Useful idiots

This is one of those stories that is both astonishing and "hardly surprising" all at the same time.

I have recently arrived home, in Leeds, from work to be confronted by two Police Officers, who according to neighbours have been calling back and forth most of the day and at one point sat outside my door for over an hour during which time a number of neighbours were quizzed as to my whereabouts and "what sort of person I am".Many of whom thought that perhaps I had commited some heinous crime.

...

I have flown the National flag of England on my property for the past two years since we bought this house, and Ihave been told, in no uncertain terms, that I risk arrest if I continue to do so.

It appears that someone who walked past my house over the weekend has reported that she finds seing the National Flag of this Country "uncomfortable" and has surmised that I am clearly a Racist and should be stopped from doing so.

Via Gareth.

Blogopheric Amber Alert

Any US readers out there with a blog please help spread the word about Jordan.

I guess it will also help if all blogs, regardless of location, help to spread this.

Good luck to you and yours Kim.

Via Scott.

Hold the front page

Hehe, via Voice of the Future comes this.

Not even on his radar

This quote of Gordon Brown's in the Scotsman is very bad news:

"I will in the next year visit every region and nation of our country. With you I want to listen, hear and learn, to discuss the economic, social and constitutional changes we need to build for the future"

The same can be said of the case for an English parliament.

If he had any fear over these issues and how they might affect any future term as prime-minister he would not have said what he did.

It's very bad news indeed.

We are failing to make our case to the wider population in England.

RAF Museum

A few more closeups from the RAF Museum, Hendon, London.

One small step

Nice:

This morning the Cross of St. George had been hoist on the flagpole in place of the EU flag.

Web Engine

I took this at a nearby weir. This is part of the machinery that controls the flow of water.

View larger image

Farewell Sport England, you had your chance and blew it

Sport England have failed to make the case for sport on the national level. They have made what could be a fatal mistake on their part. While the sports councils of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been plying their trade proactively for their respective nations, similar support for sport at the national level in England has been a confusing affair.

The Tour of Britain, as readers are no doubt aware, was a distinctly sordid affair. It lacked an English team, which is a situation that the other nations of Britain could never entertain for their own sportsmen and women. These competitors were proud to enter the tournament and their sports organisations supported them. After all, it is part of their roll to do so. Not so with Sport England, who I can only assume found it a rather daunting task to support a national team who they considered would not be competitive either individually or collectively. They argued that [a]n England team that is not competitive would have limited impact on the sport, and potentially be detrimental.

That is a spectacular failure to grasp the very essence of why many people compete. How many times have we been told by an athlete how great it was to represent their nation? It’s fair enough to say that British athletes often mean Britain when they say this (which is after all what they are representing in most cases) but in a competition of nations within the Union what does being forced to represent the whole of the Union whilst other competitors are permitted to represent their home nations actually mean to an athlete? If it means nothing then this only highlights Sport England’s ‘magnificent’ failure.

The result of this bland performance by Sport England is beginning to surface:

Moynihan and Hoey argue for a one-stop funding agency to be called the Sports Foundation, which would be part of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport and chaired by the Secretary of State. All the governing bodies of sport in this country would go to that one source for funding, replacing the jungle of organisations that exists at present.

This would mean the end of UK Sport and Sport England, along with their regional English structures. But neither Hoey nor Moynihan wants the sports councils of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be disbanded.

This cannot be said of England. The lacklustre efforts by Sport England to proudly and adamantly express and support actual national sport has left them in a very weak position. There can be no whirlwind. Indeed, on quite possibly the very eve of loosing their jobs they have no moral authority to do anything other than look at their feet and whistle.

How could they argue the case for England when they have, to all intents and purposes, been part of the machinery for British sport to the detriment of the nation of England? After all, the reorganisation should, ethically, mean nothing to them.

They failed to make the case. They failed to inject that nationalistic element into their support for sport that could and probably would have warded off any attempt at a ‘hostile takeover’. They are to be fractured and absorbed into a UK sporting body and those in the takeover boardroom know that there will be little or no trouble. They could never say this about the sporting bodies of other component nations.

And what of England? Well, if this absorption goes ahead the task of building an honest to goodness national sports body will be impossible. With English consciousness on the rise it would have been an uphill struggle to change the mindset of our national bodies. A struggle but probably not impossible. At least they had the right name. If this osmosis of Sport England into the murky waters of a wider agency goes ahead we should probably all go home to lie in our beds and think of England.

Remember her?

Yasmin, who are you really?

Peter Briffa calls Yasmin Alibhai-Brown the Yazzmonster. It has more letters in it than the word paranoid but less than the more risqué title of Guardian columnist. A happy compromise I suppose.

She’s a difficult woman to understand but that may well be as a result of prejudice. You see equality cuts many ways. If one were to, say, speak up for the rights of one particular racial group then you would expect that those same rights should be extended to all racial groups. For instance, thou shall not prescribe a particular kind of wicked behaviour to a particular racial group. It makes sense. All people have the right to go through their daily lives without this kind of prejudice forced upon them. Don’t they? Don’t they?

Let’s ask Dr. Gabb.

