It's only the English, move along, nothing to see here

Via Kev comes this bit of World Cup news:

Irish low-cost airline Ryanair could offer free tickets for each goal scored in the World Cup against England, the company's outspoken chief executive Michael O'Leary has told a German newspaper.

"That's something we can envision doing," O'Leary, an Irishman with a flair for publicity and known fondness for soccer and rugby, told weekly Welt am Sonntag.

Do please pass on this opportunity.

Who did what now?

Oh noes, it's the fault of the English. Or is it the British? I don't mind the theory, but they could at least make their minds up about who they are talking about.

Just popping in to say...

....fantastic.

Don't let your children read this

Up until the age of 5 or so your time is pretty much your own. If you were more conscious of the fact you would look back on this period fondly. From then on until the early twenties you are likely to be spending most of your time occupied with you education. This will require that most of the energetic hours of the day are spent in learning establishments with, perhaps, 20% of that time being constructive. From then on until the age of about 65 to 70 you will spend most of the prime periods of your day engaged in work. You may or may not enjoy this work but during these periods it is unlikely that you will develop potential in any other areas of your life in any significant way. You will likely not notice this fact and generally be content with a hobby or two and some comfort time in front of the TV. From 65ish onwards you will wonder where all the time went, wish you had developed some other kinds of interests to help you pass your time and then you will die.

Up down, up down, up down and stop

Later this year the England Project family are off on another grand tour. This one will be to the USA which I understand some people, including the mayor of London, have an irrational dislike for. It’s one of the reasons why we are going. To show our support and to spread some love.

This will be one of our longer grand tours as it will last about three weeks. During that time we will be enjoying suburban life with some friends in a small town called Ohio. We shall then visit what I understand to be a park called Yellowstone where we shall, no doubt, play on swings and eat a picnic. After that we will be off to the wilderness to live like cowboys for a week (no, seriously) and finally we shall spend some time in Florida taking in some Mickey Mouse entertainment.

We are all really looking forward to it.

We like to be prepared so in expectation of a week in the saddle we took some horse riding tuition over the weekend. It was my first time on a horse in thirty years (after having become proficient at the age of 11) and all I can say is that rising trot is just as ridiculous as I remember it being all those years ago.

In bed with Hawking

I’ve been suffering terribly from flu, and I mean proper man flu not just a bad cold. I spent most of yesterday in bed trying to prevent boredom by reading some Stephen Hawking stuff through streaming eyes, achy bones and a runny nose. I never did physics at school but I imagine that it would have been pretty much as I experienced it yesterday.

They don’t make them like they used to

Another tragic case of spontaneously igniting Union flags. Via Mark.

Holy smokes!

I find this incredible.

Toads to the left of me, toads to the right

I saw this BBC headline and thought it should have been categorised in to the politics section.

Toxic toads 'threaten disaster'

Then I clicked the link and realised it was about the amphibious kind.

Minsicule

Laban Tall invents a new word. Minsicule. Although it does not appear in any dictionary I have checked it is indeed a real word. I means a word suddenly, inexplicably and independently created by a million other people.

I like: "The power levels being used in England are minsicule". You said it!

See also: "He measured the motion of positively charged minsicule oil-droplets between horizontal plates". Hard to do I should think.

What Sci-Fi Profile are you

Cool, I'm Battlestar Galactica. Best TV Sci-Fi series in yonks by the way.

You scored as Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica). You are leery of your surroundings, and with good reason. Anyone could be a cylon. But you have close friends and you know they would never hurt you. Now if only the damn XO would stop drinking. Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 88% Serenity (Firefly) 75% Moya (Farscape) 69% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 63% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 56% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 56% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 50% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 50% SG-1 (Stargate) 44% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 44% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 38% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 38% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

Via Samizdata.

Who's sorry now?

F            Dm7  Dm7-5  C         C/B   A7
You had your way,          now you must pay;

F              G     G7     C

I'm glad that you're sorry now.

It sure looks like a threat to cause violence

This is deeply disturbing.

I do agree though that Whizzer & Chips was funnier

I've been avoiding blogging about that comic strip thingy that the blogosphere is awash with because it just seems so childish to me. A bunch of people complaining that they didn't like this or that particular cartoon or didn't get this or that particular joke just reminds me of my old school playground. I didn't find it interesting then and I don't find it interesting now. The kids that did find it interesting from an intellectual point of view went on to become Guardian readers and the kids doing the complaining eventually became deeply involved in the fast food industry.

However, this piece of blather from the BBC's Michael Buchanan has forced me out of my silence:

Denmark's reputation as an easy-going, consensual nation has been severely tarnished in recent days. All the Danes can do now is hope the repeated apologies for the offence caused, by both the government and the newspaper, will end this unseemly row.

Pipeline

Via Krip comes this interesting initiative for people who are suffering under the high cost of fuel. I've signed up which is something I very rarely do with these online thingies. My advice? Use it, spread it.

Who and where is this man?

PC Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Issue: Author writes about damage caused by some aspects of political correctness.

Politically correct truth: Author delusional. Stands as a prophet for other delusionals. Author hyperventilating fantasist.

Factually correct truth: Author truthful. Debate encouraged.

Peter Briffa's podcast

From that Peter Briffa podcast:

Interviewer: Very next day, London blown up. What did you think of that?

Peter Briffa: I was against it.

On the statue of Mandela and Trafalgar Square

My own opinion on this is that Trafalgar Square should be reserved for British icons. You might ask why but then again you might also ask why bother preserving any notion of British heritage. It's simply a cultural thing and I believe that British culture is something that should be celebrated rather than eroded.

If Mandela goes up then I suggest that there are also other foreign nationals who are also worthy of the position. Nothing else can be sensibly argued and, after all, the desire to place a statue of Mandela in the Square is a desire based on the perceived worth of the individual in isolation from their nationality and contribution to Britain.

Consequently, if it is about perceived worth then the next logical step is to balance that worth against that of any existing statue. Why argue for the Mandela statue but against the removal of an existing one so that its place might be given up to another individual of world recognised worth? You cannot without playing the tradition and history cards, the very same cards you refused to play in the opening hand.

Phantom libertarianism

Once a moonbat always a moonbat, as the saying goes. In the Guardian (of all places) George Monbiot blasts libertarians and blames their state of mind on driving:

But this is not, or not really, an article about speed, or cameras, or even cars. It is about the rise of the antisocial bastards who believe they should be allowed to do what they want, whenever they want, regardless of the consequences. I believe that while there are many reasons for the growth of individualism in the UK, the extreme libertarianism now beginning to take hold here begins on the road.

For a libertarian the consequences are everything. That's why libertarians hold responsibility in such high regard.

Take responsibility for your actions, don't rely on the state to take it for you.

Monbiot is also living in some kind of alternative universe if he thinks that any rise in libertarianism is caused by road usage. Firstly, that there is a rise in libertarianism is certainly questionable. I have not seen any evidence of it and, indeed, I would argue that exactly the opposite is the case. Secondly, even if it was on the rise I would put it down to a reaction against over regulation.

If car usage had anything to do with libertarian tendencies how is it that the mass of feeling this must have surely created by now has not been reflected in parliament?

Run for the hills!

Blogging is likely to be very light today as I have done myself an injury. This makes me a little sad. However, this makes me laugh so much it hurts:

Neil Herron's campaign over parking charges has come on a long way since revealing Sunderland Council had wrongly handed out £30,000 worth of fines it did not have orders to enforce.

In fact it has come on such a long way that the "metric martyr" is now a figure of dread for any unwary traffic warden of council official patrolling the streets of the city. Mention of his name sends shivers down the back of any trainee attendant, and calls to supervisors are met with a simple groan on the other end of the walkie-talkie. Indeed it seems traffic wardens are taking to their heels and scampering for the hills at the first sign of Mr Herron demanding a ticket. "Its just not on," Mr Herron explained. "They're just running away from me." We couldnt think why.

Explosion.....!

We've just been woken up by what sounded and felt like a massive explosion. Houseshaking.

Flickering lights in the sky in the distance.

Sky TV news reporting an explosion near or in Hemel Hempstead, perhaps at a fuel depot of some sorts.

Sky news online report.

There's a massive black cloud drifting this way, perhaps about a mile away.

From the back garden.

It's interesting to listen to the various reports of the noise the explosion made across the South of the country. A number of people reported hearing a low rumbling before it happened which is contrary to what we heard. For us it was a defined event. A single sharp and very loud bang, followed by the kind of rolling sound that thunder can make.

Regarding that cloud of smoke, it seems to be moving away rather than towards us now.

Apparently they are evacuating residents from Leverstock Green, half a mile to a mile away from here. Possibly something to do with the cloud.

We hear reports that a number of shops in the high street, 4 or so miles from the event, have had windows blown out.

Having been up since the very start and following the MSM reports it seems to us that Sky News were well ahead of any of the other broadcasters on this. First to report it on TV, first pictures, first video and live reports from the scene. A few minutes behind The England Project but not far.

Some of this might have something to do with the number of engineers that they have across the country that install equipment in residential homes etc. Some of the early reports came directly from these engineers phoning in to the sky offices.

No reports on any early reportage from TV licensing crews across the country.

Apparently the depot stores a number of different kinds of fuels, aviation, kerosine and unleaded petrol. The depot is the largest such depot in the country (Ed: incorrect, apparently the 5th largest - 'Hertfordshire Police') so this may well have some knock on effect to energy supplies. If the slack cannot be taken up by other depots and refineries it could be an interesting test of the government's emergency fuel storage and supply plans that they said they put into effect after the petrol demonstrations that blockaded various refineries and depots across the country some time back.

Tim Newman reports on his educated guess as to what the cause might be (via comments at Tim Worstall's blog).

And so the invasion to the north begins

The pickings for Neil Herron and his crew of merry men look to be getting richer quite soon:

The North East’s bid to secure new civil service jobs resulting from a major Whitehall review has taken a significant step forward.

A new website www.movingnortheast.co.uk has just gone live, setting out the North East’s economic package to attract Government departments and agencies relocating from London and the south east as part of the Lyons Review recommendations.

Remember, anyone might be a blogger

Wow, some online retailers are totally crazy:

"I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again." "I'm an attorney, I will sue you." "I will call the CEO of your company and play him the tape of this phone call." "I'm going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you." "You'd better get this through your thick skull." "You have no idea who you are dealing with."

