytize the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for doubling the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that already goes to Africa each year.

Yet evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that aid to Africa has made the poor poorer, and the growth slower. The insidious aid culture has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone, more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets and more unattractive to higher-quality investment. It's increased the risk of civil conflict and unrest (the fact that over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa's population is under the age of 24 with few economic prospects is a cause for worry). Aid is an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster."

There is such a thing as the Law of Unintended Consequences. The fact that our new government has "ring fenced" our overseas aid budget is worrying. One could be forgiven for thinking that they want the desperate plight of ordinary Africans to continue.

The Vicar of Bray

2010-06-06T16:16:00.001Z

Now that the new government is getting its feet under the table, and the Labour leadership is starting to shape up, it's surprising how many of the ex-labour Government ministers have come out to say that their policy on Iraq, Afghanistan, and now immigration were wrong. Next will be 24 hour drinking, a cornerstone of Bliar's cafe society big idea.
The whole nonsense put me in mind of the Vicar of Bray. I learned about him at grammar school, back when they used to teach history. Apparently they're offering a GCSE in Britain's Got Talent these days. That reminds me of the old joke about the Irish equivalent of GCE exams, where the questions went-
Q. Either- Explain Boyle's law
Or- name the members of Boyzone.

For those who don't know any history can I point you to this site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Bray

And here's the words to the 18th century song-

In good King Charles's golden days,
When Loyalty no harm meant;
A Zealous High-Church man I was,
And so I gain'd Preferment.
Unto my Flock I daily Preach'd,
Kings are by God appointed,
And Damn'd are those who dare resist,
Or touch the Lord's Anointed.

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!

When Royal James possest the crown,
And popery grew in fashion;
The Penal Law I shouted down,
And read the Declaration:
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my Constitution,
And I had been a Jesuit,
But for the Revolution.

And this is Law, &c.

When William our Deliverer came,
To heal the Nation's Grievance,
I turn'd the Cat in Pan again,
And swore to him Allegiance:
Old Principles I did revoke,
Set conscience at a distance,
Passive Obedience is a Joke,
A Jest is non-resistance.

And this is Law, &c.

When Royal Ann became our Queen,
Then Church of England's Glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory:
Occasional Conformists base
I Damn'd, and Moderation,
And thought the Church in danger was,
From such Prevarication.

And this is Law, &c.

When George in Pudding time came o'er,
And Moderate Men looked big, Sir,
My Principles I chang'd once more,
And so became a Whig, Sir.
And thus Preferment I procur'd,
From our Faith's great Defender
And almost every day abjur'd
The Pope, and the Pretender.

And this is Law, &c.

The Illustrious House of Hannover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I lustily will swear,
Whilst they can keep possession:
For in my Faith, and Loyalty,
I never once will faulter,
But George, my lawful king shall be,
Except the Times shou'd alter.

And this is Law, &c.

Ah, the benefits of a grammar school education!

Busy gardening

2010-06-03T13:36:00.000Z

It's a week since my last post and to be honest, it's been warm and I've been in the garden getting green fingers and black fingernails.
Posting may be light for a few days

Microchipped man gets virus

2010-05-27T11:38:00.000Z

I saw this on Sky News yesterday.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Technology/Dr-Mark-Gasson-Scientist-Infects-Himself-With-Computer-Virus-And-Microchip/Article/201005415638978?lpos=Technology_Third_UK_News_Article_Teaser_Region__2&lid=ARTICLE_15638978_Dr_Mark_Gasson%3A_Scientist_Infects_Himself_With_Computer_Virus_And_Microchip

Apparently he was fitted with a microchip and used it instead of a swipecard to get in and out of work. He could open the doors by passing his hand over the reader. He also used it with his mobile phone. Apparently his phone would only work if he held it in his left hand (the one with the chip fitted).
The chip now has a virus and he says that the virus can spread to all the other swipe cards that are used in his building.
I find this both funny and disturbing.
One- why would anyone willingly electronically tag themselves? Some Christian friends of mine say that this is the mark of the beast that is referred to in the Book Of Revelations. Maybe, all I know is that liberty is to be cherished, not given away. Having a chip fitted would mean that someone could track your every move, wherever you are in the world, 24/7. Would you want that?
Then there's the use of these chips in lieu of a credit or cashpoint card. The information on the chip would enable you to pay for your purchases, withdraw money, travel without having to buy a ticket (the cost is debited from your account automatically).
OK, all well and good. But what if someone somewhere decided that you were persona non grata? It might be a mistake, but in the meantime your assets are frozen, you can't buy anything, travel anywhere, and your every movement is tracked via the chip in your wrist.
Not so good.
The article says that Dr Gasson infected himself. Why? Is this another of those mad scientist tales where a doctor injects himself with a deadly disease in the search for the cure?
The risk here is not confined to one person. It's possible that a virus like this could be introduced into the world at large. One terrorist with a virus loaded microchip could infect the security systems of airports and banks around the world.

There are health risks as well. many pacemakers are fitted with these microchips and if they are infected with a virus then lives are at risk.

Whoever thought that fitting people with micro-chips hadn't thought it through. I'm a basically honest person with no wish to do harm to anyone, and if I can see the evil possibilities in this, then those who wish us evil will have as well.

One commenter on the Sky article wrote this, and I agree with him-
"Biometric passports have chips inside of them, so, technically, an aggressor, someone with a grudge or some nerdy guy out to prove how clever he is, could possibly infect the UK's, or indeed any other country with a similar system, passport control system with a malignant virus and cause absolute havoc!"

They still don't get it

2010-05-26T06:20:00.001Z

The election is barely over and the new MPs are already at it. It seems that they still think they're entitled to spend our money as if it was a birthright.
Today's Mail has this story
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1281428/MPs-win-reprieve-expenses-watchdog-agrees-hand-cash-payments-worth-4-000.html
"Parliament's new expenses watchdog last night caved in to pressure from MPs and agreed to hand them immediate cash payments worth £4,000 each.
In a bid to head off a growing backlash over the tough new regime, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority reversed its previous insistence that expenses would only be reimbursed after they have been paid out.
Instead, from today it will offer them cash advances of up to £4,000 each, at a total cost to the taxpayer of up to £2.6million."
And so it goes on.
When I worked in retail it was a condition of the job that I could get myself to work at my own expense. If I had to work in a different location my firm would reimburse the petrol costs only. After all, I had to have the car anyway.
This was hard but fair. The firm kept a tight rein on its finances and as a result was able to expand when others were contracting. It opened 100s of stores during the late 70s and early 80s,when times were bad.
They made money by keeping a rein on expenses. They never advertised, they never employed consultants or fancy head office staff. No frills. It worked.
We worked hard but we were paid well. We did everything. Our shop floor staff worked hard but we paid them well.
I always made sure that their wages were correct. You can get your staff to do the impossible as long as you don't mess up their pay.
We face tough times. Tough decisions must be made. We are all going to be poorer. The only way that the population will put up with the hardship is if they see their MPs are also playing their part.

Hone sweet home

2010-05-22T18:32:00.000Z

Just back from a week in Whitby. The sun shone every day and I feel much better for it. I've walked further in the last week than I have in the last six months in total. I'm struggling with my back and have to rest/sit down frequently but there's a world of difference between feeling ill and feeling tired.
I have an appointment to see the specialist on Monday and should get the all-clear with the CLL.
I've also received the "final" tour schedule for Nicki Gillis' summer tour. I may be able to take part in some of it.

Blogging break

2010-05-13T19:47:00.000Z

I'm taking a few days off from blogging. I'm away to Whitby (I've packed a thick overcoat) to take the air and while I'm there I'm playing my first concert since last September (pre-CLL).
The North York Moors railway is holding its Spring Gala so I'll be taking the train and enjoying the unique smell and sound of steam.

What will I come back to? Will the government have taken any steps to reverse the worse of the last 13 years? The Lisbon Treaty comes back to Parliament. Will we have a chance to have a say? Will the government go ahead with the Great Repeal Bill?

They have 100 days to get it right. After that the crap will hit the fan.

