"demand for artificial knees"

Telegraph :

"Smith & Nephew said performance was boosted by a weaker dollar and increased demand for artificial knees, an area in which the group has averted controversy over metal-on-metal technology by offering a 30-year guarantee on its products."

I haven't looked at that market for what must be 15 years, but I'm very surprised S&N can turn a profit on artificial knees, given what was the extremely low cost of a knee transplant from a primate donor.

I wonder if the animal rights campaigners have stopped the trade, because certainly in those days you could get two ape-knees for a penny.

Spanish Libido Falls

70% off condoms. Times may be hard but ... yet the seaside bars and restaurants were crowded, and if the young men dining their senoritas at harbourside tables were boiling with righteous rage, they kept it to themselves.


















"City of Langreo - City without employment". A bit harsh - there are still plenty of hefty industrial plants about. Great pipework.





















I think this is a Bayer plant, but I may be wrong.



















They're two cheeks of the same fascist backside, I tell you! Some child in Gijon thinks there's not much between the socialist PSOE and the conservative PP. In Oviedo I saw graffiti supporting the Falangists.












Enough said.

There was a lot of graffiti directed at the housing boom/bust. Lots of half-finished and abandoned developments which obviously stopped when the bottom dropped out of housing. Still a fair bit of development going on though.

Bulnes

The path is steep and stony. It's blazing hot - every 20 minutes you stop and slather on more factor 50. You've been going an hour and two-thirds of the water's been drunk.




















It's also rather dangerous. Unbeknownst to you, when you were stuffing your daughter's jacket into your rucksack, wife and child have taken 'what looked like a shortcut' - concentrating on fitting everything back into the bag, you blindly follow, not noticing that the main path goes up and to the left. You're now close to the edge of a big drop and the path seems a lot smaller than it was.

Ten minutes later ...

"I can't believe the authorities signpost this path as a suitable route. You'd never be allowed to do that in England. Do people really take small children up here ?"

Fifteen minutes later ... the path is between a foot and eighteen inches wide. We've climbed enough to make going back probably more hazardous than going on. To the right, at the edge of the path, a drop to the river several hundred feet below.

"Walk carefully - stay as close into the hill as you can. This is dangerous. They must be crazy to designate this as a route"

"I wonder if we should have gone left instead of straight on when the path split"

"WHAT !"

We had to keep going. About another half mile and maybe thirty minutes on, our tiny path zig-zagged up to join the broad main path, which we'd been following a couple of hundred feet lower down the ravine. We'd added a somewhat twitchy hour to the walk time. And I swore never again to just follow without keeping my eyes open.

Walking on, the ravine opens out - higher up you can fill your bottles with clear, cold river water.

And then you come to what seems like a mirage - an oasis for hot, sweaty walkers, a dream of paradise, a beer advert come to life.

















There's a fountain of cool drinking water, shady trees about a river, a small bridge. And about six bars and restaurants! Bulnes was presumably once a very cut-off village - but a funicular railway cut through the mountain (and free to locals) now means that all the wants of the climber or tourist can be brought up.

After a walk like ours, to sit under a sunshade and sip a chilled beer feels very good. And the descent is a great improvement on the ascent - even the heat's less, with the ravine now in shadow. Lovely place - I can see why people rave about the Picos de Europa. Will come again.

The Spanish Are Bastards, Too

El Pais :

One out of every three babies in Spain is born to unwed parents, twice as many as 10 years ago. The decline in marriages, the rise in single mothers, immigration and a more secular society have all contributed to this trend, which brings Spain more in line with the European Union average.

Not quite up there with the Welsh or Scots (or Geordies), but well on the way.

Since 1981, when the law eliminated differences between children born in and out of wedlock, the proportion of the latter has risen steadily. If it was 4.4 percent that year, by 2000 it was 17.7 percent, and in 2009 — the last year for which the statistics office holds data — that rate had grown to 34.5 percent, or 170,604 babies.

