The Grand Kitchen Refurbishment Begins

This is how my kitchen currently looks. Nice innit. Work has finally begun. New boiler, pipework, kitchen units, cooker, granite worktops, slate floor, trendy lighting.....but when you see it like this you wonder how long it's going to take and how something this horrible will even ever metamorphose into the chic picture I saw in the brochure.

Optimistically, it's going to take three weeks - and these things never go to plan - because I'm having several things done at the same time and the pictures here are just the opening salvo. Today, John the Kitchen has been ripping out units, demolishing an old larder/cupboard, taking up the horrible lino floor and filling in the cracks in the walls. Everything in my flat has a fine coating of red brick dust. I know there's no point in trying to keep anything clean for the next three weeks. I have a dry taste in my mouth as a thick dust lingers in the air.....this had better be worth it. Hang the expense, it's just got to be right at the end of it all.

More to follow......

Make Your Mind Up!

So how are we supposed to pronounce this guy's name? Even the various employees of the mighty BBC seem unsure. In one day of listening to radio and TV I variously heard:-

B'rack O'Barmer

B'rack Obermarr

Barrack O'Barmer

Barrack Obermarr

Barrackobarmer

The different versions were not from people with regional accents or from people being voxpopped in the streets. These were all from native Brits. - BBC reporters whose normal accent was pretty much standard English.

This is what they should be teaching in schools...

I defy you not to find this funny.

Ken Livingstone

I've just watched Dispatches on Channel 4 about Ken Livingstone - the Mayor of London. I've never seen such a bunch of bitter, small-minded, under-achieving and jealous interviewees as they managed to dredge up. They were either political opponents or disillusioned ex-employees so they're hardly likely to be impartial.

Ken's not popular with a lot of people, and I can see why. He winds me up at times but some of the criticism levelled at him was just piss poor. They accused him of employing advisers with whom he had worked with in the past. So? He is perfectly within his right to do that. They do appear to be of a pretty extreme political stripe but Ken didn't write his job description, and it is his right to employ whomever he chooses (within reason).

They had a bleat about congestion charging. The only mistake Ken made with the Congestion Charge was that he didn't make it enough - it should be £50 per day, every day, including weekends. I drive a car, live 4 miles from Central London and have never paid the charge because apart from a couple of weekends I've never had the need to drive through the Congestion Charge zone.

They moaned about buses. Apparently there are too many. For fuck's sake, what sort of a complaint is that? More people apparently are using the buses so they go slower. Well just think what things would be like without the extra buses and the congestion charge is the only reasonable response to those fatuous arguments. I remember the day the Congestion Charge was introduced. The media had reporters posted all over London, braced to report on the inevitable turmoil they had predicted would unfold. What happened? Nothing. All they noticed was, surprisingly, rather fewer cars on the road.

The role of Mayor of London was invented, specified and budgeted by New Labour who were confident they'd just shove Frank Dobson (remember him?) into the job and they'd have the whole thing stitched up nicely whilst proudly announcing how democratic the process was. They didn't anticipate Ken winning and New Labour have been smarting ever since. New Labour would love to see the back of Ken but the reality is, despite all New Labour's quiet skulduggery in the background, he's still popular. I think with Boris Johnson, there's a reasonably strong candidate up against him, even though I actually don't think Boris' heart is really into this. He's far more politically ambitious.

Ken provokes strong feelings with lots of people. He's a little too keen to grandstand with controversial political figures than I'd like, and I don't really see what he's trying to achieve, within the definition of his job, with that sort of activity.

Channel 4 - if you're in the business of doing hatchet jobs, you should be able to do a better job than this. You should be able to find plenty of people who have genuine reasons for wanting Ken out other than simple jealousy but that was the only reason I could detect from the bunch that was paraded on this show.

Happy Birthday, War has Begun

There was a TV programme on Channel 4 tonight - 1983: The Brink of Apocalypse (sorry, no link) - it was all about the most critical point of The Cold War between the USSR and the USA. A combination of activities by various western powers contrived to make the USSR believe that a nuclear attack was imminent. There was a major NATO exercise going on - called Able Archer - which simulated nuclear armageddon, there was a lot of electronic traffic between the US and the UK and Reagan was making some very provocative speeches about the "evil empire" in the USSR.