Hello everybody.

Hello Dr. Gabb

I once questioned Yasmin, here’s what she said::

"Yasmin, are you saying that the white majority in this country is so seething with hatred and discontent that it is only restrained by law from rising up and tearing all the ethnic minorities to pieces?"

Her answer was yes, though she seemed to think better of this answer immediately after. But she did not take the invitation to deny that the white population was only kept in line by criminal laws to restrain them from attacking ethnic minorities. When Dr Gabb asked if she seriously believed he wanted to murder her, his microphone was turned off and he was "released" from his engagement with 20 minutes of discussion still to run.

Mr. Briffa brings us further news on the monster herself:

In February last year David Goodhart wrote an essay about diversity. As he puts it:

"All hell broke loose. I was accused of ‘nice racism’ by Trevor Phillips, ‘ignorant scapegoating’ by Sukhvinder Stubbs and people even rang my wife to ask what it was like living with the new Enoch Powell".

…

"The Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, whom I had once counted as a friend, was the most distraught and irrational. She refused to look at the essay when I asked her for comments before publishing it and then attacked me personally with barely a glance at the argument in several of her newspaper columns. She refuses to give up. This year at the Edinburgh book festival she told 300 people that I had once said to her at a Christmas party, ‘Don’t you think there are too many people like you here?’ This is pure invention.

Oh cripes, not the English again

Ok, time to be honest here. Who of you out there actually come across this kind of attitude to the Welsh?

After a millennium and a half of putting up with Wales, the English attitude towards the Welsh remains one of irritation interrupted by bouts of insult. Abuse of the national neighbours is a familiar story - the Germans do it to the Poles, Czechs think the Slovaks are dozy and the Greeks find the Bulgars dodgy.

The irritating thing about Wales - for the English - is the sheer persistence of the linguistic difference. We do, it is true, assimilate well, which is why, per capita, few countries have produced so many actors as Wales. English liberty is really the freedom to imitate the English - which then gives the English the right to mock the assimilated.

Via Nicholas .

Fear the truth!

Blair's fashion police at work:

Police arrested a 20-year-old gamekeeper for wearing a “Bollocks to Blair” T-shirt at a game fair last weekend.

Now stop banging on, we're busy

Former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing has criticised the UK for achieving "very little" so far in its presidency of the European Union.

New blog on the block

No idea who this new blogger is but he goes under the name of The Gun Guy.

A very English protest

A bit more on Sir Ian Blair, his troops and their extra special employers over at The First Post (via Parliament Protest):

Meanwhile, it seems the Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, is keen to have a memento of a lovely Sunday, which was no doubt why his emissary, a police photographer, took pictures of all the picnickers.

Dredd without the Judge

Sir Ian Blair is a dangerous man and should be sacked:

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said "modernisation" of the force should be carried forward by introducing "an escalator of powers" for the dispensing of instant justice.

Consider the whole debate on what a householder can and cannot do when confronted by a home intruder. The police expect the householder to only respond to direct bodily threat and then only up to the point where the householder acts to protect themselves from injury.

If the householder were to, say, hit the burglar he or she would have a great deal of explaining to do and if it turned out that the punch was thrown to deter the burglar from carrying the TV out through the window the householder would find themselves on the wrong side of a courtroom debate.

The same would happen if the householder happened to lock up the burglar in a secure room in the house. The police would prefer that you would use the room to lock yourself up and would be more than happy to charge you at the behest of the intruder with whatever they can find.

It's not for the householder to dispense justice in his or her own home.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the 'important' people in the police force think that their men and women are significantly different from the rest of us and should be seen as different in law. Super citizens.

RAF Museum

Here are another couple of images from the recent trip to the RAF Museum along with some of the text at the display. The Rolls Royce Avon Mk203 Turbojet:

"After a major re-design in 1950 a new and very different Avon emerged which led to the 200 series, including the RA.28 Avon Mk203 shown here. This particular engine type was used in the Hunter F6, later Valiants and Canberra PR9 as well as the World speed record-breaking Fairey FD2. However, Avon production was not confined to aircraft use: the industrial and marine division of Rolls Royce successfully developed the engine for electricity generation, gas and oil pumping. More have been sold for these uses than any other gas turbine."

"In 1983 an Avon aero-engine was fitted into a specially designed car for an attempt on the World land seed record. On 4 October 1983 the car, Thrust 2, was driven by Richard Noble to a new record of 633.468mph at Blackrock in the United States."

Oooo, we've been naughty

The UK is to be reprimanded after breaching the European Union's (EU) stability pact

ARRSE!

I seem to be getting a lot of hits from the British Army Rumour Service, or ARRSE as they are more, erm, affectionaly known. Incoming from their forums. If any of you ARRSE’s (please don’t kill me) out there know why drop me a line. My ears are burning.

Where is the off switch?

What would be the next step, I wonder, in a country that is already seeking to allow the police to arrest and detain individuals for significant lengths of time without affording them the luxury of a proper trial?

What would be the next step in a country where the police are seen as being increasingly political in their actions and motivations? I mean, they already seem to have excessive representation when it comes to deciding what new legislation is required, a situation that is already beginning to motivate some politicians into making statements. The ”police don't run the country” they say. We know that but do they?