We must have it, we needs it

If anyone knows where I can buy a realistic looking and brightly coloured artificial butterfly please email me the details. I would be briefly in your debt.

Zimbabwe in 'experienced farmers best at farming' shocker

No, really?

The ideology of multiculturalism

Nick Seddon (Civitas) on multiculturalism:

...there is a difference between multiculturalism as a lived experience and multiculturalism as an enforced ideology. There is a difference between living alongside people who have different customs and outlooks, and the state forcing us all to retain these differences, using its muscle to do so – through financial aid to ethnic minorities, prioritising foreign festivals and language teaching in state schools, and so on. What in its inception was a tolerant ideal to encourage mutual understanding ends up emphasising difference and acting as an agent of separatism.

In the old days a common phrase used to discourage racism or cultural intolerance was "they are exactly the same as us" which is true. This has morphed in more recent times to "we must celebrate our differences" which is also true in many ways. The fact that both these seemingly opposite statements are true in one way or another just helps to highlight the complexity of the situation. Of course the first statement refers to the humanity of individuals and the second to a way of life but these concepts and realities are not completely inseparable.

The real problems come when there is an artificial acceleration in the dilution of the things that define an accommodating culture due to an enforced ideology.

A little something on the same theme from Guido:

The law is being abused to the point of farce by the people who set up and run these centres for one purpose only - to be able to justify their blatant discrimination on the grounds of gender and colour in order to meet meaningless targets and address what they perceive as “wrongs” from the past, by imposing discrimination now and in the future. Where does it end? In an apartheid society - precisely what Mr Phillips of the CRE has been sounding off against.

The results of cultural friction from Gandalf.

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.

Dear little thing offended by TV programme about cars

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

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.

Phew, lucky for us

Another religious fanatic thrown in prison.

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.

Thank the ass hats

A 'win' for the bad guys

North Korean resource

If you are interested in North Korean propaganda/news (same thing perhaps) then this resource may be helpful:

NK News is a searchable database of North Korean propaganda. This site contains nearly every article published on the KCNA's website, in English and Spanish, since Dec 2, 1996--over 50 MB of hard-core Stalinist propaganda! And each article written in that unique and indelible style of the KCNA.

Digital photo printing

The prints we have just received from these guys are excellent. If you are looking for a printing firm I can recommend them.

Oh, who will print my T-Shirts?

If any readers know of a good UK based T shirt printing company I would be grateful if you could drop me a line.

john AT theenglandproject DOT net for immediate karma.

What goes around comes around

Haha!

Female users of a south Devon swimming pool say they are furious at a decision to allow men to take part in ladies swimming sessions.

For the record, I agree with the girlies on this one. It's no one else’s business if they want to get together with a bunch of other girlies and do some stuff, public pool or not. BUT I also had this opinion about all men's clubs which had traditions going back over a century and which were bullied about their 'exclusivity'.

Just goes to show how careful you have to be about what you wish for. You just might get it.

Multiculturalism

I thought it was hilarious. The BBC radio “show” I listened to this morning. It seems that multiculturalism, as an idea, is so many different things to so many people. Absence of racism, sharing of cultures, mixing of light and dark people, chips and curry sauce. You name it, multiculturalism is the word for it.

My guess, before I looked it up, was that multiculturalism was pretty much the other end of the monoculture stick. Not the mixing of cultures but the existence of multiple cultures in a given area (say the UK).

Of course, as soon as I started looking things up in the dictionary I realised how wrong I was. Not about multiculturalism itself but about monoculture which is, apparently:

The agricultural practice of cultivating crops consisting of genetically similar organisms.

Anyhow, here is a dictionary definition of multiculturalism:

[n] the doctrine that several different cultures (rather than one national culture) can co-exist peacefully and equitably in a single country.

But that’s not what we are really talking about here is it? What we are really talking about is multiculturalism+. A policy of multiculturalism. A belief that all cultures are equal; that not only can multiple cultures co-exist side by side but that it is actually best for everyone if the existence multiple cultures is encouraged; that the dominant culture should bend the rules to accommodate cultural demands (no school uniform for you young lady); that integration and actual cultural dilution are not really a worthy or desirable aim.

Contrary to the evidence suggested by my bad English above I am actually more qualified to discuss this subject than many others. You see, I spent my formative years living in a multiple culture environment but one that had a single (and very important) advantage over the current state of affairs ie. there was no doctrine or belief that cultural differences should be maintained. It was a free for all with a “may the best bits win” attitude. There was no attempt at maintaining differences, no attempt at appeasing ridiculousness, no attempt to encourage me to take any particular path. The result is a Greek Orthodox who experiments with atheism, who can speak neither Greek nor Italian, and who considers himself primarily English.

I am who I am and what I am is integrated. Overall it is English culture that has won the day but I come bearing gifts. If you want I can teach you how to cook a fantastic pasta sauce (hint: don’t use olive oil and make sure you have at least three hours of simmering time). I can show you how to outrun any angry wooden spoon wielding Italian mother from a standing start. I can show you how to fill your house with the smell of burning frankincense and charcoal, and I can tell you a little something about halva and growing oranges.

I am sure that there are those who write for the Guardian who would think that I am worse off because of my parents' attitude or that it would have been equally fair on me and on the country in which I live if my parents demanded the primacy of one of their cultures. Well, I don’t feel disadvantaged. I feel exactly the opposite.

Is it safe for him there now?

I am sure that there is a very good and simple answer to this. How is it that a man with dual Syrian and Lebanese nationality can successfully claim asylum to the UK and then go on holiday to the Lebanon?

Is it that the situation in the Lebanon is now far better for him than it was in the 1980's? I can't immediately think of any other reason.

Down & Out in Sheffield & Lincoln

Go and read about Dom's interesting and somewhat scary life. It stops after chapter 4 (the commentary not the life) but he says the rest will follow. I dabbled in the heavy rock culture myself but was strictly a visitor whereas Dom immersed himself in it completely.

Patriots consider themselves in nirvana?

Monbiot in the Guardian:

I'm not ashamed of my nationality, but I have no idea why I should love this country more than any other.

And how utterly wrong:

To become a patriot is to lie to yourself, to tell yourself that whatever good you might perceive abroad, your own country is, on balance, better than the others.

How can Britain survive such stupidity?

Oh for crying out loud. This is exactly wrong. Britain is a union of countries. If you are born in or naturalised to one of those countries you are British. I'm perfectly happy for people to call themselves British, English-British, Irish-British, Scottish-British or Welsh-British, anything else can only continue to weaken the whole idea of Britain. To wear one of these new government allotted labels is an admission of a failure to integrate. Someone has to move on the issue and the government is suggesting that it is Britain that does the moving.

That smooth satisfying taste

Anoneumouse writes to point out that he has become a law breaker. On the subject of smoking I was wandering through a Spanish airport when I spotted a box of 50 King Edward Invincibles for about 40 Euros. These are normally about £15 for 5 which just goes to show how much we are fleeced in this great country of ours. Needless to say I bought them.

Hello again

I'm back. Things are hectic at the moment what with all the catching up I need to do and all the blogging you lot have been indulging in (oi, stop it) but I hope to have things up and running round here soon.

In the meantime those of you who have been watching Neil Herron’s fascinating war games might want to take a look at this summary of the state of play for one of his campaigns. Looks like checkmate in three moves from here. Mind you, in this particular game one side is able (and sometimes keen) to change the rules which just makes Neil’s campaign effectiveness all the more remarkable.

As for the holiday, well, it was great. I spent a lot of my time reading some excellent sci-fi around the swimming pool. Old Man’s War by John Scali and three books by Richard Morgan - Altered Carbon, Broken Angels and Woken Furies. I enjoyed Old Man’s War a great deal but the Morgan books are in a class of their own and I can thoroughly recommend them.

Falling off the Internet

We’ve been experiencing some connectivity issues at home with our BT broadband package. Every now and again connectivity will vanish all together for a period ranging from a few minutes to a few hours. This is a relatively new problem. There are a number of reasons why this is a bad thing but the most acute is the difficulties this presents us with when trying to run a business from home.

Diagnostics show that the failure is in the PPP connection from our router/modem to the BT server. The internal wireless intranet continues to work fine. This, coupled with the fact that BT are currently performing major works to the whole of their network until August this year and the fact that their recorded support line continues to offer the advice that some customers in some unnamed areas may experience some connectivity issues, leads me to believe that they are culpable.

So, after taking a call from an irate Mrs. England Project this morning, and after going through the usual list of things to try, I could only suggest the un-suggestible. Phoning support.

I know, I know, what a fool I am.

Anyhow, Mrs. England Project was on the phone for an hour before she managed to get through to a human being. The person she managed to talk to had difficulty understanding the problem because (honest truth) he was French. He had some significant holes in his understanding and expression of concepts structured around and conveyed in the verbal form of the English language. His eventual advice was that our router was not supported by BT and that we should hit the “access with a sharp object only” reset button. Our router? A BT Voyager 2100.

My good lady, being good, refused to hit the reset button and as a consequence she was 100% responsible for preventing the loss of our network’s port forwarding information, IP allocation settings and network encryption method and key. Stupid she ain’t.

After slamming the phone down it transpired that connectivity had returned all by itself. Oddly enough this is a remarkably similar scenario and outcome as to that suggested by the BT service line recorded message, leaving us none the wiser about how likely and at what rate such future outages might occur.

This rant was brought to you via a different provider.

ICR and it's refusal to accept donations

Some time back I blogged this particular story:

A cancer charity has rejected a £30,000 donation over animal welfare concerns.

Barry Atkinson carried out a record 148 days beating - or flushing out birds - at grouse, partridge and pheasant shoots.

The 61-year-old, who lives near Newark in Nottinghamshire, said he was appalled the donation had been rejected by the Institute of Cancer Research.

I have grown tired of being ignored by this man in this important matter and have, today, mailed the Information Officer at the ICR asking how I might follow up my line of questioning using the Freedom of Information Act.

Two words

I’m looking for two words. Given the richness of the English language I am confident that they already exist or that the framework is there for them to appear as if by magic.

The first word describes a group of people who are, loosely speaking, a majority. Looking from the perspective of a minority group this group of people are, effectively, the others. Everyone else. The rest. The word needs to reflect the fact that, to all intents and purposes, this majority group has many of the characteristics of a minority (feel picked on, bullied, down trodden, ignored, not particularly well represented, feeling like they are doing all the compromising etc; you know the kind of thing) yet because they are the many they are not afforded the luxuries of representation, “pressure for change”, media bleating, hippy dancing etc. that are often afforded to smaller numbers of people. The word needs to reflect the unfairness of the situation. This is an important word because, more than likely, it describes you.