It seems, the only thing that kept the USA and USSR from launching every goddamn missile they had at each other was the Soviet spies, despite enormous pressure from their bosses in The Kremlin, could find no compelling evidence that the West had actually launched anything, there was only the indication that a lot of things appeared to be in place and that Able Archer might be a smokescreen for the real thing.





This all came to a head on November 8th 1983. By an interesting quirk of fate (I've always wanted to use that phrase) I know exactly where I was on November 8th 1983. I was in a bar/pub called The Old Rangoon on Castelnau, Barnes where everybody bought me drinks for the whole evening. It was a hoot. These are the photos. The rather luscious frizzie blonde sitting next to me was called Ginny. She was a lovely, deliciously curvy gal, great fun, and to a young rather naive chap like me was just a whole mess of excitement. She was working as a nanny next door to the large houseshare I was living in at the time in Roehampton in south west London. This is still the shared accomodation of which I have the fondest memories. A great bunch of people, we had a ball, Andy, Rosie, Tony, Chris, Phil, Karen, Murray, Jeannine, Terry, Yvonne and many others - what a crowd, I love you all and think of you often.

And only now, have I found, thanks to this C4 documentary, that the closest we ever came to a full on, flat out, kill us all, nuclear armageddon, was on my 21st birthday.

Take the Next Left

My mum, who was 70 last year, got a TomTom SatNav for Christmas. She spent a good few hours chuntering, as is her nature, about how little she needed a device like this. Several of us tried to explain the benefits and I think we finally at least convinced her that she should at least try it out. She has repeatedly complained over the last six months that since my brother moved recently, she always get lost in the mish-mash of urban motorways, ring roads and confusing dual carriageways that surround Manchester so there was a good reason for giving it to her.

It did however, in my usual lightweight way, get me thinking. This is technology that has I think, finally come of age. Apart from a few stories in the press about giant trucks being led up farm tracks, sat. nav. devices do now appear to work. They may not take you the route you know, or intuitively feel is the right way, but they will get you there. When you suddenly decide you want to go somewhere unexpectedly or just feel the urge to speculatively follow an interesting looking signpost, it'll get you home from there afterwards. Maybe not by the most direct route but you probably wouldn't know anyway.

I used one on a holiday last year. I was in an unfamiliar part of Scotland and I had to find a new golf course every day. It navigated me perfectly through some substantially sized towns, on to the correct road on the other side of the town, and then on to the golf course.

I'm pretty sure they will be a standard fitting in all cars within the next decade. Shortly after that, I'm pretty sure they will be, de facto, essential. Governments will no longer consider good signage on roads is required and it therefore will become increasingly poor. When the older generation - who still navigate on paper and love to argue about the merits of the B449 over the new bypass - complain, the government will have formulated some patronising answer about embracing new technology. The compulsory SatNav in your car is going to be monitoring where yoou're going in oder to calculate your road charges (another inevitability) anyway so you're going to have to have one.

The next generation will be one that does not spend their geography lessons learning how to read a map and another useful skill that was once considered essential, will fall by the wayside.

This might prompt another post regard skills we used to need but are no longer required.....

Ouch!

Thanks to The Devil's Kitchen for pointing out this particularly terrifying device.

* exits room clutching groin in imagined pain *

Never gona 4get...

The father of the 13 month old child killed by a family rottweiler has left a tribute to his dead son on their Bebo site.

“Never gona 4get ya lil man, RIP 4eva n always, miss ya so much, ur mummy sez i can ave ur iggle piggle, so gna keep him in car wi me xxxxx.”

The grandparents have said a 16 year old should not have been left in charge of the 13 month old child. The mother was soon to celebrate her 18th birthday, so must have been 16 when she gave birth, which I guess, means 16 is an acceptable age to bear children, but not necessarily an acceptable age at which to care for them.

