ITV - Pathetic

Having woken up (along with three boys) to watch South Africa vs New Zealand, surely the outstanding game of the RWC so far, we discover ITV are not showing it on terrestrial TV. Instead we can see "Diggin It", a programme specially for children with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Also credit to Lloyds TSB for their handy World Cup guide which shows the game incorrectly as ITV1.

What a cretinous decision. A chance for ITV to do it properly, the way the BBC have done for years, and they've blown it. Indeed it could be argued that the BBC, in 40 years of showing the Five Nations, helped create the modern game, now busy selling itself to the highest bidder. Do ITV deserve the World Cup ?

I miss the 10 minutes of analysis you'd get on BBC at half time. Now you get 7 minutes of adverts and 3 of analysis.

Still, the coverage has been sold, home England games are sold to Sky - what further purpose does the BBC have ?

Wimbledon I suppose. Imagine adverts while they change ends or get new balls.

So tomorrow and tomorrow ... mixed feelings. I don't think my beloved Wales can do it. If they beat England they won't beat NZ, whereas England are capable of winning the trophy. Certainly don't want the Offside Aussies to do it.

At least we can cheer on Ireland wholeheartedly.

Those Rumours

I would just like to make plain the following :

1/ I completely deny them, whatever they are

2/ No corgis were hurt in any way.

3/ The African dance troupe involved have returned home and will not be pressing charges.

4/ All the industrial equipment has been returned, undamaged, to the hire shop.

5/ The members of the Farmers Bloodhounds were unanimous in their view that the experience had been a most enjoyable one, despite the horse that sadly had to be destroyed.

I hope this statement will finally lay the rumours to rest.

Today's Spam

After the Barclays, Halifax and Lloyds Bank scams, I'm suddenly being bombarded with what appear to be 'email undeliverable' messages, as if I'd sent mail that couldn't get through. Viewing the mail source it appears to be a 'post one dollar to the following' type pyramid. Ho hum.

Better news is that Lovecraft's best fantasy novel, 'The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath' is being made into an animated film.

Monbiot - a new Jeremy Sandford ?

George Monbiot is horrified at racism towards gypsies, as shown by the burning of "pikey" effigies at a Sussex bonfire. What would he think about the following incident ?

It was giro day, and the Price travelling family, or their menfolk, had arrived at the DSS office in the High Street to collect the child benefit and social security. A group of men from my village were waiting for them in vans, armed with iron bars and baseball bats. The Prices fought back but were outnumbered and badly beaten in front of horrified shoppers. Several were hospitalised, some for months.

But no outraged editorials were penned in the Guardian or Independent. The Gypsy Council didn't get an interview on the Today programme. The incident slipped under national news radar. Why ? The perpetrators were another branch of the same travelling family, the branch who lived on a site at the edge of my village. No-one in the village seemed particularly fussed - the general view was of a rather spectacular and large-scale 'domestic'.

Police eventually arrested the culprits, several of whom, including the patriarch, served prison sentences.

Monbiot worries about racism, I'm more worried about the enduring hostility to lower-middle class people like the "good burghers of Firle" from upper-class snobs who romanticise travellers. Though to give him his due, he managed to avoid the usual net curtains and privet hedge cliches used by those who think true evil comes with a neat lawn and a second-hand Mondeo.

His logic defies belief. After giving chapter and verse on the sufferings of gypsies ("Throughout eastern Europe, the Roma are still denied employment, herded into ghettoes and beaten to death by skinheads." What, all of them ? How about 'throughout Britain, old people are still denied employment, herded into nursing homes and beaten to death by muggers." ? ) he wonders "why, despite so much evidence of persecution, are expressions of hatred towards Gypsies still acceptable in public discourse" ?

Well, if gypsies are the subject of State and private persecution in the UK, then surely you can see that the likelihood of people saying bad things about them is greater than if they were a cosseted and lauded group ? Though I would query how public a discourse Firle Bonfire Society's parade might have been, were it not for the BBC and people who write Guardian articles.

