Street Life

Mail :

A club promoter threw himself under a train on the London Underground after missing out on a chance to appear on Big Brother, an inquest heard today.

Allister Logue, 55, made it to the final 80 hopefuls in contention for a place on Channel 4's 11th and final series of the reality show but was not picked as one of the 14 housemates.

And just a month after he appeared as on the launch show of Big Brother on June 9, Mr Logue leapt to his death beneath the wheels of an oncoming Northern line train at Charing Cross underground station.

He had worked as a hair and make-up artists alongside renowned photograher David Bailey in the 1970s and later moved to Ibiza where he became well known as a club promoter and DJ.

Balearics: Allister Logue was a renowned club promoter in Ibiza

But he had returned to the UK from the Balearics last year and moved to the Lancashire village of Crawshawbooth, where was described as 'down on his luck'.

An inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court heard that on the before his death on July 24, Mr Logue had stayed at a Salvation Army hostel in Trafalgar Square.

The following morning at around 8.45am he hurled himself into the path of a tube train at Charing Cross.

It seems - and is - a long time ago that Laban was out clubbing five or six nights a week. This song struck me then, as now.

"Street life - but you'd better not get old,
Street life - or you're gonna feel the cold"

"This Irish Miracle"

Written in 2006, quoted by Joseph Cotterill (his added links and emboldening, too) at FT Alphaville :

Ireland is no longer on the edge of Europe but is instead an Atlantic bridge. High-tech companies such as Intel, Oracle and Apple have chosen to base their European operations there. I will be asking Google executives today why they set up in Dublin, not London… What has caused this Irish miracle, and how can we in Britain emulate it?

… in a world where cheap, rapid communication means that investment decisions are made on a global basis, capital will go wherever investment is most attractive. Ireland’s business tax rates are only 12.5 per cent, while Britain’s are becoming among the highest in the developed world.

World-class education, high rates of innovation and an attractive climate for investment: these are all elements that have helped to raise productivity in Ireland. It is not the only advanced economy to have achieved this uplift. Last week in Washington the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, told me about the impact that the sustained increase in productivity growth had made in generating prosperity in the US…

The new global economy poses real long-term challenges to Britain, but also real opportunities for us to prosper and succeed. In Ireland they understand this. They have freed their markets, developed the skills of their workforce, encouraged enterprise and innovation and created a dynamic economy. They have much to teach us, if only we are willing to learn.

Good job we're slow learners, or we might be in even worse economic shape, were that possible.

But what manner of man can this be, who hails the tremendous prosperity of the US and Irish economies, and obviously cannot see a cloud in the economic sky? Surely, while a talented polemicist, he should be kept well away from any influence over actual decision-making?

Er... oh. Oh dear, oh dear. Most unfortunate.



UPDATE - to be fair, the SNP's Alex Salmond, currently heading up the Provisional Government of Scotland, went one better, lauding the economies of both Iceland(c) and Ireland(r) as the template for a future independent Scottish economy. Had he got his way, it might have been the shortest independence ever and the greatest disaster for the Scottish economy since the Darien scheme - which led directly to union with England.

Big Meteor Last Night

About ten past midnight, east to west - big enough to light up the clouds. I was taking the dog for his bedtime 'ablutions'.

Apparently there are quite a few about. Meteors, not dogs.

Galloway To Stand In Oldham East Re-Run ?

The battle for the Muslim vote at the re-run election in Oldham (see my post here) is really going to be interesting, if this comment, on the story of the EDL disrupting a meeting in Oldham's Pakistani Community Centre (the English Community Centre being unavailable) is correct :

Five thugs attempted to attack a Respect open planning meeting in Oldham. They were completely repulsed, immobilized and Greater Manchester Police were alerted and moved in to arrest. None of those in the meeting were hurt.

The meeting was led by George Galloway and Yvonne Ridley. It was called to consider an electoral challenge in the forthcoming Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election. The consensus of the meeting was that a challenge will be necessary.

By Chris C @ 15/11/2010 20:23:51

Hmm. Never a dull moment, is there ?

Those Student Fee Increases

this blog, last week - against the student tuition fee increases :

"the Gove option will mean that a lot of bright working or lower-middle class kids will look at a potential £60,000 debt and they won't bother - unless they're at Oxbridge or doing a course with a pretty much guaranteed career at the end of it. Outside this small subset of courses, university will be restricted to those whose parents can subsidise them - i.e. the very rich.

That's not all bad - I can see cultural studies departments being disbanded across England and Wales. Economic forces will cut away swathes of courses and institutions, correcting the insane growth of the last 25 years.

But at that kind of cost the idea of education as a good in itself will wither away. Who's going to do archaeology without a private income ?"

I'm pleased to say that Goldsmiths Cultural Studies lecturer - now professor - John Hutnyk has got together with some likeminded souls, and very kindly put together a suggested hitlist of disciplines (and indeed, individuals) for the chop.


As he rightly points out, "Browne’s plans will drive whole fields of knowledge into decline" - such fields of knowledge as :

Race and Cultural Studies

Critical Theory and Philosophical Aesthetics

Contemporary Literature and Culture

Cultural History

Women’s Studies

English and Cultural Studies

Media Arts

Women’s and Gender History

Visual Cultures

Memory Studies ( I forget what that is - LT)

I guess every cloud has a silver lining ...

I(c)reland

How they got there - good piece at WSJ. The banks, the regulators and the big accountants don't come out well.