Not so green

2010-05-13T12:29:00.000Z

Install solar panels, and save the planet! Well, not so fast. Solar cells are high-tech electronic products that contain hazardous materials.
Read more here
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/green-solar-cells-new-love-canal/

Going to Mother Jones site we read more-
"How toxic are your solar panels? The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), a group that has done more than any other to clean up the electronics industry, attempted to answer that question today with the release of its Solar Scorecard. It didn't get very far. Of the 25 solar manufacturers that SVTC contacted, only 14, which together represent just 24 percent of the solar market, even responded. And their answers weren't always heartening. Among SVTC's findings:

* Six companies report that their products contain lead, a potent neurotoxin.
* Three companies report that their products contain cadmium, a known carcinogen.
* One company uses nitrogen triflouride, a potent greenhouse gas
* Only seven companies provide recycling free of charge
* Only eight companies said their would support "extended producer responsibility" laws that would require them to take back or recycle their products"

So they're pretty pollutant. So why install them?
Could it be that they attract a government subsidy?
read here-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-1263712/Green-living-hot-new-investment-Tariffs-solar-panels-pay-cent-year--taxpayers-expense.html
"Until last week, there was very little reason to stick expensive electricity-producing solar panels on your roof unless you passionately believed in joining the crusade against global warming.
Now, however, there is a strong financial case to do so.
The Government has introduced new 'feed-in tariffs' for clean electricity, which means that a £12,500 investment in solar energy producing panels will pay a tax-free return of six to eight per cent per annum. That is more than double the best High Street savings accounts."

So, not only are they polluting, the poor taxpayer pays a dividend to anyone installing them. Another green fiasco that ranks with mercury filled energy saving lightbulbs that don't give off enough light to read by, and which can be dangerous to anyone who suffers from fits.

And all to make someone feel better?

What must we do to be rid of Mad Gordon?

2010-05-10T19:25:00.000Z

Rasputin was repudedly stabbed in the abdomen. He recovered from that. He was then poisoned with cyanide in cakes, then shot in the back. This didn't kill him so they shot him three more times and beat him up,castrated him wrapped his body in a carpet and dumped him in the river. The stabbing, poisoning, gun shots and castration didn't kill him. He drowned in the frozen river.

Why do I think of Rasputin whenever Gordon Brown's name is mentioned?

Hung

2010-05-09T21:19:00.000Z

It's Sunday night and the horse trading goes on. This will end in tears for all of us. The electorate voted on Thursday and they have spoken. The politicians are sticking their fingers in their ears and going "Lalala can't hear you".

Just over 60% of the electorate voted and just over a quarter of them chose Labour. Whichever way you read it, that's hardly a vote of confidence.
In Brown's own constituency the turnout was among the lowest. True, he increased his majority, but that was because the majority of his constituents either voted against him or stayed at home. How clear a message does he need to be sent?

The Tories got some of the "Anyone but Brown" vote, as did the LibDems. Unfortunately neither party offers a real alternative to Labour.
It's the same old policies, the same old politicians, only they've got different coloured rosettes on.

The political system is in a mess. The three main parties all appeal to the centre ground. It's like daytime TV or commercial radio. They've studied the demographic and have tailored their programme to a mythical typical viewer/listener/voter.
Anyone who has the misfortune to watch daytime TV will soon notice that every channel offers the same programme mix at the same time.
A few years ago I used to record a one-minute "thought for the day" for our local radio station. I chatted to the staff about who they thought was listening and they said there were two "typical listeners".
One was a twenty something female who listened to the radio while getting ready for work. She typically listened for fifteen to twenty minutes. The other was also female, middle aged, at home during the day, etc etc. Every element of their programming was aimed at these mythical creatures.**
Daytime TV also seems to aim at a particular demographic. After the Breakfast news programmes, which basically repeat every fifteen minutes because that's how long their typical viewer is alleged to watch; you get makeover programmes, antiques programmes, house buying programmes. Or car crash TV like Jeremy Kyle.
If you switch TV channels to find something different you soon find that each channel is aimed at the same mythical demographic.
Choice? There's no choice. The people who make the programmes have chosen according to what they believe the viewing public wants.

So it is with the current political landscape. Somewhere deep in the bunkers the strategists have identified the person they are appealing to. The floating voter. They have tried to second guess what he believes and what he wants.
Every five years the electorate get a chance to choose between the different varieties of political window dressing that they have selected for us.
It's like the TV Soap of the Year poll. The organisers select six programmes and you choose which one you like. If you don't like what's been chosen for you but would rather choose your own, tough. That's not how it works.
The electorate is given three very similar choices which are then advertised to death and various spin and polish added to make each one look more attractive than it is.
That's how it is supposed to work. Those who rule us have decreed it.
Only this time the electorate have in essence rejected all three.
Gordon Brown is so unpopular even his own MPs hate him.
Cameron is all style and no substance and is in thrall to his advisors. He is too scared to be a Conservative in case he alienates the mythical floating voter.
Clegg is good on TV. Full stop.

By failing to elect any party by a clear majority the electorate said that they are disattisfied. They're being ignored by virtue of living in a safe constituency, are ignored because their concerns about immigration, debt, corruption and the economy are not being adressed, and are fed up by being pandered to by tailor's dummies fronting huge spin operations. The electorate wanted honesty and transparency, leadership and openness.

So, three days on and what have they got?
The same old horse trading behind closed doors. The prospect of the parties that came second and third forming a government. The reality that their view have once again been dismissed.It will end in tears.

**(There were only a handful of staff at the radio station, mostly sellers of advertising space, with a couple of "presenters" recording links on to a computer. They could record a two hour show in about 20 minutes and the computer would play the tracks and the adverts and the links in the correct order. It sounded real, but was all an illusion. Btw, our local radio station is now broadcast from Peterborough. The studios are shut down. The signal is sent down the telephone line to a transmitter. That's the only local element)

Is it me or...?

2010-05-07T09:02:00.001Z

I can't help noticing similarities between these two. One is a self deluded individual with an over-inflated belief in his own popularity and importance.
The other is just dangerous.
But which is which?

So which is which?

It's a lottery

2010-05-06T19:47:00.001Z

About fifteen years ago I was involved in a local Community Transport scheme. Some well meaning individual from the local Volunteer Bureau had written to a TV charity and was given a Transit minibus, which came with strings attached. It had to have a management committee and a business plan, and I somehow found myself co-opted on to the committee as chairman.
We found someone who was willing to work on the day to day organisation and we soon came up against the problem of funding. Everyone thinks that having a community minibus is a great idea, but won't pay the true cost when hiring it.
We looked around for funding and our co-ordinator contacted the National Lottery. We received a pack the size of a telephone directory.

One thing soon became clear.
Grants are not given out according to need, but are granted according to one's ability to fill in the paperwork correctly. This I believe to be a universal truth.

I've been off work since last Autumn. I'm having treatment for CLL, a form of Leukaemia. I'm still employed but my firm have now stopped paying SSP, so I had to look for some benefits somewhere.
I'm not going to bore you about the phone calls, answering a questionnaire over the phone, getting a copy in the post and sending it to the local Benefit Office (Which is in Wellingborough, but the post goes to Birmingham and no, I don't understand why either).
After I'd sent my certificate and paperwork to Birmingham I received another letter asking for more paperwork. Another week went by when I received yet another letter containing a questionnaire.
I hate questionnaires. Which is why I spoke to someone in Natalie in Paisley when I first heard I wasn't getting SSP any more.
This time the questionnaire is about whether I need to go and have an assessment. Based on this box ticking, I may or may not receive benefits. I finally managed to fill it in without getting too stressed.
The post arrived as I finished filling in this booklet. I have a letter telling me that they will be paying me £65 a week.
But I may still have to go for an assessment.

Why is everything so complicated? Why the duplication of effort? Why is everything dependent on one's ability to fill in forms?

Benefits are not given out according to need, but are granted according to one's ability to fill in the paperwork correctly. This I believe to be a universal truth.
It really is a lottery

Computer says no.