But he knows why we do the evil that we do. "Envy lies at the root of racism. Racists associate Jews with money and black people with sexual power, but our hatred of Gypsies may arise from a still deeper grievance, the envy of a people whose instinct for continual movement is frustrated by the constraints of the humdrum settled life."

Now there's a grain of truth in that last part. Anyone who's witnessed a suburban cricket or rugby side on tour, or young Brits on holiday, knows the wild, liberating power of (temporary) rootlessness, manifested though it may be in drunken vandalism or sexual misbehaviour. But the first part is surely as wrong as wrong can be. Did the poor people of Poland and the Ukraine really associate the (equally poor) Jews with money ? Did they envy them ? Did the slave-owners of America and Jamaica, or the British imperialists of Africa, associate black people with sexual power ? Did they envy them ? To ask the question is to answer it.

Surely these are more modern concepts. Perhaps they tell us more about George Monbiot than about racism. Projection, anyone ?


Anyway, the good news for George Monbiot is that those few Roma who escape being herded and beaten by skinheads will be starting to arrive here next May, when the Eastern European countries join the EU. The existing European nations, fearing a sudden influx of Eastern Europeans, have imposed a seven year restriction period on immigration from the East.

Only one major EU nation will allow unrestricted immigration immediately. Guess which one.

Currently the British Government maintain representatives at Prague Airport whose job it is to stop illegal immigrants, mostly 'Roma' gypsies, from boarding flights to the UK. From May next year all the citizens of Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, including the 1.6 million Roma, will be free to reside, work or claim benefit in the UK.

The Government are relaxed about this prospect, Migrationwatch are not.

"The really wild card is the Roma question. A UN study last year found that 80% were unemployed and one in five were permanently hungry. The governments of Eastern Europe have been urged to pass laws to outlaw discrimination. It is, however, hard to say what impact this will have on the lives of the Roma and how they will perceive the alternative of migrating to Western Europe, particularly Britain.

Any forecasts are highly questionable for such changed circumstances. However, the Home Office upper estimate of 13,000 is both highly theoretical and divorced from the realities of the new situation after accession. It is almost worthless. A more realistic “back of the envelope calculation” suggests 40,000 a year. A major factor will be the reaction of the 1.6 million Roma in the candidate countries to the new opportunities which they will enjoy."

George Monbiot's romantic view of travellers is reminiscent of the late Jeremy Sandford, playwright, travellers advocate, and author of "Gypsies" (quotes when I find my copy), another upper-class enviro-hippy with a dislike of straight suburban types. A hilarious Telegraph obituary here - I particularly like Sandford's portrait of his second wife.

"Sometimes she spends part of the night roaming the woods," wrote Sandford. "And at times she has refined her spirit through gazing at a candle. I return to find her composing a song with the help of her autoharp while concocting a flower remedy by distilling the essence of rare flowers."

Very Spinal Tap.

"Throughout his life Sandford continued to dislike the middle class. Either side of that bracket lay an aristocracy, whether of the dispossessed or the rich. He was a snob in both areas."

Peter Briffa also takes aim at 'Moonbat'.

Scottish Republican Terrorism ?

A seventeen year old was last week jailed for sending threatening letters to various public figures, and aromatherapy oil laced with caustic soda to others.

"Edgar Prais QC, defending, said his client had been ordered to send the packages by the head of an anti-English Scottish terrorist organisation, which cannot be named for legal reasons. "

This stirred a memory. Every February half-term we visit Scotland, often staying in the Glencoe area. A couple of years ago I noticed several police cars in Glencoe village car park, and a couple of coaches arriving. My next door neighbour apologised for them, told me they were Scottish Republicans, not to let them hear my English accent, and to get the children indoors.

So naturally I went to take a look at them. They were marching, ostensibly, to commemorate the Glencoe massacre. They were youngish - twenty and thirtysomethings. And most strikingly, half of them were wearing black berets and dark glasses. 'These people want to be the IRA' I thought.