Mr. Bacon suggested the government buy loans from the banks at discounted prices, effectively handing them cash and easing doubts about their viability. By insisting on steep discounts, Ireland would be less likely to lose money on the purchases. On the flip side, bargain prices would trigger losses at the banks—which the government would probably have to patch with more capital. The taxpayer would foot the bill either way, but at least Ireland would understand how big it was.

The approach "has the merit of certainty and clarity," Mr. Bacon argued. But, he added, it would only work if "the projection of the extent of impairment is accurate in the first place."

It wasn't.

It seems that the Irish government were given incorrect information, not once but several times, on the extent of the financial damage - on the basis of which they guaranteed the banks and most of their debt.

A correspondent writes :

The British magazine Punch used to depict Irish people as thick-browed, ape-like, half-humans, concerned only about one dimensional matters like eating and drinking. We railed against the racist stereotype. We were wrong. We are, after all, a shamelessly base people that clearly cannot sit at the same table as the more civilised peoples of Europe.

Does anyone ever wonder if the endless process of ethnic cleansing we call emigration, might have had a devastating affect on our gene pool, in a form of natural selection? Have we exported the good genes, and retained the genes for selfishness and stupidity?

A view from the ground - an Irish farmer fills in the politics for the Englishman :

Meanwhile, we have a government with a majority of 2. This arithmetic depends on the green party, who don't have a lot to contribute in the way of sound financial management (!) and 2 independents. One of these independents has told the Government that he will only support the budget (December 7th) if it includes MORE money for Kerry, while overall it must cut total public spending by more than 10%. There's a by-election next thursday, which the government will lose. They know this, which is why they delayed holding it for 17 months and were eventually forced to by a legal action brought to the courts by that well known champion of democracy, Sinn Fein. There are 3 more by-elections which are also long overdue for the same reason, and despite the judgement about the first one, the government is using the delays inherent in the court process to delay holding these three till after the budget. The boss, Brian Cowen, has an opinion poll rating of just 11% and a track record as finance minister 2002-2007.

The excellent Kevin Myers doesn't think much of the new Lansdowne Road either :

The combined resources of the GAA, the FAI and the IRFU could have created a 100,000-seater super-stadium. But instead, the lords of IRFU settled for an almost studio-sized ground at their old haunt on Lansdowne Road: with not the 83,000 spectators at the present Croke Park -- which was filled for every home international including Italy -- and certainly not the 100,000 of some future all-code Croke Park, but with just 50,000.

Which other sporting organisation in the entire world has built a stadium that is known to be 30,000 seats below market demand?

There were as it turns out nearly 20,000 empty seats in Cardiff a week ago, not as I guessed 10,000 - and not many more on Saturday, either. Lansdowne Road had 15,000 empty seats.

A/c/t Kevin Myers, the President of the IRFU earns 400,000 Euros a year - which maybe why they think 430 euros (about £320) is a reasonable price for four rugby matches.

That Oldham Election

The approved narrative of the Phil Woolas brouhaha in Oldham East is :

a) the Lib Dems were gaining on him, leveraging their anti-war credentials to attract Muslim voters

b) Woolas' team saw this, realised they were losing Muslim votes and that it could be touch and go

c) Desperate times, desperate measures - a decision was taken to try and up the turnout among the despised white working class

d) method - leaflets (probably wrongly) associating the Lib Dems with the sort of extremists who call for beheadings, (rightly) pointing out the Lib Dem support for an immigration amnesty (Tory leaflets also mentioned this), and calling on voters to 'Stand By Phil'

















Although what probably did for Woolas in the court case was an allegation that the Lib Dims were taking Saudi gold, it was the attempts to 'get the white vote angry' that led white lefties to choke on their lattes.

I assumed that narrative was pretty much OK, until I looked at the actual results :

General Election 2010: Oldham East and Saddleworth[9]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Phil Woolas	14,186	31.9	−10.7
	Liberal Democrat	Elwyn Watkins	14,083	31.6	−0.5
	Conservative	Kashif Ali	11,773	26.4	+8.7
	BNP	Alwyn Stott	2,546	5.7	+0.8
	UKIP	David Bentley	1,720	3.9	+1.8
	Christian	Gulzar Nazir	212	0.5	N/A
Majority			103	0.2	−10.2
Turnout			44,520	61.2	+4.4

Hang on - the resurgent Lib Dems actually lost vote share compared to 2005!

I hadn’t realised that the big difference in Oldham 2010 was the drop in the Labour vote, not an increase in the Lib Dem vote. Lib Dems lost just a couple of hundred votes compared to 2005 (despite an increase in turnout from 57.3% to 61.2%), Labour lost about 3,800.

The Tory vote went up by 3,000 – presumably 3,000 ex-Labour voters. The Tory increase is all the more impressive given that UKIP increased their vote by 900-odd – presumably patriotic ex-Tories. The BNP added 400 votes - probably mostly ex-Labour, too.

The swing to the Tories of 8.2% was more than twice the national average of 3.8%.

So what did 2010 Tory candidate Kashif Ali (11,773 votes, 26.4%) have that 2005 Tory candidate Keith Chapman (7,901 votes, 18.2%) didn’t have ?

Could it be that the formerly Labour Muslim votes were never heading to the Lib Dems, but, on grounds of "friendship, family ties or tribalism" (as the anti-Woolas Muslim Public Affairs Committee put it) to their Tory co-religionist ?

UPDATE - apparently Mr Kashif was parachuted in by CCO against the local party's wishes :

Traditionalists have been angered by Mr Cameron’s plans to take control of shortlists to impose women and ethnic minority candidates to boost their numbers in Parliament. Constituency party chair Mrs Barbara Jackson, an active member for 30 years, claimed two candidates were removed from the selection list at the last minute and others weren’t allowed to stand.