What Happens When the Police Go on Strike?

Would the same thing happen here? The following extract is taken from Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate and describes his experience of a police strike.

As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin's anarchism. I laughed off my parents' argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundered shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order. This decisive empirical test left my politics in tatters...

Songs in an Off-Key

I've pilfered this meme from The Girl with The Golden Mind

Roolz:
1. Put your music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT (this is in capital letters, so it is very serious).


1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Out of Focus - Mick Jagger

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? God on my Side - World Party

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GAL? If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go - Curtis Mayfield

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Take it Back - Pink Floyd

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE? So Many Things - Francoise Hardy

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Let Me Light Your Fire - Jimi Hendrix

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Rhumba de Burros - Ignatius Jones

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? Let Me Go Lover - Dean Martin

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Harder Better Faster Stronger - Daft Punk

10. WHAT IS 2+2? Did You Hear What They Said - Gil Scott-Heron

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Irish Blood, English Heart - Morrissey

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Music to Watch Space Girls Go By - Leonard Nimoy

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Don't You Feel My Leg - Maria Muldaur

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Lullaby - Jake Thackray

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Wings of a Dove - Madness

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? Praise You - Fatboy Slim

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Tu Mira - Lole/Manuel

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Trouser Freak - The Bonzo Dog Band

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? In My Own Words - Craig Armstrong

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? This is Pop - XTC

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? The Dope - The Dandy Warhols

22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS? It Ain't No Fun - Shirley Brown

Muffin Man, I Hate You

On days when I work in The City I take the bus from Crouch End to Finsbury Park and then the train from Finsbury Park to Moorgate. I usually travel at about 7.30 - it's busy but bearable and it's only a short journey - 15 minutes or so.

This morning I was a little later than normal so I knew it would be crowded. It was. Very. At Drayton Park, a bloke had to muscle his way on the carriage forcing us all to pack ourselves even tighter into the standing section. It was rammed. This bloke then decided he needed something out of his bag which was on the floor. To the great inconvenience of others around him he started squatting down to shuffle around in his bag and then stood up with a chocolate muffin in his hand. He then proceeded to try to eat the chocolate muffin. This train was packed. Most people were wedged in so tight they could barely lift their arms which were clamped firmly by their sides and held in place by other surrounding bodies and there was this bloke holding a chocolate chip muffin about an inch from his face and only able to eat it by crooking his head forward and nibbling off bits off it. As the train jostled and he struggled to eat his bloody chocolate chip muffin crumbs and chocolate chips fell, landing in the folds of the clothing of people around him. As the train stopped at each station there was the usual exchange of bodies and people jostling or squeezing past each other to get in and out of the carriage. More muffin detritus was distributed and spread over people's clothing. As the journey continued I could see the flecks of soggy brown dough and half melted chocolate discolouring and staining people's lightly coloured clothing.

Just how fucking hungry do you have to be to be so fucking inconsiderate that you cannot wait less than 15 fucking minutes to get to your destination, walk to your desk and eat your fucking chocolate chip muffin there, perhaps even with a nice cup of tea?

I dearly hope this gimp was a diabetic or something and therefore absolutely had to get his sugar jolt at that precise moment. I suspect he wasn't and he was simply an inconsiderate, weasily looking, good for nothing, little scrote.

Of course nobody said anything.

Armed and Extremely Dangerous

This is the feelgood song of the day. Yet again, Danny Baker surprises his listeners with another crackin' tune.....

Teh Early Years

This is in response to Slaminsky's suggestion to post embarrassing, childhood photos. I think these two shockers fit the criteria.

Crime and Punishment

I've been somewhat vexed by the whole teddy bear naming Gillian Gibbons story that's been all over the media for the last week and will, I expect, continue to be so for the rest of the week I guess. There have also been some really quite vitriolic comments made about pretty much everyone involved in the whole thing. So, I'm going to have a go at my take on the whole event so far.

