Migrant Labour Part 2

Most of the illegal migrants from Mexico pass through Arizona. The 'Arizonians' have become a bit fed up with this so they've just passed some laws that enable the police to stop and question anyone they suspect of being a filthy dago... This law is somewhat draconian and empowers police to harass anyone they don't like the look of, basically. So, don't go wandering around Arizona wearing a poncho or speaking like Speedy Gonzales.

In a neat little twist, however, Chief Standing Wolf of the Navajo has issued a statement pointing out who are the original residents and has issued a warning “reverse your laws entitling only English-speaking people to inhabit Arizona. Only then will we back down and allow peace to again grace Arizona, but if you deny our fellow red and brown men their rightful place in this state, there will be bloodshed.” Of course, Chief Standing Wolf was speaking in his native tongue, so the lawmakers in the State weren’t exactly sure what the message was. (via eons).

Another point is that these Mexicans are only looking for work - they don't  intend to steal anybody's land or wipe out the local population.

Wot I Been Reading

I've been in a kind of C S Forester (author of Hornblower) groove these last few weeks and so I've read:

The General: A story about a career soldier who makes his name in the Boer War and goes on to get promoted beyond his capabilities in the First World War through being in the right place at the right time. The book tells us a lot about the cack-handed way that the War was managed by the senior commanders - the 'lions led by donkeys' motif. You do sympathise with the central protagonist even though you can see where he gets stuff wrong or is just out of his depth emotionally.

Payment Deferred: A quite absorbing story with a similar moral to The Treasure of The Sierra Madre by B Traven in which a murderer struggles with his sense of guilt and it gradually drives him a bit nuts. He buries the body in the back garden and becomes obsessed with watching the empty flower bed in case it gets discovered accidentally. There's an ironic twist at the end. Good characterisation of the murderer and his dim, docile and innocent wife.

Plain Murder: The central protagonist here is a psychopath - not a raving loony axe-murderer type but someone who is utterly self-centred and so sees it as quite acceptable that he should bump off anyone who is in his way or who might be a threat. Guilt is not something that occurs to him and otherwise he's quite a normal member of society functioning as well as anybody. And the whole thing starts off from a relatively trivial misdemeanor.

Randall and The River of Time: Not science fiction. The title refers to how time (or life) just flows along through eddies and channels and one can get carried along in a different stream by the simplest of actions or deflections. The story includes heroism in the trenches, adultery, murder, scientific invention, an Old Bailey trial, commentary on class divisions and the consequences of war, and the emotionally repressed nature of yer average Englishman.

These books are all quite old; the first three were written in the 1920s and the last one in the late 1940s. So the language and context is a bit dated and occasionally stuffy, but its all very English.

Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star

I think it does the world good to be reminded every now and then of the existence of Todd Rundgren.
His middle name is Harry.

Cyprus Cup Final

Yesterday was also the Cyprus Cup final, played between Apoel, from Nicosia, and Apollon from Limassol. Apollon won it 2 - 1. A disagreeable result for Apoel who have finished second to Omonia in the League.

Apoel's fans are probably the worst behaved in Cyprus, and could give some of the Dutch,  Italian and/or German nutters a run for their money.  They call themselves 'Ultras'. Consequently the Cyprus FA banned Apoel from playing matches at home. Moreover, there is a traditional rivalry between Limassol and Nicosia pretty much like there is between Liverpool and Manchester. So the game was played at the AEK stadium in Larnaca. The game kicked off at 19:00 Cyprus time.

El Presidente and I didn't attend the match, nor were we particularly interested in it. We were invited to dinner at El Prez's cousin Tasos' house, where we sat down to a splendid meal outdoors on their patio. However, their house is just round the corner from AEK's stadium which was mildly entertaining as we could hear the roar of the crowd and see the smoke of the hooligans' flares drifting across the sky. But when the match finished, things became a bit ugly as the Apoel fans left the ground and the police over-reacted a tad by firing tear gas. Of course, tear gas is impartial and the breeze gently blew it into Tasos' back garden, thereby spoiling our dinner. By jimminy that stuff is vicious and stings a bit when it gets in your eyes, I can tell you. So we hastily retreated indoors with our grub, parked the cars out of sight and closed all the doors and windows.

The police kept all the Apollon fans in the stadium until after all the Apoel mobs had dispersed, and meanwhile there was a ceremony in which The Cup was presented. This was followed by an extravagant fireworks display using 15 megaton rib-rattling pyrotechnical devices which gave us some unexpected after-dinner entertainment. Apparently, most of the Larnaca police force was deployed to ensure order was maintained - I suggested to Tasos that perhaps yesterday evening might have been a good time to rob the bank!
Update: 24 hours later and my eyes are still sore from the tear gas. Should I sue PC Plodolopoulos?

FA Cup Final, Supplemental: Socks

I adjourned to 'The Country Pub' down the road, near Ayios Lazaros, to watch the Cup Final on their big screen. Via the usual semi-legitimate arrangements that apply in Cyprus, the pub was relaying the ITV coverage which unfortunately includes Andy Townshend, who is an idiot. And Jim Beglin providing commentary - he could teach Professor McDrivel of the Drivel University a few things about drivel. Be that as it may, however, I was caused extreme embarassment by an assembly of middle-aged English men wearing socks with sandals in the pub. Now, I confess I have occasionally been guilty of this offence when the weather has been cold, i.e. in the English winter, although never in public. But it was 33 degrees Celsius yesterday - there's no excuse! And  they had their socks pulled up right up tight. Cringe.

FA Cup Final: And What Do We Need Calcium For, Malcolm?

Hairdressers.

Scissor artists will be disappointed with this year's FA Cup Final. No winner for 'Daftest Haircut Of The Day' but plenty of contenders for 'Most Boring'. Amidst the embarassment of 'Shaved Heads To Avoid Revealing Baldness'; number ones and number twos (ahem); and chav-like gel overkill (John Terry), the only thing worthy of note was that David James and Malouda had the same hairstyle as did Boateng and Kalou. Blow Dry and Tinting fans will be particularly disappointed with Mr James for opting for what, in his case, was a somewhat conservative choice. We were hoping for another variation on the bleached fuzzy-wuzzy but perhaps he was trying to look sensible for the benefit of Signor Capello.

Special mention, however, for Ray Wilkins who looks more and more like Uncle Fester from The Addams Family every day.

Hello Sunshine! Crikey!

A large solar prominence eruption time-lapse sequence captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The Sun is quite active at the moment and is expected to reach solar maximum in the next few years. I guess thereafter it's downhill all the way.

(via NASA)

It's a Plot

Prompted by the awkward squad at 38 Degrees, I e-mailed loads of Labour MPs about whether they could form some kind of progressive alliance, to exclude Cameron and Co. Most of them just sent me an automated reply but Maria Eagle actually sent me a considered response in which she suggests the whole thing was a stitch-up from the outset.