2010-05-01T08:58:00.001Z

Two recent newspapare articles caught my eye today.
The first is in the Daily Mail. Apparently they are paying an IT consultant upwards of 500k a year.
You can read it here-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270165/Meet-mid-ranking-civil-servant-working-IT-projects-rakes-500-000-year--times-PM.html
"Mr Grinnell joined the UK Border Agency in September 2007 as an IT consultant and was given responsibility in leading projects including Labour's notorious plans for national identity cards.

His job at the agency involves all major IT projects - including overseeing plans to issue ID cards for everyone.
The scheme was supposed to be rolled out across the UK in 2008, but has been pushed back to 2014 at a Government-estimated cost of £5 billion.
A London School of Economics study in 2005 put the cost of the ID card scheme, which both the Tories and Lib Dems have pledged to scrap, at up to £19billion.
Lib Dem spokesman for home affairs Chris Huhne said: 'This is another example of extravagant waste in outrageous consultants' fees that should shame the UKBA and the Home Office.'
Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Parliamentary Counter Terrorism subcommittee, said: 'This is yet more money that is being poured into the best-forgotten ID card scheme.
'The amount of police officers or MI5 operatives we could have bought on his annual salary is astounding. The money would have been far better spent fighting terrorism rather than administering ourselves to death.'
Matthew Sinclair of TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'It's clear that the amount being paid to these consultants is getting way out of hand.
'Consultants are the key area the public sector can cut back to help ordinary families struggling in the recession.'

So, all the classic signs of government mismanagement and rampant overspending.

ID cards that nobody wants. Consultants charging the earth and employing their own people at grossly overinflated prices. And the taxpayer pays. That's you and me.

But there is another more sinister spin off. Read it here-

http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/people/30-jobs-border-control/article-2082325-detail/article.html

"Dover could be "swamped" by illegal immigrants because of ferocious job cuts by the UK Border Agency.

It has been revealed that all Dover's 24 immigration officer posts will be slashed – despite the team being responsible for almost 40 per cent of all removals in Kent last year.
In a bitter second blow, proposals are also being made to shut down the 60-bed detention centre based at the port. The facility is used to detain offenders before deportation and to hold immigrants awaiting interview.
Sue Kendal, branch secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, slammed the decision. "Dover is losing its entire immigration officer team and we are in danger of reverting to the bad old days of mass influxes. We risk leaving the door open for a free-for-all, including people who want to harm the UK.
A spokesman for UKBA said: "We are currently consulting with both unions and staff over the planned restructure of our Kent immigration team.
"As a result of the restructure, it is anticipated there will be fewer full-time equivalent positions in Kent, with some of these positions transferring to Sussex.
"It is not proposed the restructure will result in compulsory job losses."
All remaining staff will have to reapply for their jobs.

"The Government talks tough but in reality it is cutting front-line officers."

This is crazy. Lunacy.

Haven't we learned enough painful lessons about relying on computers instead of people on the ground?

The Police watch CCTV cameras instead of patrolling the streets.

The IPCC rely on computer programmes forecasting arctic ice melt instead of direct observation.

The UK airspace was shut down on the basis of a computer prediction rather than direct observation, ie, flying planes in and around the cloud.

And now the government are pouring their money into ill conceived and unwanted ID cards, paying over vast sums of money to consultants along the way, and paying for it by getting rid of front line staff.

They replaced Police Officers with PCSOs (who have no powers of arrest) and hoped that we didn't notice.

The closed all the local HMRC offices and got rid of the skilled tax staff and replaced them with call centres staffed by minimum wage idiots.

And now they are getting rid of Immigration staff who have powers of arrest and replacing them with part timers.

Lunacy.

How to cut £50bn

2010-04-30T20:00:00.001Z

The Taxpayers Alliance have been doing the sums and have published how it is possible to cut £50 billion in public expenditure.
Read it in full here
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2010/04/what-to-cut-the-essential-guide.html

Some highlights
Section 1: Tackling areas of spending that are not performing - Total: £7,705 million

1.1 Abolish the Bus Service Operators’ Grant - £451 million

1.2 End the ‘Preventing Violent Extremism’ grants - £15 million

1.3 Abolish Sure Start - £1,150 million

1.4 Abolish Building Schools for the Future - £2,300 million

1.5 Abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance - £530 million

1.6 Reduce ‘business skills’ support - £757 million

1.7 Halt further orders and upgrades for the Eurofighter - £740 million

1.8 Abolish England’s regional development agencies - £1,762 million

That is 7billion for a start. And you wouldn't even notice that they'd been axed.

Richard Thompson "The New St George"

2010-04-30T10:04:00.000Z

Richard Thompson is in my top 2 guitarists ever. This track is from his 1972 debut album "Henry the Human Fly". I was one of the few who bought the album when it was released and I wore it out through repeat playings. RT has the ability to tap deep into the subject he sings about, so that the words resonate with truth and never seem to date. I just wish Id found this video last week for St Georges Day.

"Don't believe pretenders who say they would defend us
While they flash their teeth and wave the other hand is being paid
They choke the air and bleed us, these noble men who lead us
Leave the factory leave the forge and dance to the New St George"

Jeff Beck & Tal Wilkenfeld

2010-04-29T16:37:00.001Z

Jeff Beck is in my top 2 guitarists of all time. (The other is Richard Thompson).
I bought Beck's album "Blow by Blow" in the mid 70s and it stillsounds fresh today, no doubt due to the production by George Martin, but mostly because of Beck's awesome guitar talent.
Both Beck and Thompson are able to play instrumental solos without once resorting to riffs, fillers or cliches.
This is Jeff Beck filmed at Ronnie Scott's a couple of years ago. I'm knocked out by his bass player Tal Wilkenfeld who looks about 14, but was 21 when this was filmed.
Watching Beck and Thompson play guitar makes me want to give up. Ive been trying to play this song "Cos we've ended as lovers for more than 30 years but I can't get the variety of tone or attack that Beck manages effortlessly.
I've also been playing bass a lot, but seeing Tal strut her stuff, and look like she's having so much fun- well, I better take up kazoo.

Give me strength

2010-04-29T14:34:00.001Z

461 Ocean Boulevard was one of my albums of the seventies. I havent heard it in years. I was reminded of this track today so I searched on Youtube and here it is in all its simple glory.

Gordons gaffe

2010-04-28T16:44:00.002Z

The one eyed gurner was caught out again today. The mad fool forgot that he was still wired up to the Sky news cameras and told the listening world what he really thought about the woman he d been speaking to a few seconds before.
The Daily Mash has a great twist to the story here-
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/tories-will-scrap-free-tv-licence-for-bigoted-old-hags%2c-says-brown-201004282688/

I particularly like this bit
"Senior Labour figures have expressed unease at Mr Brown's new tactic but there are suggestions that unbridled verbal assaults on elderly widows could strengthen the party's position with the thousands of educated, middle class voters who are embarrassed by their own parents.

One Labour source said: "We'll have to wait for the overnight numbers, but if it's working then from now until polling day we'll be targeting defenceless old ladies, preferably wheelchair-bound after a violent robbery.

"Perhaps he could hit one of them in the face with a spanner."

UPDATE
The Daily Motion has this Downfall parody. Very rude and very funny

The importance of being important

2010-04-28T16:39:00.000Z

Alan Yentob is all over the Grauniad defending why he has to travel business class. He says he wouldnt be able to do his job if he had to travel with the ordinary folk in steerage.
You can read about it here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/28/bbc-alan-yentob-job-business-class

Why is he flying at all? The BBC are so committed to Global Warming/Climate Change that they take every available opportunity to tell us how bad CO2 and air travel is for the planet.
But that is only for the sheeple. Important people like Alan Botney (he should spell his name backwards so that it sound more like a man of the people)have to travel by air because they are important.

Its the USSR all over again. Peasants with carts on rutted roads while the important people have whole lanes of the motorways for the own personal use.

Important people are important because they are important. Its important you know that.