What would be the next step, do you think, in a country where the police seem to get away with restraining protesters via the use of approved punches to the face when the subjects they are supposed to be protecting have no recourse to such approved methods?

What would be the next step in a country that seeks to impose compulsory ID cards on all of its population at huge cost when there are countless better ways of spending the billions of our money that such a scheme will require?

What would be the next step in a country whose government has no effective political opposition?

Troops on the streets? Yeah, why not?

We are living under special circumstances at the moment but they will not last forever. After victory, which will come as sure as eggs is eggs in the coming years, will we see all of these special requirements repealed and withdrawn?

I very much doubt it.

You see, even though we know these are ‘interesting times’ there has been no official government declaration of the fact. No specific Act of Parliament around which all these infringements of our civil liberties are structured, such as a declaration of war or some such. No bargain with the people. There is no single event and no single legal article upon which we can say “right, that’s done with then, now we can get rid of this framework that was created to deal with these special times”.

This is the single most troubling issue for me in this war on terror. The government adds to its machinery of power stating that it is necessary for our own good during this distressful period. They do so without offering us any kind of off switch.

And that is crucial, for without one these the new powers for the powerful will never be reversed.

Clowns to the Left of me jokers to the Right

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to define my place on the left/centre/right scale. You see growing up I was a big Thatcher supporter and, until recent times, always voted Tory. My friends and family always considered me somewhat to the right of Peter Hitchens and I always felt happy with this categorisation. After all I was more often than not right, and they were more often than not wrong. However times have changed:

The Right sees single mothers as immoral and slobby products of bad neighbourhoods.

Alice Miles makes some interesting points in her article but I simply can’t bring myself to engage with them.

She continues:

I prefer the Right’s look of embarrassment when they find I am a single mother to the Left’s smile of sympathy, but perhaps that’s because I don’t need their money. I want to tell them how much fun it is, and how easy, and how much easier and more fun it is for me than for many married couples, because raising children within a marriage often looks like hell.

Oh my God. I’m a lefty. Where’s the yoghurt?

Commission on Britishness

Via Blimpish we notice this national one day conference hosted by HM Treasury:

How 'British' do we feel? What do we mean by 'Britishness'?

These questions are increasingly important in defining a shared purpose across all of our society. The strength of our communities, the way we understand diversity, the vigour of our public services and our commercial competitiveness all rest on a sense of what ‘Britishness’ is and how it sets shared goals

This national one-day conference, hosted by HM Treasury, will launch the first ‘Commission on Britishness’. It will hear from leading figures as to the future of a multi-faith, multi-ethnic Britain, and , delegates will also have the opportunity to discuss the benefits and impacts of the Government’s programme of devolution on Britishness [my emphasis].

Ships

A photograph of some of the ships that arrived as part of this game. The ship in the foreground is the Titan which is, apparently, quite a capable ship when played properly. My boy sunk it with one of his disgracefully underpowered pirate vessels

I reduced the overall brightness of the image and filtered it through a 'gothic' blur filter.

Another image - Shutters

This one I took on my way to work as I passed an old barn local to me. I've passed it many hundreds of times over the years and have watched the thing slowly degrade. The texture of the peeling paint is the attraction of the photograph for me though, once again, it's a pleasure that you are denied as a consequence of the small size published here.

Another image - Orchid

Taken on the spur of the moment at my parents’ house a few weekends back. The orchid, a moving in present now beginning to fade, was photographed and framed so that it can be hung when the real thing finally goes the way of the Dodo.

Today's image

Here's another image from the D70. Local farm taken at about 7am as RAW then passed through Raw Shooter to increase saturation, reduce exposure, increase fill light and shadow contrast. It's hard to see the overall effect on such a small version of the image but when I look at it it makes me think, oh bugger, better get out of here.

Vincent Cable MP

Apparently Vincent Cable's roll could be cruicial to the LibDem party. Crucial it is, but not in a good way.

Of course, it won't bother him one little bit that he has offended a bunch of people he's never met just because they want equality. You see, it's the wrong kind of equality they are after.

Come join the party

This man should join this club.

Now if we can only get DumbJon to finally crack.

How dare you English!

Oh dear, I missed this one from Simon Jenkins in the Guardian:

Yesterday's [the ashes] victory was laboriously attributed to "England". The flag of Saint George waved everywhere over its celebrations. This was as absurd as that "England's" World Cup team should be beaten by Northern Ireland, and that what is really Britain must face the world explicitly to the exclusion of Scotland and Wales.

Americans do not stage a knockout competition to decide which state should represent it abroad. Bavarians and Catalans, with far more autonomy than Wales or Scotland, do not exclude themselves from their national teams. British cricket has always respected the United Kingdom, and even its governors have felt obliged to add Wales to their formal title. For goodness sake wave the union jack and let this glorious game belong to the nation as a whole.

Jenkins reveals himself as a Unionist of the worst kind; the kind that loves the Union in spite of England.