And here are the IRA, in Republican Sinn Fein guise, speaking at the 2003 Glencoe rally. Brought to you by those good, freedom-loving people at Indymedia UK.

Scottish Republican sites seem pretty diverse, from the Celtic Twilight (with a bit of Yeats or Crowley - where do the Knights Templar come into it ?) through the earnest to the frankly creepy.

And how exactly does this site fit in ?

A Fossil of History

While reading about Jewish immigration to the UK during the 1930s, I noticed references to a Soviet 'Jewish Autonomous Republic' set up on the Manchurian border in the revolutionary ferment of the 20s and officially sanctioned by Stalin in the 30s.

It's still there.

Just north of the Chinese border, between the Ussuri and Amur Rivers, in some of the most difficult terrain in Russia, part forest, part swamp, with hot summers but bitter winters. The area was the setting for W.E. Johns "Biggles Gets His Men".

"So there are tigers there, eh ?" murmured Bertie.
"Plenty. The Amur tiger is first cousin to the Bengal tiger. There are panthers, too, and bears. Their skins are another export."
"What about the country itself ?" asked Biggles.
"Well, one's first impression is that nature has played a cockeyed practical joke. That is due to the fact that you are at the spot where the Arctic and the tropics bump into each other, so to speak. Thus, you get the flora and fauna of both - tigers, panthers, wild boar and pythons tread the same tracks as reindeer, wolves and sables."

A short history of the Republic is here, a 1991 Guardian article on the remaining Jews here, and the views of US venture capitalists here. Pleased to hear about the micro-brewery, not sure about "the Jewish Autonomous Region’s unique version of Jewish home cooking" and interested to hear of the 80,000 hectares of uncultivated farmland - that's 80% of the arable land.

"Whereas much of the Russian Far East is dominated by passive Soviet-era managers with a greater taste for vodka than serious business, the 200,000-person JAR bustles with primitive, entrepreneurial energy, and has a feel not unlike the Garment District of lower Manhattan."

Can't say I know the Garment District but it sounds a bit Brick Lane to me, if you can imagine a Brick Lane with a population density of 20 per square mile.

What's the skiing like ? Uh-oh.

"Forests cover almost half the territory, but the wood is not export quality. The climate is monsoon. Winter is cold and dry with a little snow. The average temperature in winter is –22 – 25C, and in +20 – 25 in summer." Whew ! Pretty fierce winters but not much snow !

As well as Russians, ethnic Koreans, Chinese and Jews, the region is home to the Ussuri Cossack Host, as well as the shamanistic Orochon people, whom Biggles and Co. weren't too keen on.

"The people lived by hunting, and buried their dead - if we can say buried - in trees. The body is rolled in birch bark and hoisted up out of the reach of wolves. You come across these grisly cemeteries all over the place. After the funeral everyone gets drunk on vodka. Drinking seems to be the only recreation".

"Nice people," murmured Biggles.



A more sympathetic portrait of Orochon hunters here, bearing out Capt. Johns' observation that "what with flesh, fish and fowl, a man with a gun need never starve".

Oh no - he's sold out already !

The Blessed Michael Howard worries Melanie Phillips - and scares me too - in this Telegraph interview.

'To be fair, I think the Conservative Party was slow to realise the way in which the country was changing. I think that the way in which the country had changed was symbolised by its reaction to the death of Diana. We are in many ways a different country from what we were 20 or even 10 years ago. People have a different approach in the way they lead their lives and that's something the Conservative Party has to recognise and embrace.'

Yikes ! Don't go there ! As Mel P. says

"The undoubted Dianafication of the country is a change for the disastrous -- a plunge into sentimentality, false emotion, manipulation, infantilism, self-centredness, irresponsibility and hysteria. If the Tories are going to embrace this, it will be a case of the unelectable grovelling before the unspeakable. "

Is this the shortest honeymoon in political history ?


Aren't minorities all liberals ?

As a good Guardianista, only a few years back, I well remember the shock of reading a right-wing piece on a bulletin board, supposedly from a publication called 'Jewish World Review'.
There can't be such a thing as a right-wing Jewish magazine, I thought - surely all Jews are good liberals like myself and my friends ?