Why AGW is the new religion

2010-04-27T14:10:00.000Z

I've been posting on other forums recently and one topic led to a discussion where I drew comparisons between the modern day religion of global warming/climate change and the pre-reformation Catholic Church.
Both were intolerant of dissent, although AGW heretics haven't been burnt at the stake- yet. They have however been denied funding and patronage in the same way as early scientists who refused to believe the church's official stance that the sun and stars revolved around the earth, which was at the centre of the universe. Any dissent from this official view meant imprisonment.
Wikipedia states that "Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed (at least outwardly) to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture", and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest."
Nowadays the only way one can get science funding is if you accept global warming as a fact. Being a sceptic means no career.

So the first similarity between AGW and pre-reformation Christianity is to do with partonage and heresy.

The second similarity is to do with money.
Indulgences were a pardon for certain types of sin that was sold by the Catholic Church in the late medieval period. The sale of indulgences motivated Martin Luther to post the "95 Theses, which led to the Reformation.
These days they're called carbon credits. Carbon transactions is a booming market, worth $126 billion last year alone. The eureferendum.blogspot site says this "The larger part of the market actually comprises the EU's mandatory Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) – and other very much smaller allowance schemes - accounting for 73 percent of trading volume in 2008.
This mechanism was formally created in 1997 by the Kyoto climate treaty and started operating in a very small way in 1998 building to 78 million "credits" (or Certified Emission Reductions, CERs, as they are formally known) to 333 million this year with a projection of 1.7 billion by the end of 2012."

Both the Christian faith and Climate Science started out as honest institutions that were gradually infiltrated and corrupted by the power hungry and greedy.
The Christian church underwent a painful and bloody reformation that resulted in many dead saints.

Science has been devalued and dragged through the mud by the corruption. Nothing less than a revolution will clean it up and put it back on track.

Vote Mebyon Kernow

2010-04-23T18:13:00.000Z

I was born in Cornwall and go back there as often as I can. If I lived there I would support these people.

X-Factor politics

2010-04-23T10:47:00.000Z

The Last ditch has an excellent post about the current election and the fact that we have three parties all sharing the same centre ground. You can read it here.
http://lastditch.typepad.com/lastditch/2010/04/the-same-difference.html#comment-6a00d83451f09b69e20133ece34e04970b

I just posted this on my Facebook page "Ayn Rand said this "There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil." And we have three political parties all competing for the middle ground."

The author of The Last Ditch has this to say-

As voters peer and struggle to discern the differences between the parties now in contention, the truth is that - in key respects - they are the same. They are all Party X.
Vote for party X and this will happen:

1. You will work (if you work) for half the year for the government
2. The government will take the fruits of your labour and give them to the least deserving people of the world, whether they be African dictators (to buy weapons to use against their people), domestic criminals (to buy weapons to use against you when they burgle your house) or busybodies (to equip them to interfere in your life).
3. The government will believe that it knows what is best for you, despite being staffed by people every bit as prone to error as you are yourself.
4. The government will continue to make you hated or ridiculed in the rest of the world (and expose your warriors to danger) by conducting itself as if a small island nation of no particular current consequence was morally superior to all others.
5. Political games will be played at Westminster, while the laws are made by unelected men and women in Brussels.
6. Most of our children will be tragically denied a decent education while one side of the House of Commons rails but does nothing and the other side stokes envy of the few who do what all decent parents would if they could only afford it
7. Serious criminals will be glamourised, coddled and protected, while decent people will be criminalised to make them docile (and give the police some cheap wins).
8. The government will get larger.
9. The economy will rise and fall periodically, while the underlying trend in terms of the lifestyle an ordinary person's wage can buy continues downwards.
10. Our leaders will try to bask in the reflected glory of our daughter civilisation in America, while the worst (and I fear the most) of us continue secretly to envy it and wish it ill.

Now aint that the truth.

Ash & dust

2010-04-23T10:35:00.001Z

Heres the map showing extent of the ash/dust cloud from the Icelandic volcano as of yesterday. The area marked in red is the no-fly zone.

Spot the difference? Last week they shut down the European airspace based upon a computer model, without any testing or sampling of the atmosphere.

So the actual risk area is revealed to be tiny, and once again weve been dumped on by numpties who spend all day looking at computers instead of measuring the real world.When they actually sent planes up there to measure how much dust and ash there is, the risk was downgraded and the world was allowed to get back to normal.

Im puzzled by all this. One, planes fly through dust and sand every day without harm. So why was this dust cloud considered so dangerous?
Two, it seems that those who rule us take great delight in keeping us guilty and scared. They manipulate data to try and scare us into believing that the world is going to end in a fireball, or that polar bears are going to swim down my street because the ice caps have melted. Next they scare us into panic over a flu virus that ended up killing fewer people that the ordinary kind.

There is a motive behind it. The only weapons they have to control us are guilt and fear. Its always been this way. For centuries we were ruled by kings who had armies and the church to administer the fear and guilt.
Now we are ruled by......
Whoever they are, their weapons are still the same.

Google censors parodies

2010-04-22T14:21:00.000Z

Wattsupwiththat are reporting that Google are censoring a video that parodies Michael Mann and his "hide the decline" stance.

Apparently Google are taking down all the Hitler parodies as well. This is what Adolf had to say when he found out.

Fuss about nothing?

2010-04-21T09:16:00.001Z

The airlines have revolted and are flying planes into UK airspace, forcing the airports to open.
Millions have had their travel plans disrupted and the MotoGP race due to take place this weekend has been cancelled.
So what is actually going on?

The Register is reporting this-

"So the UK Met Office closed European civilian airspace on the basis of one computer model, which it didn't check against reality. We already knew that the great volcano shut-down was based on a model, but we didn't know how little atmospheric sampling was performed to test the simulation against the atmosphere. It turns out only four test flights have been made to sample the composition of the cloud.
Matthias Ruete, the European Commission's transport chief, accused the Mystic Met of preferring virtual reality to evidence. "We have a model that runs on mathematical projections. It is probability rather than things happening," he said.
As a result the Met Office continued to issue projections of where it thought the ash cloud should be, but was unable to report its density and composition with confidence. These are critical vital factors an airline needs to know. European airlines sounded the alarm on Sunday, when they noticed that the satellite pictures didn't tally with the centre's output."

You can read the rest of the article here-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/20/mystic_met_volcano_model/

So what is going on? I assume that the insurers hold the key. Everybody fears being sued and nobody is willing to put their jobs on the line.

Im a big fan of Ayn Rands "Atlas Shrugged". In her book the action revolves around a transcontinental railway as airlines hadn't taken hold in the US when she wrote it.
However, the parallels are uncanny.

Then there is the governments response. What response I hear you say? Exactly.

A TV presenter named Dan Snow took three inflatable boats to Calais to collect some friends. The French authorities wouldnt let him take them for hours. In the end he was able to bring some Brits home, but not his friends.
The media picked up on this and the government was stung into action.

I can imagine the conversation-
PM- We must do something!
Flunky- That bloke off the TV has taken some boats to Calais in a rerun of Dunkirk. He s getting all the media attention.
PM- Media attention? We must do something about that. Theres an election going on.
Flunky- Why not a rerun of Dunkirk? You know, send a warship or two over to collect our people?
PM- We must do something. Were losing in the polls!
Flunky- This is something.
PM- Let's do it! Erm, do we have any ships left?

Its a fiasco of the worst kind. Knee jerk politics. Media hype and scaremongering.

Ayn Rand was right all along.

Visiting Time

2010-04-19T19:45:00.001Z

Seen on Aulde Holborne's Facebook page. Genius!!

The Browns at Broadmoor Hospital.

You couldn't make this up.

2010-04-18T17:46:00.000Z

The Times is reporting that the Pope has called for Christians to “do penance” in the face of “world attacks” on the Church over the clerical abuse scandals.
At a Mass in the Pauline Chapel of the Vatican for members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission the Pope, who turns 83 tomorrow and is to make a two-day visit to Malta at the weekend, said: “I have to say that we Christians, including in recent times, have often avoided the word penance, which seemed to us too harsh.”
He added: “Now, under attack from the world, which talks to us of our sins, we can see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how necessary it is to do penance and thus recognise what is wrong in our lives”.
You can read it here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7098470.ece

Well excuse me Mr Ratzinger. I didn't molest the kids and cover it up. Your priests did. And they did it when you were in charge and could do something about it.