Via Nicholas at British Nationalists in Wales WATCH who has this message for Jenkins:

Fetch me a bucket - the Brit Nat just can't stop! Which nation? Wave the union jack - is this some kind of joke? Get over it Jenkins. Britian is on its way out. The English cricket team are rightly proud of their win. Let the English celebrate it. Stop stuffing your British Nationalism down the throats of liberal-minded English and Welsh people, and why not catch up on some international politics whilst your at it.

A national what now?

What does it mean when a politician says that he will not modify government policy until there has been a national debate? No honestly, what does it mean?

Beer and a day off, what’s not to like?

We all know that St. George is a little cross over the lack of recognition he has been getting of late. Everyone has been ignoring him for donkey’s years and, little by little, he’s been getting more and more depressed. Why not try and cheer the old man up a little and sign this petition being run by Wells brewery (via Gav).

Parliament protest

I have a great deal of respect for people who do this week in, week out. Or even once.

Labour's Raging Bull

Via Neil Herron:

So many people are using the "Bill of Rights defence" to justify non-payment of automatic penalties - HM Customs has backed down more than once over refusal to pay surcharges for late VAT returns - that, according to Birmingham city council last week, Government lawyers are considering emergency legislation to override the Bill of Rights.

How about the rest of you little people?

This litterally is about the scales of justice:

When those Sunderland officials seized Mr Thoburn's scales in 2000, they can little have guessed what a constitutional can of worms they were about to open.

The rising levels of disaffection

For the past eight months a set of figures has been working a hole in my mind. On April 16th New Politics published a letter from a famous political pundit saying that many of the worlds democracies “are not shrinking but in fact are growing…87% of democratic nations studied by the World Democracy Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland have been growing since 1980”. His letter was instantly taken up by the usual deniers and it began to worry me that a wrong and dangerous message was spreading like wildfire faster that the forces of realism and education could stamp them out.

Academics, political scientists, historical statistics and observation all prove without a shadow of doubt that democracy is in decline. More to the point the people, and particularly the poor and vulnerable, all know the truth. The truth that if we do not finally get a grip and reduce the emissions coming from the many thousands of politicians across the globe, the Worlds very existence will be in danger.

The concentration of disaffection in our atmosphere is growing rapidly year on year, a situation not helped by the greedy and wealthy who insist on expounding upon the subject of politics whenever the opportunity arises. It’s not necessary and the cost of this self indulgence will be borne by future generations.

The worst offenders, the very exemplar of the selfish and corrupt abusers of our natural resources of time and reason are the unbalanced devolutionists. The emissions these individuals are responsible for directly increase the disaffection concentration in the air we breathe to the extent that the instances of disaffection, especially among the young and the elderly, are increasing on a virtually instantaneous basis.

Of course the deniers are always there, chipping away, talking about more powers for this Assembly, more law by that Parliament and they do so without shame and in the open air. It’s good for us, they declare, but not good for everyone. And there! Another disaffected youth is created.

Figures show, and this is undeniable, that at the current rate of disaffection Great Britain will look like this within fifty years:

Is that what we want for our children? Well, is it?

It’s just not cricket

Some people are just dipped in confusion at birth.

Peter Briffa highlights an example of such a person in the form of Yasmin Alibhai Brown who tries, and fails, to spin the prospect (and eventual fact) of English success in the Ashes into something akin to crapness:

If the cricket is won, many more white Britons will give up on Britain and take refuge in England

“Look son, we’ve won the cricket. Burn all the Union Flags in the house.”

It’s not even remotely plausible as a reason for denouncing the Union and to suggest that it is reveals something very strange about Brown’s opinion of Britons. Well, not just Britons but the usual suspects, you know, the English ones.

What is it about the English that forces her into such commentary? Why does devolution in Scotland and in Wales not fill her with the dread that she so obviously feels about the dilution of the Union or a rise in English Nationalism. Devolution is a far bigger threat to the long term health of the Union than the cricket. Is it because those issues lack a certain, oh I don’t know, Englishness.

What’s the word I am looking for?……….Youbetcha!

The fact that devolution has completely ignored the nation of England is a far more believable reason for a gradual rise in English Nationalism than a win at a sporting event.

Alarmingly, she continues:

But this is more than just cricket I sense. It is the agony and ecstasy of Englishness, today in resurgence after years of confusion and surliness. From Orwell to Tebbitt, cricket has been used as a metaphor for English nationalism.

After the mandatory cooldown period I have written the following email to the columnist:

Dear Yasmin,

I am assuming that by making that comment you have a keen desire to see white English keep true to Britain rather than decry the Union in favor of England.

There are a number of issues I would like to take up with you if you can spare the time.

Firstly I don't really see the point you are trying to make by bringing colour into the issue. I am of Greek and Italian descent and quite, quite brown. Indeed it is very likely that I do not have a drop of Anglo Saxon blood in me though I was fortunate enough to be born in London and raised entirely in England.

Why would I be immune from an incentive to 'take refuge in England' when, say, my perfectly lily white neighbour would not be? It's an interesting point I think because it seems to me that you are implying a strong correlation between colour and certain behaviour. How does this differ from stereotyping to the lowest common denominator of a particular ethnic group? For instance, it has been some time since I have seen anyone in the press seek to tarnish black Britons with the belief and behaviour of the supporters of mostly forgotten Black Power movements.