Hi,

I'm hearing today that some Labour MPs are a barrier to forming a progressive coalition. Now is the time for cooperation. I urge you to put the country's interest first, not tribal party political differences. Fair votes and protecting the interests of ordinary working people are worth it.It is time to move away from the outmoded adversarial approach, party political dogma and vested interests and towards consensus.
Live long and prosper, Xorg

Thank you for your email regarding the result of the General Election, and the possibility of a "progressive alliance".
The Labour Party was willing to discuss such a "progressive alliance" constructively with the Liberal Democrats in order to ensure the economic recovery and prevent a 'double dip' recession, and to protect front-line services from swingeing Tory cuts.
However, it quickly became clear that the Liberal Democrats were not serious about reaching an agreement because of the quite unreasonable demands they were making. Indeed it seems that their decision to open negotiations with Labour was nothing but a ploy to increase their leverage and secure further concessions in the negotiations they were conducting with the Tories.
During the election campaign Clegg said he would work with the party that had the strongest support, which the polls clearly suggested would be the Tories. Furthermore, once the result of the election was known, Clegg again indicated his preference for an agreement with the Tories. In fact as you can see in the article linked to below, very early in his leadership of the Liberal Democrats (February 2008) it became clear that Nick Clegg had a preference for working with the David Cameron's Tories. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-513240/Lib-Con-pact-Clegg-offers-prop-Tory-government-Cameron-agrees-power-share-deal.html
I am deeply alarmed by the prospect of the Tories being in government and I wish it could have been prevented. However, the Liberal Democrats have quite deliberately chosen to form a governing coalition with the Tories. The Liberal Democrats are responsible for that decision and they alone. I fear it may be the first of many unpalatable decisions for which they have to accept responsibility, as it sadly becomes clear a vote Lib Dems is as good as a vote for the Tories.
Maria Eagle MP
Lab. Garston and Halewood 

Update: I just had a reply from Maria's sister Angela in which she makes the same points and adds:

The Parliamentary arithmetic meant that it was for the Liberal Democrats to determine the shape of the new government and they have sadly chosen to team up with the Tories. I expect you share my disappointment at this turn of events, disappointment that no doubt turns to bitterness for those who actually voted Liberal Democrat in the expectation of progressive politics.

Yours sincerely

Angela Eagle MP

Lab. Wallasey

[She won't remember me but way back when, in the first Blair parliament, I was one of the civil servants 'advising' Angela Eagle. Small world!]

Little Stevie Wonder

Guess who's now eligible for a bus pass?

Hi Cuz!

It's smiles all round as David Cameron meets The Queen and gets the nod to form a new Government. They are, of course, already acquainted. Cameron is The Queen's fifth cousin, twice-removed. It all dates back to William IV who produced several illegitimate offspring via his mistresses. Cameron's branch comes from a Mrs Dorothy Jordan, who was an actress, and one of her ten children, Elizabeth. All these little ba**ards were officially recognised by William IV and given the name Fitzclarence. There followed a series of interminglings, eventually arriving at Cameron. Full story here, researched by Debrett's Peerage and reported in The Independent. William IV's wife produced no heir, so Victoria became Queen, and hence the present encumbent has the job.

It is reported by the BBC that Buckingham Palace made a phone call to Conservative Central Office back in 1988 when Cameron first applied for a job there endorsing him as 'a truly remarkable young man'. Now, I'm not saying that our own dearly beloved Her Queenship is involved in any funny business, and two coincidences don't make a conspiracy, but it all looks rather neat, doesn't it?

Migrant Labour

In a globalised neo-liberal capitalist economy we have free movement of capital and increasingly in the last 25 years this has been de-regulated. Governments are now (allegedly) thinking up ways of reversing this trend because of the financial crisis it has caused (Xorg's Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again). But they face an uphill battle as it will inevitably limit the financial whizz-kids' scope for making 'money' out of nothing. So we'll see what happens. But it strikes me that if we allow free movement of capital we should also allow free movement of labour - why restrict one sector and not the other? After all, it was the arch-capitalist free-market Thatcher government who told the unemployed to 'get on your bikes' and look for work.

But apparently it's not as simple as that. The election campaign in the UK has revealed that there seems to be a considerable amount of opposition to migrant labour. 'British jobs for British people' and so forth, not to mention the infamous Mrs Duffy who harangued Gordon Brown about 'East Europeans'.

I'm sorry to say this phenomenon is occurring in Cyprus as well these days, which is bizarre considering how mobile Cypriots have been in the labour market since the Second World War. It is strange to see a people who are renowned for their hospitality be so xenophobic, and downright racist, towards 'foreigners'. People from the middle-east are all called 'Arabs', much like the English call anyone from the Asian sub-continent a 'Paki'. Anyone with a darker skin than a Cypriot who is not an 'Arab' is a 'Black' - this includes Sri-Lankans. And so forth. Of course, the migrant workers can only get the jobs the Greek Cypriots don't want and they have to settle for lower wages. Foreigners are not welcome to engage in the professions or skilled trades.

It's all very contradictory. The builder is a Greek Cypriot refugee from the North who has worked on several jobs in the middle-east in places like Dubai. He employs some Syrians as his labourers but treats them like dirt - he calls them 'animals' to their faces - and meanwhile he moans to us that Cyprus should be for Cypriots. The drains men are Australian Greeks; drainman senior emigrated to Australia where his sons were born and they've all moved back to Cyprus where they now work in the drains business. The plumber is a North London Greek - the perjorative term for his ilk is 'Charlie'. Turkish Cypriots are alright, apparently, but Turks are the lowest form of life. And everyone seems to resent the presence of the Russians who all, so I'm told, have too much money and a blatant disregard for the Law as well as Cypriot customs.

Despite our colonial past, however, the English are pretty much regarded as acceptable if slightly bonkers. Mid-day sun and all that, what?

Wayne Krantz at Ronnie Scott's

Last tuesday I saw Wayne Krantz, a guitarist who has played with Steely Dan (also involved with Donald Fagen's 'Morph the Cat') , John Zorn, Tal Wilkenfeld, Michael Brecker, and Billy Cobham. Naturally I was rather excited. His current trio includes Keith Carlock on drums and Tim Lefebvre (French for "Smith") on electric bass and weird noises. For this outing however, it was Gary Novak on drums. Originally I was a bit disappointed that it was not Keith having a whack, but Gary was totally on it.

The tunes involved switching between half-time and double-time grooves, and at some points it left me guessing where the first beat of the bar was. The drums provided the groovy fusion base and the guitar (a strat shaped beauty going through some analogue effects into a Fender Deluxe Reverb and a Marshall half-stack) added loads of different rhythms and textures. Then out of nowhere comes the bassline! Tim Lefebvre uses a beautiful sounding Fender P-Bass, with outrageous effects on it including an octaver and a ring modulator. He looked like a caveman. I was loving it for and hour and a half.

Every bit of improvisation was like a composition. Krantz himself has said that he doesn't consider himself a stylist, and that he has not really been influenced by many other players. Initially I was skeptical, I thought no-one could make more noises on a strat than Jimi Hendrix, but I'm glad to say that I was wrong.