That's nothing. We abort more babies than that each year in England and Wales alone ! But I suppose the low numbers reflect the ongoing demographic disaster.

"These are astounding figures," said Constanza Tobío, a professor of sociology at Madrid's Carlos III University. "Couples have become more modern, and Spanish mothers have quickly become almost like Swedish or British mothers on that front. This change is the result of the secularization of society, of tolerance, of mothers' autonomy — they no longer need the safety of marriage to procreate — and of legal equality for children regardless of their parents' civil status."

Does "autonomy" = Daddy State, as in the UK ?

I mustn't get too apocalyptic. On the evidence of a week trying to cram in everything from the dockside quarter of Bilbao and the industrial valleys of Asturias (puzzling Susan with my requests, as I drove, for her to take photos of 'that big chemical works' or 'the graffiti on that bridge') to the touristy beaches and the mountains, Northern Spain is not only a great deal more civilised than the UK - so many people, drinking so much, so late into the evening, and so little trouble - but they still actually seem to make things there. As you drive up the AS117 through Langreo to San Martin, you could be in the Swansea Valley or Vale of Neath - in the days when the factories were still open.

And that's not to mention the greatest natural resource of Spain - rock, the quarrying and crushing of which, despite its grand scale, makes nary a dent in the stony peninsula. I presume a lot of it ends up on their excellent and spectacularly engineered roads - the steep left hand curve and drop as you approach Laredo from Bilbao is enough to give you vertigo, as you realise that beyond the barriers* the city (and beach) are several hundred feet below.




* which flash on and off, warning you NOT to go straight on and pointing you left, adding to the computer-game feel of the drive. Could have done without them.

Hola!

Laban is in Asturias - a lovely place where non-Spanish tourists are rare and they take their cider very seriously - sidrerias (cider bars) everywhere. Villaviciosa is a pretty town with some beautiful buildings, but I write this from a cafe in Lastres, a town clinging to a cliffside, with a harbour at the bottom, beaches and spectacular views.

Back next week ... alas. I could stay here longer.

Britain - Terror Spreads Following Reports of "Failed Coup"

Sud-Deutscher Zeitung, London : There are reports from London tonight of increasing repression, following what has been described in ruling circles as a 'failed coup' by Ruprecht von Murdoch and Obergruppenfuhrer Brooks, the rabble-rousing, charismatic leader of the feared "red-tops", paramilitary wing of Murdoch's 'Neues Internazionale' (NI) organisation.

Brooks' 'red-tops' muster several million fanatical working-class readers, and have increasingly been seen as a revolutionary threat to the aristocratic ruling elite, who have held power behind the scenes through different political administrations. It is believed that Brooks was shot this afternoon after her arrest yesterday, but this is not confirmed. What is known is that mass arrests continue, and that the bodies of a number of senior NI personnel have been discovered.

In an increasingly violent and hysterical speech this evening, a haggard but triumphant HochGuardianista Reichsgräfin von Toynbee, propaganda chief of the ruling elite, called for further action against enemies in the press. "Murdoch - kaput ! Brooks - tot ! Jetzt muss der Daily Mail auch kaput werden !" The whereabouts of the leader of the 'TagesPost' or Daily Mail faction, Paul Dacre, is giving increasing cause for concern - he has not been seen since he was bundled into a car by unknown assailants as he left work yesterday. The newspapers premises were cordoned off by armed police yesterday, following the replacement of the capital's Chief of Police by a nominee of the ruling party, and journalists are said to be 'too frightened' to attempt to enter their former workplace.

As reprisals become more indiscriminate, it appears that elements in the ruling faction are taking the opportunity to pay off old scores. It was reported this afternoon that the body of Margaret Thatcher, who as Premier suppressed the so-called "Scargill putsch" in 1985, has been found in woodland near Beaconsfield.