To me, this appears to have been a primarily political act by the Sudanese government. Discrediting Westerners seems to be a fairly solid plank of government policy. They know it will run well with the people and shows the government to be asserting itself against the old colonial powers. This is a government that tells its people that Westerners are kidnapping Sudanese children and using them as organ donors for rich Westerners. Wrapping this anti western sentiment up as an act of blasphemy only serves to ramp up the severity of the crime perpitrated.

A lot of people have commented that the logical response of Western governments should be to remove the financial aid that Sudan is currently enjoying from the West. That'll teach 'em, say the commenters. As I understand it, the aid is not being given with the suggestion that it supports the Sudanese government or the oppressive regime that it operates. The aid is given purely for humanitarian reasons. The people being helped by what little aid that gets through are refugees of political acts by their own government. If it were not for those acts the people would not be displaced. fleeing, or starving. Sudan, if it chose to, would be capable of supporting its own people. It just chooses not to for political expediency. So, removal of aid would not hurt the government but certainly would hurt people who are already victims of their country's own oppression.

Our own Foreign Secretary has suggested this is a delicate situation that must be handled carefully to avoid offending the Sudanese religious sensibilities. Well, I guess that would wash if this was simply about an offence against Islam but it palpably is not. Treading carefully may be expedient in gaining the release but it looks horribly like appeasement to me. We should be criticising not only the politics of the act but also the fundamentalist Islam back story that is propping the whole thing up. The UK government has got the support of British muslims who have said this is a grotesque misinterpretation of their religion and the government, by failing to overtly criticise this misrepresentation only reinforces many people's view that Islam is a religion that is out of control.

Some other have commented that in the UK, we have recently introduced laws that could lead to similar prosecutions in the UK. That is so wide of the mark it beggars belief. Whilst many people, me included, are very uncomfortable about having any law that specifically suggests a crime against religion is wrong, it could never be used against someone who chose a religiously inappropriate name for a teddy bear or suggested idolatry. We should have a law, I believe, primarily against inciting violence or hatred. I don't really think any law should specifically mark out religion as being a special case. A crime is a crime. Inciting any sort of violence against another is a repellent act and there should be a law against it. Proving it might be difficult but religion does not need to be a special case and the religious lobby is powerful and sufficiently vociferous and well supported to fight its own battles, even in our own supposed secular state.

As a side issue, the UK government must be absolutely loving it as this "touching human interest story" is managing to keep some very uncomfortable stuff about our own government out of the headlines and shows our politicians favourably as they exert their diplomatic skills. Skills that have been sadly lacking of late in many other areas of the world. Lets face it, the release was always going to happen, the Sudanese government just wanted to see Westerners coming to them, cap in hand and begging for clemency.

So, Gillian Gibbons will return. I dearly hope she maintains her stance so far, that she was happy to be in Sudan doing something she wanted to do. Any reaction should be directed against the government of Sudan and not against its sadly misinformed population or desperately blighted refugees. If a proper reaction to the government of Sudan, under the auspices of the UN (please, no more military interventions) was not to happen, now that would be a real crime.

A Man of Paper

Give 'em Enough Rope......

Protesters appear to have stopped Nick Griffin (BNP Leader) and David Irvine (holocaust denier) from taking part in a debate at The Oxford Union this evening. Whilst stopping people whose views you find offensive from speaking publicly may seem a just cause, there is a flipside. Both Mr. Griffin and Mr. Irvine are so off the scale in the offensiveness or sheer ridiculousness of their opinions that I'm inclined to believe you should let them speak. Only this way are people able to see their views questioned and ultimately denounced. Muscling them out of the public eye just means that they can justifiably claim that their right to free speech is being denied. Let them speak and let their views be confronted and I'm sure, as the title of this piece suggests, they will hang themselves. That is, ultimately, the point of free speech; a principle many of the protesters outside The Oxford Union are busily practising. I can't imagine The Oxford Union would have given them an easy ride as nobody would really expect this to be the natural habitat of their typical supporter.

It's a tough one isn't it. You worry that their views, if given a platform, will become popular or accepted but that does a disservice to the intelligence of the people they are speaking to. Sure these guys do have support, but it is small, poorly organised and generally speaking, extremely bad at expressing its views without frothing at the mouth.

