This stinks

'Seven sailors had to be airlifted from a Royal Navy aircraft carrier after being overcome by fumes in one of the ship's toilets. The crewmen on board HMS Illustrious suffered sore eyes and throats in a junior ratings' toilet area' - The Metro


I suppose its better than being shot at by "insurgents", in a jeep made of wood , but this equipment problem gets everywhere

British Racists Must Be Condemned

In 1997 a study for the Institute for Public Policy Research showed that32% of Hindu’s , Muslims and Sikhs and 29% of Jews would be repelled if a member of their family married an Afro-Caribbean , whereas only 13% of white Britons said they would have a problem.

(From How the Liberals Lost their Way by Nick Cohen …..a lefty but its a pretty good book)


. No-one is condemning these” Communities” …… why not ?

Sod Orrrrf with your Red Nose

Can I put it simply .Plague famine and malnutrition, in fact a new apocalypse , are insufficient reason for inflicting Lenny Henry and the Vicar of Sodding Dibley on us .
I detest red nose day , I do not like celebrities and I will not be giving anything at all. I will be avoiding all contact and sneering at anyone I see in a barrel of gunge.
If challenged I am try to say something about charity not working and aid despoiling sub Saharan Africa .I might mention the recent Peter Hitchens expose on the extent of executive remuneration in Charities and the fees paid to performers . None of this is true , I just can`t stand the boring TV and I will not be dragooned into anything by a lot of disingenuous fascist bullies

Tease your sanctimony to a tumescence of glistening splendour if you like , but I hate red nose day and its time it was put out of its misery.

Oh Jesus here they come with the bucket …….

We`re all gonnna die

Love this parliamentary sketch in the Times today, Mr. james Arbuthnot is surely the most miserbale old bugger in the House. Well Done sir !

"I noticed, with anxiety, the tall shadowy form that is James Arbuthnot on the Tory benches. Mr Arbuthnot is the respected head of the Defence Committee but he has tendency towards gloom. He makes Eeyore look like a happy-clappy type. Yesterday, as he arose, I could almost hear the da-da, da-da music from Jaws.

He spoke ponderously, every word another shovel-load of dirt in our communal grave. “I am profoundly pessimistic about the future of the world,” he announced. “Nuclear technology has now been invented. It will never go away. We now have the ability to destroy the world. It is, I regret to say, natural human behaviour that when we have the ability to do something, sooner or later we try it out. That will happen, I believe, before climate change has time to do its worst.”

In other words, whatever happens, we are doomed. It’s enough to give anyone nightmares.

TRY THIS SITE!!!! They can watch us everywhere..

This is unbelievable and you have to try it. ! Put the mobile number of your wife or husband ,for example ,into the site and you can locate the actual place the phone is located ..usually this will be where they are of course. Its incredibly quick. Just put the country, the first four digits in the first box and the rest in the second box. The satellite gets there in about twenty seconds. I `m not sure if its legal or what system it is working off so do it quickly .

I was amazed to see where my wife was and I bet there will be a few surprise .

http://www.sat-gps-locate.com/

The Wisdom of Solomon...ish

I was impressed that Roman Abramovich might get away with as a little as £150,000,000 on the first of his serial monogamies. He did this by getting in first and having the matter settled under good old man friendly Russian law. They pretty much kick the woman out into the howling steppes over there ,whereas the UK Hubbie is treated like a farm animal in perpetuity. It can get frustrating and sometimes feelings will boil over ……


'A bitter hubby settled his divorce by sawing up his house and taking his "half" in a forklift truck in Sonneberg, Germany' - The Sun


....women eh ,,they cause such alot of trouble tsk tsk

Carrying On An Honourable Tradition

This week's phone-in row isn't the first time that Blue Peter has been accused of hoodwinking its young viewers. Back in 1962, there was consternation when the show's dog, Petra, died after just one appearance on the programme. Not wishing to upset its young audience, the show's producers duly scoured the nation for a lookalike and subsequently introduced a mongrel doppelganger as the original.