The second word describes a group of people who are indeed a minority group but who are not on “the list” of approved, special, “deserving”, cuddly etc. groups. Consequently they continue to be pushed around, bullied, made to pay because of what they are or what they do rather than because of the affect of their actions upon everyone else. The kind of people who are sacrificed at the alter of political expediency or subject to witch hunts (say by the media) on occasion. This minority group has no political agenda except self preservation. A word that describes those that are general supporters of minority groups (or who see it as important for minority groups to be well represented and protected) but for some reason do not support this particular group is “hypocrisy”.

I think these two words are important because they encapsulate important issues. Important issues that the blogosphere constantly talks about but which are never named. Because they don’t have names we find it hard to frame the bottom line of the issue we’re talking about. See those categories you create on your blog? These two words should be there.

So, any ideas? If these words don’t exist we should invent them because historians of the late 20th and early 21st centuries are going to need them.

The Passing of a Great Man

Dave Allen, comedian, has passed away in his sleep. I used to love watching him deliver his routines and have missed his particular brand of comedy since his retirement.

May your God go with you.

Not quite Fallujha

The sleepy town of Bourbriac in France is not quite Fallujha but close according to this Guardian article. You see, the British are invading (ie buying property) and the townsfolk don’t like it:

"We are not anti-British ourselves," says Salomon, "but anti-British feeling is growing in Brittany and we are tapping into that. Unless something is done, the British will be targets. In small villages, the British come and almost take the village over. The local people feel overwhelmed."

They argue that the British need to integrate more, learn French (they accept that learning Breton may be too difficult) and make an effort to appreciate the local culture.

Joking aside though, I honestly do agree with their sentiments. Integration into and appreciation of the country you are living in (part time or not) is be part of the deal.

Beer ad banned

What were they thinking?

One of those flat computer thingies

Mrs. England project is looking to buy our first ever laptop for her evil capitalist business venture. This is where she offers her services to a local clientele for cash. The laptop market is not one that I am particularly familiar with so I thought I’d put up a quick post just in case any readers can help.

Firstly, the question of cash. My good lady is looking to spend about 700 pounds, maybe 800. It’s not much but then the requirements are not particularly high as the machine will be used for the production of documents and other similarly low demand tasks.

The machine must have:

Wireless networking.
256mb memory minimum 512mb preferable.
Good battery life.
DVD re-writer.
Good construction and looks (customers will likely see it).
Windows XP.
We would prefer a Pentium processor but a Celeron will suffice (1.4mhz min).
40 gig hard drive minimum.
At least 2 usb ports (the more the merrier).

If you have any recommendations please email us.

Email from the Mrs.: Processor type is not an issue.

Saturday night is crazy night

Two stonking posts by the Blognor Regis blogger to satisfy your Saturday night desire for entertainment. The first on a bunch of Kyoto Ninja Hippies and their shadowy media supporters. The second on another case of lottery moonbattery.

Now where did I put my pint of Old Peculiar.

Lottery funding refusal for Samaritans a "small misunderstanding"

This from The Times:

THE Samaritans may have to close a large branch after lottery organisers ruled that it was not helping enough “disadvantaged” people.

The charity, best known for its work to help the suicidal, said it had been told that an application for a £300,000 grant was rejected because it was not targeting asylum-seekers, ethnic minority communities, the young and the elderly. Instead, the Big Lottery Fund has given £360,000 to a group that helps prostitutes.

You know the funny thing is that this particular article has revealed a prejudice that I've seem to have developed somehow. You see, I nearly stopped reading just after the third paragraph, in which case I would have missed the sorry little explanation from the lottery man and this blog entry would have been the worse for it.

I just read the first three paragraphs and shrugged. While blog worthy the story simply didn't surprise me one bit. I was willing to believe that the lottery funding was refused solely on the basis of the perceived low propensity of the Samaritans to operate a policy of positive discrimination in the favour of selected groups.

How the hell that little prejudice developed I have no idea.

I would love to see the funding refusal letter, you know, to actually check out the nature of the small misunderstanding.

Tilly, in the back garden, with a fox

Of course, it was always going to come to this:

Urban foxes are attacking and killing pet cats because they are struggling to find enough food to eat in British towns and cities.

Disclosure: I hate cats so I am definitely with the foxes on this one.

Now just hold on a minute there matey

What business is this of yours?

A UK nuclear submarine, HMS Sceptre, has docked in Gibraltar for repairs, prompting protests from the Spain.

Heh, from the Spain....The Beeb have fixed it now.

People programming

I am of a mind that people and computers share the particular characteristic of being programmable. It’s obvious really and, you might think, accepting this is just another way of accepting that humans can be educated. But that’s not what I mean.

I mean because people are programmable there are a whole bunch of other people out there willing and eager to do the programming. Some of these are professional educators, some of these are family, some of these are artists, musicians and writers of fact or philosophy or even fiction. And some of these are the media, mainstream or not. Not all the programming is intended to be what we would call classically educational. I would suggest that most people programming is performed in the pursuit of the self-interest of the programmers or the people who hire the programmers (which amounts to the same thing really).

It’s a nightmare.

People programmers are trying to program people day in, day out, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. When you are at work, when you are at home. On your way to work and on your way back. When you are on holiday. All the time.

Knowing this (or rather accepting this as an odd but valid way of looking at things) raises one specific question. How does one protect ones self from malicious programmers?

I’m thinking that a belief system based in hard fact is the best defence but employing such a system is not as easy as you might think. For instance what actual hard evidence do you have that your best friend actually works where he says he works? Or another issue, you choose.

I could go off and read a whole bunch of philosophy and, perhaps, stumble upon a suitable defence but honestly, many of those writers are/were extremely clever. If I were convinced by the wrong philosophy, say, one created by a super hacker of humans then I would be worse off than I am now.

I mean, what about Ayn Rand and her philosophy of objectivism? The box looks good but will I regret installing it? I’m too scared to find out.

It's Europe vs. America!

And it has something to do with coffee. In short, Europeans create caffeine artefacts instead of cups of coffee. They are nicer to each other. They live longer and have cleverer children. Also, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I’m not a very sophisticated man

I can prove it in two words: woof, woof!

Mrs. England Project would like me to point out how very, very sorry I am.

Slow-fit fitter

As I said earlier, I would be under the motor this weekend fixing up the brakes on the front end. Here is some photographic evidence for you disbelievers:

Old disc

New disc

The job took longer than I expected because I had to pop out a couple of times to pick up some extra tools. Particularly difficult was pushing back the brake calliper piston on the near side (which you need to do to allow room for the new thicker brake pads). Much cursing and venting was finally solved by the purchase and use of a rather large and manly vice.

Anyhow, 'tis done. Let's hope they work.

You can't get bitter about a kwik-fit fitter

There is something amok with the little Japanese sports car. How do I know this? There’s this peddle see, the middle one, which no longer functions as it once did. Previously, when I had occasion to depress this peddle the car would lose a considerable amount of forward momentum. Now it just makes an odd grinding noise somewhat similar to the noise generated by rubbing two pieces of rough metal together. Interesting as the sound is I think I preferred the previous behaviour.

I pride myself in knowing a great deal about cars. For instance I knew instantly that the problem was likely to have something to do with the braking system. I also thought I knew exactly how the problem could be solved. I phoned my local Kwik-Fit centre which, I understand, have some expertise in this exact kind of problem.

Hello, yes, I need the front brakes on my car fixed.

- Phooooo, hmmmm, could be tricky. You need to bring it in for a full brake diagnostic.

Can’t you just replace the front brake pads?

- We need to check it over sir, could take up to an hour.

And then you’ll fix it?

- We’ll need to order the parts first sir, might arrive the very next day. We’re very busy but could probably squeeze you in a day or so after.

I’ll bring it in on my way home from work for the check. I’ve got to go by you anyway to get home which I’m going to try and do without using my brakes.

- Phoooooo, we may be able to squeeze you in for the check but we can’t make any promises. What car is it sir?

An MX5.

Flick, flick, flick.

- Pads aren’t listed sir but the discs are, we’ll need to take a look to see what kind of pads are needed.

Pads aren’t listed?

- No sir.

It’s an MX5, the most popular sports car in the world.

- I’m sure the pads won’t be a problem sir, we’ll just take a look and order them.

It’s an import.

- Phoooooo, might be tricky. All the parts are different on those. We’ve have no end of trouble with them.

The brake parts are the same. I think only the thickness of the windscreen is an issue on the imports, though there is some doubt about that.

- I’ve had a lot of trouble with imports sir. Lots of parts are different.

Riiiight…..Can you give me a rough estimate on parts, you know, and labour and the like?

- Standard front discs are £132 for 2 as a rough estimate. Pads are usually £60 to £80 for both front brakes on most makes.

And you might not be able to fit me in for the check tonight?

- No sir.

And the parts will take a day or two to order?

- Yes sir, if we can find the parts for an import.

And you might not be able to fit me in for a couple of days after that to fix the problem.

- Exactly sir.

Contrary to popular government opinion, I need my car on a daily basis. Kwik-fit were clearly not up to the task (or too busy or caught up in scare mongering about identical cars driven in Japan and in England) to satisfy my needs as a consumer. Also the cost of the parts seemed a little excessive to me so my attention turned to the blessed Internet.

Two front discs - £29.99, two sets of Kevlar brake pads, £23.99 – free delivery with a 95% chance of the goods being received the next day. Pads and discs standard on all Mk1 1.6 MX5’s. Brilliant Japanese car manufacturers! Using the same parts on the same models!

This weekend, for the first time since the Triumph Spitfire was placed in the garage and covered with a dust sheet after it tried to kill me, I will be getting my hands very dirty.

Now, any ideas how to jack a car up?

It's 9:40am and the parts have arrived. I ordered them about 2pm yesterday. The company that did this for me is here. Many thanks.

Call that a lasagne?

Tim Worstall informs us that Lasagne has replaced chicken tikka massala as the favourite dish of Britons. I seriously doubt that more than three or for Britons have actually tasted a real lasagne in their whole lives.