Your statement sums up what is wrong with your church.
You presume a moral authority over other Christians.
You rule your clergy by denying them the right to a normal married life.
You rule your church through guilt and fear.
You claim infallibility for yourselves.

And now you want Christians everywhere to do penance for your sins?
Jesus died for your sins. You don't need to do penance. No-one does.
And the idea of making me do it in your place reveals what a den of thieves the church has become.
The Bible says quite clearly that judgement will begin with the church.
It is beginning.

Saturday night pool party

2010-04-18T09:27:00.001Z

We have a pool table in our back garden. Every home should have one. On Saturday night Chris and Heather invited Jamie & Rachel around for an evening of pool. Of course, being mid April, it gets dark before nine o'clock, so the ever resourceful Chris rigged a couple of Par64 lighting cans so that they could carry on playing.

A few minutes later he came inside to say that they could see the volcanic ash that had grounded all the flights across the UK and Europe. I went out and yes, you could clearly see that the air was full of tiny specks that glistened under the lights, although they were invisible to the naked eye.
Could this stuff really down an aeroplane? The experts say yes, if there was enough of it.
Take a look at this short video. If it was mid summer you could argue that it was insects, but this is England in April. It's too early by at least a month. And there were no barbies last night.

grounded by dust

2010-04-16T12:24:00.001Z

Here's a picture of the volcanic ash cloud, as seen from space. Although it can be seen from space, the BBC have said that you can't see it when you look up in the sky. It seems a bit far north to have affected the whole of the UK, but many people are enjoying the peace that comes from not having an airplane flying overheard every few minutes.
I live in Northamptonshire and we're on the flightpath for every transatlantic flight that uses the polar route, along with all the domestic flights and the military traffic from the US into Mildenhall.
I've lived here for twenty years and when we first moved in we were regularly buzzed by US A-10 tankbusters flying overhead at zero feet. Apparently they weren't fitted with radar and the pilots had to navigate with an A-Z atlas on their knees. A friend saw two A-10s take evasive action when a Tornado almost hit them head on, just to the west of Daventry. No they didn't see him coming. We used to see all manner of aircraft flying overhead, from modern military jets to vintage warbirds. We don't see so many nowadays.
The most unusual aircraft that I saw flying overhead was a Tupolev TU95 Bear, on its way back to Russia after appearing at an airshow at Fairford. The noise was deafening.
I've seen the Battle of Britain flight overhead countless times, plus the odd Spitfire and Hurricane. When my friends Nicki Gillis and Tracy Dann came to tea last year, I was able to treat them to the sight of a lone Spitfire doing an aerobatic display over a village a mile or two away. There's nothing quite like the sound of a Merlin engine, except two or four of them.
Then there's the B-17 Sally B, once a regular sight overhead, along with Mitchell B-25s, Mustangs, C-47 Dakotas and many more.
The most recent and most stirring sight was the spectacle of the Vulcan bomber accompanied by six stunt planes as they repeatedly overflew the town.
We don't see them anymore.
And the reason why is the same reason why there are no planes flying today.
Insurance.
No Insurance company will insure a passenger plane taking off into a sky that might be full of volcanic ash, a powder that is so fine that you can hardly see it, yet it will scour aircraft windscreens and remove paint from wing edges. It will heat up and turn to glass if it's sucked into jet engines. Only one aircraft has survived flying into a cloud of volcanic ash. That was almost thirty years ago and insurers won't take the risk.
And sad to say but it's becoming harder and harder to buy insurance for classic planes. And that's a pity because there's nothing like the sound of a Dakota from Coventry Bagington flying overhead, except a Merlin powered Spitfire, Lancaster or Mustang of course.

PS- The global warming alarmists must be going spare. All that CO2 being discharged into the atmosphere and nobody to blame. All that dust will affect the weather for some time as well. You can't blame that on us.
Some wag on another site wondered if the cloud was Iceland's response to the UK government's demand to repay their bank debts.

Windfarms sinking into the sea

2010-04-14T16:12:00.001Z

"Hundreds of Britain's offshore wind turbines could be sinking into the sea because of a design flaw.
It is believed the concrete used to fix some turbines to their steel foundation can wear away, causing the power generators to drop a few inches. "

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1265886/Sinking-turbines-cost-British-wind-farms-50million.html
Ok, where to start?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry, got a bit carried away there.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

It reminds me of the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. "One day all this will be yours. They told I was mad to build a castle in the middle of a swamp but I went ahead and built it anyway......."

Lies, damn lies and statistics

2010-04-13T19:32:00.000Z

Here are a couple of graphics from the excellent Wattsupwiththat site
They both use exactly the same data. Exactly the same.

And this

One graphic has been designed to give the impression that we're all doomed. can you tell which one it is?
Read more here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/lies-damned-lies-statistics-and-graphs/#more-18419

UKIP won't field a candidate in Kettering

2010-04-13T19:21:00.000Z

Lord Pearson named the Conservative candidates Ukip would not run against as Philip Davies (Shipley), Douglas Carswell (Clacton), Janice Small (Batley and Spen), Alex Story (Wakefield), and Philip Hollobone (Kettering).

It will also not run against Labour's David Drew in Stroud and independent Bob Spink in Castle Point.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/election/article-1265680/General-Election-2010-UKIP-wont-stand-key-marginals-Tory-candidate-anti-Europe.html#ixzz0l0eGRXhr

That's actually made choosing who to vote for easier.

Why comments will not be moderated

2010-04-09T16:33:00.000Z

This was posted on The Register today. You can read it in full here-
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/08/user_comments_ruling/

"A blog owner can avoid liability for user-generated content that appears on his site without being checked or moderated, the High Court has ruled. But fixing the spelling or grammar in users' posts could lose him that protection, it said.

The Court ruled that the operator of blogging site Labourhome.org could not have a libel case struck out. The site operator, Alex Hilton, had said that his argument that he deserved exemption as a service provider was so strong that a trial was not necessary. The Court disagreed."

Hmmm. Any wishing to comment on my posts had better check their spelling or I might get into trouble...

RIP Malcolm Maclaren

2010-04-09T09:57:00.006Z

ell, he kept that quiet didn't he? MM dies of cancer aged 64. And no-one knew he was fighting it.

MM was the best publicist in the 70s and the 80s. He gave the music business a good kick up the arse just when it needed it. I don't know your views on punk music, but it came along at just the right time.

Music works in ten year cycles. The post war 40s period started in 1945/6. It was a time of austerity but also of change. Sinatra and Crosby were still at the top, but things were happening. Crosby's guitar player was Les Paul. He was an innovator and was determined to be different from the others around him. He was on tour with the Andrews Sisters when he rang his mother who said that she'd heard him on the radio the evening before. It wasn't him, but an imitator. He immediately came off tour and retired to his garage where he set about devising a new sound, a new way of recording. Within a year or so or so he'd invented multi-track and multi speed recording. He also designed what is arguably the most successful guitar ever built- the Gibson Les Paul. The Forties belong to him.

The Fifties began in 1955/6 with the skiffle boom. As a reaction to the over-arranged technically excellent big band music which was great to play but beyond the scope of the average teenager, skiffle gave anyone the opportunity to make music. Simple songs, three chords, perfect.
Every pop star of the early sixties started out playing skiffle in the fifties. When Rock 'n Roll hit the UK, there were thousands of guitar playing youth who latched on to the rhythm. The fifties belonged to Rock & Roll.

The Sixties began in 1965/6 when the Beatles, who began as a skiffle group, progressed through country rock, rock and roll and early Tamla and became the biggest band of the day. As they pushed the musical boundaries, aided and abetted by their producer George Martin, it opened a way for players to stretch themselves musically. The Sixties spawned the Guitar Hero. Clapton, Beck and Paige all began their careers playing the the Yardbirds. As the sixties progressed, the music got more complicated, as bands became more interested in releasing albums than releasing singles. The Sixties was also the era of Prog-Rock, long hair and greatcoats. In parallel with this the music became more flamboyant, with complex stage shows and artists wearing make up. The Sixties was the time when mainstream entertainment embraced rock music. We had Glam Rock. It was a long way from music on the street.