The shameful BBC start conning us early don`t they

The Romantic John Hayes Talks of Love

Last night I was at the annual Islington Conservative Party Dinner. The venue was the Oxford and Cambridge Club in Pall mall and the guest speaker was John Hayes MP. . I gather he is referred to as Quasimodo by the young bucks ,and you do notice that half of his face is curiously immobile, the result of an accident or a stroke .. I `m not sure.
So, he is not a physically prepossessing individual; but as he spoke I found myself warning to his humour , practised style and glowing sincerity. He started with the obligatory gag about an association even more out of date than ours and moved swiftly on to a ,“ wide ranging “, discussion of “ things that matter “.
He was trying to tell us in about fifteen minutes, what a Conservative is , why it is right ,and where he placed John Hayes in the spectrum . A tall order !
I do not have the notes that I took with me ( I `m at work ), but the word that stuck in my mind was as that most schmaltzy , frightening , embarrassing but important word “ Love”. For John Hayes, and for me, as I come to think of it , being a Conservative is about “Love”. “
He began with reminding us that we joined an organisation called “ The Common Market “ ,in the expectation of a trading alliance ,to protect and grow business . If we had thought we were being mis –sold ,a super state organisation which wished to remove out right to govern our own country, we would have demurred. His complaint was not the waste, although he complained vociferously, it was not the farcical pretence at democracy, although it was farcical. He chiefly complained that there was no love for this institution, and with no love for it there can be no sacrifice or common interest.
As Norman Tebbit put it , with no Demos , there can never be a democracy . Or as Roger Scruton said , We cannot decide what to do without first there being something you can call “We”.
This sense of a country , this “ Love “ of country and its “ people “ , our people , is , not therefore a silly old fashioned affectation , it is the spring from which the river of rights and responsibilities flows .
Well to a romantic Conservative like me ,this was all fine stuff that slipped down beautifully with the fruity white I was glugging .I may even have vouchsafed a sotto voce “Hear hear”, …how embarrassing .
He described the New Labour attack on the family which, as he said , to him , meant a man , a woman and some children. I discovered that we both like marriage so much, we do it about once every ten years , but given that this was what they call a “Key note “, speech, the paradoxes of Social Liberalism ,or the lack ,of it were left conveniently to one side. At this point I began to think, “Well are you going to reform the benefits and housing system then because I `ve heard no mention of it ?”. I fact we scuttled on to what I would call the “ Prince Charles middle eight “ .
There followed a meandering complaint about the dehumanising force of evil that is Tescos , a plea for the embattled farmer ,and a desire to return to the days of wobbly carrots. It was , if one felt unkind , verging on the risible . In it he mentioned a general view on the limits of the free market. The classic leftist example of the Slave trade was dragged screaming for the crypt .I shouldn`t scoff, I have often had to tick off Croydonian severely for his unreasoning quasi Marxist attachment, to the great god “market”. We Finished off with a plea for more social order and less freedom given our “ fallen state “, which , he says , is a state Conservatism accepts. Ho hum……

I am ambivalent about such an Illiberal social agenda and it was rare meat to be sure . Anyway , back to me ...I asked the first question . It was universally hailed as the best and cheered by a clamouring throng ……..( honest)….

Newmania:
“ I like what you say about Europe and I like your approach to the country and its living tissue . I am ,on the other hand, amused at your suggestion that fifty years ago people ate better and were better finer human beings enjoying a wobbly carrot virtually at will . They were not ,they were less literate , suffered from malnutrition, lived for the most part in industrial wastes and had limited access to Taramousalata,
I am, also dubious as to the efficacy of saving farmers from the consequences of their own inefficiency ,or increasing regulation of such fine organisations as Tescos who single handedly gave us the avocado Pear. I am concerned that your wish for for social cohesion, though well intentioned ,will in practice mean even greater regulation and state interference. Isn’t the social and traditional side of your thinking essentially what a Liberal might say and are they not statists who we should oppose ?”