So it really upsets some on the left (and Nick Cohen), when a Jewish child of asylum-seekers not only fails to line up with the asylum lobby, but actively disagrees.

Private Education, Private Education, Private Education

Diane Abbott explains the indefensible in the time-honoured manner - with a neat twist.

"I would have done anything not to have found myself in the position I was in this year. I had to choose between my reputation and my son. I chose my son. "

Wipe away tear. What mother could do less ? But wait !

The reason I had to make this choice is because of the catastrophic failure of black boys in Britain’s schools. I have campaigned around black underachievement in schools for the best part of a decade; setting up a study group called Black Men in Crisis in 1995; holding a series of conferences on this issue and recently launching the London Schools and the Black Child initiative.

Ah - it's not London state schools as such - it's 'a system that has been failing black boys for three generations'.

Must be all those racist teachers.

Just down the page a Mr Chris Woodhead isn't so impressed.

Hackney children do not underachieve because your government has failed to throw enough money at the problem. They fail because the government has not had the courage to confront the vested interests, ideological and bureaucratic, that you exemplify so perfectly.

You know best, don’t you, Diane? You really believe that Hackney’s educational problems stem from the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority. You really think that more money is the answer. You are really proud, aren’t you, of the fact that you have “campaigned around black underachievement for the best part of a decade”? The truth is that your campaigns have distracted attention from what needs to be done. Black boys are failing for much the same reasons as white working-class boys are failing. They are not learning to read. Expectations are too low. Discipline is too lax. We need less hot air and more action. It is not rocket science. There are already head teachers in London schools who are raising standards in an extremely impressive way. The challenge is to replicate their success, not to enhance your reputation as a black politician.

And while we're on the North East Coast ....

What kind of 'underground sub-culture' is it that can have a BBC Week dedicated to it ? Admittedly on BBC6 which no-one knows about. How very alternative - you've only got the State media supporting you.

The goth styles of 20 years ago were quite charming. Pale faces, purple lipstick and fingerless gloves are very fetching on a slender young thing - even better if it's a girl.

But as one who occasionally finds himself in Whitby (where Dracula landed on Tate Hill sands) during a Goth Weekend, let me tell you it's a truly scary sight on an overweight, fortysomething mother of three. And I'm an overweight fortysomething myself.

The culture appears to be undergoing some kind of revival among those who like to express their individuality by dressing alike.

I wonder how many of this weekends attendees listen to the woman who was the essence of all things Gothic - the beautiful, doom-laden (and doomed) Nico, whose 'The End', 'Desertshore' and 'Marble Index' are as Gothick as they come. And looked at another way, extremely silly.

Janitor of lunacy
Paralyze my infancy
Petrify the empty cradle
Bring hope to them and me

Janitor of tyranny
Testify my vanity
Mortalize my memory
Deceive the Devil's deed

Tolerate my jealousy
Recognize the desperate need

Janitor of lunacy
Identify my destiny
Revive the living dream
Forgive their begging scream

Seal the giving of their seed
Disease the breathing grief


Well, yes. Haven't we all, in a very real sense, felt like that ?

I know I have.

Just as a good Goth should be, she's no longer with us. But what a voice.

BBC - don't mention the EU

Just finished listening to Open Country on R4, in which writer Katrina Porteous laments the dying fishing culture of the North-Eastern coast. We hear a redundant trawler being burned on the beach.

Anything missing from this gloomy picture ? Just one thing - any mention of the EU Common Fisheries policy, which is responsible for the decline in our fish stocks.

Just try to imagine a similar R4 piece on the death of a Yorkshire pit village - only without mentioning the miners strike or Mrs Thatcher.

No, I can't either.

Tory Website Shock

It's not too bad. And it's got some news on. IDS's statement, to be precise.

Tory MPs In Mass Suicide Pact

Just heard IDS has been rejected by his own MPs, in an act which will hang round the neck of the Tories in the style of a dead albatross for the foreseeable future.