Of more importance, however, is the real crux of the matter. The great local issue of the day and quite possibly the next few decades or so. The real pressure on Britain, the thing that has and is likely to continue to fragment those that once considered themselves as British into English Nationalism, is the question of the unbalanced approach to devolution that this government has taken.

Many Britons have been more than happy to move along through life with little concern regarding the Union but knowing that it effectively consist of a number of nations all generally getting along together rather happily. Devolution has suddenly changed all that because, frankly, people are very slowly beginning to notice that the nation of England has been left out of the deal struck with other nations.

Indeed, the language coming from our leaders has raised the temperature rather than cooled it what with talk about Scotland being different from England because Scotland "is a nation in its own right". The English are suddenly realising that their Nation doesn't exist in any real political terms.

There is great inequality in Britain at present. A political inequality which can only increase the number of people in England who, in your language, would seek to take refuge in England.

That is the real danger to the Union and, I fear, a fragmented and declining Britain will be the inevitable result unless the asymmetry is addressed on a National level.

Write about that and I'll invite you round for tea.

PS. Don't talk Regional Assemblies, they do not represent politics on a National level and, for instance, could have done nothing to address the issue of Student top up fees.

Sincerely,

I’m off clubbing

Wow, I’ve received an invite to dine at the Carlton Club to commemorate Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar. I’ve heard of the place but not really paid it much attention but one can tell a great deal from its web site. For instance the dress code:

In exceptionally hot weather the Secretary, or in his absence the senior member of staff on duty, may allow gentlemen to remove their jackets in the Wellington Room only.

The Rules of the Club state that only persons of full age who support the Conservative Party shall be eligible for membership.

Iain Duncan Smith refused membership to the club when it was offered to him on the grounds that it refuses equal access to women.

EU gets bullish…again

How can this be good for democracy?:

For the first time in its 53-year existence, the European Court of Justice has given the Commission in Brussels the power to impose criminal sanctions. In a landmark ruling that is as ominous as it is deluded, the Luxembourg-based court yesterday overruled the governments of EU member states, removing from them the sole right to impose their own penalties on people or companies breaking the law, and giving the unelected EU Commission an unprecedented role in the administration of criminal justice.

RAF Museum 2005

Another picture of the Bristol Mercury:

Finally

A use for cats. Catalytic converter, hehehe, it’s got to be a joke right?

Village life

If you don’t read JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary you are missing out. Read this followed by this if you don’t believe me.

BBC regional fantasy

Dear thinkofengland@bbc.co.uk:

By organising your "think of England" web site into a regional affair you are actually supporting a political agenda. If you wish to break down England into areas you should be using traditional boundaries such as shires, though I see no reason why England should not be considered a whole.

It is tragic that the BBC has become so overtly political, particularly when the chosen agenda may ultimately prevent England from benefiting from devolution at the national level.

You are pandering to the governments regional agenda and it is a disgrace.

A disgrace that I am forced to pay for.

Mark takes me to task over this posting inviting me to get a grip and he's right:

I'm not usually one for defending the BBC, but that map you've linked to on that "think of England" page relates to their broadcasting regions as used for the local news and such like that they've used for many years and bear no co-releation to the EU regions.

Dear little thing offended by TV programme about cars

Protester Denise Lock said Mr Clarkson "makes a living out of offending people".

Everyone gets their fifteen minutes of being a terrorist

You see, this is the problem with legislation built by people who don’t know very much about making law. The Terrorism Act of 2000, taken at its word, strongly suggests that fuel protesters, and anyone who justifies or condones their behaviour, are terrorists.

Actually, my presumption that the Act is poorly designed might not actually be true. It may well have been the governments intention to word the act in such a way that allows them to pick and choose who the terrorists are from day to day.

Petitions

Petitions, petitions. Here’s one that you might want to sign. If you win you get your own Parliament which means your country suddenly pops back into existence again. Bargain!

Here’s another. If you win this one it means that you loose a Parliament but get to keep your country. Wow!

Imagine if there’s a rollover next week!

I’m not a big fan of petitions myself but that’s only because I’ve signed a few and nothing ever comes of it. However, once they have been set up it can be quite important to get the number of signatories up as this removes the opportunity for the detractors to call the whole thing a failure.

So sign, sign, sign.

RAF Museum 2005

Another up close and personal image. This time of a Fiat CR42 Falco.

RAF Museum 2005

Yesterday, the England Project family and friends paid another visit to the RAF museum at Hendon, London. Not our first visit but the place is always worth seeing again. Unfortunately this time the bomber hall was closed; I think they are dismantling a vulcan so that it can be loaned to another museum somewhere.

Anyhow, this time I decided to get close up and personal with the exhibits and stuck the lens of my D70 where most lenses are too scared to go.

Here's an example of the kind of thing, this one of a Napier Gazelle helicopter engine:

And here's another, this time of a Bristol Mercury:

Now these are what I call dirty pictures and there's plenty more where they came from.