She claimed Mr Ali had threatened management that he would recruit family as members to take over the association if he was not selected.

Mrs Jackson said she had been labelled racist for complaining, but added: “They paint it as a race issue but it’s nothing to do with race. I won’t give in to bullying tactics from anyone no matter what the race, colour or sex. I’m still a Conservative but I’m very disappointed with the party. “The way they have done it is just wrong because the electorate deserve a choice. They have decided who our candidate is and that’s it, full stop. The constituency should be guiding the candidates, not the other way round. Very able people in our constituency have been rejected. Why they think it’s acceptable I can’t understand. It’s an exercise in ticking boxes and positive discrimination. They want women and Asians.”

Hard Times

Somebody needs to tell the Irish and Welsh Rugby Unions that there's a recession / recovery on. There must have been 10,000 empty seats at the Millennium Stadium for Australia this afternoon (£70, £65, £60, £40, £25 - no reduction for kids and all the cheap (?) ones sold) - and there's a fair bit of space at the strange-looking new Lansdowne Road aka "Insurance-company-formerly-known-as-Norwich-Union-now-with-bland-and-meaningless-name Stadium", where the IRU hiked ticket prices by 21%, then added insult to injury by only selling the tickets in packages of four - one for each of the autumn internationals - at 430 euros i.e. over £320.

After an outcry they agreed to sell them in packages of two, but still at the same overall price. Result - no sell out against the world champions in a 50,000 seater stadium, when Ireland regularly sold out 82,000 Croke Park.

Most odd-looking stadium. One stand (North, replacing the old open terrace?) seems to be almost entirely executive boxes - like the west stand at Gloucester. I bet the atmosphere there is terrific. Capacity at 50,000 is only 2,000 more than the old Lansdowne Road, although it's now all-seater. But as with Wembley, what's the point of spending all that dosh for something that's no bigger ?

The WRU have got many things wrong over the years. One massive thing they got right was paying 'only' £120m to increase capacity from 53,000 to 73,000 all-seated, plus snazzy sliding roof - one of the great stadia of Europe. I love the way you can arrive at Cardiff Central station and it's right there in front of you, at the heart of town - the historic Castle directly to the North and only "Chip Alley" between the ground and the shopping. Cardiff on a rugby Saturday is a great family day out - Techniquest for young kids in the morning, a quick look at the Castle, the game and an excellent shopping centre for those who don't like rugby.

I don't know what the ratio is these days between the gate receipts and the TV rights, but the Welsh and Irish unions need to make sure the grounds are full for big games - and if that means reducing prices, so be it. You're selling an image - a premium event - as well as a game when you sell to TV - and if the fans don't appear to want to see it live, why should the viewer ?

It's wrong that Wales only have junior tickets available for the less popular games. Those are your future adult followers. But in any event, people will be less likely to fork out £200-odd for an afternoon's family rugby for the next few years. Like everyone else, the Rugby Unions are going to have to 'drink water and walk slowly'.


* Note - none of the above applies to Twickenham, where the return of hefty City bonuses will doubtless ensure full car-parks come February.

It Takes A Very Clever Man To Be This Foolish

I blogged Mr Gove's Big Society example back in May, the Heroes of Balsall Heath, and wondered if the poor judgement shown then belonged to him or his advisers.

Now he's come out with a cunning plan to raise tuition fees to £9,000 a year and saddle graduates with anything up to £60K of debt for a three year course.

At Conservative Home, commenter Peter Lloyd has wise words :

I'm really disappointed that the Conservatives, especially Michael Gove have not given a proper context for the mess the government have inherited on this, and defended the Conservative principles which should underlie their long term policy.
In my view the story is roughly this:

1. The crisis has sprung out of the Labour target of 50% of school leavers going to university and the resultant big increase in the number of places and of universities, a lot of which were specialist colleges, not universities at all.

2. This led to a lowering of standards and by default a false promise to many students that their degrees would be as valuable as degees had been before. This is has been repeatedly shown up by employers telling us about the poor quality of graduates

3. Another result is constant interference in university admission policy, forcing universities not to choose by ability, something which has the potential to destabilise the whole system of excellence which is what universities are really there to pursue. There is now no level playing field for students and that is really unfair on them.

4. We would not have had these high fees (which the Conservatives should be dead against in principle) if universities hadn’t sprung up like weeds and ended up costing a fortune. Labour’s social engineering project was never costed properly

5. We have a situation where a lot of students at university shouldn't be there at all. Universities are there to develop intellect and show the importance of all the different academic subjects as contributors to society. Learning is brilliant in its own right and doesn't need any other justification. They are not and should not be seen as giving a simple passport to employment. It's something neither they, nor the government, can guarantee in any case.

6. The best way forward is admit what universities are for, turn a lot back to high standard technical colleges supported by industry and designed to help get their students into specific jobs, and leave the top academic universities to raise standards and just take the best in order for Britain to compete effectively in the world at that level.

7. The government should vigorously pursue adoption and improvements in the much talke about apprenticeship schemes (see letters to the FT today for example.) More kids will see the benefit of getting into employment by other routes

8. In the short term, and because of this mess we are currently in, universities should have additional tests for borderline applicants so they can see the potential of students who could do well at university but who have been to rubbish schools, then balance those test results against their A level results. This is far better than pursuing the social engineering agenda of getting unsuitable kids into university and spinning them nonsense stories about their future prospects.

9. But most important of all the Conservatives have got to say that university students are not better than others and that the route to being a successful citizen of Britain does not depend on going to a university. Lots don't but are equally important members of society with lots of ability and a good chance of doing well at work. Let's change this culture.