He answered me frankly ,and with great charm saying it was about finding the right balance between social cohesion and freedom . The crucial position was this “. People must be free to behave well “ because they want to “ ; the tradition and love for family and country were what made people into better people. That is the paradox by which the Libertarian and socially Conservative strains of the Party’s thinking are reconciled

( Obviously I am paraphrasing on an industrial scale here ).

He asked me what I though of his answer and I said I had considerable sympathy for it but it was “ Romantic “. He leapt up at that that saying” Yes yes it is, to be a Conservative is to be Romantic “ it is to be against the rational systems of Marxism and in the final resort , markets as well. The market is a tool but it is not the core of it “…he could have added that the core of it was…. “ Love”

Further drinks and discussion were joined by Chris Skidmore who works for two Brains Willets , Arthurian legend and we left in cab at about 1.30.AM

Thanks to all and feel the love people !

Rumours of My Birth......?

I am busy with sordid trade but this made me laugh. Will Hutton, in the Observer , has learnt that a book by militant atheist Sam Harris is doing well is America .
“Harris quotes passages in the Bible that I did not know existed." He drools " One passage from Deuteronomy encourage Christians to stone to death anyone who tries to draw them away from their god “

Now can any clever clogs tell, me why it is somewhat unlikely , that Christians are referred to an awful lot in Deuteronomy ?

Hmmmmm?

( Private Eye)

Kneel Before the Tree God

Brisbane Does 68 Tonnes of Carbon emmissions just for a Laugh...but its ok ...



First there was the Stern report and then the International panel on Climate Change. To the surprise of the greenists , instead of the orthodoxy gathering support, it has been the resistance that has mounted . The main points were dealt with by Martin Livermore ,a week or two ago. The bone of contention is to what extent “Positive Feedback” ,can be posited in framing predictive models . As any positive feedback is necessarily explosive ,its assumption will have a dramatic effect on predictions .The magic spell to enchant the Libertarian marketers into the tepee with the flat earth Liberals, is Carbon Trading. As I have often dealt with some of the problems of the Green faux-apocalypse . I am looking at carbon trading .
At Brisbanes River Festival last September half a million people were celebrating and many of them were a bit right-on about the earth . You might feel then, that the sight of an F1-11 hoving into view, dumping its fuel and setting light to it was not exactly what the planet needed. The dump and burn was the highlight of the evening ,but the good news was that 300 trees had been planted. Theoretically they would soak up the estimated 68 tonnes of Green house gases . What relief ,you can have your carbon cake and eat it .One sacrifice to the Tree god and they can go back to their peculiar hippy swaying motions before the Molochs come out and eat them! I will ring the gong… or can they ?

There are two kinds of carbon trading . The Kyoto protocol kind ,governed by the usual gazillions of highly paid bureau- rats ,and the nifty private sector . These deal with smaller bodies and even private individuals but work with a wide variety of theory and practice.
There are about 30 such organisations responsible for £50 million tonnes . This is not inconsiderable amaaount. London produces about £67,000,000 tonnes including aviation. The companies involved are not deliberately misleading . If Marks and Spencer’s , commit £200,000,000 to go green they damn well want a good image , so the market enforces probity . After all lets not forget , Spain, Portugal and Ireland ,are emitting as if Kyoto does not exist ,and the EU emissions scheme has not effect on the total emissions at all. So much for governments then

Problems with the calculation are fiedish . An air journey’s pollutants are converted into carbon and no-one is agreed on how . In 1999 the IPCC agreed a multiplier of 2.7 but its looks fairly random .Interestingly some of the offset organisations , like Atmosfair , put the figure higher at 3 . Assumptions about the aircrafts occupancy also vary from 100% ,to a more realistic 80% so deciding how much you owe mother earth is tricky. Still surely if you plant a tree that must be somehow a good thing . Well……

Cold play paid to offset the carbon emissions associated with their album “ A rush of blood to the head “,by paying for 10,000 mango tress to be planted in India . Sadly 4000 of the trees died and even if they had lived , in about 100 years they will die , rot ,and yield up the carbon sucked in over a thirty year growing spree . What exactly do we gain then . We feel better, and we impress Gwyneth but otherwise you are relying on there being a lot less pollution in 100 years . Well thats sounds likely doesn’t it ….