Incidentally Wayne Krantz is one of Danny Fisher's favourite guitarists. I could immediately tell from his chord voicings and crazy melody lines that this was the case. He even looked and spoke like him.

It sounded really tight and there was a great atmosphere at Ronnie's but the sound guy was a bit of a loser with his announcements. Also he could have turned the guitar up a bit. Otherwise it was amazing and one of the best guitar gigs I've ever been to.

T'Government

Hats off to Gordon Brown for blowing wide open again the negotiations over who will form t'next Government and how. You could tell that the Lib Dems were instinctively unhappy about forming a coalition with the Tories and I don't blame them. Cameron's offer of a government inquiry into proportional representation was laughable - we already did that back in 1988 - and I don't see how they could easily come up with an agreed programme of legislation to last for a whole Parliament of five years.

The inquiry in 1988 recommended an 'Alternative Vote' system, which would mean the second choice votes of the lowest scoring candidates would be redistributed until one candidate has acquired more than 50%. There's a nice explanation with graphics over at The Guardian that even William Hague could understand. This is the system that t'Labour Party proposed to put to the electorate in a referendum.

I have always preferred a consensus approach to life rather than an adversarial one so I'm quite content for the politicians to be forced to start negotiating and actually work out policies that will make life better all round, rather than merely follow political dogma and vested interests. And bol**cks to those who say you need a 'strong' government that 'first past the post' (usually) provides. First, it is unrepresentative - the lib Dems got 3.9 million fewer votes than the tories but 250 fewer Parliamentary seats, whilst their 6.8 million votes only got them 57 seats. Secondly, there are 'strong' governments in North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe and many more. It ain't necessarily a good thing!

Get Yer 'Aircut!

My grandfather's last words to me were "Get yer'aircut!"  At the time I was, allegedly, a student and long hair was almost revolutionary in the workplace so when it came time to seek employment I complied. Once I'd got the job, however, I let my hair grow again and no one seemed to mind. Incidentally, this was a time many moons ago when only men wore suits and women were not allowed to wear trousers in the workplace. Not that I'm a woman, but I was amazed when one of my female colleagues was sent home by the manager for this heinous offence. These days, all sorts of weird hairstyles, trousers and non-trousers are worn to work.

I was amused therefore to stumble across this clip from BBC Panorama in April 2010 in which Lord Digby-Jones tells two lads to get their 'aircut if they want to get a job. Both lads are reasonably articulate and say they are willing to smarten up for a job interview and even to get a haircut if offered a job. Meanwhile, look at Lord Digby-Jones. He's wearing a suit, but what a state he's in!  He's overweight and his gut is bursting out of his shirt; his hair looks awful and if anybody needs to visit the barbers it's him!

Fat, scruffy, middle-aged old fart, or what?

Oh Well...

It seems a lot of left-wing bolshies like me who usually vote Labour in my neighbourhood also decided to vote tactically to try and unseat the complacent Tory chappie, but it wasn't enough. There was a swing away from Labour of 10.5% with a swing towards the Lib Dems of 7.5% and 3.6% towards the Tories. So some who previously voted Labour must have voted Tory - these are presumably yer actual floating voters. However, the Tory got 53.8% of the vote so even if everyone else had voted Lib Dem he would still have retained his seat. Obviously the Tories worked hard at getting their voters out. 

Our local Greek Cypriot only managed 325 votes. Oh well, δεν πειράζει!

I am slightly worried that the BNP picked up 1,297 votes. Vigilance remains our watchword.

Wahaaay!

A famous victory for Spurs last night against the Man City All-Stars. Man City had a fair bit of the posession but apart from  ten or fifteen minutes while Tevez was on fire, Spurs always looked the better side and more likely to win. What we want now is for Arsenal to lose against Fulham whilst Spurs beat Burnley on Sunday and Spurs will finish ahead of Arsenal for the first time since I don't know when. Spiffnifficent!
Update:   I just learned that Harry Redknapp pockets a £1,000,000 bonus for qualifying for the Champion's League. A smart bit of contract negotiation there, Harry. The Spurs board must have felt it unlikely that they would have to pay up so soon when they signed Harry up while they were bottom of the Premier League.

Don't Forget To Vote!

I know some folks have theological objections to voting, which is fair enough. But there is no excuse for apathy so extract your digit and put your cross in the box. Democracy works best if everyone takes part!

I've been in something of a quandary which way to vote. As a left wing bolshy I've always been inclined to vote Labour but I can think of lots of reasons not to this time, the main one being the Iraq War. I know it was Blair's thing but Gordon Brown was complicit in it and the Parliamentary Labour Party could and should have done more to stop Blair. They were all too concerned with hanging on to their meal tickets. However, there is no way I am going to vote for the Tories. Not only because of their policies and experience of previous Tory governments, but also because Cameron and Osbourne are a right pair of vacuous twerps who I wouldn't trust to run a bath never mind a government.

Ignoring the xenophobes in the BNP and UKIP, that leaves me with a choice between an independent and a Liberal Democrat. I'm kind of sympathetic towards the independent chappie because he's a Greek Cypriot but, frankly, although he is a serious candidate and not a loony, his policies don't hold together. So that leaves the Lib Dem fellow. And seeing as I'm in a constituency that has been a safe Tory seat as long as anyone can remember, he's probably the only candidate with any real chance of challenging the Tory in any case. Moreover, I would like to see a change in our electoral system away from the first past the post arrangement and if the Lib Dems get a big share of votes (if not Parliamentary seats) then the pressure will be there for some kind of change. Furthermore, Vince Cable has given a good impression of knowing what he's talking about and he ought to be given a chance at doing it for real. Time for a shake up, perhaps.

But what swings it finally is that I have learned today that Floella Benjamin supports the Lib Dems.  As well as Brian Eno. Enough said!

Zenfeet Reflexology

We're all getting a bit stressed out here, what with this and that and worrying about the builders and whether Spurs will beat Man City tonight. But if you're feeling a tad stressed, tired, worn out, and you've generally got aches and pains all round, you could do worse than sign up for some reflexology treatment. There is an element of the mystic arts about it and it is kind of related to acupuncture in that the reflexologist uses pressure points on your feet to diagnose and/or treat your symptoms. Whether or not reflexology can cure your ills is doubtful, but you will feel a lot more relaxed after a treatment session. If you're in Hertfordshire I recommend Zenfeet. A one-hour session, with Brian Eno's album Thursday Afternoon in the background is just about the most chilled-outest of chill-outness experiences you could experience.

He's To Blame! He Dunnit!

Ages ago, when I was working at Millbank Tower, my boss (known as The Dragon Lady) once murdered us all because she had made a mistake in some briefing she had prepared for some big cheese or other. Sounds bizarre, I know, but her logic was that none of us had told her that she had made a mistake so it was all our fault. Notwithstanding that none of us had been given the opportunity to give her efforts the once over - she'd wanted to do it all herself so she got all the credit. And in her paranoid delusion she'd now convinced herself that we were to blame. Well, people are the same the world over. Someone else must be blamed.