Queen Abdicates As Crisis Spreads

LONDON, July 18 - The Queen of England and the United Kingdom today announced her decision to abdicate, following the 'Millygate' phone hacking scandal which has seen a number of prominent individuals step down from their posts.

In a short statement released by the Palace today, the Queen said : "The recent revelations have saddened me more than I can say. I have always tried to do my duty by this country, but on this occasion I have fallen short of the high standards the country rightly expects. It would be wrong to hide behind the fact that I did not know - I ought to have known. It happened on my watch, and the buck stops here - at Buckingham Palace".

Earlier in the day the governing body of English cricket, the MCC, announced that they were to disband themselves - a spokesman saying that "In the current climate, when such appalling disclosures have been made, it is unthinkable that we should continue to devote ourselves to what is in the end only a game. As token of our most earnest and sincere contrition, Lords is to be demolished and the outfield sown with salt."

Curses ...

It's grey and somewhat mizzly. Not great weather for watching big boys toys. But isn't that beautiful.

Still, it's forecast to clear up later. Decisions, decisions.

What Do You Call A Trustafarian In A Suit ?

Remarkably - nay, amazingly sensible chap is Judge Nicholas Price. I'm just not used to judges wth judgement :

Gilmour, who apologised afterwards for his behaviour, had claimed he had not realised the significance of the Cenotaph - an excuse the judge scoffed at.

"For a young man of your intelligence and education and background to profess to not know what the Cenotaph represents defies belief," he said.

That's a call any reasonably educated Brit could make. Say what you like about Oxbridge, their intake are neither dim nor ignorant. But judges these days seem to be chosen for their gullibility towards the defending counsel and scepticism towards the prosecution.

Remarkable sartorial transformation the law induces. From the tracksuited scally redeemed by a Burtons suit, to the twisted firestarter turned into what looks like an actuarial student.

As the prison gates clang shut, we should draw a veil over this lamentable and amazing episode*.

Fair play to Mr Gilmour Sr. though, standing by his adopted son as a father should. If people were unloved on the grounds that they were self-centred idiots, what a cold world this would be.








* at any rate until the stories of drunken parties and hot and cold running women start emerging from whichever open prison he's in - which will be a few months yet.

Peter King - "Contemptible"

No one's less of a Rupert Murdoch fan than I, but believe it or not, there are actually worse people in the world - and when they slither out to join in the kick-fest the harsh light of publicity should be shone on them. When it comes to casting truckloads of stone on the Dirty Digger, let he who has the fewest sins chuck the first barrowful - and let he who is weighed down by sin keep his ugly, bloodstained mouth shut.

"Republican Congressman Peter King - who is chairman of the House homeland security committee and represents a constituency in New York that lost more then 150 people in the 9/11 attacks - called on Wednesday for an FBI inquiry.

"The thought that anyone would have hacked into the phones of either those who were killed, those who were missing, the family members, during that tragic time... is contemptible," he told the BBC on Thursday."

He thinks hacking into phones is bad, but blowing up Brits is cool :

"We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry," Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, "If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it."

There's loads more on Wiki - he seems to have been in up to his neck :

King did not meet Gerry Adams until 1984, four years after his dalliance with the IRA began. At this time he was friendly with Michael McKevitt, the common law partner of Bernadette Sands, sister of the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. McKevitt was at the time a senior leader of the IRA and was its Quartermaster-General, in charge of arms acquisition. McKevitt planned a massive series of arms smuggling operations of weapons provided to the IRA by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi during the mid-1980s. During this time, King would stay in their home in Co. Louth while visiting Ireland and was also very close to the IRA's former Operations Officer in Belfast, Anto Murray, who was convicted in 1990 of kidnapping a suspected British spy. As Belfast Operations Officer, Murray planned or authorised every IRA bombing, shooting and killing in the city. King would stay with Murray and his wife Lucy during visits to Belfast and after Anto Murray was imprisoned, he hosted Lucy Murray on a tour of the Capitol when she visited the United States.