Go the alternative ways and you are still in trouble . Wind Turbines, cooking stoves and the like may well not be additional to what was already required . As we are well aware in London, and Islington ,glory grabbing local Politicians are likely to wipe out the additionality by inventing high profile vote grabbing schemes of their own . If the project is so unfeasibly expensive that no-one else would ever take it on Gold Standard, a body trying to apply an industry homogeneity ,will aprove it .How sensible …....


Developing countries see these projects as CO2 -lonialism . By the time they wish to set their own limits ,all the best CO2 offset goodies will have bee taken by the West . This will add much piquancy to the fact we are not letting them develop at all , so as to keep the world nice a lemony fresh for us.

Is the only way forward ,barring the terrifying world government , to cut back on emissions? I`m not so cynical . I`m impressed that these fast moving companies are coming under instant scrutiny from each other and their clients. They generate research , disagreement, and constant assumption testing We are at an early stage in environmental profiling certainly , but this must be the best hope . Governments have already shown themselves to be liars and opportunists , customers are unlikely to put up with this . Clearly a great deal more research needs to be done but I feel confident the planets highest creation will be up to it .

That’s why the Environment is a Conservative Issue not because we like old churches but because we believe in free people trade and markets .The Greens just hate people and that cannot be an answer. Will someone please mention this to David Cameron

Green Flag Raised over Islington

Peter Gruner , the Editor of the Islington Tribune ,called me today , to discuss the outrageous misuse of funds by Islington’s Liberal Council. They have spent about £3,000,000 ,of tax payer`s money on high profile Green projects. I seem to have become a sort of reliable rent-a-gob and I delivered my usual splenetic spluttering .

This one will run and run ,and we can see why Chris Huhne Lib Dem Enviroment Spokesman, without having seen the programme, wrote to Channel 4 executives ,advising them in the gravest terms to reconsider their decision to broadcast the C4 Doccumentary.It has blown their cover ( DT ).

Islington`s projects include a Windmill ,and the associations with Don Quixote are about right. The Coucil begun to believe everything they read and especially about themselves. On the left the temptation to straddle the world stage from a Passport to Pimlico bureaucrats desk is always irresistible
I am not a denier , as Croydonian puts it , I am a sceptic. There is , in my view ,good reasons for taking sensible measures and erring on the side of caution .On the other hand there is a good deal of the Y2K baloney about it. For Islington to imagine that they have to unilaterally lead the world, raises the spectre of the lunatic Margaret Hodge declaring us a Nuclear Free zone in the midst of her disaster strewn tenancy . That was in the days of Old Loony Labour and we thought they were gone .back it seems by another route. They are raising the Green Flag over The Town Hall

Ellee was earlier on telling us the effect of the regulation and taxation on all small companies and worse still….“ …environmental projects have been singled out for the brunt of the the HMRC new regulation. It states that any kind of partnership of investors (especially in environmental expenditure) would only get tax relief on £25,000, even if they needed to risk £250,000“.
In fact all companies are in desperate difficulties with the cyclones if red tape we try to fend from our eyes every day . Costs on small Brokers, in which I work ,are reckoned to require an additional £100,000 to comply with FSA regulations brought in primarily as a result of the unrelated endowment problem. Health and Safety and ever increasing requirements are putting small companies out of business.

Big Companies are rubbing their hands with glee.I have seen in my own industry. They get good publicity and they get to move out of the really free market into quasi monopolistic conditions created by New Labour.
So we have inefficient companies over charging and protected from competition . They are run according over-arching government set designs for the minutiae of production .

Its back door re-nationalisation or at least corporatism and once again the red flag has been replaced by the Green one.


BUT : I am concerned that the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change redrafted its report once it had left the scientists hands to tone down the possibilities of “ Positive feedback. A critique of the Report now argues that the references were removed in a systematic fashion. We should it forget that there are vested interests on the side of the deniers as well and what happened with this report look highly suspicious.