If it doesn't contain meat balls, pine nuts, mozzarella and ricotta cheese and a sauce that has been simmering away for three or four hours then it's not lasagne.

Any disagreements, please see my mum for clarification. Medical insurance strongly advised.

Who would have thunk it?

Your Dominant Intelligence is Musical Intelligence

Every part of your life has a beat, and you're often tapping your fingers or toes. You enjoy sounds of all types, but you also find sound can distract you at the wrong time. You are probably a gifted musician of some sort - even if you haven't realized it. Also a music lover, you tend to appreciate artists of all kinds. You would make a great musician, disc jockey, singer, or composer.

One of the songs I wrote (well, lyrics only in this particular case), Dead Hand Game, was so advanced and complex that the band I was with at the time completely failed to put it to music. And they were very good musicians indeed. That's how good I am.

Via many bloggers.

Those pesky Yanks revisited

I'm not the only one who's noticed the blind indifference of some to American aid efforts. Bishop Hill points us to the following from an American and his hindi work friend.

Band T-shirts from more hazardous times

Harry asks what was the last band T-shirt we wore when we meant it. It's a difficult one to answer.

The last band T-shirt I wore was a Queen shirt from their Kind of Magic tour back in 1986. I bought it when I went to see them play at Knebworth Park and last wore it late last year in bed. I can categorically state that I did not mean anything in particular that night so I don't suppose it qualifies.

My memory fades and my eyes grow dim but luckily, as I have stated before somewhere else on this blog, I have kept nearly every concert ticket from the concerts I went to when I was a lad. They are now framed behind glass and serve to remind me of more hazardous times.

A quick glance allows me to guestimate that the last band shirt I wore in anger was a Whitesnake one from way back in 1990.

Those pesky Yanks

We spent a few days in Cornwall over the new year with a dozen friends lodged in two rented chalets. Our days were spent sight seeing, game playing (the new edition of Trivial Pursuit is far harder than the original don’t you think?), talking, eating and drinking. Especially the drinking.

A wide range of subjects were touched upon during the days and nights of socialising including fox hunting, the evils of smoking, the Tory party, men, women, the weather etc but one very brief discussion (more like a few statements really) has stuck with me and, I think, is perhaps worthy of blogging.

We happened to be chatting about tourism, you know the kind of thing, where we have been, people we have met, foreigners visiting England and the like, when I mentioned how much of a fan of America and Americans I am. The couple I was talking to (the rest having moved on to some other topic) looked at me and asked if I was joking. I simply said that I was not at which point the better looking part of the couple chirped a few words about arrogance and isolationism. I let it pass because, frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to pursue it.

Later that evening the TV was put on by someone (one of the kiddies perhaps) and eventually a news bulletin was broadcast on the tsunami and the relief effort. I happened to be standing next to the couple I was talking to earlier just as the bulletin showed a bunch of helicopters dropping off supplies and personnel. The newsreader said that they were American helicopters and I said in a voice loud enough for the couple to hear that Yup, it often is American helicopters. They looked at me briefly and but said nothing, turning their gaze back to the screen and back to the vision of devastation and the thwap-thwap-thwap of US military helicopters doing whatever it is that arrogant and isolationist helicopters do.

Drinks club 'ritual' wrecks pub

This little incident puts me in mind of a passage I recently read in Tommy:

A speech by Lord Cavan was inaudible; a group climbed onto the table, 'forming a ram as in Eton football', and the table collapsed. Eventually 'everything breakable in and around the room - tables, chairs, bottles, glasses, windows - was systematically smashed'. Blacker's disgust with the performance made him feel 'out of gear with my old school'.

The impossibility of it all

I've just received an email from Mrs England Project. Apparently, and I feel I must take her word for it, today is the 17 year anniversary of our first ever kiss.

Now, I think men in general are not unfamiliar with the failure associated with missing or misremembering various anniversaries. I for one live in fear of it and do try to make the effort. But honestly, how can I possibly compete with that?

Protesters invade Cabinet Office

Another day, another security failure:

Anti-war protesters managed to force their way past security and gain access to the Cabinet Office in Whitehall.

Ruth Kelly said three people managed to get into the building while a security guard was dealing with someone who was also trying to get in without a pass.

The sooner we get ID cards to stop this kind of thing the better.

Honestly!

We're good people over here at The England Project so I ask, what have we done to deserve this:

Or this:

Kennet Council? Not THE Kennet Council?

Tim of the Worstall variety has this to say about these goings on over at the place of Tim of the Englishman variety:

Riding to the aid of The Englishman and his Castle, we should all be linking thusly in order to spread the word about the inane bureaucrats of Kennet Council.

Currently number 10 and rising, he needs your help. You know what to do.

Of course, I am assuming they are talking about Kennet Council, England rather than any other Kennet Council that might exist elsewhere in the world.

Kennet Council, the more I say it the sillier it sounds. Kennet Council. See!

Kennet District Council sounds just as silly if you say it enough. Kennet District Council, Kennet District Council.

ProudofBritain?

Apparently The Honourable Fiend thinks proudofbritain.org.uk is a far right sounding domain name. I don't get it. To me the name looks neither left nor right, just proud.

Ooo, wait. If that domain name is far right, imagine how extreme this must seem.

Boo!

A unique perspective

After some careful analysis here Andy asks:

So are the Countryside Alliance pro-Nazi, anti-UKIP and anti-gay now?

Wait a minute.....

Saturday night's alright I suppose

This Saturday night is dinner party night at the England Project household. It happens less often than I would like and I like it less often than I usually imagine I would. Mainly because of the pain I tend to feel the next day.

Now, normally the dinner guests are all women and unreservedly so which is simply the way my life seems to have turned out. For one reason or another I have always preferred the company of women and, without intending to, most of the dinner party set that me and Mrs. England Project have gathered around us for use within our own home are of that persuasion. Not all of them mind as I have continued to cultivate friendships with a few select men, mostly those I grew quite fond of at University and once and a while they are included at our table but this is not a common occurrence.

I think this joyful overrepresentation of women at our table is down to a number of factors. Mostly because Mrs. England Project is popular with her lady friends but from my perspective it is because I tend to enjoy conversing with women far more than I do with men, I enjoy looking at women more than I do men and, frankly, I tend to find them far more interesting than men. Am I a girly man? Yes, yes I am, but not in a girly way I would like to think.

Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of our sweet, sweet guests was bringing along a friend and that this friend was in fact her new boyfriend. Not just any old boyfriend but one that I happen to know in an occasional mutual drunken event kind of a way.

He’s a charmer, far more intelligent than he lets on, quite wealthy and quite humorous so I should be welcoming his inclusion. But welcoming as I will be, and as good a host as I am sure I will turn out to be I can’t help thinking of him as, well, contamination.

Shooting ducks

I have to say that I am not sure I can agree with this analysis:

BAN OF THE DAY...seems to be fox-hunting, which is of course repellent. But me, I can admit what others can't, which is a degree of jealousy of these people - most of whom are rich and never have to work.

Great Britons of 2004 - vote, vote, vote

This is interesting:

The Daily Telegraph are running a series of awards, described below...

Who are the Great Britons of 2004?

We are looking for your nominations
Great Britons 2004 is a series of awards to be presented to the people
who have done the most to personify British success in the past year.
And we need you to tell us who they are...

As a Director of the North East No Campaign I have nominated the
Campaign Director, Neil Herron in the category of Campaigner. His
tireless efforts over the past two years were instrumental in
delivering the massive landslide of a 78% 'No' vote in the recent North
East Referendum. Although based in the North East he has become
recognised as the most formidable people's representative in the
campaign business nationally. The emphatic result was testament to his
ability to challenge and expose the political classes and take the
people along with him.

Follow the link above for instructions on how to vote if you so wish.

Och, Donald, where's me troosers?

From The Scotsman:

SCOTLAND was given the go-ahead yesterday to decide its own national anthem in a ruling that is likely to pave the way for a nationwide contest to decide the nation’s official song.

Cunning

The urban fox gets everywhere:

On Wednesday, a fox was also caught inside Parliament but it is not yet known whether it was part of a protest stunt.

The animal did not get into the chamber of either House of Parliament.

A spokeswoman for the Commons said: "We know that a fox got in early this morning. It is not yet known how he got in.

"He was captured swiftly by Parliamentary staff and cared for and fed and watered until the RSPCA turned up to care for him."

Banjo boy wizdom

Saturday night was spent at my gun club, enjoying a few wet ones in the company of Paul Young and his Tex Mex band. As we sat at the table nearest the stage in what used to be the pistol range, I could not help but notice the lead guitarist making eyes at Mrs. England Project.

The front of the man, I thought, and a little unwise given the venue.

The night went on and I began to believe that perhaps my imagination was running away with me. Perhaps the fellow wasn’t gyrating his instrument toward my beloved in that way. Perhaps he couldn’t actually see the audience through the dense smoke of my cigar, held firmly between my teeth as I squinted at the dog in a manner not unlike Mr. Eastwood’s.

Are you looking at my woman?, I imagined myself saying to the rogue while tying my holster cord to my thigh in readiness for the inevitable quick draw, crack of a single shot and subsequent sound of a man falling heavily onto a stratocaster.

Ahhh, beer, source of my greatest imagined victories.

Perhaps he was twanging at one of the other of the three ladies that I brought with me to the bash. It’s always wise to carry spares don’t you think?

No, it must be all in my head. The stage is bright and the audience is in the dark, I thought. The man would have to have the eyes of a wolf.

Then Mr. Young announced that the band were taking a short break and as the wolf passed my table he whispered something into the ear of my good lady.

I enquired of the Mrs. what the departing entertainer had said and was informed that, apparently, he wished to convey to her that in his opinion she was gorgeous. It was nice of the minstrel to notice but I couldn’t help thinking that my presence deserved a little more recognition. She was clearly unavailable, having been marked out with bands of gold and diamonds the size of small moons.

Mrs. England Project was clearly enjoying herself and my other two young ladies seemed to be revelling in the possibility that I may have finally met competition of some worth. He was skilled with the guitar and not bad looking in that wanted dead or alive kind of a way and, for some reason, I got the distinct impression that my cohorts would have like nothing better than to see me taken down a strip or two. Flogging would have been too good for them.