'Loyalty is the Tories' secret weapon.' What a joke. The MPs should perhaps think of the effect of this upon the party members in the country. This is really going to boost morale.

Even though with the benefit of hindsight they should probably have refused to accept the resignation of William Hague, or failing that gone for the great Michael Howard, having chosen IDS and seen a slow but steady revival in Tory fortunes they should have stuck to him.

I can't think of any more to say beyond what I said a few days ago.

"The only way removal of IDS, even to be replaced by the Blessed Michael Howard, would make sense is as part of a long term strategy which acknowledges the cultural as well as political weakness of the Tories, and has plans to combat said weakness. Sir, I don't see any such strategy. I see a few people milling about in a panic, encouraged by a crowd of media onlookers, and a much larger group of people wondering what's going on, and whether they should be milling too, as 'everybody else is'. The ghost of poor Chicken Licken roams the corridors of Westminster. "

The sky is falling !

Great Fires of LA

Remembering John Mayall's legendary collection of pornography, destroyed on Sept 16, 1979 in Laurel Canyon.

"Rock-blues singer John Mayall's three-story home was nicknamed "The Brain Damage Club," because of the great parties thrown there. A private movie-viewing room and swimming pool built into the side of the hill made the house ideal for barbecues and parties.
Mayall and a few friends were watching a movie in the house when the blaze started. They were able to escape, but the house with a film library of 2,000 hours of video-taped movies, many valuable 16th century antiques, a pornography collection dating back to the 1800s and rock'n'roll diaries spanning 25 years, was destroyed.

All that remained was a charred foundation and a hand-painted swimming pool, littered with soot and ash. Two cars, including a restored 1958 Volvo belonging to Mayall's son Jason, melted completely in the fire.

"We used to have some great barbecues here," said a blonde in clog shoes and shorts, as she looked down on the remains of the Mayall home. "People used to jump out of the third story into the swimmingpool," she added, looking at a bedroom fireplace, the only remnant of the third floor. "

Mythical Monster Sighted

German police have raided 50 properties in a series of raids against neo-Nazi group Combat 18. More than 300 officers took part in the raids in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein early on Tuesday.

Gosh. 300 officers raiding 50 properties. Must be a pretty big organisation.

"State criminal police spokesman Matthias Hennig said the group has a "hard core" of about 10 members."

I do hope that's a misprint.

Politics Of Envy ?

Surely not from Oliver Kamm ?

"Even at its peak, the only people who benefited from it were those whose time was so valuable or self-importance so inflated that they could justify paying a multiple of sometimes seven or eight times the more conventional carriers. Yet while they paid a lot they didn't pay the economic cost of their tickets, which ought to have taken account of the development as well as the operating costs. Concorde was a subsidy from British and French taxpayers to the rich and powerful."

Price of everything and value of nothing ?

I benefited from Concorde, knowing it existed, occasionally seeing it flying in all its beauty, feeling good that my country had helped create it. I remember waiting for a flight at Heathrow and people crowding to the windows or going up to the roof, parents holding up their children to see it land.

Only a month ago the crowd at the Oval broke into spontaneous applause as she came in over London.

I could never afford a ticket but I don't resent those who could - was it to fly empty ?

If you want to stop subsidies to the rich why not campaign against the Arts Council or the ROH subsidy ? But then I like Concorde a lot more than opera.

This government has spent a lot of cash (fruitlessly) trying to boost the 'self-esteem' of various young people. Concorde did that successfully for two entire nations. Cheap at the price - whatever it was.



David Farrer understands.

Huzzah !

The autumn City Journal is out - with great stuff on new LA police chief William Bratton, the end of history, culture wars, Sex and the City (for those who give a flying one about Carrie and Co.) and even a cheerful Dalrymple piece - as well as this, on how journalists, including those of our very own Bush Bashing Corporation, went easy on the Baathist regime in exchange for access to senior regime personnel.

