Debtocracy
Leave a CommentWell, having posed the question four days ago, I now discover that there is quite a movement for default. The link below is to the hottest documentary at the moment making the case for default. It was featured this morning on the Today programme which surprised me somewhat. The film discusses ‘odious debt’ and how both the United States and Ecuador used it to write off debts (the US over Iraqi debts after the invasion). The Ecaudorian odious debt was uncovered by a panel of experts who trawled through the country’s finances to find out who were the creditors and whether the transactions that had brought it about were ‘legitimate’. For example, there is an accusation that large enterprises, including Siemens in Germany, used bribes to win large contracts such as for the Athens metro. The film makers, not surprisingly, call for a similar audit to be conducted in Greece.
Test Match Cricket
Yesterday I was at the Rose Bowl for Day 3 of England v Sri Lanka. The logistics of the Rose Bowl are impressive. They have a pretty efficient park-and-ride system served by delightful first generation Leyland Olympian buses. Worth it by itself.
Polyester Fiesta
Lorraine Bowen’s celebration of 70 years of polyester, with its countless priceless exhibits of ‘fashion’ items, is a show well worth seeing. Lorraine’s unmistakable songs and quips are complemented in this show with additional support from the Hurstpierpointer Sisters and the fabulous Alistair whose unspeakable belly should not really be exposed.
Last night’s show was on the Battersea Barge, another curiousity, situated on the Thames Path in the shadows of the old Battersea Power Station. No real passing trade, but a gem of a venue for an intimate night out.
Lorraine is ‘touring’ with the show in Sussex. On 24 June the show goes to Hurstpierpoint itself. Her new album is also worth a listen. Her eulogy of Bexhill on Sea contrasts very much with her oh-so familiar experience in the queue at the Post Office. Both are comforting and reassuring in different ways. There is a darkness in her song made up exclusively from railway station announcements. We’ve all been there, too.
Details from Lorraine’s website: http://www.lorrainebowen.co.uk/Lorraine_Bowen/Home.html
Financial Crisis
It seems this morning that Greece is not only going to default on its Euro commitments, but that it is probably heading for some ugly political instability. And watched over by the helpless partner economies in Europe, most notably Germany. What is the right thing to do? Default or not default?
Cycling
- Picture from Biketrain.org
mornings and evenings. The logic is, there is safety in numbers, which is fair enough. However, at the moment there is an average of 8 riders and they occupy one lane of the two lane carriageway. This infuriates other road users. And the man behind it, has a loudspeaker system blairing out dreadful music. I presume this is to make clear to all road users that the Bike Train is there. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog?INTCMP=SRCH
18 October 2010
Cyclists always expect at some time to come off their bicycles. Particularly tricky times are autumn (leaves) and winter (ice). It is autumn now, but I came a cropper on Thursday evening last on engine oil on an internal road at the University of Sussex. I ended up in Casualty, but fortunately no broken bones (see bruises, though).
I was lucky, but it did not have to be so.It seems that the oil had laid undisturbed for 3 hours prior to my run in with it. No one responded to the knowledge when it was reported. By contrast, one cannot go into a newly-cleaned toilet without a big yellow warning sign getting in the way. Cover the carriageway in engine oil and no one acts.
22 June 2010
The summer has arrived, for sure. My daily cycle ride into the University is a delight. I need only one layer – the one that keeps me decent. In Brighton there is a rather amusing little cycle counter on the Lewes Road heading towards the town. For some reason on Thursday, the daily number of riders was halved. Not sure why. I’ll keep my eye on this.
Art
However, the pearl in this series of programmes was Andrew Graham-Dixon’s The Art of Germany (following briskly on from his earlier The Art of Spain). This is what television should be about. Informative, energetic, watchable and imaginative. Well written, presented and produced, this was a gem of a series. He’s now doing some BBC4 documentaries about individual artists, the most recent being Vermeer.Music
of her best. She tends to be plagued by bad sound. At the Wedgewood Rooms, apparently, they always get it right. I wish that there had been more people there; not a bad audience, and very intimate, but I do not know how she pays the bills. I’m helping having now bought the album on CD and Vinyl (albeit signed by the woman herself).
Neil Hannon performs “The Complete Banker” (right).The Divine Comedy’s new album “Bang goes the Knighthood” is in my collection. It is a little understated. But like all good albums, they mature with listening. Even better is seeing the artist performing the songs. This is what Neil Hannon did on 17 July at Somerset House in London. Actually he did a lot more than that. For nearly 2 hours he performed songs from across his career with his piano or guitar. The audience in a few places had to remind him of his own lyrics; but he was excused in that the songs were new and he had performed for so long that evening. The great thing about this performance was the fact that he seemed to be enjoying himeself. On the one previous occasion I have seen him (with a full band) he seemed not to be really interested and keen to leave the stage. This was symbolised by throwing beer into the audience. This time his tipple was white wine that went only into his gullet.
UK Politics
The March for the Alternative, organised by the TUC, was certainly a large Trades Union demonstration. It galvanised people – particularly in the North where the public sector cuts are going to be particularly felt – for the struggle ahead as the cuts
bite. The diversity was reassuring. People regaled about the last time they attended such a sizeable demonstration – the Iraq war demo 8 years ago. And that is perhaps key. The demonstrators were right then and they are right now.