Nice ...

"He stopped supporting the IRA after being offended by Irish public opposition to the invasion of Iraq"

And I'm not sure why that makes him look like an idiot, but it does.

(He's all over the BBC. They'll use any stick to beat Murdoch - even one with blood all over it.)

Another World

Who says we didn't have diversity in the UK long before the Windrush docked?

Oft have I reflected on the differences, say, twixt the Central Belt of Scotland and a Banffshire or Aberdeenshire village.

I was in Manchester in 1974 on the day Glasgow Rangers played United in a friendly. At Victoria Station, I saw a strange sight - all the United fans, as they got off the trains, took off their scarves and put them in their pockets, or zipped their jackets up to the neck to conceal their United allegiance.

This should have been posted last night really, for the 12th. A small fraction of the Rangers support make their way past (I think) the Arndale Centre in Manchester, taking the pretty route to Old Trafford for the 2008 UEFA Cup final (what a pity Tommy Ducks is no more - I think they'd have liked it). Now there are some pretty wild boys in that city - but this is something else :




Admit it, for good or ill, you don't see a sight like that every day in an English city.

The tune is the mid-70s Fields of Athenry*, the words I think are a Loyalist song called "A Father's Advice", accompanied by disparaging references to the late Bobby Sands. Great drumming. It may be an optical illusion or a piece of dust in my eye, but I could have sworn I saw someone with a "**** Catholic Schools" banner...







* composer Pete St John is also responsible for another instant classic - The Rare Old Times, perhaps the only Irish political song that isn't about the English. You really would think there'd be more, given recent events.

The End Times Are Upon Us

The Church of England faces being wiped out as a significant national force without an "urgent" campaign to recruit more believers, a report warns. In the last 40 years the number of adult churchgoers has fallen by half while the number of children regularly worshipping in public declined by 80 per cent, the study says.

The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, the Rt Rev Paul Butler, will present findings to the Church's national assembly, the General Synod, in York on Saturday. Synod members will be urged to vote for a new national drive to recruit more members.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has acknowledged that the Church must devote more energy to increasing the number of regular worshippers over the next five years.

In other news :

"Church of England report calls for affirmative action on race"

"Affirmative action" = the practice formerly known as "racial discrimination".

"The Church of England is to give the go-ahead for the appointment of openly homosexual bishops."

It's one of those strange historical oddities, like Britain being invaded and conquered every thousand years, that the Church of England was born of the adulterous desires of one prince, and on its sick bed condoned the adultery of another.

But the (IMHO terminal) sickness of the Church of England is no cause for rejoicing. It was great once, a noble Church of a kind that we should not dare to raise our voice against. It is fallen, and its cure is beyond us; but I would that it lived, in the hope that it may find one.


UPDATE - the great and good Rev. Peter Mullen :

"Frankly, much of the Church has been mad for decades."

You Couldn't Make It Up ...

One of the results of mass low-skilled immigration into both the UK and US economies has been to depress wages, by the simple mechanism of supply and demand. As Marx put it :

“The main purpose of the bourgeois in relation to the worker is, of course, to have the commodity labour as cheaply as possible, which is only possible when the supply of this commodity is as large as possible in relation to the demand for it”

So far so bad for those at the sharp end, so far so good for the people who employ them.

But why stop there ? As long as your income's safe - and let's theorise that you're one of the elite - why not expose a few people higher up the economic food chain to the bracing discipline of "if you don't want to do it, there are plenty of other people ...". After all, you don't pay anywhere near as much for cleaners and clerks as you used to. Why can't you cut the cost of your accountants and engineers?

But how do you do lobby for this without saying why? In the case of the low-skilled imported worker, it was easy - they were "doing the jobs the natives just didn't want to do for £5 an hour", but you needn't mention that last bit. They were doing us a favour by coming here at all - we should be grateful - how would the NHS run or City offices get cleaned otherwise?