The builder says it's the architect's fault because the architect didn't tell him he was doing it wrong. The architect says it's the builder's fault for not following the plans. The sub-contractor says it's the builder's fault for not explaining it to his workers properly. The architect says it shouldn't be necessary for him to check basic things such as where a wall goes. The builder says he thought the architect told him to leave room for a water tank. And so on and so forth. It's all somebody else's fault. Why not just own up and we can get on with sorting it out?

The meeting between us all to discuss the way forward was quite, errm, dynamic with lots of shouting and bickering and recriminations between the builder and architect. At one point El Presidente had to speak rather firmly and tell them to stop it and calm down,  pointing out that this was supposed to be a 'business meeting'. The highlight was when the builder said he was going to walk out because he didn't like discussing money as it upsets him. I asked why, if he didn't like discussing money, he had submitted a bill for an extra €8,000 the day before.

El Prez and I had the psychological advantage - she chaired the discussion whilst I took the minutes and whispered occasionally to her, or passed scribbled notes. (The idea was make them wonder whether in fact I understand da lingo and actually know what they're blathering about). El Prez was on top form actually, well prepared with a checklist and everything. 

So we'll see how we go. There certainly was a difference yesterday, with three separate teams of workers busily doing this and that. Don't get your hopes up, but we might get the drains finished in the next day or so!

Flower Festival

Here's a brief slideshow thingy of yesterday's flower festival. It all dates back to ancient Greek times when they used to have a big do to honour Dionyssios, and to celebrate nature and rebirth after springtime. Their version of dancing round the Maypole.

T'Cyprus Footy: Omonia Πρωταθλήτρια!

Yesterday was the final day in the Cyprus football league season, and the outcome came down to the result of the match between Omonia and Apoel, which Omonia won 1 - 0, making them champions. This was the cause for much celebration hereabouts and, being excitable mediterranean types, the Omonia supporters got in their cars and drove round town tooting their horns, generally yelling and waving flags. Fair enough, and entertaining. Up to a point. I have to tell you that all that flipping racket gets a little tedious after a while, especially if you are walking along the road on which a slow-moving disorganised motor procession of tooting and blaring Omonia supporters is making its way driving round the town in circles. It were making my ears hurt and no mistake.

A couple of them collided at the crossroads in front of the police station, making for total chaos. In typical Cypriot PC Plodopoulos manner, the cops did nothing about it, merely standing on the corner watching the collapse of society as we know it. Meanwhile, the Flower Festival at the seafront was coming to an end and they let off loads of fireworks. Not titchy little fizzy ones but 15 megaton blasters that make yer ribcage vibrate. Added to the Omonia supporters' noise it were most cacophonous. Actually, come to think of it, that would be a good name for a noisy Greek - Kako Kakophonous.

May Day, May Day!

Whilst the May Day celebrations in Greece turned to violent protests with petrol bombs and stone-throwing youths, the workers of Larnaca got on with things in their usual shambolic and easy going manner. Parades of marching bands, red flags, Che Guevara t-shirts and speeches under the banner of the Pancyprian Workers Organisation.  They brought their families and the kiddies joined in the flag waving. The police took a passive interest, confining their duties to managing the traffic. The chappie leaving the stage in this picture is t'Union Chairman/President/Supreme Leader, and he's just delivered a rousing speech all about how t'Unions have made life better for yer average pleb and his mates in the proletariat - which is fair enough, and reasonably accurate. The slogan on the banner translates (more or less) as "We continue the struggle for a just solution and a just society." Can't argue with that!

One of the workers then delivered a disjointed poem all about the struggle, and the musical ensemble sang some jolly songs about freedom and emancipation. The bloke on the sound desk needs some remedial training, though.

T'Footy

We here at The Xorg Collective are up to date with all the latest whizz-bang technology so, despite being in the far flung corners of The Empire I was able to watch the Spurs match against Bolton Ditherers via the interweb tubes. I signed up to LTV online who charge €3.45 per match for live streaming. The picture is not exactly high-definition as I've only got a 1 MB service, but it was just about good enough to see what was going on - certainly when Tom Huddlestone fired in his Exocet goal. The commentary is in Greek but, to be honest, that doesn't make much difference compared to the drivel you get from the likes of Alan Parry, Jim Beglin and colleagues back in Old Blighty (The Blessed John Motson apart, of course.) The Greek pronounciation of the name 'Huddlestone' is something to be treasured, however.

We were hoping that Man City and Villa would meanwhile draw nil nil, but there you go. City have some darn good attacking forwards. Nevertheless, Spurs remain a point ahead of Man City so if they can beat City on wednesday that'll be it and Spurs finish fourth; likewise if it's a draw assuming Spurs beat Burnley next week. But if Spurs lose to City, then they have to win against Burnley next weekend and hope that Man City lose to West Ham. But if Spurs draw with City and lose to Burnley while City beat west Ham, then its down to goal difference - City are currently two goals ahead so it would be Good Night, Vienna. Meanwhile, if Liverpool beat Chelsea today and Hull next week by loads of goals while Spurs and City draw and lose to Burnley and West Ham respectively, then Liverpool finish fourth and Rafa Benitez will be a strong candidate to be the next Pope. Not that anyone is interested in Man Utd, but Liverpool would also thereby help them win the League, assuming they can beat Sunderland and Stoke, even if Chelsea defeat Wigan. I hope that's clarified things for you.

Avast There Ye Voters!

Like most of ye popperlation I opted not to witness ye third leadership debate twixt Brown, Clegg and Cameron. Landlubbers everyone of 'em, not fit to hoist their own trousers, never mind split a mainbrace. I watched the Europa League footy instead. However, if Mad Cap'n Tom had been taking part it might have been a different story. He'd have given the mangy curs a run fer their money, ahaarrr. His remedy for fixing 'Broken Britain'? A roll of duct tape to be sent to all homes.

συνεχίστε την οικοδόμηση : It'll Be Nice When It's Finished

We've got a meeting this afternoon with Sid James (the builder) and Kenneth Williams (the architect) to discuss 'next steps' on completing our little building project and agree exactly who is going to extract their digit and how fast before I take a shotgun to one or both of them. It's not clear whether or not Charles Hawtrey is coming (a composite character in this performance, representing the various inept clods engaged by Sid James). Who knows? Maybe Frankie Howerd will turn up instead - we certainly need someone to exclaim "OO ERR MRS!"

Here's a few of the items for discussion:

• The Drains (ibid.)
• The bedroom wall is one metre short of where it should be. Bigger veranda but no room for a dressing table.
• Contrary to instructions the old water pipes were not removed. Concrete was poured over them and one pipe was left connected to the supply. So when the water was turned on, the floor was flooded. Duh! It's fortunate El Presidente told the builder not to put the tiles down yet.
• Stairwell windows the wrong size - completely different from the plans!
• Ceiling height 15 cm lower than it should be.
• and many more.

