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.

Easter Weekend - A Review - Religion

So after drinking and chatting in the Old Green Tree I got up obscenely early on Easter Sunday to go the 'Daybreak' service at 6am just down the road. Always really nice to go to a different church to see a different way of doing things, but the really strange was a Daybreak Service on Easter Sunday that didn't contain communion. It was all very nice, but was much more like an Easter Eve service (complete with renewal of baptismal vows etc.) than an Easter Sunday 'First Communion of the Ressurection' that I'm much more accustomed to. Intersting.

The London Drinker Beer Festival

A group of us found our way to the Camden Centre on Friday evening - not a particularly enticing venue you might think, but for the fact that North London CAMRA were hosting the London Drinker Beer Festival.

So... recommendations... will not be forthcoming; whilst I had quite few halfs that were very comfortable 'session' bitters and a couple of milds that also were not unappealing for what they were, I didn't drink anything that struck me as 'Wow this is great'. Partly that's the problem with going on the final day - anything really good will have been drunk off already. Still - it was good to see a host of new brewerys that have started recently and seem to be doing well, as well as the busyness of the hall to indicate people keen on real ale enjoying a wide variety. Next up as far as real ale goes will almost certainly be the Cambridge Festival in May - unless I manage to escape the in-laws briefly over Easter to nip down to the Old Green Tree (Bath). If you have other suggestions in Bath that are worth trying - much appreciated!

Christian Writers - Please don't be Hypocritical...

I'm in the middle of reading a Christian book - Rick Warren's 'Purpose Driven Life', and aside from the fact that it's overtly American (irritating, but copeable with) there is one thing that is driving me absolutely crackers about it.

He insists on using about 20 different Bible translations throughout the book, and changes from one quote to the next completely indiscriminately. According to him, the reason is that 'reading the bible in an unfamiliar version can cause us to re-consider and reappraise otherwise overly familiar words'. Well, maybe. This aim would still be acheived by just having one version throughout that is less familiar to most people than the ubiquitous NIV.

The major problem that I have with the way he uses different versions throughout is that it gives the appearance of picking the version that makes the point you want to make. Rather than genuinely getting to grips with (a faithful translation of) the original text. Consider it this way - if a non-christian friend of mine came to me, having picked 20 different bible verses from 20 different versions that showed the Bible to be inconsistent, full of lies, and not how I try to portray it - I'd just laugh at him and tell him not to be so daft. In fairness, none of my non-christian friends would even consider doing that as it would be daft to take so many verses and versions out of context. So if we wouldn't do it when trying to engage other people with our faith, why is it ok to do it when discipling to each other?

An enjoyable afternoon and evening...

...was most certainly had yesterday. Ostensibly to celebrate Baron Scarpia's (and Simon's) Birthday, but generally just a good excuse to get a bunch of Uni mates out together to catch up.

As far as the Beer and pubs went - we started in the White Lion, Covent Garden (generally an easy place to meet) which is a perfectly reasonable central London pub (one of Nicholson's) which was serving Timothy Taylor Landlord and Spitfire when I got there. I had a pint of both, and both were being perfectly reasonably kept although nothing special - personally I prefer the Landlord - a distinct hoppy edge that takes away from the initial bitterness.

After waiting for a variety of people to turn up, and after a deviation to PizzaExpress for some carbohydrate intake, we went to the Lowlander, somewhere I've trying to get to for a while. They eventually cleared enough space for the 10 of us and we sat down to start on some interesting continental beers. Personally, I went for the Bellevue Kriek, reasonably common, but served on draught here and absolutely beautiful. My missus went for the Frulli Strawberry (rather predictable, she's not really a beer drinker) which was as sickly sweet as always. One of us went for the Russian Imperial Stout, but I didn't notice which Breweries offering it was - very tasty though, and a type I'll keep an increasing eye out for. However, tempting though it was to stay for more than one, the presence of a couple of students amongst us, along with those keeping a close eye on there wallets meant I was encouraged to find 'a nice cheap local with decent real ale' instead.

Well, given a task like that, the only solution I knew of in reasonably close proximity was going to be one of Sam Smith's London pubs - so off we wandered down to the Lyceum Tavern at the corner of Aldwych and the Strand. Great little boozer this, typical Sam Smiths offerings - I had the Old Brewery Bitter on draught, a tasty but fairly straight-forward session bitter being all I was up for at that stage in the evening. The wife went for the white lager - far superior to Hoogaarden in my opinion - a great example of the art. Particularly useful at the (getting increasingly) inebriated stage of the evening - a free dart board and a pub not sufficiently crowded to render it unusable - so 6 of us started a game of 'Killer' with increasingly hilarious (and eventually predictable) consequences.