So what's the narrative to be?

"Tell you what - and this'll kill you - how about social justice?"

"What ?"

"Well, you know how the incomes of the wealthiest have spiralled away while incomes at the bottom stagnated or declined?"

"Do I ! Great, isn't it !"

"Well, lots of people think it's very bad that we're stonkingly rich while some chav serving in Maccies is a tad penurious. There's something called the Gini coefficient ... but I had this thought. All we have to do is deflect attention down a bit - let's say onto something called 'high-income people' - you know - accountants, engineers, IT, scientists, the analysts and bean-counters - we can define who qualifies - and we can argue that their wages - and hence inequality ratios - are kept artificially high by lack of global competition - no, they're "subsidised by their protection" - no one likes a subsidy - "

"I do - I love 'em. Where would we have been without the bailout? "

"Will you let me finish? - and so we should allow far more high-skilled immigration, because that means greater equality - and that means we can do to their terms and conditions what we've already done at the bottom!"

"You, my son, are a ******* genius"

"But it doesn't stop there. You know how mass immigration's depressed wages in lower-paid jobs - the sort young people often do"

"I might have heard something to that effect ... nonsense of course (cough)"

"Well, we can also argue that their lower incomes indicate lower productivity - and that therefore we really need more high-skill immigrants to provide the productivity the natives just don't want to provide"

"Brilliant"

"And there might even be some truth in the bit about productivity. Between ourselves, you know and I know that some of the people who've come over aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer (anyone who says that is a racist, of course, and we'll say it's down to bad teachers) - so it's possible that the 20-somethings really aren't as productive. Either way, it just means we need more high-skill immigrants."

"Awesome. All we have to do is get the ball rolling."

Obviously, the above is just complete fantasy.

At The Globalist, an interview with former Fed chief Alan Greenspan :

Q. How could immigration reform reduce income inequality?

A. “Most of the debate on income inequality correctly focuses on raising the level of low-income individuals. However, it also works by lowering top-level incomes via more competitive immigration. There is much academic research demonstrating that it is the relative position of people in society that fosters views of ‘fairness,’ not one’s absolute status.”

Q. Turning back to the United States, what demographic shift will have major economic implications?

A. “In the United States, we are in the process of seeing the baby boomers — the most productive, highly skilled, educated part of our labor force — retire. They are being replaced by groups of young workers who have regrettably scored rather poorly in international educational match-ups over the last two decades.”

Q. What else points to the inability of young workers to compete?

A. “Most disturbing is that the average income of U.S. households headed by 25-year-olds and younger has been declining relative to the average income of the baby boomer population. This is a reasonably good indication that the productivity of the younger part of our workforce is declining relative to the level of productivity achieved by the retiring baby boomers. This raises some major concerns about the productive skills of our future U.S. labor force.”

Q. Can the U.S. government counter this trend?

A.“Yes, there are options to combat that decline, but contrary to what many people believe, we do very poorly in opening up our borders to skilled immigrants. Our H1-B visa restrictions are a disgrace. Most high-income people in our country do not realize that their incomes are being subsidized by their protection from competition from highly skilled people who are prevented from immigrating to the United States. But we need such skills in order to staff our productive economy, so that the standard of living for Americans as a whole can grow.”

Q. What needs to change with respect to U.S. immigration?

A. “My view is that we should give a green card to every immigrant who gets an advanced degree in the United States. The proportion of those people who will be terrorists is miniscule. That would have a major positive economic impact.”

Attock Fort

The gateway to the Khyber road, the fort at Attock on the Indus. Formerly spanned by a bridge of boats, the river is now crossed by the Peshawar-Kabul road.


View Larger Map

It's an impressive structure, in an impressive setting.