The Weakness Inherent In The System

I am beginning to suspect there may be something fundamentally faulty with the globalised neo-liberal capitalist economic system. The Greek government has failed, for one reason or another, to manage its economy successfully and it now finds that if it wants to borrow money to fund its expenditure it has to offer interest rates on its bonds that it cannot possibly afford to pay.  Consequently, a 'credit rating agency' has categorised Greek government bonds as junk, thereby reinforcing Greece's economic plight so that Greece can't borrow from the usual financial markets and needs help from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Stringent austerity measures must obviously follow.

But these financial markets now see the need for EU and IMF support as putting pressure on the Euro currency so that the value of the Euro has consequently fallen, and stocks and shares have likewise taken a serious dip. The financial markets reaction has thus made the situation worse not just for Greece but for everyone. The value of your shares hasn't fallen because the company is badly run or losing money, but because the markets have got the willies! This raises the question of who is actually running the show. It's not the elected Governments within the EU, or the IMF (an international governmental agency). It's the 'credit rating agencies' and the whizz kids operating between extremes of greed and panic in the financial markets! Who voted for them?

Let us not forget that it was the extremes of greed in the globalised financial markets that led to the 'credit crunch' and the need for governmental bail-outs of the financial markets (i.e. the 'banks'). Consequently, the UK and other countries have debts that will be difficult to repay which will no doubt cause the credit rating agencies to downgrade their assessment of government bonds, leading to further uncertainty and making it more difficult to clear the debt.
Confused? I know I am!

Brave New Drains

The Sewerage Authority did their thing and provided the connection so now the drains men are engaged in re-routing the drains out to the main sewer. These guys seem to know their business apart from not bringing a torch, which you need when you're poking about in the dark one metre below the surface of the earth. So they are using mine. So far so good, but they've now stopped work because they've got another job booked in and they won't be back till Monday. So we are left with holes in the ground and the passageway, covered with bits of chipboard, and temporary pipes here and there. Ho hum.

Re-routing the downstairs flat's drains will involve digging up the whole floor which will inevitably wreck the bathroom furniture and the tiling etc. So there will be further expenditure there...I doubt if Cypriot workers will bother to try and salvage much of the existing stuff. But of course, the drains men don't do the removing of the bathroom stuff, so we have to get the builder's men in on Sunday to do that beforehand. And meanwhile, we have to get the plumber to coordinate with both of them so that he connects up the water supply correctly. Monday should be a laugh!

Mosquitos 6 v. Xorg 1

Furshugginer. We're off to a bad start in the battle against the mozzies. A lamentable case of complacency, I am sorry to say. Left the window open, forgot about plugging in the electric doodad thingummyjig. So they got me, pardner. However, I did claim one victim yesterday with the swatter - quite satisfying actually as the little blighter was totallly ensquasherated in the swatter in one swift blow.

A full Strategic Defense Initiative is now in place comprising electrified devices, chemical sprays and regular monitoring procedures. And the swatter remains close at hand. We shall fight them on the veranda, we shall fight them in the bedroom, we shall never surrender and so forth...

Gig of The Century

Members of The Xorg Collective played a special one-off gig at The Bramfield Village Hall yesterday evening in front of an invited audience.  A total smasheroo, this one should run and run! Music industry executives are queuing round the block for our signatures!

We were part of a nine-piece ensemble, assembled by our pal Kevin. Me and our Phil on guitars, Louis on drums, Jeff on lead vocals, Vicky on keyboards, Lisa, Jackie and our Mary on backing vocals and Kevin on t'bass. We played two sets, separated by individual sets from Martin on vocals and acoustic guitar and his son Ben, also on acoustic and vocals, who did his own stuff. I have to admit that Martin was the more polished of the artistes on the evening but we were easily the loudest by a long chalk and several country miles. Our cover of 'Cochise' by Audioslave pinned a few ears back, I can tell you. A special mention goes to the backing vocalists who made a big difference.

The set list comprised some old fogey material as well as some more 'modern' stuff. The up-beat songs went much better than the gloomy slow songs. Old fart favourites such as 'Rikki Don't Lose That Number', 'Southern Man' and 'I Shot The Sheriff' never let you down!

Drains: Fingers Crossed for a Quiet Volcano

Phew! That's a relief. Madame President and I are due to fly to Cyprus on Monday and for a few days there we were thinking we might have to cancel. But not only has the CAA re-opened UK airspace but, it seems, the wind has changed direction and the ash is now being blown back over Iceland so their air travel has been suspended. Incidentally, the BBC has an explanation of the technical side to all this blather; apparently a concentration of 0.0002g per cubic metre or less is now considered to be the threshold whereas hitherto it was zero.

So we should be able to get over there and get all this business with the drains sorted out. The builder seems to have made a right old stew of it, having started digging too early, before the Sewerage Board got their act together. Consequently, the floor in the flat downstairs is a mess and everywhere smells, causing the tenant Anna to be somewhat less than gruntled and having to impose on her relatives for ablutions facilities. Meanwhile, it is uncertain when the Sewerage Board will connect everything up - I suspect it's a case of the old-fashioned Cypriot approach of 'avrio, avrio' (tomorrow, tomorrow, or maybe next week. Ah, don't worry...)

All those involved have been warned of El Presidente's immininent arrival so we'll see what we shall see.

Compensation

Willie Walsh of British Airways, and other airlines, are demanding compensation from the Government for the losses they have suffered as a result of the closure of European airspace. By 'the Government' they mean, of course, the taxpayer. Sorry chums but we haven't got the money, or hadn't you noticed the three hundred gazillion budget deficit? Besides, don't the airlines have insurance? Whatever - I find it ironic when the 'Captains of Industry' seek a socialist solution to a capitalist problem so here's my proposal:

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have reported massive profits for the first quarter of 2010 of $3.46 billion and $1.41 billion respectively. What the rest of us call pay and bonuses, these organisations choose to call 'compensation packages' - 43% and 49% of revenue respectively. A tidy sum - $5.5 billion for Goldman Sachs and $4.1 billion for Morgan Stanley. So what I reckoned was, these bastards get all this money by screwing the rest of us via their weird and wonderful finincial derivatives, mortgages and currency speculation so why not divert some of their 'compensation' to the airlines? Cut out the middleman; neat redistribution of wealth in a nutshell.

The Big Society

The Civil Aviation Authority, of course, is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation sponsored by the Department for Transport, and is accountable to Parliament through the Secretary of State for Transport. It is financed from the charges it makes to airlines and airports etc. Under the Tories' manifesto plans for 'The Big Society' it would presumably be one of the bodies that 'the public' could to run for itself. Or perhaps its staff could organise themselves into a co-operative and take it over. I am not sure how this would work exactly, and why this would be better than the current situation. No doubt David Cameron and his spotty herberts have got it all figured out. But I can't really see many punters wanting to rush forward and be responsible for air traffic and determining whether or not it is safe to fly.

Likewise, the Ministry of Defence could be run by a self-selected co-operative group, I suppose.  Actually, I wouldn't mind leading such an initiative. As Todd Rundgren said in his song Heavy Metal Kids  - " I know I could make this world so peaceful and calm if I could only get my hands on a hydrogen bomb."