Land of crappy MSM commentators

Look! There! A swarm of racist British Nationalists!:

It's just a party, I hear you say. Well, fine, hold it somewhere else, maybe at the headquarters of the British National Party”

As England Expects says:

The only prejudice, the only bigotry, the only hate about the whole event is in the tiny petty, unpleasant and scabrous minds of the likes of Holden

For shame sir.

Breath deeply and understand that what you desire is nothing less than failed self hate. We are not interested and we wish you only succour for your sadness.

Offensive? Why? How?

This is a disgrace:

Advisers appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims.

They must be joking right? Right?

Badges of our youth

Eric the Unread shows us some of the badges of his youth. It's a terrible idea that can only lead to embarrassment so why not join in, I thought.

Please note that the I am 21 badge was in the same box as the other badges. It in no way indicates my age at the time that any of the depicted badges were worn. Ahem.

Quote of the day

On low turnout during elections:

"Is it surprising that turnout is generally falling, when the outcome of elections does not represent what people really want?" - Peter Cranie.

Zadie Smith commentary

England disgusting.

Of course we must have some sympathy for Zadie's position. She is a bit of a hottie which always impresses. In truth she is only reiterating what a great many people have been saying for a while (though not limiting it to just England as Zadie does). It's the great social breakdown and lack of respect thing. I'm not sure I get her "money everywhere" issue but there you go.

However, the good news is that not all people in England can be so easily judged. You see people are far more than just their cover as I am sure Zadie herself will be all to keen to admit:

But Zadie? Well Zadie mopes. She frowns. She sulks. She shuns eye contact. And we’re not the first to notice it. Her shyness gives her a bad reputation, she tells us. In the past, signings have gone badly wrong, a lack of small talk with bookshop clerks the problem. Her publisher received complaints: Zadie Smith is rude, disgusting, anti-social. What did they expect, she asks us, a chat show host?

Vincent Cable MP (Liberal Democrat)

This post at the CEP has prompted me to mail Vincent Cable MP (Liberal Democrat - Shadow Chancellor) regarding his alleged quote in this article:

"The threat to harmonious social relations in Britain comes from those who insist that multiple identity is not possible: white supremacists, English nationalists, Islamic fundamentalists.

This is the opposition and they have to be confronted. An important element in that confrontation is the assertion of a sense of Britishness."

DumbJon comments:

Here, we have a group of people creating mayhem across the globe, and Vincent Cable classes them with people who support a solution to the West Lothian question he disagrees with ? But, of course! This is the world view of the modern Liberal in a nutshell, a childish tautology whereby the Right is evil, and everyone who's evil is on the Right.

Actions and words, are our liberties actually being 'protected'?

This, I suspect, is a disgrace:

"Before they could even protest about our civil liberties being eroded they were arrested.

"It is shocking that we could not have a peaceful protest in a peaceful country but this is what these ministers want."

Banning things is lazy and is not a solution

This is exactly right and it is why the problem will always be so accute.

There's a difference

This is a beautiful picture and this is a picture of something beautiful.

Campaign falls at first hurdle

I tried to set up the following pledge at PlegdeBank:

"I will stick my fingers in my ears and go "la la la" whenever I hear a politician speak but only if 60,000,000 other people will too."

— John, traveller of the highway of disaffection

Deadline to sign up by: 10th October 2005

More details
Dear Lord, someone please make them stop.

Nailed like a cheap whore in a seedy motel

What Clarke fails to realise is that his is the dictum of "power before principles", which is what is turning people off politics. It is the reason why so many politicians are regarded with the utmost contempt. And it is exactly the reason why Clarke would make a disastrous leader of the Conservative Party - Richard at EU Referendum.

Late to the party is fine and dandy. Turning up with a bottle of Blue Nun is not

I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. The Apple iPod is an ok device made special by good design (second only to iRiver so well done Apple). The Apple Shuffle is a crap device made special by the original iPod being quite good. Like an audience watching a good comedian, his last joke was a cracker allowing him to ride out the crap joke he just told because the audience is on his side and still happy. They laugh for him.

Now Apple have released the Rokr, a mobile phone that can play up to 100 tunes randomly.

The audience falls silent (or they would do if they weren't so love struck).

Arrrrrrr, looks interesting

What game is this? Anyone know?

Perhaps it is this one.

Green shopping

Holy smokes! A shopping guide just for Guardian readers!.

Actually, it looks like a good blog but I am weak and couldn't resist.

Now playing

After a decade of personnel changes and hard-earned journeyman status within the pop world, Fleetwood Mac was faced with the most delightful problem yet -- how to follow up an album that scored quadruple-platinum sales. The answer, of course, was to make an even better one. - Playboy, 1977

Phew, lucky for us

Another religious fanatic thrown in prison.

It's all about the Oiiillllll!!!

Wonko posts about the threatened fuel protests:

A treasury spokesman said cutting tax would not solve the problem of high oil prices. That is correct but about 4/5ths of the price of fuel is tax so you see, it's already started?

Do they honestly think we are that stupid? The problem for the consumer is high prices of fuel at the pumps and most of that price is taxation.

