Apologies - Again

Quick apology for the lack of anything having been written here recently... work, house, holiday, blah, blah, blah... Having said that we now have Broadband at home, so more comments and thoughts may be forthcoming (but may not be - I ain't going to try and promise anything...)

Hell's Kitchen & the Gay thing

I really, really don't mean to be offensive here, and this is a genuine question. Is shirt-lifter a derogatory term in and of itself (such as nigger is) or is it a "descriptive" term that can be used derogatorily (as can many other terms/words). I guess what I mean by this is that the word 'gay' in and of itself is not derogatory as it is descriptive, although it can be used to cause offense, whereas 'nigger' is pretty much agreed to be offensive in any context due to the history and background of the word. Is shirt-lifter a word like nigger, or is it just another euphemism for gay (such as 'friend of Peter Mandleson' or 'bats for the other side') which are apparantly perfectly acceptable and non-offense in descriptive contexts.

Twenty20 World Cup

Looks exciting so far - Chris Gayle got the Windies into a great position which they then managed to throw away in a way that only the Windies can ;-)

How will England do? Not sure - can't predict anything in this competition, but I would think we will see increasingly high scores as the players get more used to the tempo and style of play - I would hope for a final or semi-final with a successful run chase of over 300. Not sure if we'll see it, but one can hope. How England do is up to how they are on the day(s) - they are confident which is a great start and should make it through to the Semis if Pieterson and Maschercanas can fire together against Australia / South Africa / New Zealand. Beyond that it's anyones - much better to watch than the Rugby though.

3 Months on... and nothing to say?

More like not enough time to say anything... having moved into our new house at the end of May - we still don't have broadband at home... oops. and am spending a bunch of time doing DIY and similar and so havn't has time to blog at all. Apologies to both my (used to be regular) readers.

Anyway - not really enough time to say much, politics seems to be a bit dull at the moment - summer so Browns not really got his feet under the table properly, Dave's still awaiting the result of his focus groups to tell him what to say, and Ming seems to have gone into hibernation.

Financials - believe I said something in my New Year predications about credit spreads blowing out... sub-prime seems to have been the excuse. Are we though it all - probably not. Is a big issue if you are a long-term equity investor - No. Will volatility continue to be high - probably.

Newcastle Utd - planning to go to the pompey match in November - anyone want to join me?

So much to blog about... so little time...

Local Elections - Libs did badly, in comparison to what was expected. Does this mean a leadership election - I'm not convinced that the party have the stomach for regicide so soon after the last one. One of the things that is interesting to look at, is a comparison of local election results in seats which are currently Lib Dem, versus seats which are always going to be 'safe' Tory. I am awaiting some analysis from Mark Senior on this which should prove interesting in the detail.

Scotland - SNP did well - and deserve to attempt to form a government. It will be interesting to see how well minority government plays out, and how long it lasts for. In particular I wonder how much Labour will support some of the left-wing policies of the SNP, or if they will vote against on principle. Fascinating to see how this works and plays out - and hopefully, if successful, a link to getting PR for Westminster?

French Election - Congratulations to Sarkozy - let's just hope that he can do the things that France really needs, and promotes and encourages Free Markets, rather than the protectionism that has been slowly killing France over the years. How he deals with the issues of multi-culturalism that France also seems to be struggling with will also be the making, or otherwise of him in my opinion.

Newcastle United - End of the Roed - Simply put - Glenn didn't do well enough with the finances and players he was given, and he knows it. Is 'Big Sam' the solution - I really don't think so, but personally I think that the whole club needs overall from Top to Bottom - principally starting with the Chairman.

Insane Drinking Suggestions...

This story on the BBC Website talks about suggestions that Parents who give alcohol to children under 15 could be prosecuted. The suggestion seems to be that this would be in a bid to 'reduce' binge drinking in children.