9. If we can do this we should be able to get rid of university fees in the end and the burden they are placing on our young people. The public is not unhappy about government paying for universities

Maybe I flatter myself, but I think that's not too far away from my analysis of last week.

Labour go somewhat insane, proclaiming that 50% of school leavers should be at uni – i.e. anyone over average intelligence. Every teacher training college in the land becomes a university (no longer a live-at-home student body), and the school leaving age is raised to 18. Ironically, the main beneficiaries are the middle classes, who can now get their more average children through Uni. You find former Polytechnics which are now much more middle class than a university was 25 years previously.

As above, the financial strain of this idiotic ‘all must have degrees’ policy finally catches up. They HAVE to introduce loans and tuition fees, otherwise the 50% non-uni candidates are subsidising the top 50%.

So far, so bad. But Gove's decision to up fees to (potentially) £9K, creating a debt of about £20K pa for a student paying £5K for accommodation and £6K for living, threatens IMHO to reverse the Labour lunacy and reduce the numbers of students (and courses) somewhere back to around the late-70s figure.

Threatens ? Wasn't that what you were arguing for ?

There's no doubt that fewer people should be going to university. There's little doubt that we're producing too many sociology, politics and psychology grads, and too few physicists and engineers (and half of the top science grads end up in the City - but that's another story).

But the Gove option will mean that a lot of bright working or lower-middle class kids will look at a potential £60,000 debt and they won't bother - unless they're at Oxbridge or doing a course with a pretty much guaranteed career at the end of it. Outside this small subset of courses, university will be restricted to those whose parents can subsidise them - i.e. the very rich.

That's not all bad - I can see cultural studies departments being disbanded across England and Wales. Economic forces will cut away swathes of courses and institutions, correcting the insane growth of the last 25 years.

But at that kind of cost the idea of education as a good in itself will wither away. Who's going to do archaeology without a private income ?

Couldn't we just go back to the situation of twenty-plus years back, where the top 5% go to uni, with full grants for those with non-wealthy parents ?

Another potential issue - a £60,000 debt to be repaid from UK earnings provides an enormous incentive to minimise UK earnings. The most efficient way to do this will be to emigrate.

Result - a double hit as the fees remain unpaid and the tax revenue from our grad goes to Australia or Canada. Enough graduates are leaving as it is - and by definition they won't be the duffers, given the points systems used in more sensible countries.

"There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the researchers. More than three quarters of these professionals have settled abroad for more than 10 years, according to the study by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). No other nation is losing so many qualified people, it points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate. Britain's exodus is far higher than any of the OECD's other 29 members. Germany has lost only 860,000 highly-skilled workers, America 410,000 and France 370,000. The OECD found that 27.3 per cent of those emigrating had health or education qualifications, 37.7 per cent had humanities or social science degrees and 28.5 per cent were scientists or engineers."

Mr Gove's response to all this ?

Mr Gove played down the research suggesting that higher fees would put off applicants.

"I believe that it won't have that effect. I believe that people will make a rational decision on the benefits that accrue to them as a result of taking a university degree," he said.

They certainly will, Mr Gove. That's exactly what I'm worried about.

Hmm...

From transcripts of the police interviews with Roshonara Choudhry, the young East London Bangladeshi Muslim who stabbed her local MP, Stephen Timms. Don't ask me how the Guardian got the transcript - I assume the police accidentally-on-purpose released it on Government advice.

DC Hussain Sorry, just before we finish, I've just a couple of questions that I've got to ask you. When did this interest of yours for Islam develop?

A I've always been quite religious and I started to listen to Anwar al-Awlaki lectures last year and then I started to get really into it and I listened to everything that … like all of his recorded lectures that he made and that would have been like since November. I've been listening to him since November.

Hussain How did you get introduced to Anwar al-Awlaki?

A He's quite famous and I've started to listen to his stuff.

Hussain How did you come across him?

A On the internet.

Hussain Was that from your own research or did someone recommend him?

A From my own research but everybody listens to him and likes him anyway (my italics - LT).

UPDATE - remember how mass immigration is designed to help get the jobs done that the natives don't want to do, to pay the taxes that will keep paying our old age pensions and to, as Dave Osler says "keep this country going or it folds"?

There's just a small aside in this Andrew Gilligan post about Tower Hamlets :

"Tower Hamlets is Britain’s poorest borough, with less than half its residents in work and an average income of £13,000 per head."

Now to be fair, there's no ethnic breakdown of these stats. A/c/t Wiki, Tower Hamlets was 43% native in 2001, and while it may now be 36% Muslim, it may be all those natives who are sat at home watching Celebrity Shopathon. But even assuming the lazy natives to be sat on their nethers while all the Bangladeshi Muslims are busy bees, if that £13,000 is an average for those in work, then they'll almost certainly be net tax recipients, not tax contributors. I don't see how this is going to "keep this country going or it folds" - indeed, it's likely to accelerate the folding process from a fiscal perspective.

More Blood Pressure Pills, Nurse

Swearblogger Mr Eugenides suspended blogging the other day, giving the following reasons :

After a bit of soul-searching, I've decided to discontinue the blog.

Partly this is due to busy-ness in the real world, but that's only half the story. The other half is a noticeable dropping off in my levels of rage since the prime raison d'etre for that fury were ejected from office in May. I share the scepticism of some readers towards many aspects of the new government's platform, and worry that their reforms will be too timid, their policies wrong-headed, their instincts far from libertarian...

But what I don't have now is that same hate.

