The Lord Triesman affair has generated a lot of heat and debate amongst those who are concerned about the 'press freedom' aspect. Personally I think that the dogs of fleet street would eat their own young for a story and am in despair over the fact that one of the most notorious editors in the past few years is now in government. Anyway... here are a couple of posts for the Guardian CiF .
If you Google Melissa Jacobs , you end up with a US Porn star.
Can't see the colour of her eyes though.
The point being missed by North is that it is obviously common currency amongst the FA to think that the Spanish FA are not beyond bribing referees [ an act that has been suspected before in previous World Cup Finals and by other countries and not only by taxi drivers ] and that they could hardly bring these suspicions to FIFA directly.
Could it be that Triesman fell on his sword? Remember that under our very generous libel laws if Lord Triesman brought a case against Melissa and the MoS, the Spanish FA may feel free to appeal to the same law and court.
In any case it has given fair warning to FIFA and the rest of the world that previous refereeing decisions that affected England's progress in past campaigns will be looked at more closely and cynically if they occur in future .
If it brings about a stricter appraisal of dodgy decisions and a resort to more advanced technology then the lady may have been worth the price paid.
Oh come on, North. Surely you are not naive enough to think that such things do not go on? Au Continent? Do you know of any multi billion enterprise that does not have it's unfair share of fixers, dopers, dodgy middle - men, agents, touts, and 'administrators' who are given more VIP treatment than the Pope? It may be a beautiful game but it's also a bloody dirty business.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Fe
Is this how we are forged,
Struck from the womb in an Anglo Saxon phrase?
To be beaten or cast into fashion or form
Over which no control is possible.
A tempering by smith or by Vulcan into
a shape that yet retains our own polarity?
Do we forge ourselves into sword or plough;
Into magnet or barbed live wire;
Into firegrate, penknib, knife or vat
That our parents or school marm have wished?
Or were their designs beyond their means,
Distorted by the fires of a fiercer furnace?
Was the polish rubbed off a bright future
by the stains of experience or fatigue
And tell a final tale of corrosion
Under the influence of water, air
and the stronger Bru?
Can the archaeologist tell the true form against the age?
I think on all the tempering
that others have endured, enjoyed or borne.
To remain sharp and Sheffield bright
Or dulled into a sullen bluntness
Of uncaring barbs and razor sharp swarf
That can draw oxide red blood with unfeeling words.
To be as smoothly oiled
As by the trusty engineer or joiner’s craft
or blackened by the simple cook
retaining all vestige of the pleasure
of the making and the use.
To be savoured again into the memory impressed.
To cut through the times and grain
with the confidence of a two handed saw.
To shoe the horse and the wheel
To roll the world into the greener grass,
Mowed by the scythes and threshed
Into a future where iron no longer rules.
To fire the ball into the foe
And cut the the swathes to freedom.
To hold and form the gate
To keep the peace or lock in,
Or out of, the honest moil,
The corruption that would steal it’s own future.
To link so many chains and padlock us
into a holdfast secure to all
Or bridge the gap between dividing banks.
Have we still the formulae for this
or abandoned it for a weaker earth
That depends on transition of unseen force?
Must I rust into impassive mechanism
And lose all use in the failing of my nuts and bolts?
Lose my temper, far too brittle to survive the strains.
Ill-usage and fatigue change the tasks I must do
Into a grating of pain
where entropy works far faster on me than on iron.
Do all our parts finally meld
In an atomic fluidity at our core
That sends a world spinning and holds the Solar storms
Or steel a Universe into a iron will that
Decrees our final mettle.
Or will a mixture with gall and shredded wood be all that lasts?
Struck from the womb in an Anglo Saxon phrase?
To be beaten or cast into fashion or form
Over which no control is possible.
A tempering by smith or by Vulcan into
a shape that yet retains our own polarity?
Do we forge ourselves into sword or plough;
Into magnet or barbed live wire;
Into firegrate, penknib, knife or vat
That our parents or school marm have wished?
Or were their designs beyond their means,
Distorted by the fires of a fiercer furnace?
Was the polish rubbed off a bright future
by the stains of experience or fatigue
And tell a final tale of corrosion
Under the influence of water, air
and the stronger Bru?
Can the archaeologist tell the true form against the age?
I think on all the tempering
that others have endured, enjoyed or borne.
To remain sharp and Sheffield bright
Or dulled into a sullen bluntness
Of uncaring barbs and razor sharp swarf
That can draw oxide red blood with unfeeling words.
To be as smoothly oiled
As by the trusty engineer or joiner’s craft
or blackened by the simple cook
retaining all vestige of the pleasure
of the making and the use.
To be savoured again into the memory impressed.
To cut through the times and grain
with the confidence of a two handed saw.
To shoe the horse and the wheel
To roll the world into the greener grass,
Mowed by the scythes and threshed
Into a future where iron no longer rules.
To fire the ball into the foe
And cut the the swathes to freedom.