31 October 2010
Yesterday I attended a demo in Brighton against the public sector cuts. It is a while since I have been amongst so many trades unionists. I had forgotten how angry they are; which is strange when we know how much there is to lose when one ‘loses’ it. Some of the most high profile cases in recent times have been the BBC’s Nick Robinson smashing a protester’s banner when it was provocatively placed in camera shot whilst Robinson was waxing lyrically (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rU8YU3loeQ), and Adam Boulton of Sky News losing it in debate with Alistair Cambell (with whom it is often difficult to sympathise) on post-election speculation about how to form a government (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbuXj1HyNy8). Even Caroline Lucas the Green Party’s sole MP (Brighton Pavilion) felt the need to shout at the audience who were all there to support most of the things the speakers were saying. Come on you people, the reasoned arguments are there to be made – this is not ideology, this is pure pragmatism. Leave the ideology to the Tories to hang by.
21 October 2010
That explains a lot. Picture from http://tankthetories.com/Yesterday’s comprehensive spending review delivered by George Gideon Oliver Osborne, heir to the baronetcy of Ballentaylor, was the culmination of the expected attack on British society by a wealthy man who is ideologically driven to attack the public sector under the guise of deficit reduction. The impact on myself remains to be seen. I work at at university and 40 per cent cuts are anticipated. I don’t think he is a fan of my subject areas (social science) and my university is not in the elite group. It has no Bullingdon Club or equivalent (even if I was still a student).
As for social housing, another area that I have some affinity with, the CSR is most challenging. I don’t understand the arithmetic that says increasing rents to new tenants to 80 per cent of market rents realeases sufficient funds to build 150000 new dwellings, even if that was fair.
The housing benefit rules, moreover, will cause people to become migrants. There will be considerable pressure on cheaper parts of cities such as London. This then affects service provision in these areas such as social care and education. Local authorities will have to deal with these pressures with reduced budgets. Good for the swanky parts of town, not so good for elsewhere.
If he has applied the same logic to other spending areas, we are in big trouble.
Thought for the Day – BBC
15 March 2011
It is time for me to have another gripe at the BBC’s Thought for the Day. Naturally the contributors are now turning their attention to Japan and how a benevolent God could allow the combination of earthquake and tsunami to happen (the nuclear emergency could conceiveably be put at our own door as humanity). The Catholic commentator, Catherine Pepinster (pictured, left), started the ball rolling on Saturday (12 March) with the following explanation: “For all the sudden eruptions of nature, God plays by the rules. Creation includes the thermodynamics that lead to earthquakes and tsunamis, but the same laws of chemistry and physics allow us to have brains capable of understanding those thermodynamics. There’s a consistency about the universe that means we can learn about the kind of world we inhabit in all its complexity.”Then yesterday (Tuesday) the extraordinary Professor David Wilkinson (pictured r
ight), an astrophysicist, offered the following: “Yet underneath, is the search for a coherent long-term narrative, which understands the natural world and science as both good and risky. As a Christian I find such a narrative in the conviction that this world is the creation of a good God, who risks giving freedom to human beings and the natural world. Today the people of Japan will take inspiration from their own history of rebuilding a nation in the face of devastation. For those who are inspired by a God who walks the pages of human history in Jesus to demonstrate the prioritize compassionate action towards all those in need, the challenge to stand with them is clear.”
We have waited some time for the winner to be announced of the Platitude of the Day annual award – the Web’s antidote to the nonsense that is Thought for the Day on Radio 4. Those of us who are regular contributors to the Platitude blog agreed with the Adminstrator that it should be Clifford Longley for his consistency over the preceding year. The Adminstrator last week offered a list of nominees which included Ratzinger’s effort on 24 December (despite it not being particularly platitudinous). However, Ratzinger has offered plenty of platitudes over the previous year. Not enough, it was Longley. Incidentally, the quality of contributions so far this year has been poor relative to the last quarter of 2010.Arab Spring
Care needed when picking friends
And so another war begins. I was there protesting against the UK going into Iraq in London on that cold February day. I will not be demonstrating this time. The cause is different. I wake up this morning with a heavy heart. But Gaddafi supresses and kills his own people with their own ‘defence’ forces (using weapons supplied by us). He has said that there will be no mercy. The proliferation of independent media show the often uncomfortable outcome of the regime’s brutality. These changes in the Arab world, but particularly in North Africa, are different. These are not colonial wars – an excuse for the West to occupy yet more territory. These are wars of liberation. These are wars of ‘the time has come for change’. The people of Egypt go to the polls today to vote on their own ongoing push towards democracy after their own relatively velvet revolution. Meanwhile, the inability of the people of Benghazi to protect themselves from Gaddafi’s forces threatens their own progress towards a new future of self-determination. It seems that it is relatively easy to drive out the authorities from towns and cities. We could probably do that in Brighton and Hove. However, Gramsci wrote that they will regroup and come back with force. They will show no mercy, even if it was their’s to show. There is something in this for all of us to learn. It is also time for us to get real about weaponry, who we sell them to and why we make them. And whilst I have not been in favour of secular views to be part of the ‘Thought for the Day’ slot on Radio 4, perhaps it is time for radical voices to be heard at that time in the morning rather than apologists for God’s inhumanity? (Picture: http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/gaddafi-and-friend/)
28 February 2011
Be informed 