Well, Mr E, you can't say the government aren't trying to help :

Prisoners will be given the vote in general elections for the first time in 140 years after David Cameron conceded there was nothing he could do to halt a European court ruling demanding the change, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. On Wednesday a representative for the Coalition will tell the Court of Appeal that the law will be changed following legal advice that the taxpayer could have to pay tens of millions of pounds in compensation. The decision, which brings to an end six years of government attempts to avoid the issue, opens the possibility that even those facing life sentences for very serious crimes could in future shape Britain’s elections.

I don't know what makes me more cross - the way in which the EU spits in the eye of British democracy - no party in the UK could ever win a majority on such a platform - or the fact that Cameron's administration is caving in to them, then whining about how it's not their fault, a big boy made them do it etc.

“This is the last thing we wanted to do, but we have looked at this from every conceivable angle and had lawyers poring over the issue,” a senior government source said.“But there is no way out and if we continued to delay then it could start costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions in litigation.”

Well there is a way out - leave. Is there any point in voting at all as long as we are in the EU, if such a fundamental of our system is under the control of unelected judges - not only that but judges from countries with long histories of dictatorship, civil war and genocide?

At a time of unprecedented financial stringency, we've just handed over an extra 2.9% to the EU budget, in exchange for giving axe murderers the vote. Do we want a whingeing Prime Minister who demonstrably lacks that most important attribute - the ability to govern and to lead?


UPDATE - "British combat troops to come under French command"

Cultural Sensitivity At Its Best

Roshonara Choudhary by Julia Quenzler (after Edvard Munch)

Mr Timms said he was running slightly late when he arrived at the Beckton Globe community centre for his regular Friday surgery. Choudhry, who was dressed in black, had made an appointment for 2.45pm, specifically to see him rather than an assistant, and was the second person he saw that day, just after 3pm.

The MP said: "She didn't go and sit down as she continued to come towards me where I was standing to greet her at that point. I thought she must have been coming to shake my hand. She made as if she was coming to do that. She looked friendly. She was smiling, if I remember rightly. I was a little puzzled because a Muslim woman dressed in that way wouldn't normally be willing to shake a man's hand, still less to take the initiative to do so, but that is what she was doing."

A male non-family member, and a kuffr at that - and she wants to clasp his hand? Mr Timms is attuned to his constituents.

"She lunged at me with her right hand."

Mr Timms pointed at his stomach to show the jury where the knife had gone in.

The Mail takes up the story :

The Old Bailey heard how the young Muslim woman had plotted for weeks to kill her local MP, buying two knives in case one 'broke' when she enacted her 'punishment' for him voting in Parliament to invade Iraq in March 2003. After the attack, she coolly told police: "I just pushed it in like how it is if you punch someone. I was trying to kill him because he wanted to invade Iraq. I was not going to stop (stabbing him) until someone made me. I wanted to kill him. I was hoping to get revenge for the people in Iraq."

"Ihre Papiere bitte, Mein Herr"

I thought we fought a World War for the right not to have to carry ID around? Does someone need to tell the Dutch who won?

"The Britons were among 34 people arrested during the day, Amsterdam Police spokesman Rob van der Veen said. It is understood the five were held for not producing identification while on their way to the demonstration."

The Belfast Telegraph report implies the arrested Brits were EDL members. This Sky News report reckons they were left counter-demonstrators.

Five Britons were among 34 people arrested by Dutch police as they headed to confront far-right activists showing their support for controversial politician Geert Wilders... The five Britons arrested were among 18 people picked up for failing to carry proper identification. They were fined £60 and freed, police spokesman Rob van der Veen said.

Whether they be right or left, staunch patriots or fascist thugs, noble idealists or snivelling Guardianistas, it seems remarkable that supposedly liberal Holland requires them to carry papers at all times or risk arrest. Is it like that all over the blasted Continent of Rape Victims?

Well Colour Me Cynical ...

... if I suggest that in (inshallah) twenty or thirty years from now, when I'm likely to need them, proposed Government 'care credits' are likely to be as much use to me as the assorted Woolworths, Index and Thresher gift vouchers somewhere in my desk drawer.

In Japan, the system, called Hureai Kippu, was established in 1991 and has been expanding ever since as a way of helping to manage the country's rapidly ageing population. Literally translated as "Caring Relationship Tickets", it allows a volunteer to "bank" the hours they spend helping an elderly or disabled person in their personal Time Account. Different values apply to different kinds of tasks. For instance, more credit is given for helping at anti-social hours or with personal body care. Household chores and shopping command less.

These healthcare credits are guaranteed to be available to the volunteers themselves later in life, or to someone else in need, within or outside their family. The local and national government has even set up a nationwide electronic clearing network, so that a person can provide help in Tokyo, while their time credits are available to their parents anywhere else in the country.

The clue as to why they'll be useless lies in the phrase 'in Japan'. The UK is not Japan. I think they're a great idea - if they'll be honoured. But just as liberalising drinking hours produced more drunk people, but didn't produce a Continental cafe culture, mechanisms for expressing intergenerational solidarity are likely to be more effective in Japan than here. The UK's post-war history is one long tale of ripping off the frugal, the virtuous, the far-sighted, and supporting the spendthrift, the antisocial, those who take no heed for the morrow - pretty much the exact opposite of the previous two hundred years. The chances of a few hundred 'care hours'* clocked up in the next ten years entitling one to corresponding hours in the year 2035 are minimal, unless some kind of cultural revolution occurs.