What Ho, Algy! Skies are clearing....watch out for cabbage crates over the briny!

So after much deliberation, hand-wringing and despair the airlines are back in business and 21st century humanity can resume its fragile existence. I disagree with all the complainers though - despite the inconvenience to tourists and disruption to economic activity I would rather The Powers That Be were cautious and undertook some test flights and research with manufacturers about flying through volcanic ash. As Dr Colin Brown of the The Institution of Mechanical Engineers said yesterday "If the engines on an aircraft were to fail, then it's going to crash..." (I suspect the thesis for his Doctorate was The Bleedin' Obvious.)

Meanwhile, here's a spiffing picture of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull erupting whilst lightning is striking, via our chums at NASA. (Click on the picture to embiggificate.) Not even Biggles himself would fly through that!

Schedenfreude vol 6: Arsenal Woops!

As I am a Spurs  fan it will come as no surprise to you that I laughed heartily yesterday evening after Arsenal capitulated to Wigan, squandering a two-goal lead in the last ten minutes to lose three-two. But what made it most satisfying is that Wigan drew level with a goal from Titus Bramble of all people. The most inept  blundering player in the Premier League. The Arsenal goalkeeper flapped at the ball and bounced it onto Bramble's forehead and thence into the goal. Ho Ho Ho. Thus Arsenal's chances of the title are scuppered (barring Acts of God and so forth). And if they continue to mess it up like this, it's just about feasible that Spurs could finish above Arsenal in third place.

Well, there's no harm in being optimistic...

Panikos Photography

The brother-in-law, who is possibly the best photographer in Winchmore Hill, has started a photoblog. He's quite good actually, and he's even won prizes! Have a look. The one on the left is a picture he took of some waves in South Africa, but his main business is baby and wedding photos. There's a link to his business website over on the right and down a bit; contact him now for photos of your loved ones!

Schadenfreude vol.5: Aaaagh.

Life, and football in particular,  throws up some peculiar quandaries from time to time. I find myself wanting Manchester City to win today, with Carlos Tevez scoring a hat trick, thereby scuppering Man Utd. But on the other hand it would be better for Spurs if Man City lost by umpteen goals (or more). However, that would help Man Utd's hopes of winning the title. Of course, we want Spurs to beat Chelsea but that too would enhance Manchester United's chances of winning the league. And if Man Utd and Chelsea both lose then Arsenal benefit, assuming they beat Wigan tomorrow. 

It seems I'm the victim of my own schadenfraude.

Yer Blues: Lennon, Clapton, Mitchell, Richards

This was part of The Rolling Stones' Rock N Roll Circus, their 1968 extravaganza intended as a TV special but which was never broadcast. Apparently Mick Jagger wasn't happy with The Stones' own performance which had been delayed by the cameras breaking down and problems with the scene shifters and roadies setting things up. Plus they were a bit rusty and Brian Jones was off his bonce as a result of substance abuse. But there's nowt wrong with this performance by The Dirty Mac. This took place about two weeks after Cream's farewell concert and three weeks after the release of The Beatles' White Album. And about six weeks after the release of Electric Ladyland.

Me on a horse

And I didn't fall off.

Flying Pig

The spotty herberts in charge of the Conservatives' election campaign showed their naivety by choosing the former Battersea Power Station as the location for their manifesto launch. Many of the  'baby boomer' voters they are hoping to seduce will remember Battersea Power Station from the cover of Pink Floyd's album Animals which featured a giant inflatable flying pig floating between two of the chimneys. Legend has it that the inflatable pig broke loose from its moorings during the photoshoot and drifted over Kent where it eventually landed in a farm and scared the cows. 'Animals' is a concept album sort of inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm but is more a critique of capitalism rather than communism. I find the album quite depressing but then not a lot of Pink Floyd's stuff is what you might call upbeat.
Not a good image to associate yourself with if you're an aspiring Tory Prime Minister.

The Vote Now Show

One good thing about the UK General Election campaign is that the BBC are broadcasting a nightly series The Vote Now Show hosted by those wacky wackateers Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, in which the whole process and the politicians generally get the mickey well and truly taken out of them. It's slightly different from the usual Now Show format as it features additional guests such as 'serious' political journalists, but it almost makes the campaign worth enduring just so you can have a few laughs at the end of the day. I hope the politicians are listening - maybe they'll realise how silly they can be, and how utterly meaningless so much of what they do and say is.

Acer Maple at The Jazz Cafe: Video

Resident tech-wizard and rhythmist Our Phil on drums.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and many more at the Concert for George. If this doesn't bring a lump to your throat, I don't know what will.

Tribute to George - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Uploaded by k_rhcp. - See the latest featured music videos.

A Tax on Jobs

I guess a lot of things are going to get up my nose over the next four weeks while the General Election campaign is played out. But these so-called business leaders who have been complaining about the proposed increase in National Insurance contributions next year are starting to get on my nerves. They and their stooges in the Conservative Party keep referring to this as a 'tax on jobs'. No it isn't. It's a tax like any other, which is part of your business costs and you can pay for it in a number of ways. No one needs to lose their job because of it. Here's a few ideas:

Pass it on to your customers via increased prices;

Take account of it in next year's pay negotiations;

Renegotiate your supply contracts to get a better price;

Increase your sales, develop new products, break into new markets;

Or, you could pay it out of your profits. Perish the thought.

Suzanne

Suzanne, protege of pop svengali and music mogul Timothy Devereaux has a new EP available now on iTunes.

Laid back reflective love songs sung in Suzanne's inimitable breathless fashion. Give it a whirl.

Schadenfreude vol.4: Bye Bye Man Utd

I don't often have much sympathy for Manchester United but, notwithstanding Robben's fantastic strike, I think they wuz robbed of a fighting chance by the referee. There were a lot worse fouls than Rafael's pull-back on Ribery committed that didn't get a booking, but the referee allowed himself to be bullied by the Krauts into giving him a second yellow card and sending him off.

Nonetheless, I expect even Ferguson would now have to admit that he made a mistake in letting Carlos Tevez go last summer and relying solely on Rooney and, otherwise, own goals from the opposition.

Dweezil

Dweezil Zappa is taking his Zappa Plays Zappa extravaganza on the road in June and July and including a week's worth of gigs in the UK. I'll be going to the one at Cambridge on 21 July. They are also playing in Brighton, London, Liverpool, Glagow, Wolverhampton, and Gateshead. See zappaplayszappa.com.

Dweezil and family have come in for some criticism for trying, unsuccessfully, to force other 'non-official' tribute bands out of business by deploying lawyers and so forth. So there's nothing for it but to get out there on the road and play yer socks off, Dweez!