To hold and form the gate
To keep the peace or lock in,
Or out of, the honest moil,
The corruption that would steal it’s own future.
To link so many chains and padlock us
into a holdfast secure to all
Or bridge the gap between dividing banks.
Have we still the formulae for this
or abandoned it for a weaker earth
That depends on transition of unseen force?
Must I rust into impassive mechanism
And lose all use in the failing of my nuts and bolts?
Lose my temper, far too brittle to survive the strains.
Ill-usage and fatigue change the tasks I must do
Into a grating of pain
where entropy works far faster on me than on iron.
Do all our parts finally meld
In an atomic fluidity at our core
That sends a world spinning and holds the Solar storms
Or steel a Universe into a iron will that
Decrees our final mettle.
Or will a mixture with gall and shredded wood be all that lasts?
Friday, 21 May 2010
Henry Porter , RIP
I can't decide whether Henry Porter is a Tory stalking horse or just a one trick pony but as he rides off into the sunset he leaves behind some precious little piles for my garden.
Just one of those things...
Let the number of preventable events that maybe expected to occur equal x.
The probability of any one of those events occurring is 1/x.
Let us take x = 5 the probability = 1/5 = 20%.
Each event has a 20% chance of occurring.
If we prevent one of those events from occurring then the probability is now 1/x-1.
If x= 5, x-1 = 4 The probability = 1/4 = 25%.
The probability of each event has increased as the number of events decrease.
If there is only one event probable of occurring then 1/1= 100% = Certainty
[ If all events are prevented from occurring then 1/0 = infinity [though it may be taken as certainty.]
Thus the probability of the unexpected event is certainty or,
'Whatever can happen, will happen'
QED
Monday, 17 May 2010
Wot...No Narrative
Film blog on Robin Hood,Russell Crowe and accents
I cannot see why these remakes cannot keep to the narrative as it has been passed down through the ages. I am writing whilst Merlin And The Book of Beasts is on the TV. A better title would be Merlin Goes To The Dogs. Truly awful. [The similarity of Merlin's accent to Windsor Davies is uncanny]
The Beeb did the same with The Tudors, Merlin and it's own take on Robin Hood. Got rid of the original story and 'explored' the narrative. It may not be history but it has tradition behind it. If we are not true to that tradition then we can hardly moan about Hollywood or Texan school book history. It means it's fair game to make up any story you like or or adapt a universal parable to whatever fits your purposes. It means that if you tell a lie big enough and long enough then people will believe it. A proposition adopted by Dr. Joseph Goebels I believe. Makes Liberty Valance almost a martyr to the First Amendment.
I cannot see why these remakes cannot keep to the narrative as it has been passed down through the ages. I am writing whilst Merlin And The Book of Beasts is on the TV. A better title would be Merlin Goes To The Dogs. Truly awful. [The similarity of Merlin's accent to Windsor Davies is uncanny]
The Beeb did the same with The Tudors, Merlin and it's own take on Robin Hood. Got rid of the original story and 'explored' the narrative. It may not be history but it has tradition behind it. If we are not true to that tradition then we can hardly moan about Hollywood or Texan school book history. It means it's fair game to make up any story you like or or adapt a universal parable to whatever fits your purposes. It means that if you tell a lie big enough and long enough then people will believe it. A proposition adopted by Dr. Joseph Goebels I believe. Makes Liberty Valance almost a martyr to the First Amendment.
The day the war broke out...
Hard to know what to say about a marriage made in hell except that a majority of voters did not vote for a Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition. It wasn't on the ballot.
Personally I cannot see it lasting for a full term because even Lib. Dems are not that naive [ though Clegg may well be ] to believe that the Tories are going to modify their behaviour or their basic policies to anything that can be remotely described as fair. Less than a week in and there's a nasty smell in the air.
George Osborne is ramming through the £6Bn cuts in a week... which means he must have had them up his sleeve all along. Setting up an 'independent' economic forecasting quango is a real doozy too. Means he can ignore what the Treasury is saying and carry on regardless. Bet he didn't run that one past Vince Cable first. He's been side lined and if the banks aren't kept on side then Cable can be blamed, sidelined and then quietly removed. Vince certainly has so little influence now he may as well retire.
Creating enough Tory peers to ram bills through Parliament [ whilst being so generous to Nick's side. Some Lord's reform ] so that Cameron can gerrymander the boundaries, voting system and parliamentary reform. Bet they don't get around to repealing all those 'anti-libertarian' acts that Henry Porter hated NuLabour for. Going to come in useful when the natives get restless.
Europe? Who wants to get closer to that cluster fuck? Means Cameron can get the press on side towards disengagement and away from a European social model and move towards the Americanisation of the 'Big Society'. Any rich, Tory philanthropists out there?
Make no mistake about it. The Tories have an agenda. Remember how much Cameron didn't say during the election. Leaves the field clear because he promised sweet FA. Clegg has been bedazzled. I wonder how long it will be before he realises this is a devil's bargain.