All in all - a great afternoon and evening, really good to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in ages, and a couple of good pubs to be reminded of in the West End. Happy Drinking. ;-)

Venice - A couple of thoughts

The wife and I have just got back from 4 days in Venice. (Celebrating our 1st Wedding Anniversary as it happens). For those of you who know her and are really bored, the photos are on the wife's Facebook entry.

Venice got me thinking about a couple of things though - conservation of ancient things (why, how, should we, in what manner), and more generally what a city exists for.

We went just after 'Carnevale' had finished, and before the main summer tourist season, and so it was supposedly 'low' season for the tourists. Despite that, they appeared to be in the majority, certainly around the San Marco area, which seemed to me to be worse than Cambridge's King Street in Summer. Wandering around the city, and trying to get lost in various places I was astonished by the types of buildings we walked past. Every third retail space was either a restaurant or a hotel. At least every other third was a tourist shop of some kind (Carnevale masks, Glass retailer, etc.) Of the remaining third, I would estimate almost all are services to the existing population and tourists that would not be required if the city didn't exist (ie Banks, Post Office, Bars, Fashion shops, Hospital etc.)

So why does the city of Venice exist? If there was no city there, you certainly wouldn't consider building one in its location - but then that is true of a great many of the worlds great cities. The native population of the historic centre (the bit thought of as Venice proper) is a staggeringly small 62,000 - less than Stevenage, Gosport, Wellingborough, Barrow-in-Furness or Bolsover. (And incidentally, about a fifth of the population of New Orleans forced to leave due to Katrina that has relocated elsewhere on a permanent basis). Of those 62,000 a huge proportion would be out of work with no tourists. I came to the view that the city exists almost solely for the tourist trade that exists with it. Maybe a city can exist solely for the things that it has done in the past, for the architecture, geography, and history that caused it to be - but have since passed it by - but it feels, to me at least, very false. Beautiful undoubtedly, and fascinating geographically, with a host of artistic treasures to be admired and commended, but ultimately, above all the rest, false.

Apologies for the lack of service...

...I've been kinda focused on other things (such as looking at houses, mortgage applications, trying to sell our flat etc. etc. etc.)

Normal service may be resumed at some point... but maybe not for a while. (If we get the house we have put an offer in on, I may spend a fair bit of my spare time re-decorating instead ;-) )

Environmental Taxes

Spegasaur has been having an interesting discussion about environmental taxes; basically "Should an environmental tax discourage behaviour, or should it pay for behaviour?"

As far as I see it, as long as an environmental tax does one of the 2, it is doing its job - the problem is when it does neither. Ideally it should do both - that is, it should discourage certain unenvironmental behaviour by some people, and the revenues from those that continue to indulge should be ring-fenced into things that cancel the behaviour. What should not happen is that a 'nominal' environmental tax is chucked on something, not in proportion to the environmental damage, and the revenues simply added to the Chancellors coffers.

Scottish Politics...

For those of you wanting to do some analysis and seat calculations for the Scottish Parliament elections there is now a website that does all this for you - Scotland Votes

Given the absence of reliable (or in fact any) opinion polls to enter in I'm not quite sure how useful it is, but as Peter Snow always says - "It's just a bit of fun"

Geographically Illiterate BBC...

From the BBC Sports Page describing the 5th Round Cup Draw...

"Preston will host neighbours Manchester City,..."

Just how far away can somewhere be whilst still being classed as a neighbour! :roll:

Tony Blair Dramatised... 2 different ways

Have had the slightly dubious honour of watching "The Trial of Tony Blair" on Friday evening, and then "The Queen" on Saturday evening.

Note: Spoilers start here...

Whilst "The Trial of Tony Blair" is set in the future (just before the 2010 General Election) and "The Queen" is set in the recent history of 1997, it is fascinating to see the two different portrayals of Blair. In the one he is shown as truly of the people, someone who really had a grasp of the mood of the nation, and who could do no wrong. In the other, he has lost his grip of reality, shown as failing to understand where it all went wrong and how 'his people' no longer seem to need him to lead them.

Both actors have clearly studied their muse, and the familiar gestures and facial inflections are there to help you believe that it is Blair despite the facial features being not particularly familiar. I have issues with 'Trial of Tony Blair' in that the Blair shown appears to lack intelligence and understanding, which, however much I dislike him, I don't think is a fair failing to attribute.

As for 'The Queen' - the only problem with the Blair here is that he is totally and utterly overshadowed by Helen Mirren's Queen Liz. (Well, that and Cherie is made more catty than even I can believe she really is, which unnecessarily enhances your sympathy for Blair)

In conclusion - I much preferred The Queen as a film, and Mirren really should get the Oscar predicted, but for satirical 'if-only's 'The Trial of Tony Blair' was much watch television.