( New Scientist)

CONCLUSION: My conclusion is that lies have been told to further careers , raise taxes and establish control . This has forever devalued whatever sound points there may have been.

That does not mean there is nothing to worry about and we cannot think that the denial side has uniquely clean hands .

Image and the Man from the Manse

This Saturday We were having Dinner with the famous North London Tory and marketing Guru David Allen . There were others present but as they are currently in “Dark” mode they have to remain anonymous. David has a highly intuitive feel for political life ad has been a participator and observer for a long time. His observation, for example, that the British people never had there day to ,“Punish Margaret Thatcher” , was ,I thought, a telling insight to the bitterness that built through the Major years.

Understandably, the intersection of politics and marketing cropped up . Ellee must be the expert here ,but I have been pondering it and a few threads have been coalescing into a twine as I sat on the train this morning. Over the weekend I was participating in the national Conservative Green day and as we buzzed about the place, supposedly caring for the environment, we ran into the Lib Dems also out ,pretending to care about law and order. Their campaign was all about cracking down on crime,and there are some pretty good ideas.

1 More Police on Patrol (don’t waste Billions on ID cards) …Good
2 Take back Town centres – Let communities close pubs and clubs where the problems are ….don`t like this much as the definition of the community is usually “ Some Liberal activists”
3 Give honest sentences that mean what they say….Absolutely
4Compulsory work and training in prison to cut re-offending …could be a good idea
5 Better compensation for victims – Paid for by prison work- Yes yes yes


As we all know the Liberals have a vile busy-bodying streak but in practice they are a socialist party with squabbles and could not carry a socially Conservative agenda . I love the last idea though , as I did when I first heard Ming float it .
What interested me was that they were pretending to be the Law and Order Party ,while we were being the Green party. In other words our brands are so cluttered at the centre, that they have actually crossed over slightly. In the DT This morning there is far more on Conservative plans to tax air travel and the front page of the Indy shows a line up of the , the most superficial area of politics.

Is that what we are doing now then selling “ banking” by offering new customers the world and ignoring the existing ones ? Yes we are, and Blair was the one who moved us in this direction….

Here is worrying thought though .

For about a month (writes New statesman Ed John Kamfner) Gordon Brown talked about the Artic Monkeys and ipods and tried to be a human being . He was roundly ridiculed ,but the real worry is that caamp Brown have decided to drop all that and set him against Cameron as a,” real politician” . This, as we know, is a vulnerable area for Cameron and I can see it working. I do not relish the Labour Party touting intellect over sociability, with a leader who would rather read a book than appear on the Des O` Connor show.

People are complex, and react at different levels . For example, the Lib Dems never stop telling us about how they were always against Iraq. On this occasion they were righ, but at a deeper level they were wrong because they cared the least about this countries security. People applaud them for their stand, but would they really vote for the Party who is flaky on defence.I doubt it

Being liked is a very dangerous foundation for electoral success Mr. Cameron, very dangerous indeed. Margaret Thatcher got more votes for the Conservative Party than you ever will, and few admitted to “Liking her”.

Like A Thunderbolt he Falls

My brother has had some very nice decking put round the back of his house which abuts suicide bridge as its called ,on Highgate Hill . Now he can look out across the whole of London and he reminded me of the this fragment whilst revelling in the sense of mastery and achievement only new raised decking can bring. Imagine him proclaiming this at me with beer in hand ….









He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
( Tennyson)

It’s the optical effect of the wrinkled sea that makes it work isn’t it

Changing the subject there is always something irresistible to the English about carpe diem and the acknowledgement that life is passing .This sweet sadness is captured in 12th night a play intended for the end of a festive period .For all the comedy we know it must end , and this silvered transience permeates the play


What's to come is still unsure;
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.


The Beach Boys Numbers I like the best had just a that feeling about them that summer will soon be over as will youth and life itself. This is one of the best which I happenend to hear today




When I Grow Up ( fragment )

……Will my kids be proud or think their old man is really a square?
(eighteen nineteen)
When they're out having fun yeah, will I still wanna have my share?
(twenty twenty-one)
Will I love my wife for the rest of my life
When I grow up to be a man?