Defence Expenditure

A fascinating graphical presentation of various countries' military expenditure over at The Guardian. The figures show that  USA spent $607 billion in 2008 on 'defence'; more than the other nine top-spending countries put together. Loadsamoney in comparison to President Obama's Healthcare plan which will only cost £940 billion over ten years. But the USA is rich so, taken as a proportion of GDP, that's only 4% whereas Myanmar (formerly Burma), a military dictatorship, spent 26% of its GDP on defence. And the USA is 'high-tech' so they only have 829 military personnel per 100,000 population whereas North Korea has 24,728. That means a quarter of North Korea's population is in the military; no wonder they are starving. It seems to me that it's not just the American war-mongers who need to re-examine their spending priorities.

Big Thought For Today

Just supposing there is a place/state of being called Heaven or Nirvana or whatever you want to call it. An afterlife in which the unhappy people of this world will be made happy and the evil bastards will be made to pay (presumably with some kind of unhappiness, like death for instance). OK. So far so good. But if I believe that in the afterlife my unhappiness will be replaced with happiness then that would make me happy now wouldn't it? So I would no longer be unhappy. What does that leave for the proposed afterlife? I guess all I have to do is believe I'm going to be happy, then I will be happy.

Just a bit of blue-sky thinking I thought I'd float past you and see if anyone saluted it or tore down the flagpole. Not that I'd want to die in a ditch over it, clear blue water or not.

Bootleg Jazz: You are What You Hear

If you are a fan of jazz music then nip over to You Are What You Hear. This is a blog containing lots of live jazz for downloading including stuff by Michael Brecker, Jack De Johnette, Billy Cobham and many more. I've no idea how 'legitimate' it is - a lot seems to have come from  radio broadcasts and what I've listened to so far is of a good recording quality (i.e. not from a single mic held in the air behind a pillar). Any road up, I doubt if the musicians themselves will mind much as it seems unlikely in todays music biz climate that this stuff would ever have had a commercial release. But it would be good if you actually went out and bought an album or two by the artists featured to help keep them and their families from starving to death.
See also  Smalls Live.

Acer Maple at The Jazz Cafe

Another works outing yesterday evening, to The Jazz Cafe to see a band called Acer Maple for whom our Phil was playing drums. You may or may not recall that Phil engineered their EP 'Early' (which is currently available at iTunes). Acer Maple is basically two guitarists, Danny Fisher and Dave Austin, who write songs and recruit various people on an ad hoc basis to play them live. I still don't know why they named themselves after a tree but there you go.

For this gig, they used a full band with backing vocals and Phil got the job of drummer as their first choice tub-thumper was otherwise engaged. Completing the line up was Olly somebody on double bass, with Danny Fisher doubling on piano, and three women singing whose names, I think, were Sharlene, Donna and Charlie. Sharlene was the lead vocalist - she appears on the EP. Any road up, an excellent gig of laid back folk/jazz/soul very expertly performed. The songs are all pretty good, and they sounded better live than on record. (But most bands do if they are actual musicians.) Moreover, they were clearly enjoying themselves. Only two criticisms: they need to include a couple of up-tempo songs in the set and they should break it up a bit more with some solos - Danny and Dave were a bit shy.

The venue itself is quite snazzy, although the toilets are a bit inaccessible way down in the basement, and basic. Full marks though for providing real coffee in a cafetiere at a reasonable price. Avoid the cocktails - £7.20 a throw.

What I Been Reading

Found amongst my Dad's old books, The African Queen by C S Forester. This is probably more well known as the 1951 John Houston film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn but it was a book long before that, first published in 1935. The film is pretty good and Bogart won an Oscar for his part in it although, of course, Hollywood changed various parts of the plot to simplify matters and over-dramatise the ending, losing some of the subtleties in the process.

C S Forester subsequently wrote the Hornblower series of books, all of which I have read at some time and can highly recommend (see The C S Forester Society). Forester shows the same knack in The African Queen of combining an adventure story with a narrative describing how the characters change and develop as events act upon them. Very enjoyable, and there's no waffling. Note: in the book the woman is the stronger character and takes the lead but in the film the man is more heroic.

Drains

There have been a few problems with the building project in Cyprus. This is just one of them.

When the house was first built Larnanca did not have a mains sewerage system so the drains were connected to a septic tank at the back of the house. But as time went by, the Municapality eventually got round to putting in mains sewers and the house was connected up - not to the sewer running at the front of the house but to the sewer in the road behind, via Uncle Hambis' property. I believe this was done for reasons of short-term economy, but it has meant that the sewerage junction is a tad overloaded. So we figured while we're getting the building on the roof done, let's put the drains right. We obtained the necessary permissions, paid the fees and gave the plans to the builder and the architect and thought that would be all there was to it.

But no. Despite having had the plans since February the builder just noticed that the drain from the house doesn't meet up with the inlet to the main sewer. And the authorities won't let you run a diagonal pipe under the pavement or road to compensate. Various solutions were put forward, including digging up the whole of the ground floor to lay a new drain, but we've now reached a compromise whereby they'll dig a diagonal channel under our property to meet the main sewer at a right angle. This was supposed to happen last weekend but for some reason or other, it didn't. And now the builder has gone to Libya seeking another job. Ho hum. Meanwhile, not a small amount of inconvenience has been caused to the ground floor tenants whose drains remain temporary.

What I find annoying is not that we have encountered a problem - such things are inevitable - but that both the architect, who is supposed to be supervising things, and the builder have failed to sort out a difficulty that was foreseeable.

April Fool

Quite a good crop of April Fools Jokes this year:

The Independent reports that the Circle Line on the London Underground is to be converted into a Large Hadron Collider;

The Guardian gives details of The Labour Party's new poster campaign;

The Daily Telegraph describes how Virginmedia are bringing broadband to rural areas; and

The AA have plans for jet-powered roadside assistance.

Meanwhile, the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 had a special report suggesting that Shakespeare was French. Just a little bit too far fetched, that one.

He's not just bonkers

My OU course has moved on from impressionism to political history with a particular case study of Joseph Stalin. By crikey, he were a right bastard and no mistake. But it's amazing how often in politics people will go along with what some nutter at the top insists on even though they must know there's something not right about it. In Stalin's case there's the 'Red Terror' and the 'Great Purge' (amongst others). Millions denied justice and executed as a result of Stalin's paranoia but all these flunkeys went along with it. We can explain Stalin's behaviour by saying he was a sociopath who although he knew that what he was doing was wrong, he didn't care. But all the people who actually did the killing can't all have been sociopaths can they?

PS. Only one occurence of clichespeak to report from this week's tutorial : thinking outside the box.

Dialectics Part 1 : Thesis v. Antithesis

If a man is alone in the forest and there is no woman there to hear him, is everything he says still wrong?

The Vatican Isn't All Bad

(via The Word)

Them filthy papists do occasionally get some things right. You can enjoy a 360 degree view of the Sistine Chapel at their website, accompanied by some sepulchural choral music.