Now it could of course be that said cultural revolution has arrived, in the shape of George Osborne and his outrageous plans to reduce Housing Benefit to a maximum of only £20,000 a year, a policy which it is feared will cleanse Kensington and Queen Anne's Gate of all their minimum-wage householders. The Big Society will reward the deserving, and the undeserving will be made to attend frequent interviews with outsourcing companies - or something like that, anyway. That's the theory. Do you believe ?

To paraphrase Apocalypse Now :

"Do you not approve of the Big Society ?"

"Sir, I don't see any society"




(* don't think Laban is a basically selfish chap. I spent fifteen hours one day last week, of which nine were driving, picking up an aunt (who's had a stroke) from Banbury and taking her to Gower for the afternoon to visit her sister. Don't get me started on how much diesel that was. I just can't see a 2035 government sending anyone round to do the same for me.)

Less Gregory

The smoothest reggae singer of them all, Gregory Isaacs, has died of lung cancer aged 59. Unhealthy reggae again.

As a chap I'd never seen real female fan hysteria until I saw Gregory Isaacs at Digbeth Civic Hall in the late 70s - 1979 ? Most of the bands and singers I liked attracted an older crowd. But that night you could have bottled the oestrogen - the first 25 yards of the (standing) floor was entirely female. The place was packed and heaving - condensation was dripping off the walls and ceiling, and the Hall's quite a big old place.

The backing band came on and tormented the crowd - playing tunes that would morph into the opening of some Isaacs classic - cue pandemonium, screams and a huge surge forward ... then they'd play something else which would in turn become the opening bars of another Isaacs song ... more mania from the girls ... they kept this up for about twenty minutes before finally the Cool Ruler stepped from the shadows and the girls really took off. The balcony was shuddering as the whole place danced for the next ninety minutes. Most impressive. I saw him again at the Hummingbird a couple of years later but that was more memorable for being bombarded with rocks from a pedestrian overpass (by bad white boys) as I was getting on my motorbike afterwards. Not a good time to have trouble with the kickstart.

I was never quite sure that Gregory was necessarily a nice man, despite his (mostly) peaceful and conscious lyrics. 27 arrests, cocaine addiction, a six month sentence. Yet that sort of thing has never prevented a chap being attractive to women.

IMHO his best albums were the mid-70s Extra Classic, and the early 80s Soon Forward - but's let's just appreciate the falling vocals on 'pearls' and 'girls' as Gregory plays his archetypal role on this early release - the man who may not have any money, but is rich in one thing. All he has is love.

Dream Wedding

I know it's wrong to find this funny. But we are all sinners. And when all's said and done, there's nothing like exposure to different cultures to broaden the outlook, is there ?

Asking the couple and other ‘officials’ to raise their hands as is customary for Muslim prayers, the ‘celebrant’ begins his marriage vows.

‘Fornication has been legalised according to Article six, 1.11 of the Penal Code,' he chants in a tone favoured by religious scholars. ‘That is, frequent fornication by homosexuals. Most fornication is by males,’ he continues.

‘You are swine. The children that you bear from this marriage will all be bastard swine,’ he says to his guests.

‘Your marriage is not a valid one. You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel. The other, too, is an infidel – and we have reason to believe – an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion.’

The hapless couple remain oblivious as the ‘celebrant’, surrounded by 10 to 15 employees, calls for the marriage to be enshrined in Islamic law, followed by further personal insults against the couple...

The groom, who is watering the new coconut tree which they have just planted, is totally unaware of the manner in which his wife and her breasts are being discussed by the group of Maldivian men ‘officiating’ at the renewal of their wedding vows...

In a statement the resort expressed its ‘deep concern and regret’ over the incident. Set on its own exclusive island in the Indian Ocean, the Maldive resort is a popular destination for couples intending to renew their marriage vows.

A stay at the Vilu Reef beach and Spa costs from $1335 per person and it is advertised as a place where couples can ‘celebrate and capture the special moments of your life and mark a milestone in your amazing journey together or wish to rejoice another year of life’.

UPDATE - you've got to admit the guy is a brilliant improviser - or has had a lot of practice. I can see a small sideline for Dhivehi-speakers in the 'Check Your Wedding Video To Ensure You're Not Being Insulted' market.

Asking the couple and other ‘officials’ to raise their hands as is customary for Muslim prayers, the ‘celebrant’ begins his marriage vows...


“Research has shown that men have a higher sex drive than women,” he says. “According to Article 8 to 6 of the Penal Code, converting to Islam, or circumcision, is not desirable under any circumstances.

“Germs of anger and hatred will breed and drip from the tips of your penises,” he says...

The ‘celebrant’ mixes the two letters to make the word ‘balhu’, the full version of which, as used by the ‘celebrant’, is ‘nagoo balhu’. The literal translation of the term is ‘crooked tail’, believed to refer to a pig’s tail, and is considered to be one of the worst insults in the Dhivehi language.

“You are swine according to the Constitution,” he declares, solemnly.

He then asks the couple to stand up and hold hands. The ‘officials’, too, stand up and place their hands on the couples’. They form a séance-like circle and the ‘celebrant’ begins chanting.

“Aleelaan, baleelaan…”, he begins. What he is chanting is not a verse from the Qur’an, or marriage vows in Dhivehi, but are the words of a popular Dhivehi children’s game.

Words of the game, too, are changed to say “black swine” instead of what is contained in the original.

“Before buggering a chicken, check if the hole is clean. That is because the people of the countries that you are from are familiar with the taste of the ****holes of chicken,” he chants, still with hands held over the couples’.

“Do not treat with kindness people against whom violence is being committed. Commit more violence against victims of violence. You are not people who have been sent to this world to commit violence.”