Wolfey and the rest of the band returned to complete their set, we continued to drink and make merry and as the night drew to a close I found myself playing croupier at a blackjack table in the casino that had been kindly provided for the night by our hosts. How I got from the seat that I had occupied nearly all night to that particular table in a completely different room was unfathomable. I seem to remember being annoyed about something. Why was I continuing to twist my cards when I was already way past thirty something? Who were those people standing in front of me? When did I start drinking rum?

I made my excuses to my new card playing friends and went in search of my trio who I eventually found in the company of a some people I thought I vaguely recognised. Something to do with the banjo or something.

Anyhow, we eventually left for home and the girls filled me in a little on what had transpired while I was loosing the house thousands on the tables. As it turned out the errant guitarist had been put straight by Mr. Paul Young while the band were on their break. Have you seen that girl in the audience? the fender grinder apparently remarked. Yes, and have you seen the size of the rocks on her finger? Mr. Young replied.

That night Mrs. England Project seemed even more sparkly than she normally is and I have to hand it to wolfey for his remarkable distillation.

She is gorgeous.

Good plan! Beat up on the rural folk again!

Man, you just wait until the countryside peeps see this:

The head of the UK's race equality body says low numbers of black and Asian people in the countryside is a form of "passive apartheid".

You know what? I'm warming to the idea that rural folk should be recognised as an ethnic group. Maybe then people will leave them alone.

The shame in Spain

Look what the Spanish government has gone and done:

US troops will not be invited to take part this year's Spanish National Day parade, the government has said.

French troops have been invited instead, as part of celebrations to mark 60 years since of the liberation of Paris from Nazi occupation.

At last year's parade, Prime Minister Rodriguez Zapatero - the leader of the opposition at the time - remained seated as the US flag went past, believing its presence was inappropriate, El Mundo reported.

Hey, if there are any US readers who contributed (or whose family members contributed) to the liberation of Paris all I can offer is the fact that there are a whole bunch of people on this Isle of ours who will always remember the sacrifices made by US troops.

Is this a joke?

Al-Qaeda tea:

A new tea craze is sweeping through Guinea. It is not the brew itself that is new, but its name: Al-Qaeda.

When I take al-Qaeda tea there is positive result in so far as my respiratory system is concerned.

Ways to fish

Fishing in England:

I parked up the van (man that was a tight spot) and wandered over to the river. My usual spot had gone so I had to make do with a rather slippery fishing point. The reeds were very difficult to fish through and the ducks kept trying to nick my maggots.

We left the trailhead at 11:45 in the morning. The trip down was quite uneventful until we crossed Soda Creek, when we ran into a mother bear and two cubs. One of the cubs had climbed an oak tree just as I came over a rise in the trail. Mike had his Ruger .357 out before you could say "oh @&*#!" Unfortunately, the trail went under the tree the cub had climbed, and the area all around had high brush which could easily conceal a whole army of bears. With me blowing my whistle and Mike at the ready, we advanced very slowly on the tree and eventually determined the bears had moved on.

Chip eaters of the world unite!

Pupils at a school which voted to increase the cost of chips to encourage healthier eating have protested because the food prices are too high.

Let's play a game

Wow. This comes from the guys over at the Campaign for an English Parliament. It's apparently a BBC advert for the Proms (not sure what publication it appeared in but I'm confident that the tax payer paid for it).

Can you spot what's missing?

Living history

This kind of nationalistic display has no place in a modern multicultural society. There are more responsible ways of bringing history alive:

Scotland's greatest win over England is to be re-enacted and watched by up to 15,000 people on Saturday.

The National Trust for Scotland is staging a reconstruction of the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn in Stirling.

The Scots, under Robert the Bruce, routed the English led by Edward II in a victory which has been celebrated and marked down the centuries.

Have a nice day

What's this? The French wanting to become more like the Americans?

The owners of France's 60,000 bars, brasseries and cafes have said poor service is driving customers away, and have promised to do better.

"Customers are right to complain of a poor or non-existent welcome... and a lack of basic courtesy and reactivity," an industry spokesman said.

Good show old chap

Hey, what a lucky guy. It looks like Dan, over at Jackalope pursuivant has landed himself a job as a Professional Scouter. Beats sitting in front of a desk all day so well done there Dan.

In a freaky coincidence Dan also wins a prize for having the blog with the hardest name to type. Pursuiant, persviant, purs....

Where is Europe?

Mrs. du Toit takes a visit and says it’s in the detail:

That detail, that desire for beauty where none was required, where a flat stone wall or a plain metal mold would have sufficed, intrigues me to no end. That makes me sizzle. It makes the hair on my neck stand up. It ignites a curiosity. I marvel at who those people were, that we originated from and who enabled all we became, that had risen so far beyond food, shelter, safety, that they would take the time, the incredible luxury of time and attention, to that small detail.

The dog is here

Only a short while ago I explained that the England Project family were considering taking on the services of a dog:

The main requirement is that the dog should be suitable for suburban family living without being too poncy.

The process of choosing a dog has exposed a certain characteristic of the England Project family decision making process. That is, important issues are discussed and if we are all in agreement then the decision is made. If we disagree then Mrs. England Project makes the decision.

You see, my desire for a dog that was not too poncy fell on deaf ears:

Yes. I know. We intend to name him Muffy which, I think you'll agree, is a suitable name.

Muffy is a cross between a Golden Retriever and a Poodle so I fully expect it to wander around looking for something to surrender to while carrying a stick in its mouth. Such is life.

Some call this cross breed a Goldendoodle but I think a more appropriate name for the cross breed is a Retroodle. Or something to do with noodles.

Mark of gunculture.net writes:

Mate, you just got the worlds gayest dog!

England Project seeks dog

So, the England Project family are currently considering taking on the services of a dog. The main requirement is that the dog should be suitable for suburban family living without being too poncy. My current favourite, though Mrs. England Project is unaware, is the Canaan Dog:

…a recently domesticated breed derived from a specific type of pariah dog that inhabits remote locations of what is now the land of Israel. These tough desert born survivors are resilient, intelligent and independent dogs. This is not a man-made breed, but that of one evolved for thousands of years by the harsh environment of this region.

Any other non-poncy suggestions gratefully received. And nothing with curly or wavy hair or a requirement for extreme sports.

Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, a few monkeys and some Britons

Raul Diaz reports in The Mercury News:

GIBRALTAR - For 300 years, the people on this rock at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula - Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and some Britons - have been subjects of a monarch in London.

Classics on the Common

Cue: A Jeremy Clarkson type voice.

Across the face of Britain, and particularly in the summer, pub car parks everywhere play host to an event that is almost as British as the pint of bitter itself. An event so entangled with the British psyche that it’s demise would signal the final litmus failure of the British way of life. An event so thoroughly ubiquitous that to not accidentally come across one every once in a while would lead one to doubt the integrity of the very fabric of the universe.

It’s the weekend, say an early Saturday afternoon as you drive into your local pub car park with a steak and kidney pie on your mind. You drive up and down looking for a space easily missing the cheeky little Austin Healey parked in between the blue Mondeo and the grey Vauxhall Vectra. You drive right past the Champaign white Triumph Vitesse barely noticing the fact that someone has fitted a chrome straight through sports exhaust to it. You think nothing strange when you drive right past the four gleaming Triumph Spitfires all with their bonnets up, sporting after market oil coolers, Kenlow fans and gleaming K&N filters stuck to the side of chrome dipped SU carburettors. You do little more than take a little extra care as you finally come to rest right next to the sleek green E-Type Jaguar with its roof down and with a proper wicker picnic basket on the front seat. Yes, you’ve driven into a classic car meet, and it hardly registers at all. After all, you almost expected it.

Inside the pub you order your drinks and food and retire to a nearby table where, only a few feet away, a group of three people are discussing the relative merits of replacing a Triumph Stag engine with a Rover V8. Another fellow asks you where one might find a reconditioned gearbox for their TR-4A and you, being British, kindly refer them to the Triumph Sports Six Club; ”they’ll probably be able to help” you remark. A Jaguar owner in the corner gets annoyed at a little old man for daring to accusing him of never actually working on his own car. You nod; it’s a minor outrage.

Yes that’s the scene and, usually, there is generally not a lot more to it than that. Down the pub, with like minded people and a bunch of really rather nice cars.

Except sometimes things go fantastically bonkers.

About ten years ago, in a pub somewhere in a small town called Harpenden, a small gathering of local classic car owners took place. Not an unusual event in itself as we know but this time something odd happened. Perhaps a little too much swarfega had been absorbed during a rather messy engine rebuild or maybe the sun was a little too hot on that fateful day but, whatever the cause, that little innocuous meet grew over a period of ten years into this:

So yesterday, The England Project family cycled to the show and walked around the common for a bit and here, for your pleasure, are some pictures of some of what we saw:

For more on the show visit the Classics on the Common web site. Go on, you know you want to.

Hello again

And so, we are back. As it turns out we ended up in Cornwall rather than Devon, which was a surprise, but that did give us the opportunity to visit The Eden Project which I enjoyed. Great engineering with plants added. Here are some pictures, for your enjoyment.

Quite breathtaking on first sight. Conservatories on an impressive scale.




A juxtaposition of passing interest. Two different types of engineering.




Looking over the canopy.




Some parts of the interior were quite convincing.

I was also quite taken with the beaches where we were. I never really considered England good beach territory but I was clearly mistaken. It was all let down by the weather though. Pesky thing that it is. More enclosed domes and faster please! I dream of never seeing the naked sky again!

I am an evil genius

It says so in this scientific examination procedure.

You are an SEDF--Sober Emotional Destructive Follower. This makes you an evil genius. You are extremely focused and difficult to distract from your tasks. With luck, you have learned to channel your energies into improving your intellect, rather than destroying the weak and unsuspecting.

Your friends may find you remote and a hard nut to crack. Few of your peers know you very well--even those you have known a long time--because you have expert control of the face you put forth to the world. You prefer to observe, calculate, discern and decide. Your decisions are final, and your desire to be right is impenetrable.

You are not to be messed with. You may explode.

Via many places on the internet.

Talk about the weather

For the first time and for a limited period only the England Project is opening up its comments section. On this one post. For your pleasure. Someone say something, about anything. Maybe about the weather. There's a storm coming you know.

Well, thanks all for the weather reports! Last night we had a big old barney down here in the south. The wind and rain machine was stuck on FULL. This morning is much better down here, which is bad news for commenter Dave because I believe it's all heading his way. Consider it a gift! Enjoy!

Gay day ruined by queer ruling on faggots

Want to know why?