The Seventies began in 1975/6, exactly on time. I was playing in a rock group then. We played pubs and small venues in Northamptonshire, with the occasional foray into London. We played the Marquee, the Greyhound in Fulham Palace Road, and other pubs in and around the capital. We were playing mostly original material, a sort of poor man's Thin Lizzy but without the talent. As we got changed in the "dressing room" (a toilet or cleaning cupboard) we'd look at the graffitti and I noticed that the Stranglers, Sex Pistols and 101ers were also playing the same venues. The 101ers became the Clash. The writing was on the wall for us. Our music was out of date and there was nothing we could do but to pack it in and try something different. Punk was in.

MM was brilliant at manipulating the media. At its heyday, there were never more than 1000 or so punk fans in the country, but they were loud, fervent and loyal and they worked together to create a phenomenon, orchestrated by MM.

MM was a little like John Peel, who promoted music that was out of the ordinary. Where MM differed was that he did it for the notoriety and for the money. When the Sex Pistols imploded he looked for something different to promote. We had Bow Wow Wow, a band that had everything- except for a decent song. I'd moved out of music by the early-mid eighties and lost touch with what he was doing.

The Eighties began in 1985/6 with the beginnings of sampled music and the birth of hip-hop. Once again the music of the previous decade had become more and more complicated and remote from the average boy/girl in the street. The thing about hip-hop and its sub genres was that anyone could rap, anyone could make this music. I understand the MM had a hand in making this music known.

The Nineties began in 1995/6 with the birth of Britpop, a reaction to the manufactured pap of the boybands and Stock Aitken and Waterman. Britpop had its own bad boys in the shape of the Gallaghers, so MM wasn't needed.

The Noughties began- when? The Noughties were the decade of the celebrity, when people were famous for being famous. The Noughties were the decade of the TV Talent Show, when karaoke singers vied to be the label on the latest tin of beans from the pop factory. The Noughties were the decade when the youth ignored the music business altogether and did their own thing.
The Noughties were also the decade when music became an arm of government, when music was used as a tool to keep the mob in line, subdued.

Which was why subversives like MM had no part of it. MM couldn't play, sing or act. He just was. And the world needs more like him.

Ian Dale on Chris Grayling

2010-04-05T19:30:00.000Z

Ian Dale jumped into the Chris Grayling "row" on Saturday.
In his post he makes this rather stupid and uninformed comment-

"I fundamentally disagree with him on the main issue. This is not about property rights. If you open your house to paying guests, it is no longer just your house. You are running a business, just the same as anyone else, and you should be subject to the same laws as anyone else. If you do not wish gay people, black people, Jews or anyone else in your house, don't open it to the public. Simple as that. No one would accept a shopowner refusing to serve a particular type of person, would they?"

And that's where he is wrong. I worked in retail for over twenty years. Shops are private property. So are shopping centres and retail parks. There is no public right of way. The public are invited onto the premises. If I wanted to ask someone to leave, that was within my rights as the company's representative.
Retailers are under no legal obligation to sell. All items are offered at a particular price and can be withdrawn at any time. The customer has no legal right to demand an item at a certain price. If an item is mis-priced it is quite legitimate for the manager to withdraw that item from sale. That is the law. The manager can, at his discretion and in order to foster goodwill, sell a product at a cheaper price if it is damaged. He is under no legal obligation to do so.
So, if a bunch of louts with nothing better to do came into my shop to use it as a playground I could and did ask them to leave.
I could and did eject someone I suspected of trying to steal from my shop. They had no legal recourse. We invite people in. I withdrew the invitation.
If I caught someone stealing from my shop I always called the police, and that person was permanently banned from entering the store. I said this in the presence of the police, and confirmed that if they tried to enter the shop again they would be arrested for tresspass.
Now which part of that don't you understand Iain?

Greenpeace is neither green nor peaceful

2010-04-05T18:08:00.002Z

I was encouraged to have a look at this post on the greenpeace website. It's here-
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/climate/2010/04/will_the_real_climategate_plea_1.html

Greenpeace? Aren't they the vandals who commit piracy on the high seas? Aren't they the political lobbyists who want to return the world to pre-industrial times?
Yes on both counts. Here's some passages from their website. I encourage you to read it for yourself.

"What do you do when patient petitioning, protest marches and court orders fail? What do you do when all the protocols and cheat codes of democracy fail? This is what you do: you reclaim the language of democracy from the twisted bunch that have hijacked, cannibalized and subverted it."

Ok, so how do you intend to do this?

"We need to hit them where it hurts most, by any means necessary: through the power of our votes, our taxes, our wallets, and more.
We need to be inclusive. We need to join forces with those within the climate movement that are taking direct action to disrupt the CO2 supply chain. We need to embrace the conservatives too, the ones that choose scientific rigour and court injunctions as their weapons."

So what do you mean by direct action?
If you hit the link to Beyondtalk you will read

"But time is far too short to shut down one site at a time. Massive action is needed today, in order to:

ensure climate justice for the affected communities around the world that contribute the least to the problem, but are already feeling the effects

Implement a real deal that does not rely on carbon trading, offsets, or other false solutions

Keep all fossil fuels in the ground, and drastically reduce emissions

End subsidies to climate polluters including oil and gas, coal, industrial bio-fuels, nuclear power, etc.

End mountaintop removal and industrial logging of primary forests immediately

Invest in local union jobs driven by purpose, not profit, and protect our community health"

Lunacy. utter lunacy. And it goes on-

"The politicians have failed. Now it's up to us. We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It's not working. We need an army of climate outlaws."

And to reinforce their stance-

"If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work."

All my dealings with warmists and greenists have shown one consistency in their attitude.They're always rude and intolerant of anything other than the party line. They're mad, bad and dangerous. Their foot soldiers have been brainwashed into pushing for a pre-industrial world where life expectancy will plummet and only the very rich and their bosses will be able to travel anywhere. At the very heart they're not green, and they're not peaceful.

H/T to Devil's Kitchen

UPDATE- Greenpeace have removed the offending post, but you can still read it here-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/damage-control-greenpeace-removes-threats/

Good Friday

2010-04-02T16:39:00.000Z

I'm a Christian who no longer goes to church. My faith in Jesus remains the same, but I no longer have any faith in organised religion. You've seen the papers and you don't need a sermon from me.

Isaac Watts was one of the first hymn writers. The established church at the time pilloried him for daring to write hymns. The only words that could be used in church were those written in the Bible, and any other words were sacrilege.
It's reassuring to know that nothing changes.

This is, in my opinion, the finest hymn in the English language

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of Glory died;
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
save in the death of Christ, my God;
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

Isaac Watts 1674-1748

Happy Easter!

Car scrappage scheme ends

2010-04-02T16:31:00.001Z

The government car scrappage scheme has now ended. It cost £400,000 and the government claims that it helped save 4000 jobs.
Full story here
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/research/2010/03/expensive-scrappage.html

Do the maths. It works out that the government spent £100,000 of taxpayers money to safeguard a job that probably pays £25,000 pa. Someone on £25k probably pays 8k in taxes and NI, so they spend £100k and get 8k back.

Sound economics eh?

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/research/2010/03/expensive-scrappage.html

UPDATE. All the cars are stored on the runway at Thurleigh. Sensible eh? The government paid to empty acres of new cars stored on runways, and left thousands of older cars in their place.

The first soviet style show trial

2010-04-02T15:05:00.000Z

We all know about baby P. We know how disfunctional the Social Services were. We all know that it cost Sharon Shoesmith her job. We all know that.

The Daily Mail's article here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262812/Baby-P-report-Sharon-Shoesmith-beefed-justify-sacking.html
reports that Ed Balls ordered that the report into the scandal be "beefed up" in order to intensify pressure on Ms Shoesmith, and in time she was dismissed, with the full approval of mad Hatty Harperson's "court of public opinion".