He then returns to the matter of staff salaries, which he continues to chant in the same tone as he had done the insults. “Do not complain too much about salaries, or matters regarding salaries. That is against the Penal Code. This is not something I am saying for your benefit – it is a law that we have made.”

He begins to chant loudly about “black swine”, stringing insult after insult and delivering it in the same rather ominous tone that Maldivian religious figures choose to deliver their sermons in.

“You fornicate and make a lot of children. You drink and you eat pork. Most of the children that you have are marked with spots and blemishes… these children that you have are bastards,” he continues solemnly.

Someone else is heard at this point to tell the ‘celebrant’ to “say a little bit more, and then quit.”

The concluding chant is delivered in a gentler, softer voice: “Keep fornicating frequently, and keep spreading hatred among people. The children you will have from this marriage will all be bastard swine.”

UPDATE2 : the comments on the story. A lot are critical of the resort's owner (including his allegedly innovative love life), and more than a few suggest that such 'ceremonies' are not uncommon :

xxxxxx on Wed, 27th Oct 2010 12:02 AM

Pause the video at 4:50 and you can see that the owner of Vilu Reef Mr Sun Travel Ahmed Siyam Mohamed MP is in the video, personally witnessing this rip off of unsuspecting clients.

xxxxxx on Wed, 27th Oct 2010 12:16 AM

Pause the video at 4:47 and play it till 4:52. You can clearly see the owner Mr. Sun Travel Siyam personally witnessing this callous rip off.


maldivesresortworkers on Wed, 27th Oct 2010 1:32 PM

For God’s sake what’s wrong with so many ppl who rant as if Armageddon has arrived? It has not happened and nor has Vilu Reef paid us (maldivesresortworkers) to buy our loyalty. The fact of the matter is that these weddings are not new things in resorts. Nor are these make-me-feel-good marriage valid for purposes like inheritance or are legally binding. Nor are these religious ceremonies or civil ceremonies or any such sanctified rituals. These are just parts of the entertainment process in resorts. Even when guest do not renew their vows again in the resorts, many guests bring wedding gowns to take pictures of themselves in those dresses. This is not a new thing for tourism.

Nor is smiling broadly at guests and uttering gibberish a new phenomenon. Guests and staff indulge in fun like this every day. What counts is the service, the sincerity and the friendliness of the staff to the guests. Good guest service is not about being cold, unapproachable, reverent, officious and snobbish. Guests would much appreciate staff who would make fun and make their stay enjoyable than those who stand in awe and revered stance like zombies and are political correct.

Throughout this marriage in question, the staff were able to keep their cool which is an achievement. Not everybody can say all those ‘things’ while smiling at the guest and suppressing the urge to burst out laughing. Even if the couple secretly were aware of a smattering of dhivehi they would have burst out laughing and would not forget their fun moment in Maldives.
The problem with the majority of us is we do not see the positive side of this.

I must say this doesn't seem very positive for the Maldives tourist industry. While I appreciate the information, I can see that the (presumably Maldivian) site hosting the story may well, and not unreasonably, come under pressure to remove it.

Doomed ?

If you really want to be depressed about the state of the nation, and need an illustration of the total triumph of the 60s agenda, don't go to the Guardian. After all, you expect Guardianistas at the Guardian.

No, the Daily Mail's the place where you see the cultural damage in full effect. Remember that these are about the nearest thing to 'the good guys' that we've got in the UK, once you get beyond a select few. Your average Mail commenter hasn't had them removed like his Guardian counterpart - but totally accepts the idea that "what's good for me now" is pretty much the only criterion to live by. For example, the paper's readers are pro-euthanasia and anti-religion - the latter subject you can argue about, but on euthanasia can't Mail readers put two and two together?

Here's a childless (by choice) Sharon Parsons (editor of Top Sante, whate'er that may be - nay, I lie, she's just been replaced), telling us 'I don't need a child to be happy'.

"...it seems to me that those with a family often have more tangible stages punctuating their lives: there's the day they become parents; later, they may become grandparents; and inbetween there are all the defining events that will be remembered and celebrated, such as the one my friend was enjoying so much, the marriage of her child.

Perhaps, in a few years, she will also see the birth of her first grandchild and another chapter of that particular family's life will begin as their lineage continues onward into the future. It's something people like me will never know.

And that - for me, at least - is a jolting part of being childless. However pretentious it may sound, there's the startling fact that my husband and I have severed the thread in our personal ancestry (unless, of course, he should decide to run off with a fertile 20-something).

Despite our respective nephews and nieces taking up the family baton, he and I know that we are not passing anything of ourselves on to future generations.

After an infinite genealogical timeline - impossible to imagine - we have drawn the mark in the sand. Enough. No more. Our bloodline stops here."

Hmm. Very Lionel Shriver. What's impressive are the best-rated and worst-rated comments.

"There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with a woman choosing not to have children." +784

"It had nothing to do with my career, finding a partner, wanting to do things before having children. I just didn't want them." +572

"Children are supposed to look after you when you're old - if you bring them up well." -678

"I have 4 children aged from 16yrs - 10 months. I have an unconditional love for them and they fill my life with happiness. I am blessed. I will reach the age of 50 and be surrounded in love.." -373 (I've reached the age of 50 and am surrounded by bickering - takes all sorts - LT).