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's television watchdog banned a supermarket chain on Monday from using the word "faggot" in a commercial, referring to a traditional British dish.

Somerfield's ad featured a husband complaining about his wife's repetitive cooking.

When she told him it was Friday so he was getting his usual faggots, a traditional dish of meatballs in gravy, he said: "I've nothing against faggots, I just don't fancy them."

"Three listeners were offended, as they believed the husband's response alluded to homosexuals, faggots being a derogatory term for them," said media watchdog Ofcom.

But Somerfield denied Ofcom's charge. "Faggots were chosen to demonstrate the idea because they are commonly perceived as an outdated and slightly comical product, not because of any allusions to homosexuality," it said.

But Ofcom ruled that the term was "highly derogatory" and banned the advert from being broadcast again.

My own robot warrior army

Natalie Solent reflects upon her special power of invisibility and what good she would have brought to the world had this power actually been, you know, real.

When I was younger I had similar dreams and desires where I would save the world from this dictator, that disaster or, and this was a recurring one, be in the right place at the right time to prevent a dreadful crime from being visited upon a helpless victim.

Obviously my special power was time travel, in as much as I could go back and be there when whatever it was that happened, happened, but this was not the limit of my dream. Oh no. I also had my own private army of caring ruthless bipedal robot warriors. Each was humanoid in nature and covered from head to foot in black well tailored leather battle suits. There was never any hint of what mechanical and electrical marvel lay beneath as no actual part of the robot warrior was on show. High black boots, the aforementioned suit and a black helmet sporting a green plastic looking band that went from one side of the helmet, right round the back to the other, both ends stopping just short of the black visor (naturally). This green addition to the helmet was, I think, spawned from my viewing of a certain TV series called Blakes 7 where, I seem to recall, the federation troopers had a similar decoration.

Whole countries would turn their backs on tyranny from a fear of the deployment of my limitless robot warrior army of justice.

Young children would be saved by the swift and violent intervention of a particle beam accelerator based robot personal firearm.

Obviously, at the time, I thought that my moral judgement of what was right and what was wrong was absolute and correct and that the result of my tyrannical grip on the world would not be, you know, tyranny.

Things are not so clear now. How could they be. Since then I’ve been reading more than just science fiction. I’ve watched the news, read the papers, even read some political and historical stuff (imagine that). What’s more, I’ve been reading blogs which, I might add, have been the single most effective medium to date in making me think that, perhaps, my world view isn’t the only one that has merit. Having said that my pre-blog reading positions on most subjects still remain mainly intact; but not completely and I also have a lot more time for listening and thinking about the arguments of those that don’t agree with my thinking.

It can be confusing and frustrating and would never have happened if I actually did have a robot warrior army all those years ago. Perhaps, in the future, a younger me from the past will actually send the older me in the future the army that I dreamed of. The thing is, would I use it now? Would I be able to trust myself in judging where and when it should be deployed and for what reasons.

Yes. Yes I think I would.

The 1st of the month

So, today is the first of the month. I found this out this morning while I was getting ready for work. I felt a pinch on my backside swiftly followed by a thump and at the same time a little voice said ”a pinch and a punch for the first of the month”. I turned to see my young lad standing next to me with a grin on his face. He doesn’t know his father as well as he should because he remained within striking distance for far too long.

”A punch and a kick for being so quick”, I responded. He jumped into the side of the bed which I had vacated earlier in the morning and snuggled mummy, his smile somewhat reduced. An important lesson for the boy well learned, I thought.

“A smack on the nose for such clever prose”, remarked the misses completely failing to deliver any actual violence.

Lazy, I thought. I would have at least thrown something from the bed.

”A clip round the ear for being so queer”, was the only thing I could think of in response but, thankfully, I didn’t say it. Basically for two reasons. Firstly, it was inaccurate. Secondly, I would have had to approach within striking distance to deliver the clip. In truth, I feared the smack on the nose.

So, happy 1st of the month. I should give you a snog for reading my blog, or some such.

On my bike

I’ve been exercising. Yes, yes, I know. Also, I’ve cut right back on the mid-week drinking though I confess to a couple of glasses of red last night. This has been going on for just a little over three weeks now.

I’m not sure of how or when I made the decision to do this but I do know that I have been reflecting in recent months upon the sedentary nature of my daily life.

I get up in the morning, wash and dress, climb into the car and drive to work. I sit at my desk for the required length of time and then do the same in reverse excluding the un-washing. Then I put on something more comfortable and relax back into family life. We chat, make dinner, eat and do general family stuff until the little one goes to bed. I would call him the Little Englander but he is quite expansionist in nature and would, I feel, prefer a reborn British Empire to the current state of affairs. Then there is a little wine (sometimes more than a little), a bit of TV, a bit of computer time and maybe some gaming. Or whatever takes our fancy. Usually there is very little in the way of traditional exercise except once every two weeks when I spend 6 or 7 hours running around the woods, hiding in bushes, and crawling through the undergrowth.

So, one day, I got back from work and hopped on the bike and I have been doing this each weekday for three weeks. Only about 20 – 30 minutes an evening but that’s something, at least. Enough to make me feel a little more energetic and a little less wasted during the occasional high energy withdrawal from my low energy resources.

I know what you’re thinking. The government made him do it, he’s been listening to their propaganda. Turncoat. Sweet mother, he’s one of THEM!. I assure you that’s not the case. The recent government campaign for regular exercise had only one effect and that involved the shouting of expletives at an unfortunate radio only doing what it was designed to do. No, this has been a long time coming, in the same way that my waistline has.

So there it is. Like so many have advised me to do in the past I am finally on my bike. It won’t last; I know myself well enough to say that, but for now it is something that I do. Slowly.

Tom, over at The Trout Also Rises does cycling properly. 215 miles in June alone!

Erm....

...I thought the Swiss were supposed to be neutral.

I know, I know, it's easy to complain and blame the referee. That's why I'm doing it.

Don't like the messages of the New Testament?

Don't be downhearted. Grab a pen and change the words:

Authorised version: “John did baptise in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.”

New: “John, nicknamed ‘The Dipper’, was ‘The Voice’. He was in the desert, inviting people to be dipped, to show they were determined to change their ways and wanted to be forgiven.”

Last nights footy

I have two observations to make about the England v Switzerland match. Firstly England played poorly. Secondly, the Swiss seemed to have had trouble standing up.

Shut up

Everyone who contributed to this guide on how to stay healthy when watching the football on the telly should just shut up.

I said shut up!

Especially you Jayne:

To guard against voice damage, fans need to avoid long periods of overuse, drink water or juice and cut down on smoking, alcohol and caffeine.

Waking with badgers

I woke up this morning from a dream. The last image I remember from it was the front cover of a book which was a hardback covered in a yellow/brown dust sheet. On it was a pencil drawing of a woman holding a baby and next to that, in a thin black script, were the words Abortion and its wayward badger.

I need to lay off something, clearly, but what that something is is anyone's guess.

A question

I was asked a seemingly simple question over a drink or two recently by a lady friend of mine who works in the care industry:

Mercy or justice?

Erm...

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Can you guess what it is yet?

I think that this little incident is a prime example why Red Ken's demands for a ban on anything that looks like a gun is as naive as it gets.

A Thameslink train driver caused two terror alerts when he mistook a didgeridoo for a grenade launcher.

Housing

Because someone thinks it's a good idea to steal housing I decided to take a look at the average value of property in my area; just to work out the value of the kind of stuff some politicians think is worth nicking.

There's some fine plunder to be had 'round these parts.

The curse of Dart Wars

Look at this macabre tool of evil.

Macabre

It can, apparently, lead to teen nakedness, espionage, crazy things and fun. Needless to say agents of the state want to outlaw it.

Me? I'm just happy that the teen nakedness link is going to get me a lot of hits.

Action Man - from tough guy to pussy

Caitlin Moran, in the Times laments the demise of Action Man:

The theory is that political correctness and post-9/11 squeamishness have ended Action Man’s reign as the archetypal boys’ toy, given that his recent, disastrous rebranding effort moved him away from horse-sized bombs and flensing knives, and introduced two new, worthy friends instead: Redwolf, “a Native American who possesses a deadly aim with his crossbow”, and Flynt, a man gifted with “amazing boomerang skill”. Action Man, the insinuation is, has gone a bit nice-Chianti, a bit batik-waistcoat, a bit pouffy — an accusation not helped by Hasbro’s enthusiastic but gnomic claim that New Action Man loves “riding his dirt-surfer to the extreme”. There’s always the chance that this is just the latest street-slang for a Hoover — because people on the streets are always coming up with new, arcane slang for things like tumble-dryers and juicing machines — but, either way, things aren’t looking good for Action Man next time he walks into a pub in the wrong part of Macclesfield on a Friday night.

... Action Man isn’t a man at all — he is whatever nine-year-old boy is playing with him at the time. And whenever a nine-year-old boy puts together a gang, it will consist of someone called “Brains”, who comes up with all the ideas, someone strong, who will be called “Muscle”, and a wisecracking maverick who saves the day called “Maverick”. There will be no boomerangs, no one is called “Flynt”, and no one rides his dirt-surfer to the extreme. That’s all a bit fanciful and time-wasting when there are five Action Mans hanging from a dressing-gown belt strung out of the bathroom window.

I was once the proud owner of an amazing gripping hand crew cut action man and I am sure that what we are seeing now is not the demise of the true action man but, instead, the demise of the modern Hasbro pale imitation.

The original action man, which reached its design pinnacle with the introduction of the aforementioned gripping hands, did exactly what any kid wanted an action figure to do. It bent in exactly the way one wanted it to bend, it looked good and it could grip any of the accessories produced for it. And I mean GRIP.

The modern Hasbro action man is the sum of the accessories that it comes with. Let’s take the blue diving suited action man, which my boy has. This action figure can be made to swim (in a man from Atlantis kind of way) with just a little winding of his right arm at the shoulder. This is great for about five minutes of bath playtime but what then? The arms do not bend properly (probably due to some compromise necessitated by the engineering of the swimming mechanism), the hands have all the gripping ability of the most effeminate Cindy doll and, get this, the damn blue scuba suit is moulded onto the toy. It cannot be removed. This toy, in short, is a one shot deal.

What is a boy to do when the need is there for an explosives operative, a sniper or a desert rat? There are some situations for which a blue suited, rigid armed effeminate diver is simply not appropriate.