No-one seems to have noticed however that it would be completley counter-productive - a lot of my friends (and myself) enjoy a drink, but appreciate the taste of proper real ale (or whatever) rather than the feeling of getting completely 'off your face'. For most of us, we were taught and brought up with alcohol in the home.

I distinctly remember having sips of my fathers real ale as young as 10 when we went to the country pub as a family, which graduated to him pouring some into my lemonade to make a bitter shandy, to having my own bought for me at about 14/15. It meant that I learnt to enjoy alcoholic drinks for the taste, and learnt to respect the effect that it could have on you. (OK, so the respect aspect was perhaps helped by cycling to the pub, and having to cycle home again... ;-) )

I just don't understand the logic behind this suggestion - just a look at Continental drinking habits should be enough to convinve anyone that tackling the binge drinking culture in this country starts in the home at a young age. But no - authoritarian answers of prosecuting parents seems to be the suggestion - Daft.

Mortgage Brokers are scum of the earth...

...no seriously... still having problems with house sale / purchase. Large delays caused by Buyers of our flat having a Mortgage Broker that seems to take forever to get no progress, charge a fee in the middle, and all for something that any half intelligent person could find out using 15mins on Google or similar.

Apologies, Rant over... but as you can see, House things taking up more time than anticipated... still...

Easter Weekend - A Review

OK, so for the Easter weekend the wife, her sister and I went over to Bath to visit her Dad, Step-mum and 2 half sisters. Weather was gorgeous as it was in most of the rest of the country but there were a few things that I was wanting to write about. As you might have guessed if you know me - Beer, Religion and Politics. Apologies in advance, but trying to tie them all into one post would be a bit cumbersome so I've split them up below - I just hope that they still tie together somewhat...

Easter Weekend - A Review - Beer

OK, so Beer. Bath is renowned as a Real Ale City and I was wanting to take the opportunity to sample a couple.

First up on the Saturday was lunch in a country pub somewhere in the wilds of rural Somerset (We were on the way to Montacute House, and apologies for not knowing the name of the pub or its location). I took the opportunity to sample a pint of the 'Gem' by a Bath based local Brewery. Delicious, nice and heavy (perhaps a touch too much for a normal lunchtime pint but hey) with a chocolatey, caramely overtone and a perfect bitter finish. I will most definately keep an eye out for this in future.

Next was a bottle of Nepalese Lager (we were eating at Yak Yeti Yak, a Nepalese restaurant) which was, as far as lagers go, perfectly pleasant and a reasonable accompaniment to the food. It was quite similar to Tusker lager from Kenya in my opinion, I suspect due to the levels of barley.

Moving on from dinner we went into town to the The Old Green Tree. Great little pub tucked away down a side street with 3 different rooms and always a good range of real ale on tap. I went for the Pubs own Bitter 'Old Green Tree Brewery Bitter' which was pleasant but a bit of a disappointment - not nearly enough flavour for my liking - I even managed to persuade a lager drinker 'what should I order, they don't have any Stella?' to go for it on the basis that it was a bit like lager without any fizz. Given he then agreed I think that tells you all you need to know!

After that I went for the Pitchfork - a much more complex beer which was overflowing, perhaps a touch too much, with hops but with a good overall structure and taste.

Easter Weekend - A Review - Politics

Just a couple of points that I want to make really - was having drinks with a friend of the wifes in the Old Green Tree. He was an admissions officer for a failing school in Bristol until recently and has just quit in frustration at the system. I appreciate that it's a one-sided view but he was saying that in a school where 90% of the pupils attend for 89% of the time, andn 10% for 11%, as an admissions officer he was asked to focus on trying to massage the figure to show that 90% attend over 90% of the time, and to leave the 10% to fester as clearly thats much harder. As he saw it a focus on targets and a target culture was so all pervading that the original aim of the targets (the kids that aren't attending) have been completly lost. If this is at all indicative of what Labour has done in Education, the NHS, etc. then things are potentially much worse than we think they are, and will take a lot more fixing to get people back to focusing on what the real issues are.