What will I be when I grow up to be a man?
(twenty-two twenty-three)
Won't last forever
(twenty-four twenty-five)
It's kind of sad
(twenty-six twenty-seven)
Won't last forever
(twenty-eight twenty-nine)
It's kind of sad
(thirty thirty-one)
Won't last forever
(thirty-two...)


Youths a stuff will not endure . How do you feel about getting older ? Its better than the alternative I suppose and if ones triumph is installing some nice new raised decking ,then at least there are still triumphs to be had. I think i need abigger motorbike ...

Islington Leaseholder News

All leaseholders were balloted last week on whether or not they would agree
to pay 40p per week to establish an independent leaseholders
Association...and 22% returned their ballots...with 76.5% of these in
favour...therefore we will be funded to 250,000 pounds annually...from
leaseholders, not HFI/LBI...!!!

Thanks to Brian Potter for keeping me up to date on this . In fact Brian Potter deserves a general vote of thanks for his unflagging support for Islington`s 11,000 beleagurered leaseholders. Thye have been treated shamefully and at heart it is the doctrinal hatred of the Left which is to blame.

National Green Day

In another thrilling instalment of the Conservative take over of Islington, your hero Newmania was whipping on the troops with cries of “ Can I go home now ` and “ Why do we have to do this its stupid "

Yes that’s right ,its national Green Day a day on which , following David Cameron’s example, we spend lost treasure troves full of Byzantine wealth on having a wind turbine installed ,which will pay you, and the atmosphere ,back in about 250 years . Alternatively you can cycle with a Bentley carrying you briefcase at a respectful distance.
Nonetheless, I have to note with haughty froideur , that Justin Hinchcliffe`s rowdy gang of street fighters ,in Tottenham ,boycotted Green day completely. Could it be that Justin ,their inspirational, leader, has grown slitty eyed on the whole Green issue .?Judging from his reaction to that C4 documentary it is entirely possible . See his blog , it makes for disturbing reading that one so young and ,attractive ( Like eternal Pan is the youth , piping his enchantment from an attic promontory whilst Auroa , robed in pink , smiles upon him ) ,should be so cynical. What will the boy David , out in his recycled trainers say ?

We do not question the Party in Islington we are just Kiplingesque foot soldiers , and with exactly that spirit of “we`re ere because we`re ere “,off we marched to save Duncan Terrace , England , the World and then Universe.
Duncan Webster ,Islington’s Heir apparent banished heavy lidded cynicism with a St Cripin`s day speech that stiffened the thew and sinew.” Oh come just pick up a few bits then we’ll go and annoy the Lib Dem s”,…and so we were off .

Many warriors fought that day and their names were these

Ramona Simms - Gorgeously attired in head hankey and with an attractive unaffected insouciant wiggle , the girl from Ipanemah was oblivious to the admiring glance s she received from passers by …

When she walks, shes like a samba
That swings so cool and sways so gentle
That when she passes, each one she passes goes - aaahhhhh

( She begged me to delete this photo ….nuts!)

Duncan Webster- The young Prince of Islington Conservatives .An enthuser , a worker and the beating heart of the Party


Oh there were some other people there Laurie Fitzjohn Sykes and David Tucker ….but obviously ,they are much less important than Duncan so I `m not going to talk about them much . They performed adequately I suppose , not sure really ( ho ho)

The Days Business

First of all we picked some litter , then we went and laughed at the proposed scheme to tart up the area around Angel. Untold gazillions have been squandered on Consultants for a job that would have cost a private company £2,000 or so..and they are cutting up Duncan Terrace Park. Rich people will have no where to read their slim leather bound copies of Keates between banking coups. It’s a scandal. Finally we had a pop at the Libs who were out pretending to be Conservatives …courtesy of mischief make in chief the Harlequinesque Mr. Webster.

SERIOUSLY - It was a good effort and everyone who tuned up helped raise our profile in Islington. Across the country to many Party structures have been allowed wither on the vine . There is no danger of that here with so many selfless helpers willing to give their time

Brilliant stuff.