Let them have a go at getting their views across. They won't succeed and next time fewer people will be so vexed by their presence until ultimately, they disappear up their own you know what.

Binocular Football

More X-Factor "Drama"

Oh for fuck's sake, look at this bollocks.

This manipulative piece of crap television continues to do its utmost to give the pretence of being a platform to develop new talent, whilst actually being just a vehicle designed primarily to fleece a gullible public and to further the careers and bank balances of the judges and presenters.

Consider the evidence.

It's already admitted it's heavily staged with supposed spontaneous events being edited or re-enacted for more dramatic effect. Another example here.

They're heavily mired in the phone-in scandal where highly lucrative income from phone lines continues to be collected after the winner has been chosen or voting deadlines have been passed.

Some, if not all, the judges have a financial interest in the winner's future recorded output and career.

There is absolutely nothing new or original about the performers or their material. Most of them are deluded, wannabes without a scrap of talent. They perform cover versions of material that would have made their parent's generation cringe, even in its original form. Most of the audition stage of the programme seems primarily designed to humiliate the contestants. At worst it will do some of the contestants permanent psychological damage. At best it may produce a small number of third rate cruise-liner singers.

On numerous occasions the judges appear to have apparently irreconcilable disagreements which usually result in tears or one of them walking out and refusing to have anything more to do with the show. They're always back the following week after some melodramatic reconciliation where they vow to go on for the sake of the contestants or some other bollocks excuse.

And finally, the most damning piece of evidence of all. It's TOTAL SHITE.

All the above I have gathered without actually ever watching the programme.

A Few Things Football Can Learn From Rugby

The Rugby World Cup Final illustrated everything that can be good in sport, and shows football (again) how players, coaching staff and supporters should approach their game. Here are a few examples.

Be maganimous in defeat. Not a word appears to have been said by the England players or coaching staff about any injustice they might have been subject to, even when asked directly. Likewise of the South Africans. Only courteous and gentlemanly acknowledgement of their respective adversaries good performance. When the England coach was asked after the match if he thought the best team had won, he gave the perfect answer - "The best team always wins."

Accept the decision of the officials without question and move on.

Don't feign injury. After a South African player was deliberately pushed by an England player into an advertising hoarding which then meant he collided heavily with a substantial camera unit the South African saw in the body language of the English player that it was an impulsive, heat of moment incident and accepted his apology. The referee saw it the same way. No punishment, no histrionics, they all just got on with the game. If the same had happened in a game of football, the player, whether injured or not, would have stayed down and acted as dramatically as possible, probably being stretchered off the pitch for more dramatic effect.

When interviewed the supporters on both sides were, before and after the game, grateful to the hosts and courteous about the opposition. No segregation of opposing supporters in the crowd was needed - nor is it at any game of rugby.

Congratulations to South Africa. The best team won.

Pies and Prejudice

Living in London, as soon as you mention in conversation you're a Northerner you'll usually get the "Eeeh ba gum it's all flat caps and whippets oop there intit...ho ho ho" so Stuart Maconie's latest book, Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North, is a welcome response to the flat cap and whippets mob. A funny, passionate hymn to the North. Loaded with references as to why the North has so much to offer it'll probably only appeal to expat Northerner like myself because anyone who's not from the North who reads it simply won't believe it's true.

I don't have a problem with living in London, I choose to do it and I like it but ill-informed, cliched criticism grates after a while and trying to defend your position to someone who's never been there invariably ends up making you just sound like you've got a chip on your shoulder or something.

Written as part travelogue, part humourous and good-natured polemic, it made me want to go and visit the places he went to that I don't know. And being of Yorkshire /Lancashire extraction I've visited quite a few - but not all - of the places he talked about.

Good on you Stuart. I think it's a vain hope that you think that non Northerners will buy/read it unless they actually know something about the North of England but it's helped remind me of why my heart skips a beat when I hear a brass band, why at least half dozen people I went to school with over 20 years ago I still count as good friends, and why I know, that one day I will return.