"Now with the spending cuts and more old single people ending up in hospital, who is going to make sure they eat the bad food they are given. The nurses don't have time or care to be frank. What I am saying is, when you women who have chosen not to have children are old, infirm and in hospital, whose gonna look after you? Forget the government they are not going to help. Bet by then you'll be wishing you had children to care for you." -367

Once again, these people seem incapable of reading the news and putting two and two together. While you can never be sure that you won't end up feeling like King Lear did about his kids, I think it's reasonable to expect a modicum of care from those you cared for when they were helpless. No matter how good the health system may be (and how good will it be when the elderly boomers are fracturing care budgets right and left ? Some council care staff will almost certainly be cut this year - what will it be like in fifteen or twenty years?), there's nothing like familiar faces at the bedside, or popping in at your house.

We're entering unknown territory, both energetic and demographic. The industrial revolution and our subsequent economic growth has been built on ever-cheaper energy - and it's going to get more and more expensive. Similarly 'our' population has been ever-increasing - but as I've blogged many a time and oft, that came to a halt twenty years back and the decline has only been halted then reversed by mass immigration - to the point where nearly a quarter of children in English primaries are ethnic minority.

According to this interesting Weekly Standard piece by Jonathan V Last, "no society has ever experienced prosperity in the wake of contracting population." I'd like to see some references for that - while it's common-sense, is it the prosperity driving the increasing population ? Affordable Family Formation, in fact ? And contracting population historically hasn't tended to be a matter of choice - think the Black Death or the Second World War.

It strikes me that a number of factors are coming together. Our elites are terribly keen on economic growth. We've had getting on for 200 years of exceptional growth since Trevithick, Boulton and Watt. This has been accompanied by population growth, and I doubt many people worried about whether and to what extent the two were connected. The creation of the post-war Welfare State was/is also predicated upon population growth - as 'National Insurance' is no such thing, and pensions/benefits are paid straight out of government income.

But energy supplies are getting more and more expensive, and people are having fewer babies all over the world. What does this mean for growth ? Doesn't look rosy to me.

In 1950, China had 550 million people; today it is home to 1.33 billion. According to projections from the United Nations’ Population Division, -China’s population will peak at 1.458 billion in 2030. But then it will begin shrinking. By 2050, China will be down to 1.408 billion and losing 20 million people every five years.

At the same time, the average age in China will rise dramatically. In 2005, China’s median age was 32. By 2050, it will be 45, and a quarter of the Chinese population will be over the age of 65. The government’s pension system is almost nonexistent, and One-Child has eliminated the traditional support system of the extended family—most people no longer have brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, or nephews. It is unclear what sort of havoc this atomization will wreak on their society. China will have 330 million senior citizens with no one to care for them and no way to pay for their upkeep. It is, Eberstadt observed, “a slow-motion humanitarian tragedy already underway.”

By 2050, the age structure in China will be such that there are only 1.6 workers—today the country has 5.4—to support each retiree.

This looks like trouble for China. But most of her competitors will be in worse trouble. Prosperity isn't just a question of lots of babies - or South Yemen and Burkina Faso would be economic powerhouses. California's seen mass immigration from the failed state to the south - and no one would say the Californian economy's in better shape than thirty years back. Germany and Japan will hit the demographic buffers first, while Britain and the US will IMHO find that quantity of people isn't a substitute for quality.

"Today there are 26.6 million legal immigrants living in America and roughly 11.3 million illegals. We need these workers to prop up the entitlement programs we’re no longer having enough babies to fund. "

How's that working out in the Golden State ?

One of the best predictors of fertility is education: The more educated a woman is, the fewer children she will have. The total fertility rate for American women without a high school diploma is 2.45. With each subsequent level of educational attainment, fertility falls—it drops to 1.6 for women with a graduate degree. One of the drivers of our fertility decline was the making of college de rigueur for middle-class women.

Education level is a fair proxy for intelligence in a Western democracy. The above implies that we're getting more stupid, as clever women fail to pass on their clever genes. This also doesn't bode well for economic growth.

So for all the above reasons, the rate of growth we became used to for the last two centuries seems to be in danger, if not on the way out. Which society will be the first to successfully adjust to this ? I don't see any preparation for it anywhere in the world.

Tower Hamlets to be renamed Minaret Hamlets

Lutfur Rahman becomes Mayor.

Hell Hath No Furry ?

'Twas five years back that I noticed Lib Dem MP John Hemming's unusual domestic arrangements :

Mr Hemming said his wife Christine had shown her support and was "there if Emily needs any help".

It sounds as if, not unnaturally, Mrs Hemming (allegedly) wasn't so cool after all about things :

The wife of Birmingham MP John Hemming has appeared in court accused of stealing a kitten belonging to her husband’s one-time mistress.

Christine Hemming, 52, is charged with burglary at the home of Emily Cox.

Hmm.

She has three children by Mr Hemming and is a senior partner of recruitment agency Diverse City Services.

Can't do the business any harm when your husband's a local MP and his party share power in Brum (in a Tory/LD coalition). I wonder if the City Council ever use them for recruiting?

Meet The New Boss ...

Police said that the Chinese executives opened fire on workers protesting against poor pay and conditions at the Collum coal mine in the southern Sinazongwe province of Zambia on Friday.

Eleven people were admitted to hospital with wounds to the stomachs, hands and legs, and two are understood to remain in a critical condition. A Foreign Ministry official in Beijing said that the shooting was a "mistake" ...

Xiao Li Shan, 48, and Wu Jiu Hua, 46, both supervisors at the Collum Coal Mine, appeared briefly in court yesterday charged with attempted murder and were remanded in custody.

Not quite the Ludlow Massacre, from those far-off days when the US was violent and the UK peaceful, but not nice. To be fair to the managers, when rocks were thrown at them they probably thought 'what would they do in China?' - then did it.