And it is not the only one from the range like this.

In the old days the action man purchasing cycle use to be: buy boy action man figure in his plain green fatigues, with pistol, helmet and rifle for Christmas. Buy tank or jeep on Birthday. Buy occasional accessory packs at parental discretion. One action man could use all the accessories. He bent the right way and could grip anything the accessory designers threw at him. Parents trusted action man, kids could act out a zillion different scenarios with one figure, and action man was exactly what he was supposed to be. A man. Of action.

Modern action man is no longer the toy it used to be and parents are fed up of paying for a rigid form of a toy that they remember as more flexible and user friendly. Hasbro, no doubt think we are stupid enough to pay for another figure, and then another, for each scenario that takes the fancy of our children.

We are not.

Effectively, action man has become a specialised, Guardian reading big girl’s blouse.

Tim Blair comments.

Porter potty

I remember seeing Janet Street-Porter on TV once dissing the Internet. Now, thanks to the wonders of the net I get to read her bullshit from the comfort of my own IP address.

blah blah blah blah

Opportunity awaits

Like I said before, Tim over at An Englishman's Castle is looking for charity sponsors. The run/walk kicks off on the 2nd May so time is running short. If you want to contribute look for the Make a Donation button on his right hand side bar.

More on wine

I am, apparently, behind the times as far as screw-top wines are concerned. Andrew mails:

Many of the best Australian producers have been doing screw-tops for quite a while now.

There are lots of reasons - material cost, shortage of natural cork of the right quality, reduced spoilage, cheaper automation of filling lines, easier opening.

Like you I hated them at first. But now I can appreciate the simplicity: in my house on a Friday night, it invariably turns out that the bloody teenagers have pinched all the corkscrews again, so not needing one is really a plus.

It will become more widespread I am sure, even tending towards universal. If you don't like it, stick with the grandest (and therefore most costly) French and Italian traditional winemakers. My prediction is, they will be the last to succumb, and some - classed-growth clarets and the great names of Burgundy - may never do so.

Good wine

I have a bad feeling about this.

In recent weeks I have become aware of what could be a trend in the wine packaging industry; one that I’m not particularly happy with.

I’m no great wine buff, usually being content with wine of a mediocre calibre, but recently I have had the good fortune to come into contact with a couple of great bottles, new world of course, and I noticed something strange.

They had screw-top lids.

I know, it’s horrible, but it’s true. Screw-top.

To me, screw-top is just another way of saying Blue Nun or Liebfraumilch. You know, the kind of wine that has it’s own special category. We have white wine, red wine, rose and screw-top.

But this is no longer the case.

Take this wine as an example. It is a Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough 2003, it’s screw-top and it’s very nice but the experience of drinking it has changed.

To really enjoy a bottle of wine there are a number of stages, parts of a ritual, that need to be observed.

First you have to hunt around for the bottle opener. Then you have to remove the old cork from it and discard it. Then you offer up the bottle to the opener. Then you have to put the opener down because you’ve forgotten to remove the foil from the top of the bottle. Then you hunt around for your foil cutter but quickly change your mind deciding instead to use the sharp bit of the bottle opener. Next you have to use the opener to remove the cork from the unopened bottle of wine, being careful not to break it. Then you hear the pop, you see the cork, you drink the wine.

Now, with a screw-top, the ritual becomes as follows.

First you remove the screw-top. Then you drink the wine.

See what I mean?

So, has anyone else noticed this? Is the screw-top an emerging trend? Who is to blame? Should we campaign against it?

Come to Russia

Tim, from We the undersigned has published a travel log about his recent trip to Russia. It's a good read:

Then the biggest, meanest, ugliest looking Russian bloke you've ever seen came and sat at the table across from us. He had a jaw which a hammer couldn't break, a nose which a hammer had broken, and scars all over his face. He was sitting down, talking to his companion, and staring at myself and Katerina. I am not as stupid as I look, which is fortunate. I asked Katerina who he was, and she mumbled something. I asked her to stop mumbling. And then she told me.

Before Katerina went out with Michael Corleone, she was seeing the biggest mafia boss in town, hereafter known as Vito Corleone. Now when they split up, Vito had told her that he would make sure she never had another boyfriend. And this gorilla who was sitting across the table from me was Vito's best friend, or as I interpreted it, his strong man. According to Katerina, she fell out with this ape about something a while back, and they don't speak now. And Vito was not happy that Katerina had started going out with Michael after she had left him, but let it slide because he was in the mafia. I will remind my readers that last time I checked, I was not. I walked out of the bar, and couldn't do it quickly enough.

Japan's PM and the tied hands of the SDF

An interesting feature by Richard Lloyd Parry and Robert Thomson in The Times on Japan's Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, and the tied hands of Japan's Self-Defence Forces:

By the 1950s, with a war against communism in Korea, and a global Cold War, an unarmed Japan no longer suited the US. A colossal fudge was born — the so-called Self-Defence Forces, or SDF, one of the world’s best funded, largest and most bizarrely restricted armies.

Soho attacked by giant fat slug

In a tale full of expert warnings of global warming, flash floods and the need for modernisation we are treated to the following astonishing revelation:

The firm [Thames Water] also spends £7m every year removing solidified cooking fat from sewers which is a particular problem in Soho, central London, where a 150ft slug of fat took eight weeks to remove recently.

Operation Cuetzalan Tiger

Something very strange and unusual is going on in Mexico. Something even stranger than super-fast mice and even more unusual than trying to tell the time simply by shifting the position of donkey testes.

British rescuers are on their way to a remote cave system in central Mexico in an attempt to help six British cavers trapped by flood water.

The strangeness I allude to is the length of time these six are willing to wait for rescue. They have already turned down an offer of help from a 20 strong Mexican rescue team preferring to wait for two British rescuers to be sent to them all the way from Britain. The local authorities say that they were completely unaware of the presence of these British military cavers and the local media has been using interesting words like uranium and searching.

My spidy senses are tingling.

Now is your chance!

We have the Estate Agents on the run. Come help finish them off!

Some positive remarks have been left at the BBC web site since I wrote the above. What's the matter with you lot?

A posh weekend

This weekend, and for a special occasion, my wife and I and a few friends went to the Auberge du Lac restaurant which is situated on the grounds of Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire.

I made a number of observations during the few hours that we were there:

1. It is posh.
2. The Michelin star chef, Jean-Christophe Novelli is a good looking chap. He has an Italian mother you know.
3. Even though the wine list was handed round the 4 couples at the table so that each could choose a wine to be shared by all, not a single French bottle was chosen.
4. Expensive port is expensive.
5. They keep their cigars locked up and will spend five minutes lighting them for you, delivering the results of their labours to you in an individual ashtray.
6. Four and a half hours of fine wines, good food, old port and fine cigars is bloody expensive but good for what ails you.

I will do it again, but not this year.

No fat tax

I am surprised, honestly. I'm such a cynic.

Tony Blair has said his aides' idea for a tax on fatty foods such as cakes and biscuits would make Britain too much like a "nanny state".

Good time girls aplenty

The homes where love and peace should dwell
Fierce politics shall vex,
And unsexed woman strive to prove
Herself the coarser sex.

Actually, I don't have a problem with these girls smoking and drinking so much, good luck to them. This just gave me another opportunity to quote from my favorite poem.

Dairylee triangle of death

Let’s just eat nuts and berries like friendly forest creatures.

Dairy food as deadly as tobacco

People should avoid milk and cheese as much as tobacco, a scientist has said.

Professor Jane Plant says there is strong evidence that dairy products promote breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.

This thing is like that thing

Today’s ‘this thing is like that thing’ is:

The UN is like a bear that dislikes its own teeth and claws.

On traitors and Liberty

Do you know what the most disappointing thing to me about this whole Katharine Gun traitor business is? It's this:

Human rights group Liberty, which supported Ms Gun throughout her trial ...

Angry vegetarian

Joanna Briscoe is an angry vegetarian. Frankly I’ve never met a vegetarian who wasn’t but though Joanna’s anger is animal related, it’s not what you might think:

As a vegetarian animal hater, I would be quite unmoved if all dogs were to die under the wheels of one big juggernaut, but at least I don't scarf down their furry brethren. England has long been known for its hypocrisy when it comes to the question of animals - a nation ever ready to cosset some smelly hound while eating the wreckage of a force-fed goose. But now it seems we've gone virtually gaga in our attitudes towards dumb beasts.

Dear oh dear, dear deer to become cheap deer

Oh how I laughed. You see apparently England has so many deer now that the government sees a need for a little extra culling and astonishingly, in spite of decades of trying to get rid of the things, there are still some people left in the country with rifles who are able to do the job.

Nature Conservation Minister Ben Bradshaw says deer numbers in England and Wales are out of control and causing damage to trees and crops.

The Exeter MP's plans, also mooted in Scotland, include extending the shooting season, recruiting more stalkers and getting the public to eat more wild venison.

But Working for Wildlife says the animals should regulate themselves.

Working for Wildlife's secretary Douglas Batchelor told BBC 1's Countryfile: "What actually happens is in the wild most populations balance according to available resources of feed and everything else.
"When people start interfering and trying to decide which ones live and which ones die, you interfere with the process of natural selection.

We have a problem, we have a solution. Seems like balance to me.

Plenty chilli

We have the best Kebab shop in the world just down the road from where we live. Not only is the quality of their food fantastic but when you say “Large donner with plenty chilli” that’s exactly what you get. A large one. With plenty chilli.

The best thing though, the very best thing, is that you can drink and make merry at home to your hearts content, suddenly decide that the thing you need most at that very moment is a kebab, pick up the phone and order for delivery. Order for delivery!.

Sometimes I just love being a consumer.

Eat more meat

Dirty tricks - PETA - no way....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The late Dr. Robert Atkins is being smeared for his alleged obesity at the time of his death, by a phony doctors organization that has been exposed as a front group for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

Up the revolution!

Indeed Tim. And the code is 13.

An Englishman's lawn

My lawn is a problem. Can anyone recommend any good weapons of moss destruction?

2000 year guarantee

So what have the Romans ever done for us?

Bugger, bugger

I just had to abandon my car and walk five miles in the snow to get home. I wouldn't have minded so much but some bugger in a BMW smashed into the side of my car and drove off (skidding all over the place) as I was retrieving my briefcase from the passenger side door, the cad.

I caught up with him on foot.