There are only two lines that the government can reasonably take on this issue to avoid calling us stupid. Firstly that a high price at the pump is a good thing because it reduces consumption and, therefore, will save the world from the day after tomorrow and/or will reserve stocks. Secondly that the government needs the tax revenue for public services.

These lines are mutually exclusive as a reduction in consumption will result in a reduction in tax revenue (though a balance can be struck I suppose).

Any minister that uses the high oil prices line in an attempt to explain why there is a threat of a protest either does not understand the grievances of the protesters or thinks we are simpletons.

Frankly I am pretty confident that the issue for the government is simply one of tax revenue. The argument will be that this money needs to come from somewhere and if fuel duty is reduced some other tax will need increasing. This reasonable proposition requires two other factors to be true before it can be seen as a truly successful argument. People must not feel over taxed and they must feel that what tax they pay is good value for money.

Bzzzzt, no and bzzzzt, no. You are the weakest link. Goodbye minister.

The treasury admits that:

"More than half the fuel used in the UK bears little or no fuel duty at all... so seeking to address the problem of high oil prices through road fuel duty alone would do nothing for the majority of consumers."

Also note the usual You are stupid! declaration via the use of the high OIL prices phrase.

Tribes

I read it and so should you. Some of you may turn pink some way through the text. Just remember that's not my fault.

Intelligent design versus evolution

The Scottish Parliament seems to be having trouble passing legislation:

A FORMER MSP today called for a radical overhaul of the parliamentary process at Holyrood, blaming the Scottish Parliament for passing confusing, contradictory and poor-quality laws.

Duncan Hamilton, now a lawyer but a Nationalist MSP in the first session of the parliament, argued that a new body should be set up to check the laws passed by the parliament before they are put on to the statute book.

The problem with competing with an evolved system is that the pressure to turn into that system increases over time.

Good luck chaps. At least it is a system of your own.

Shut it Blair

The PM is encouraging us to import more cheap goods from China. I would be more than happy to oblige if it were not for the fact that the very thing that I am likely to import on a regular basis is to be made an illegal import by his government.

Of course the intent of his governments ban on importation is to protect society from people who would misuse such items. And yet....and yet what does the honest man really think will be the result of this significant limitation on the liberty on, perhaps, 10,000 airsofting individuals in the UK.

A reduction in gun crime? A reduction in the misuse of replica weapons?

Don't make me laugh. The thugs and the springer kiddies will simply move on to alternatives as I have suggested.

And what will we be left with? Another sporting/gaming activity in decline, a few thousand disillusioned individuals who have to find something else to do on the weekend and a few sound bites from a lobby who are anti anything gun shaped. I can hear them now:

"No crime has been committed with a legally imported replica since this legislation was passed. It has been a significant success."

For a failure it is. The effort and expense that has been put into limiting our ability to enjoy pastimes that were once perfectly legitimate is effort and expense that has been wasted. These people have failed everyone but never see themselves as needing to take ownership of any of the blame.

What if the millions were spent elsewhere? What if the time was spent more creatively? What if the same old formula of legislate and ban made room for something new?

What if, for instance, people are made more aware of what the actual existing legislation on replica guns is? You're a clever person, do you know? Are you a parent? Do you know what the law is regarding that realistic looking toy your child has? Do they know? Do you let them out with it? Many, many adults and children do not as is borne out by the sorry and truthful excuses we see these people give to the police down the station at 4am in the morning.

Could "accidental gun crime" be reduced by, oh I don't know, actually informing people?

That's just one creative aspect of the educational tool available to us that has not been tried to crack this particular nut.

But no, no. They use the same old formula again and again. And they fail again and again. They let everybody down, sporting gun users and each and every other member of the public.

On or off?

What with all this talk of getting people registered on the electoral roll it is with some considerable surprise to myself that my instincts are to do exactly the opposite.

Somehow withdrawing myself from the electoral roll would seem to be in many ways compatible with my intention stated as follows:

I will no longer cooperate with the state or any agent of the state unless by withholding my cooperation I am seen to be breaking the law.

Of course, there is no way that I can carry out my pledge to the fullest extent of my ability because there are simply too many personal inconveniences involved but as a general rule of thumb I am, at this stage, determined to do what I can. So far no clear opportunity to be proactive in my negativity has presented itself but I do wonder if this electoral roll issue could be the first.

I wonder, is it possible to fall off the roll and remain living? How would one go about this? I need to know if it is possible before deciding if it is necessary.

Apparently it's a legal requirement for me to be on the roll so that solves that one. Cheers wonko.

The Secret People

Over at The Society of Qualified Archivists I notice a link to a particulary nice poem by some chap called G. K. Chesterton. It's called The Secret People:

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;
You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

...

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God's scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

And here's another cracker from here:

Elegy in a Country Churchyard

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

Rescuing the War of the Worlds

Eve of the War have a few scanned pages from Hi-Fi News Magazine on Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds. Look on in wonder at how close the original recordings came to being unusable.

In related news there's this which includes a DVD documentary. Someone buy it for me!!!!!