Read it, gorged on it. Now begins the long wait for the winter edition.

Left Wing Hypocrisy - la lotta continua

The woman with the most alluring voice in the House Of Commons, whose breathy tones would be perfect for the late night Radio 2 slot, Diane Abbott, sends her son to a private school. So joining a long list of left-wing hypocrites such as Harriet Harman, who was criticised for her decision by, er - Diane Abbott. At the time Ms Abbott said.

"She made the Labour Party look as if we do one thing and say another."

(In the Lords the cut-glass accent of Tessa Blackstone wins Best Voice. When I hear her announce some disastrous and destructive initiative in those impeccable tones I get a tinge of what Winston Smith felt for Julia during the Two Minute Hate. And Worst Voice ? An Andrew in the Commons - Rosindell or Mackinlay ? Have to think about the Lords.)

BBC and asylum Part 72

On Sunday 26th October a top radio and BBC online news item was the arrest of 42 people in Sussex suspected of illegal working.

A strange story to make the headlines, really. A quick search of BBC news produces 151 stories on illegal workers. Earlier this month 40 were arrested in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. In September 35 in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, and 19 in Wokingham (out of 40 - the rest ran away). Half a dozen in Sark, of all places, in August, and over 100 in Esher, the heart of comfortable Surrey commuterland. None of these made the headlines.

So what was so special about the Sussex 42 ?

On Friday BBC news featured David Blunketts decision to announce yet another amnesty for 30,000 asylum seekers as a main item.

Was someone at the BBC looking for a 'balancing' story, to illustrate how well the Government are tackling the issue ? Note the remarkable sub-heading 'Government means business' . It's unattributed, and nowhere appears in the story.

And what do we find today as one of the top stories, after the unspeakable Burrell and the woes of Ian Duncan Smith ?

"Tougher Asylum Laws Proposed"

UPDATE - the great goddess Mel P. writes on the Blunkett capitulation.

"The Home Office says the new measures restricting benefits will send ‘a clear signal’ that people refused asylum from now on must leave the UK. This is like saying the law against burglary is a clear signal that no-one should rob anyone. But it’s useless if everyone knows that it’s never enforced. "

I don't know ...

What to make of the IDS mullarkey. The Tories were (before the latest maelstrom of rumour and speculation) clawing back the Labour poll lead, a few decent policies (and a couple of dogs) had been unleashed. Gordon Brown's arithmetic was coming unstuck - bad for Britain but good for IDS.

Then a slew of negative stuff which wasn't all made up by BBC and Times journalists. IDS must have something, if so many Central Office types hate his guts. Certainly sounds as if he doesn't do schmooze - not even to major donors. Praiseworthy but impolitic. If he can't even thank the guy who lends him a helicopter, we're unlikely to see an Ecclestone-style cash-for-fag-ads deal.

But one thing is certain. Any leadership change will be a PR disaster for the party. Those who think that an Oliver Letwin (or suitably liberal clone) will suddenly result in the media attack dogs laying off must be on another planet. (A digression. Some 25 or thirty years ago, Popes (John Paul I) and Soviet Presidents (Andropov, Chernenko) had a habit of lasting for rather short periods. It was a subject of popular humour. This is what will happen if IDS goes.)

The only way removal of IDS, even to be replaced by the Blessed Michael Howard, would make sense is as part of a long term strategy which acknowledges the cultural as well as political weakness of the Tories, and has plans to combat said weakness. Sir, I don't see any such strategy. I see a few people milling about in a panic, encouraged by a crowd of media onlookers, and a much larger group of people wondering what's going on, and whether they should be milling too, as 'everybody else is'. The ghost of poor Chicken Licken roams the corridors of Westminster.

One person will be pleased if IDS goes - Tony Blair. Another will be delighted - Nick Griffin.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. - Umberto Eco

David Aaronovitch back on top form, dissing Diana conspiracy theorists and the (apparently) 72% of people who believe in them.

"..... Diana was indeed, 'in a very real sense', the people's princess. She, it turns out, was barking - and so are we. "