I'm not disputing that Ms Shoesmith should have been sacked. She should never have been appointed in the first place. Overpromoted individuals are commonplace in most organisations, but the current obsession with quotas and political correctness has enables incompetents to get into positions of influence based solely on their ability to spout jargon and knowing the right people. Ms Shoesmith is one such person.

However, Ed Balls insistence that they rewrite the report in order to get Shoesmith sacked, if proven, has set a dangerous precedent. We have now returned to Stalinist style purges and show trials.

So who will be next?

Local Government Rich List

2010-04-01T19:57:00.000Z

The Taxpayer's Alliance have been doing some heavyweight research to find out exactly how much the local government fat cats are troughing.
The results can be found here
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/thrl2010.pdf
It's almost 200 pages long but it's worth checking up how much the top dogs and bitches at your local council are trousering.
There are at least 1250 of them earning more than £100,000 a year, and in this time of economic uncertainty, where many in the private sector have either lost their jobs, had below inflation pay rises or indeed, pay freezes or cuts, isn't it heartening to know that this figure has grown by 14% since 2007-8?
Well no actually.
These people are public servants. They serve us. Remember that.

I checked the list and found that Corby Borough Council don't have anyone earning more than £100k, but Kettering Borough Council's Town Clerk (or as he prefers to be addressed, Chief Executive) David Cook earns a whopping £145,000.
My council tax goes to pay his salary, then his pension, then the other salaries, then their pensions... oh and if there's anything left, they might empty my bin every couple of weeks.
I worked as a binman as an agency temp a few years ago. It was hard work and I was paid the national minimum wage, which as everyone knows, is actually the national maximum wage.
If the Chief Executive's pay were cut back to £100k (still four times the national average) they could afford to employ a couple more bin men. They'd be a lot more useful.

Northants County Council have seven people earning more than £100k. I'm not sure what any of them actually do, as their titles are in government doublespeak. I mean, what exactly is a "Director for Community Leadership"? We pay him/her over £117k. Nice little earner that.
And the Chief Executive gets almost £180k!

East Northants Town Clerk (sorry, chief executive) earned about £105k

South Northants failed to respond to the TPA's Freedom of Information requests.
Remember that. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear"?

Northampton Borough Council also refused to give the information, despite being asked under the Freedom of Information Act. "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear", eh?

Wellingborough council's chief executive "only" earned £110k. Compared to Kettering, that's good value. Both Corby and Wellingborough have free car parking for their shoppers and their chief executives earn far less than Kettering's.
Does this mean that parking charges in my town are there to help pay the Chief Executive's salary? We need to be told.

I encourage you all to have a look at the TPA report, and ask yourself if our local councils are serving us, or are we serving them?

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/thrl2010.pdf

April 1st

2010-04-01T13:02:00.001Z

It's April 1st, April Fools Day, traditionally the day when the media publish spoof stories. I bought a copy of the Daily Mail and scanned the pages to see if I could find the spoof stories among the genuine ones.

One of these stories is a spoof. But which one?
Is it this one?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262584/First-wives-swept-aside-whim-rich-powerful-Top-barristers-wife-wins-215-000-payout-husband-divorced-25-years-ago.html

Apparently a barrister's ex-wife has successfully won another £215k payout 25 years after they divorced. My first marriage ended almost 30 years ago. Does this verdict open the door to my ex-wife sueing me for money to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed half a lifetime ago? You couldn't make that up, could you?

What about this one?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262533/The-Hubble-Bubble-tower-welcome-visitors-London-2012-Olympics.html

A huge twisted pile of rusty looking steel will be the lasting monument to the London Olympics. Ironic eh? They allowed the Stratford area of East London to become run down so that it resembled a bomb site, with ruined factories and warehouses everywhere, then clear away all the wreckage and leave in its place a huge pile of twisted steel, designed and funded by foreigners. They are having a laugh at our expense aren't they? This is the April fool story, isn't it?

Ok, is it this one?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262708/Goldfish-seller-Joan-Higgins-gets-used-life-tagged-criminal.html

Pet shop owner gets caught in a sting mounted by trading standards for selling a goldfish to a 14 year old (a crime that didn't exist 4 years ago) and is fined £1000, is placed under curfew and has to wear a tag. That has to be a spoof doesn't it?

This one?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262697/Auctioneer-Jim-Railton-fined-1-000-selling-oak-cabinet-bird-eggs-inside.html

An auctioneer with 20 years experience has been fined £1000 for attempting to sell a 100 year old wooden cabinet complete with 100 year old eggs, most of which were broken. He was arrested, fingerprinted, a DNA swab taken before being bailed.
He turned up in court expecting a wrist slapping, but no he was fined £1000 and had to pay costs.

"A spokesman for the RSPB said: 'We are very happy with the result. The fine imposed by the magistrates shows the importance of these cases.'

Dear RSPB, you will never receive a penny from me again.
Oh, and all the stories are genuine. It's too depressing for words.

Off to buy some whitewash

2010-03-31T14:00:00.001Z

The report into the leaked emails has been published and the verdict is as expected- a total whitewash.
I despair.
Read Antony Watts post here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/30/results-of-the-climategate-paliamentary-inquiry-in-the-uk/#more-17952
Here's the press release

"Phil Willis MP, Committee Chair, said:
“Climate science is a matter of global importance. On the basis of the science, governments across the world will be spending trillions of pounds on climate change mitigation. The quality of the science therefore has to be irreproachable. What this inquiry revealed was that climate scientists need to take steps to make available all the data that support their work and full methodological workings, including their computer codes. Had both been available, many of the problems at CRU could have been avoided.”
The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, the Committee considers that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community but that those practices need to change.
On the much cited phrases in the leaked e-mails-”trick” and “hiding the decline”-the Committee considers that they were colloquial terms used in private e-mails and the balance of evidence is that they were not part of a systematic attempt to mislead.
Insofar as the Committee was able to consider accusations of dishonesty against CRU, the Committee considers that there is no case to answer.
The Committee found no reason in this inquiry to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. But this was not an inquiry into the science produced by CRU and it will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel, announced by the University on 22 March, to determine whether the work of CRU has been soundly built.
On the mishandling of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests, the Committee considers that much of the responsibility should lie with the University, not CRU. The leaked e-mails appear to show a culture of non-disclosure at CRU and instances where information may have been deleted to avoid disclosure, particularly to climate change sceptics. The failure of the University to grasp fully the potential damage this could do and did was regrettable. The University needs to re-assess how it can support academics whose expertise in FoI requests is limited."

Nothing to see here. Move along please.

But wait a minute. This is our money they're spending. And they're going to tax us into the stone ages if they get their way.

You can't build the truth using a lie for foundations.
And there ain't no right way to do a wrong thing.
Who gains from all this? Follow the money.

I will continue to ignore everything the government and global warming scientists publish because unless they can convince me that their motives are good, the science is clear and unambiguous and has been subject to rigorous scrutiny by both sides of the argument, and when the sponsors of this new religion practise what they preach, as far as I'm concerned it's just hot air and spin.

Spin spin and more spin

2010-03-30T17:29:00.000Z

I'm a bit late responding to this, as the original article was published in the Daily Mail yesterday
You can read it here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1261290/HEATHER-BROOKE-The-great-razzle-dazzle-rip-off.html

The government is the biggest advertiser on tv. I've stopped watching them because they are almost all factually incorrect or biased or downright lies. Global warming, passive smoking, obesity, all designed to keep the population fearful and/or guilty.
The police, the NHS and local government spent countless millions every year on spin. Nobody in any of these organisations is allowed to speak to the media without the permission of the relevant press office.
This is from the Mail yesterday

"The TaxPayers' Alliance, the campaign group for lower taxes, trawled through 445 annual reports just for 2008 and then all those for previous years to compare spending.
The 2008 report revealed the average local authority spent £971,985 on publicity, with the total local authority publicity bill being £430million. Six local authorities each spend more than £5million annually on publicity, including Birmingham City Council, which spent more than £9million. Tower Hamlets, my old council and one of Britain's most deprived boroughs, spent £2,354,000 in 2007-08 on Press and PR - an increase of 82.6 per cent from ten years before."