In the old days...

Just so you know kiddies, this is what computer games looked like when I was a teenager:

And that was on a top of the range unit, with tape storage (yay!), real keyboard and an impressive 16k of internal memory.

The particular game depicted above was called "Android Nim" and it r0x0r3d!!

The Italians are crazy

My mother is Italian and, as a result, is a little crazy. She shouts and waves her hands about at the drop of a hat, can swear in the beautiful language for minutes on end and make it sound like an operatic performance and knows the meaning of the word revenge like you would not believe.

She is not, thankfully, crazy like these Italians are crazy.

Foul mouthed old bird

Did you know that Blue and Gold Macaws can live to be over 100 years old? They can you know. Take Charlie for instance, which used to belong to some guy called Winston Churchill.

The British wartime leader's faithful companion, Charlie the parrot, is still squawking out anti-Hitler jibes at the grand old age of 104.

Thanks to Churchill's patient tutelage, her favourite curses remain "**** Hitler" and "**** the Nazis".

Hampton Court Palace

...is haunted. Oooooooooooo.

Hitchens on teens

Peter Hitchens thinks that giving votes to 16 year olds is an attempt by the current government to rig the polls.

Giving votes to 16-year-olds is just another part of Labour's plan to turn this country into a permanent one-party state.
...
[D]oes anyone believe that most of them [16 year olds] have a clue about politics?

Modern society tends to patronise 'the young', who are said to be 'idealists' and ' openminded'. This is tripe.

Most teenagers are frightening conformists, slaves to fashions in clothes, music and ideas and terrified of standing out from any crowd.

Hitchens does teens down here. He may be right about their political awareness and their natural alignment with Labour 'thinking' but he is not right to call them frightening conformists.

Of Guinness and ale

I chose my pubs very carefully in my late teens and early twenties. I liked them quite dark, not too busy and quite simply decorated. A good open fire for the winter months was a must as, of course, was a friendly clientele. Then there was the beer.

My two favourite drinks were brown and bitter and Guinness. Brown and bitter is a mix of one half pint of brown ale and one half pint of bitter, but I was very particular about the types of beer used. It absolutely had to be Mann’s brown ale and it had to be mixed with a good bitter of medium thickness and flavour (London Pride was a good one). That was a fine pint. Hard to find then and even harder to find now. Indeed, I can’t remember the last time I saw a bottle of Mann’s brown.

Guinness, on the other hand, is in plentiful supply and I have to admit of a better overall consistency now than it was when I was younger. I used to switch pubs on the basis of who had the best kept barrel on at any particular moment because, for some reason, landlords found it hard to keep well. Now it seems that almost every local round these parts does a good pint so I suspect that the storage technology has changed or some such.

Anyone else notice this improvement over the last ten or fifteen years or so?

Plain English enough for you?

Mark Steyn thinks that the people behind Plain English Campaign sound like a bunch of smug tossers.

They do indeed. However, has it crossed anyone’s mind that the Plain English Campaign might have really thought Rumsfeld's "known unknowns" was a real foot in mouth incident? No malice, just a complete inability to understand Rumsfeld's simple words.

Not smug tossers, just stupid.

Zimbabwe will return

Well, as we all suspected, the Zimbabwean opposition party says that when it comes to power it will restore the country's membership of the Commonwealth. The Movement for Democratic Change said that Mugabe's decision to leave the Commonwealth was:

clearly not in the interest of Zimbabwe and its people but is an attempt to avoid returning the country to democratic principles".

We congratulate the Commonwealth for standing firmly on the side of the people of Zimbabwe and strongly urge the rest of the international community not to be bullied into turning a blind eye to dictatorship, genocide, murder and torture under the guise of sovereignty. The decision by the Commonwealth (to suspend Zimbabwe's membership) confirms Mugabe's illegitimacy."

On the first of December

This day, for the typical England Project family, is the day that the Partridge Family Christmas Card album is taken from the CD shelf, dusted down, and put on the household CD player. It will be played each day until the end of the 25th of the month.

Being a tradition, albeit one inherited from the childhood of my good lady, it must be observed. No excuses.

May the good Lord have mercy on us all.

Shooter for sale

It's this kind of thing that's 'fueling gun crime' in Britain.

The rain! The rain!

The England Project could not really call itself English without some discussion of the weather of which we have had quite a bit recently.

Last weekend it drizzled for two days solid, without let up as far as I could tell. It was a sign of things to come and yesterday we were not let down as the heavens opened up dumping all the cats and dogs it could muster onto us with a few other assorted mammals thrown in for good measure.

The journey home from work was a difficult one, which culminated in a near stall as I drove my car at speed through a rather deep and well hidden (read right in front of my eyes) puddle. “Not as bad as the Great Storm of October 1987” I thought as I hit the revs, beating the stall (are Japanese cars supposed to make that squealing sound?).

Ah yes, the Great Storm of ’87. We lost a chimney in that one. It was nothing, however, compared to The Great Storm of 1703:

We know a lot about the 1703 storm because one man went out of his way to record the experiences of ordinary people across the country. That man was Daniel Defoe, later the author of Robinson Crusoe, and a fine reporter/journalist to boot. He tells how windmills across East Anglia spun so fast that friction ignited the timbers and many just burnt to the ground.

Long live the commonwealth

The commonwealth shows how things should be done:

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has not been invited to the Commonwealth summit meeting, to be held in Nigeria.

"He will not have an invitation," said Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who hosts the summit next month.

Zoom Zoom

For those interested in this kind of thing here's an animation showing the workings of the Mazda RX-8 rotary engine.

The peasants are revolting

No honestly, they are:

We're getting reports that anarchists will storm Buckingham Palace.

We're here now

We have moved off blogspot to our own host. Sorry to have done this so soon after sending out our blogspot url.

This just in

From my good lady Lynn:

Just back from costco, and despite my best intentions I have caved in and bought one "omigod I must have it" item. We are now the proud owners of one bright green snowboogie blade runner board. Big enough for two (well one adult, one child or two children but probably not two adults), with four handles and some serious street cred styling, it looks like it will fly! Memories of juddering down ....... on a kitchen tray persuaded me this was a must have.

The decisions we make

I once made a decision, many years ago, that I would keep the tickets to every concert that I ever went to. I'm not sure why I decided to do that but I'm glad that I did. I've ended up with a great reminder of my youth in the form of a framed picture containing the assembled tickets. Each one is like a little snapshot in time for me. Not happier days, just different. It's funny; almost every ticket says No overnight camping, or something similar, and yet each concert had overnight campsites organised, with paid up entry (normally only a couple of quid each) and some even provided firewood. It's like, you'd ask "Which way to the camping mate?", "Sorry, no camping here" so you'd look at them until they cracked. "It's that way sir".

Kim, like Ken, is wrong

Kim du Toit thinks that the process of male pussification is almost complete in Europe. He asks

How did we get to this?

I understand where Kim is coming from but to use such a generous pussy dipped brush with which to paint us all is just asking for a trouble (ahem).

UPDATE: Kim wants men everywhere to go back to being real men

To open doors for women, to drive fast cars, to smoke cigars after a meal, to get drunk occasionally and, in the words of Col. Jeff Cooper, one of the last of the Real Men: "to ride, shoot straight, and speak the truth."

Hey, look at that castle

I am at this moment waving at the figure that I can just make out standing in the castle ramparts. The drawbridge is up and there is a delightful smell of what could be roast beef wafting from the kitchens.

Hello, I'm searching for the Holy Grail.

Free America

Petronella Wyatt thinks that the Americans have de-politically corrected themselves. She says that the Americans think there are:

more important things in life than hectoring people about their social behaviour.

The most extreme example of this unnatural shift is hunting. As a ban on hunting with hounds steals upon us, the Americans are hunting more than ever. This has been Virginia National Hunt Week, during which packs from all over the state take part in meets on the same day. I asked one of the participants why there were no anti-hunting protesters around wearing their placards and shouting the familiar abuse. He looked at me as if I had asked why there was not a herd of elephant nearby. ‘We don’t have any of those,’ he remarked. ‘No one ever disrupts a meet.’ Indeed, a group of jolly-looking cameramen were filming the hunt for a television station and, untypically for media types, were shouting out pleasantries as we rode past.

Americans have become obsessed with the need to protect themselves. You can walk into a shop here — merely produce ID and proof of residence — and walk off with a shotgun. I nearly walked off with a mother-of-pearl-handled pistol — purely for aesthetic purposes — then remembered that there might be a tad of trouble getting it through customs.

An iconic cycle

What has one small wheel, one big wheel, three gears and a bucket full of freaking attitude?

The Raleigh Chopper.

Some would have added tassels to the handlebars and others playing cards clipped to the wheels so that they would make clattering noises as the wheel turned. These kids knew that their bike was more than just a way of getting around. They were hard to ride, a little dangerous (doing a wheely on a chopper was a fine balance between cool points and injury) but the best looking bike on the streets.

So what can we say about the chopper today? What comparisons can we make between the youth of yesteryear and their choice of bike and the youth of today? What insight can we gain from the affect this bike had during its heyday?

None.

The only thing we can say for sure is that this version is worth about £450 quid and I’ve got my old one sitting in my garage. Ha!

The text files

If you're interested in the early days of the Internet and keen on its history you may find The Text Files interesting. They are a collection of text files from early BBS systems put together and maintained by Jason Scott who is keen to preserve the history that the files contain:

But I was there, and I played my part. There were things I saw firsthand and rumors I heard whispered on illegal telephone conferences late in the night, and there were a lot of words I read and a lot of places I traveled. I communicated with people who thought it was all a ridiculous joke, and others who thought they were refashioning the world, online, one message at a time. It would be foolish and, more importantly, a lie to say I saw and witnessed it all; I only saw a small part of everything that went on. But I think a lot of what I saw indicated what was happening all over the country, and later the world, and I want to share it with you.

Something wicked this way comes

Halloween is an odd occasion. As a child we are the enemy, banging on strangers doors and rousing them from their films, dinners, massively multiplayer online roll playing games and the like. Into our adult years we are the oppressed, fearing eggy reprisals and annoying interruptions to our evening routine. As a parent, we actively recruit our children into the enemy ranks, paying for their uniforms, advising on tactics and, more likely than not, providing logistical support.

But is it frightening?

Diamond Geezer suggests that we adults are far more frightened about the whole thing than any of the children are.

I suspect he is right.