Chickenshed: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Another works outing for the Xorg Collective yesterday evening to the Chickenshed Theatre to see their production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. My cousin Francis has had a long association with this place and is their sound designer, resident deputy composer and assistant musical person. He very kindly wangled a short-term gig for our Phil as 'sound operator' for this production and got us tickets for yesterdays' performance. The actors/singers are mostly BTEC students and their teachers, plus children and young people from their various 'outreach' projects. Chickenshed managed to get sponsorship from 'River Island' clothiers who provided all the costumes - hence the show was in 'modern' dress, in various degrees of smart casual. Francis and his cronies wrote music to go with Shakespeare's stuff so it kind of ended up like a musical but not, as the dialogue remained in the original Bardspeak. Phil's job is to twiddle the knobs on the sound desk at the appropriate moments, which is something he likes doing, and he gets paid for it too.

Any road up, a very energetic show with some excellent performances and dynamic choreography. A  few of the students have still to learn properly how to modulate their voices when using a microphone, but most of them have just about got it, and a couple were very confident. The chappie playing 'Bottom' was loving it, and they all seemed to having a great time. It's great to see all that enthusiasm!

If you are a rich person who likes the theatre then give 'em a donation.

Idiot of the Week

Stephen Byers. The victim of a sting operation by some reporters, he bragged about his connections with Government and his ability to influence policy portraying himself as a 'cab for hire' at £5,000 per day. Apparently his greed got the better of him and he overstated the strength of his influence over current Ministers. Given the odium under which the silly pratt left government you'd think he'd realise that his claims would not be taken seriously and that he was being set up. What a twit. I expect he's on the Labour Party's hit list for an early demise.

Hey Bulldog

Jimi Hendrix : Valleys of Neptune

Another posthumous Hendrix album Valleys of Neptune is out now. You can hear clips and so forth and a podcast at the Experience Hendrix website.

This is an album of hitherto unreleased studio recordings mostly featuring the original Experience line-up dating from 1967 and early 1969. If you are already a Hendrix fan, you'll love it. If you are new to Hendrix, start with 'Are You Experienced', 'Axis Bold as Love', and 'Electric Ladyland' in that order. Then buy this one. It kind of indicates where Jimi was going and leads up to First Rays of The New Rising Sun which was posthumously assembled from tracks previously released (i.e Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge which are no longer available). So, for newbies, those are the five albums to get.

There are twelve tracks all previously unreleased; six are alternative versions of previous stuff and six are 'new' songs, although fans will notice bits of the new stuff also surface in other songs elsewhere in Jimi's output. The point being that these were essentially demos which Hendrix intended to do a lot more work on. But then many of Jimi's demos are better than take 74 by other people.

Two things hit you straight away - the guitar playing is full of energy, vitality, creativity and originality and Mitch Mitchell was the perfect drummer for Hendrix. Some of the alternative versions are very different e.g. 'Bleeding Heart' and 'Stone Free' and the 'new' songs show signs of how much more there was to come from Hendrix had he and others not allowed himself to die (but that's another story). The introductory riff from 'Ships passing Through the Night' is terrific; he used the melody line later on 'Night Bird Flying'. 'Lullaby for the Summer' foreshadows 'Izabella'. 'Crying Blue Rain' is an an unfinished backing track. 'Valleys of Neptune' is just about complete although I guess Hendrix would have added further lead guitar fills and some backing vocals. 'Mr Bad Luck' was re-worked as 'Look Over Yonder'.

Full marks to the Hendrix estate for putting this together and to Eddie Kramer for engineering and mixing so well.

Selective Reporting

Ho Hum. You can tell there's an impending General Election - The Daily Torygraph has embarked once again on a campaign to demonise the Trade Unions:

Yesterday they reported that Unite had received £17 million of taxpayers' money for training of union officials and claimed that as a result Unite had spare money available to give to the Labour Party. The report deliberately misses the point of the Union Learning Fund which was set up to help and encourage Trade Unions to develop learning and skills in the workplace i.e. to get the Unions to provide workers' education and improve skills and produce a better-skilled workforce. This benefits business as well and relieves the employers of some of the burden . Meanwhile, of course, taxpayers provide millions of pounds of assistance to employers through direct investment grants for start-up, training, tax breaks, Export Credit Guarantee and so forth.

Today, they report that taxpayers are subsidising Trade Union activity by providing 'facility time' in which union reps can go about their work. This is not news; it has been the case since 1975. And the practice is not confined to Government Departments; many private sector organisations do the same. An enlightened employer (if not the Torygraph) will realise that it fosters good industrial relations and, moreover, the employer can use this facility to bring about change more easily. There is a legislative background, and there is advice for employers at the Business Link website, although I don't suppose it occurred to the Torygraph reporter to look into this issue in such depth.

Car For Sale

Her Royal Queenness is flogging off one her Daimlers. 

High specification, custom-built, full service record.

Low mileage, good runner, one careful lady owner.

Books

I've not been reading so many books recently as I've had to focus on my OU course, particularly on Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe which was hard work at first but suddenly made sense when I listened to some actors performing it. No surprise there seeing as it was written as a play and not as a book! Any road up, I have managed to squeeze in a couple and have re-read Puckoon by Spike Milligan, and The Best of Beachcomber by JB Morton. Both amusing in their different ways although they do share a tinge of surrealistic weirdness in their approach. Puckoon has dated a bit as it was written in the early 1960s before the outbreak of the troubles in Ireland, and is basically a satire on the absurdity of dividing Ireland up in the way in which it was in the 1920s. Beachcomber is also from another age, when humour was gentler. And I can't imagine any newspaper giving him or his ilk a regular daily column these days. Either way, both books are recommended if you're looking for a pleasant diversion and a laugh or two.

Bulls**t Bingo

I attended a tutorial the other evening for my OU course on t'Humanities. This was a discussion on Paul Cezanne and the Impressionists and modernism in general. Very enjoyable and enlightening. For the most part, people talked sensibly and perceptively about the subject and as always happens in a tutorial group I gained comfort from finding most of my colleagues are almost as in the dark as I am. However, there were three heinous occurrences of bulls**it cliches being used during the session:

* Pushing The Envelope

* Quantum Leap

* Keeping It Real

Thankfully, nobody uttered the phrase paradigm shift otherwise there might have been bloodshed. But vigilance remains our watchword.

Xorg-InterGalactic 1 v. House Mouse (Mus musculus) 1

Late-ish one evening after just having watched the footy on TV, a slight shadowy movement was observed by the bookcase. Erk! A mouse! Leaping to our feet, we pursued the little blighter through the house until it eventually sought sanctuary behind the freezer. There it stayed, apparently secure in the knowledge that I couldn't be bothered to rearrange the kitchen that late at night. Correct. So out came the trap, baited with honey, which worked very successfully last time we were invaded by rodents. But this feller was a bit cheeky - next morning the trap was unsprung but the honey was gone. Nothing for it but to escalate to bacon and bingo! Got the blighter! (Re-enactment pictured herewith.)

The trap has been re-set for a week since, but no further evidence of hostiles has been detected so we're assuming this was a freelancer operating on his own, or perhaps an advance scout. So we'll call this one a score-draw. But vigilance remains our watchword.

A Collection of Clocks

WARNING DUCKS APPROACHING

Does this represent John of Gaunts speech from Richard II Act two, scene one? Please comment yay or nay.