Inspector Gadget reports that Northumbria Police nominated themselves and won a public relations award "for the way they handled the media after the tragedy of a schoolgirl knocked down and killed by a speeding patrol car."

I encourage you to visit his blogsite and read the article. You'll be astonished and appalled

http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/hayley-adamson-is-dead-but-nprthumbria-win-gold/

All this money being spent on press officers and media advisors instead of front line services. Thousands upon thousands of Comical Alis defending the indefensible.

Now you'll know where all those media studies and political science graduates got jobs. Very cosy.

Ayn Rand quotes

2010-03-30T10:54:00.001Z

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. "

"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."

"Potentially, a government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims"

"So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money? "

"The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see. "

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

More here-
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ayn_rand.html

Policing with the public's consent

2010-03-30T09:46:00.000Z

If you google "Peelian principles" you will discover that Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the modern day police force enshrined a number of principles. Here they are-

The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.
The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.
Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.
The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.
Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.
Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.
Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.
The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it

A few years back when I was involved in our local Community Association we had a local bobby. It sounds unbelievable I know but only fifteen years ago the Police used to assign a full time Police Officer (not a PCSO) to our part of town. He'd patrol the area, visit the local schools, pubs and shops and be a visible presence. He even attended our meetings, as his bosses said it was a good idea. All that changed when the new Chief Constable came in. All the police were assigned to a central pool and allocated as required, which meant that we never saw a policeman or woman again as they were all in Northampton.
Our community policeman had a mantra which he'd repeat at every opportunity.
"The Police only police with the public's consent."

Which explains a lot. It explains why travellers can set up camp anywhere and terrorise whole towns. It explains why the police won't enter a gypsy camp to recover stolen goods even if they have cast iron proof that the villains are there with the loot. It explains why Peterborough is overrun with Eastern Europeans who are killing and eating all the wildlife along the Riven Nene. It explains why the huge travellers camp to the north of the city is a no-go area.

The inhabitants of these illegal camps won't consent to being policed, and the Police only police those who consent.

It explains why have a go heroes are arrested and jailed while the villains go free. It's because they don't consent to being policed you see?

And now the government want us to spy on each other and report illegal activities to the police.
Well I don't consent.

Ayn Rand was right all along

2010-03-30T09:24:00.000Z

The Devils Kitchen blog has an interesting post. He's commenting on the number of laws that Labour have passed in the last thirteen years. It's 4000 plus and still rising.
I've often said that the law will make criminals of us all, and it appears to be looming closer each day.
DK quotes from Ayn Rand's 1957 masterpiece "Atlas Shrugged", and I've copied the quote for you to read
""Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against—then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

So now you know. Governments rule by guilt and fear. They have to have a bogeyman to keep you in line. Once upon a time it was the "reds under the bed", now it's climate change.
Don't believe a single solitary word. Ever.
And wake up to the fact that we are facing enslavement.

West ham Utd & UK Plc

2010-03-25T18:06:00.002Z

I happened to watch West Ham Utd get beaten by Wolves earlier this week. They are in a mess. Whatever your football allegiance, you have to admit that if they go down, they will fall a long way, further than Leeds Utd. If they stay up, they may survive.
This is David Sullivan and David Gold's press conference when they took over the club. Listen to them. The cupboard is bare. There will be no money coming in for years. The previous owners have borrowed and borrowed, using season ticket income for the next two seasons. Any money they get for selling players will only go to service debt.

It's like UK Plc in miniature. West Ham owe more money than most people can imagine, but it's nothing compared to what UK Plc currently owes. UK Plc doesn't have any assets. It no longer owns any part of the infrastructure. It owes trillions. The only thing going for it is its AAA credit rating, which is a bit like Premier League football status. Lose that, and you go into freefall.

I watched a bit of the budget yesterday. In the end I gave up in disgust. Such lies, amounting to treason.
The electorate are in denial. They don't want to hear about how bad it really is. Like West Ham supporters, they feed on past glories and believe that the good times are just around the corner.
It may just be that Labour pull it off and get re-elected. It may be that West Ham surive and live to fight another day. However, the debt is still there. It won't go away.

I can easily envisage a press conference in the near futuure where the new Prime Minister and his Chancellor sit down and tell it like it is, just like Messrs Sullivan and Gold did.

No I can't. For all their unsavoury background in pornography and sex aids, Sullivan & Gold are more honourable and more honest than any politician sitting in the house. And I never thought I'd ever think that. Dream on people, the good times are just around the corner.

Combatting scepticism by shouting loudly

2010-03-24T13:14:00.001Z

Biased-BBC pointed me to an interesting article on this site
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/03/combating-the-growing-influence-of-climate-sceptics/

Now I'm an AGW sceptic. As far as I can see, global warming or climate change is all about money. There's money to be had by trading on people's fears and taxing them as punishment.
When the "climategate" story broke, it revealed to the world that the figures quoted by all the "authorities" were in fact made up. The antics of the warmists and their refusal to countenance any deviation from the party line, followed by calling us "denialists" only made me more convinced of the shakiness of their argument. The science is not settled, and when one party in a debate has to resort to name calling, then he has lost the debate, full stop.

The BBC and the Met Office are central to their cause. This was highlighted in a recent report commissioned by fake charity and political lobby group Oxfam . My eye was drawn to this line on the Leftfootforward site, which sums them up -
"Oh, and remember to check out James Delingpole’s column at the Telegraph. If any of it makes you angry, you might like to let him know. Did I say be polite? Scratch that."

So, more encouragement to be rude towards sceptics. You don't win arguments by shouting louder than everyone else.
Here's a handy little diagram that accompanies the article.

Click on it to enlarge it.

The truth about rubbish

2010-03-18T11:25:00.000Z

The Daily Mail is running an article about the possibility of households being fined up to £1000 for putting the wrong rubbish in their bins. Of course, this is the Daily Mail and they've never knowingly underhyped a story, but it's worth investigating a bit. The story is here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1258755/Families-face-fine-using-wrong-bin-household-waste-crackdown.html

There is a simple way to counter this of course and that's to make sure that you leave no identifying items in your bin and just empty the bin in the street and phone the fly-tipping hot line and ask the council to come and pick it up. Not that I'm suggesting any such thing of course.
Local councils must be made to understand that they are the servants of the people and not the other way around. We pay a lot of money in council tax and we expect a good service. The knee jerk reaction of local authorities when their ivory tower existence is threatened is to pull the "washington monument" trick. Cut front line services while keeping their won overpaid and overbloated existence unchanged.

I note that this rule only applies to household waste. In my day job as office manager of a solicitor's firm I have to deal with the disposal of the waste that we generate. In our town we buy blue rubbish bags from the council. They are currently about £1.50 each. Being a good citizen and mindful of the need to avoid putting recyclable items into landfill, I asked if the council would take our cardboard and paper separately.
The answer amazed me. No they wouldn't. They have no facility for separating trade waste. They had no plans to instigate separate collections or even provide a collection point for my cardboard and old newspapers. They weren't interested. So, we have a double standard in the heart of local council's recycling policy. If you're a household, you separate everything, if you're a business you can't. Not "don't have to" but "can't". That's crazy.
I refuse to pay the council to take away paper and cardboard that could easily be recycled. The council will quite happily fill up its landfill sites with trade waste , whilst fleecing the householder and wringing its hands and making us all feel guilty about some european directive or other.
Admittedly we are a small firm and we can easily recycle within the office.Our confidential waste has to be securely disposed of, but old envelopes and newspapers and spam faxes about lease cars and drinks machines can be boxed up and taken to the local public tip every month or so. we recycle our cardboard and cans through our houselhold collections and we've cut our trade waste to one bag per week.
Recycling and recycling policy- it's all rubbish, designed to extract more cash so that the council fatcats can get their gold plated pensions.
Local government officials used to be called public servants. When did that change? As far as I'm concerned it never has.