Talking about buying things I've recently received delivery of one of these:

You too can own one.

Man, that was a sweet job, and we reported with glee

I agree mostly with this assessment of the disaster visited upon the U.S. Gulf Coast and the people living there. The scale of the problem is huge and though I am sure that there have been failings there is no doubt that there have also been successes. No response to a problem on this scale is going to be perfect but the glee with which some reporters have been larging up the inevitable problems smacks of some kind of, oh I don't know, personal vendetta.

That one reporter, I forget his name in the same way I forget the names of various other idiots, who spent a total of three hours in three different visits with people in a stadium without seeing any official except soldiers and police got right up my nose. There is a man who thinks the scale of the disaster is limited to his own personal area of influence.

Moaners, the lot of them, trying to engineer the best possible outcome from a disaster that doesn't affect them. By that I mean anything that looks bad for the enemy president.

Sean Gabb on the smoking ban

Holy smokes.

Photographic tool for the raw shooter

If you shoot pictures in RAW format then RawShooter essentials by Pixmantec might be the tool for you. It's totally free and is more than just a raw converter because it offers some great workflow functionality too.

I call it dissolution

The present government likes regional assemblies in England. This became obvious during the campaigning for a “yes” vote in the North East of England referendum and was confirmed by the look on the deputy prime ministers face when he received a metaphorical bitch slap from the voters. However, liking regional assemblies and actively promoting them are two different things.

Alfie has been chatting to Matt Cook who works for the Department of Constitutional Affairs. Mr. Cook informs Alfie that:

Regional Assemblies are voluntary bodies independent of Central Government which were established by local authorities and other regional stakeholders in each English region in the late 1990s. The members of each assembly are wholly selected by bodies within the relevant region. Ministers do not have a role in the process. As voluntary bodies Government has no powers to abolish them.

Who are these other regional stakeholders?

Who created these artificial English regions in the first place for the assemblies to operate in? What basis for existence do these regions have if they have if they are not represented by some body? Were they really invented as nothing but geographical curiosities for map creators or was there some grand scheme for them based upon, oh I don't know, some kind of political intent?

If these regional assemblies are voluntary and independent of Central Government then on what basis and on what remit do they strive to implement governmental plans, for instance demands for new housing across England?

If they are independent then by what mechanism does the government converse with the various regional assemblies? Are they invited to put forward proposals by the assemblies who then consider these proposals as if they were submitted by a member of the public within the artificial regional boundaries?

Of course the answer to these questions may be relatively simple. It may be that the government instructs local authorities and then these local authorities instruct the regional assemblies acting, if you like, as a convenient proxy for Central Government.

If this is the case then Mr. Cook’s declaration is simply smoke and mirrors. Alfie’s proposition is that he feels these non-democratic regional assemblies are bad and do not adequately address the issue of devolution for England. The government's proposition is that devolution for England would be best served by regional assemblies. Mr. Cook’s proposition is that regional assemblies are nothing to do with central government and this allows him to neatly sidestep the issue.

Where do the actual, you know, people of the nation of England come into it?

A very poor show for someone who is notionally and partially responsible for devolution and constitutional affairs. This abdication and obfuscation of the real issues that Mr. Cook should be working on is made worse by his department's tag line: “Strengthening Democracy and Rights”.

Don’t make me laugh Mr. Cook. Don’t make me laugh.

We all know what has happened. Devolution is a serious issue, so serious in fact that the government realised that even the English might actually get a little upset when they find out they are playing the parts of "paymaster general" and of "poor man" in the United Kingdom at the same time. The government needed an answer to the inevitable devolution questions. They drew up artificial regional areas in England and tried their hardest to get elected bodies to represent these regions and to answer, perhaps by proxy, to central government. The public halted that plan. So now we have a new one which is exactly the same as the old one except without the voting. After all, people voted to not have elected assemblies. They did not vote to have no assemblies at all.

So we have most of the great nations of Great Britain hurtling towards full and proper devolution while the nation of England is actually going in the other direction by being broken up into manageable and less troublesome chunks. Some call it devolution, I call it dissolution.

Matt Cook
Crown and Devolution Division, Constitution Directorate
Strengthening Democracy and Rights
Department for Constitutional Affairs

Sounds pretty hollow to me.

Joke of the day

An Oath of Allegiance to the EU? Bwahahahaha.

Parliament Square Police Summonses

From the Countryside Alliance:

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has now summonsed three further Metropolitan Police Service officers as a result of the Parliament Square inquiry, making a total of five officers to date to receive a summons.

The IPCC is using its own investigators to inquire into complaints made against officers policing Parliament Square last September, during the final stages of the bill to ban hunting with dogs.

A total of 31 Metropolitan Police Officers have been served with notices advising them that they are subject to a disciplinary investigation, 15 of these have now been withdrawn. To date, 17 files have been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service, five officers have received summons, four are awaiting further advice and the remainder have been returned to the IPCC marked no further action. The IPCC has submitted four files to the MPS for consideration of disciplinary action.

Devolution and national anthems

An interesting letter in the Telegraph on devolution and national anthems.

Thanks for the heads-up Milo.