A marble slab inscription set above the inner north gateway of Attock Fort bears the completion date 991 AH (1583 AD). The work was supervised by Shamsuddin Khawafi. The fort is purely a military post designed to hold the river crossing and guard the bridge of boats. The fortifications are built mostly of local shady rock set in thick lime mortar. For arches, vaulting, domes, and the external string-course, small lakhauri brick has been used. The original gateways are of sandstone resembling that found at Taraki in Jhelum District. An interesting feature of the fortifications is a narrow gallery contrived high up in the wall to give the defenders head and back cover. The greater part of the gallery has a vaulted roof, but in one stretch, thick, flat roofing slabs replace the brick vaulting. The battlements, loop-holes and machicolations bear evidence of changes to meet new needs arising from changing armaments.


Akbar not only built the fort, but also established a ferry and a mint and settled a colony of boatsmen from Hindustan, the descendants of whom still live in Mallahitola. The place soon became important for transit trade. To meet the needs of the traders, a serai (inn) was also built. On the road side and up on the hill near a spring there developed several places for ziarat (pilgrimage). Mosques and temples were established up to meet the religious demands of the people. All these buildings have deteriorated.

Picture and info via the excellent and informative urbanpk.com.

Saturday Night Music - Two Weeks Last Summer

Way back - and in the context of Rugby Union anthems, I noted that in music form can be as important as content.

An illustration follows.

I can't remember if this version of Dave Cousins' song "Two Weeks Last Summer" was recorded in a two-track studio in Tivoli in August 1967, or whether it was done in one of those "make your own record" booths, like the one in 'Brighton Rock' where Pinky records a tender message for his soon to be ex-girlfriend. The speed certainly sounds a little odd. But the whole thing sounds throwaway, a play around, not at all memorable. In fact if you play it, you might spoil the second version.




Three years on, a certain Mr Joe Boyd is in charge of production. What an incredible transformation. Every gabbled phrase from the first version is considered, deliberate - the simple accompaniment is just right, neither understated nor intruding on the wonderful vocals - the whole thing's beautiful. And this wasn't released for 25 years !

You can get the 3-CD box set from whence this comes for only £146 on Amazon. Naturlich, my Youtube version is lowish-fi, that her daughter and grandchildren may benefit. But it's still gorgeous.





While we're on the Divine Ms Denny, here's a little something showing the baleful effects of the cultural revolution on spoken English. Nowt wrong with the London accent, whether Norf or Sarf - and it's sad to see it being replaced by twatois among the young. But why adopt it if it ain't yours? Following the example set by middle-class LSE business studies student Mick Jagger, Sandy goes Mockney.

Quote Of The Day

Ross in the comments :

"I was so disgusted at the NOTW's behaviour that I rang them to complain but couldn't get through- so I just left a message on my voicemail instead."

(my son says "that's been around for ages, Dad" - well I hadn't heard it!)

The Wisdom of the Brits

Let's face it. No one cared two hoots about someone picking up Burnt Umber's (or was it Raw Sienna's ?) or Andy Gray's voicemail, or getting Max Mosley's ersatz wardress to give an interview about his outre sexual tastes.

Yet the legal system of England and Wales seemed to care a great deal.

By contrast, everyone is rightly outraged at a reporter picking up a missing girl's voicemail - not to mention the voicemails of dead soldiers families. It's true that not one in fifty of us ever changes the default voicemail code - is it '0000' or '1111' ? - so it's not exactly a difficult thing to do - but neither is robbing small children or elderly people - and they're pretty disgusting crimes.

Looks like Murdoch is cynically throwing the NOTW staff to the wolves, while keeping on then-editor Rebekah Wade, who should, along with Andy Coulson be carrying the can - all to keep the bid for full control of Sky alive.

I guess it may not be too bad for some of the staff - if they can take the redundancy and then sign on straight away to work for "Sun-day"(© Laban Tall 2011).

The Guardian and BBC are loving it - loving it. I've had to forget about Radios Four and Five on my current three-hours-plus daily commute - because all I hear is Coulson/Cameron/Coulson/Cameron.

But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and the Guardian and BBC are right for all the wrong reasons. The Dirty Digger may be a great newspaperman. But he's an enemy of Britain who's done great damage to this country's culture (damage, to be fair, only made possible because of the 'creative destruction' of predecessors like BBC boss Hugh Greene) even while his papers have produced some great journalism - including great investigative journalism.

God willing the Sky bid will fail - although I wouldn't put money on it. And ideally a Biblical plague - frogs, boils, blood, whatever - should afflict the UK executives of News International, until all UK operations close and only blue plaques at Wapping and Bouverie Street mark its passing.

Only one cloud no bigger than a man's hand. What if Murdoch's difficulty is Desmond's opportunity?





UPDATE - surely time to impound all the servers and get the IT forensics boys out ?

Police are examining claims that a News International executive may have expunged millions of emails from an archive believed to date back to 2005. The Guardian reported that ‘massive quantities’ of the archive appear to have been deleted on two separate occasions, the most recent in January of this year.

A handy hint for Mr Plod - News International will, like all large organisations dependent on IT, have a DR (disaster recovery) site somewhere - probably run by a third party, usually not directly accessible to most of their IT staff, and where regular backup copies of server data are stored. It may have been overwritten when the copies were refreshed, but one never knows. On the other hand the operative charged with the (at this stage purely theoretical) task may have done a thorough job. But if an executive really did do it, the data may still be recoverable quite easily. There's more to deleting data than hitting 'Delete'.

New Club For Bradford

Bradford is to be home to a new high-profile club promoting positive pride among British Pakistanis.

Tonight sees the launch of the Pakistan Club, which already has the backing of big names including cricketing legend Imran Khan, politician Lord Nazir Ahmed, business tycoon Nighat Awan OBE and Bradford’s Lord Mayor, Councillor Naveeda Ikram.

This afternoon, international racing driver Adam Khan will be in Centenary Square signing autographs before the official launch event at City Hall which will be attended by about 130 people from across the UK.

When I looked at the T&A website earlier, the item had 92 comments, but they've all gone now. I wonder what they could have been about ?

Anyone from across the UK can join although it will be based in Bradford and be built in phases which include a restaurant, a private cinema, lounge, separate gyms for men and women – eventually there will also be a banqueting hall and library. The club’s founders are actively looking for a suitable site in the city to either build the club premises from scratch or to re-develop.

Membership is open to all Pakistanis or people of Pakistani origin, says Mr Ahmed - as long as they are aged over 18.

Alas, no one from Bradford English Club was available for comment.

Imaginative Judge

David Wood, sitting at Newcastle Crown Court, on the conviction of two men for selling the stolen Sunderland war memorial plaque, which commemorates Sunderland’s Second World War victims who died when the city was bombed, to a scrap merchant.

"I imagine you both are thoroughly ashamed of what you have done."

He's wasted as a judge. With a vivid imagination like that, he should be a sci-fi writer - or a defence solicitor.

Globalisation In One Country

"In a blow to the government's plans for Britain to manufacture its way out of recession, Bombardier has placed its UK operations under review after the Department for Transport awarded a contract to make carriages on London's Thameslink rail route to Siemens of Germany, bypassing Britain's last remaining train factory. The company has called an 8am press briefing on Tuesday morning at its Derby headquarters. Senior shop stewards will be briefed on job losses in time for the end of the night shift at 6am."

I have not done the digging, but I would be amazed if the vast majority of French rolling stock was not manufactured in France, and the vast majority of German stock in Germany. (Strangely enough, railway nerdism doesn't translate into Web nerdism very well, although there are sites like this.) Only this morning someone on the Today prog was explaining how European governments can take 'other factors' into account, industrial strategy etc, when State enterprises hand out contracts. Not here.

Labour will doubtless be bashing the Tories over this, but this is just the continuation of existing policy. No government's put the British people first since 1992 (if that) - why expect Cameron to buck the trend ?