Personally I cannot see it lasting for a full term because even Lib. Dems are not that naive [ though Clegg may well be ] to believe that the Tories are going to modify their behaviour or their basic policies to anything that can be remotely described as fair. Less than a week in and there's a nasty smell in the air.
George Osborne is ramming through the £6Bn cuts in a week... which means he must have had them up his sleeve all along. Setting up an 'independent' economic forecasting quango is a real doozy too. Means he can ignore what the Treasury is saying and carry on regardless. Bet he didn't run that one past Vince Cable first. He's been side lined and if the banks aren't kept on side then Cable can be blamed, sidelined and then quietly removed. Vince certainly has so little influence now he may as well retire.
Creating enough Tory peers to ram bills through Parliament [ whilst being so generous to Nick's side. Some Lord's reform ] so that Cameron can gerrymander the boundaries, voting system and parliamentary reform. Bet they don't get around to repealing all those 'anti-libertarian' acts that Henry Porter hated NuLabour for. Going to come in useful when the natives get restless.
Europe? Who wants to get closer to that cluster fuck? Means Cameron can get the press on side towards disengagement and away from a European social model and move towards the Americanisation of the 'Big Society'. Any rich, Tory philanthropists out there?
Make no mistake about it. The Tories have an agenda. Remember how much Cameron didn't say during the election. Leaves the field clear because he promised sweet FA. Clegg has been bedazzled. I wonder how long it will be before he realises this is a devil's bargain.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Simon Jenkins' Rabbit Stew
This is a response to the Simon Jenkins' article in the Guardian of Saturday 8th May 2010.
A 53% [ actually a 64% ] vote against Cameron and Tories is considered to be a kiss of life? Well if you are a 'fluffy bunny' it might be.
I am sure I am not alone in thinking that nobody who supports PR thought it was going to be Teletubbies [ except the Solihull woman who said she didn't mind who was in charge as long as they 'stopped bickering' ]
Politics is 90% ' heated discussions' in 'smoke filled rooms' [and ffs let's change that cliche to 'butt strewn draughty doorways' Hasn't anybody noticed where smokers congregate? ] The other 10% is like an old whore's 'slap' of makeup to convince the punters she's still got what it takes. The voters stuck with the ones they know. Less likely to pick something nasty.
Time for all us bunnies to understand that our present system is as outmoded as the 'Empire' and that it is as curious a British eccentricity as £sd. As an' electoral college' Parliament is efficient. Separation of a 'presidential ballot' from the representatives leads to pork barrel politics and wrangling between the executive and the legislature . It's the bias of FPTP that is most egregious.
PR at least makes every vote count. [ Perhaps the constituency problem could be overcome by each MP being selected from caucuses or ' appointed' after election to an area on the same basis that priests are sent to minister to flocks. Couple it with the Lords being told to take up their beds and get out into the constituency and us coneys may be drooling. Make it interesting at least ] Whatever the pros and cons they were all dealt with by the Jenkins' commission in 1998. Going back over the same ground just to get a better pupil/teacher ratio would be lunatic and a total betrayal of the Lib Dems raison d'etre. Even bunnies don't vote for Christmas.
Shackle himself to a guy who has 'lost' a 20 point lead for a mess of potage? No-one can trust Cameron because the Tories will never allow PR. The electorate will never forgive him or the Lib Dems for not giving us a 21st century constitution. Brown may be unattractive but 52% of this country think Cameron and Osborne are dangerous tossers forever in hock to Tories who are further to the right of Attila the Hun let alone Thatcher.
Cameron cannot command an overall majority in Parliament. He has only 306 seats out of 649. Could he become PM as a minority with a 'confidence and supply' arrangement? Only if Brown/ or AN.Other and Clegg sat on their hands whilst waiting to slip a rabbit trap noose around Dave's neck and by bribing NI to share the burrow. May be sooner or later but 64% think Tory policies stink. Plus knowing the Tories delightful ability to eat their own children if they thought it would bring them power, Dave's already being seasoned for the Hassenpfeiffer.
Delicious irony.
PS On my previous posts I alluded to the loss of my iTunes due to my computer crashing. I explained the situation to Apple iTunes and they allowed my to download all 784 in my account again. Why I bought Apple 25 years back.
A 53% [ actually a 64% ] vote against Cameron and Tories is considered to be a kiss of life? Well if you are a 'fluffy bunny' it might be.
I am sure I am not alone in thinking that nobody who supports PR thought it was going to be Teletubbies [ except the Solihull woman who said she didn't mind who was in charge as long as they 'stopped bickering' ]
Politics is 90% ' heated discussions' in 'smoke filled rooms' [and ffs let's change that cliche to 'butt strewn draughty doorways' Hasn't anybody noticed where smokers congregate? ] The other 10% is like an old whore's 'slap' of makeup to convince the punters she's still got what it takes. The voters stuck with the ones they know. Less likely to pick something nasty.
Time for all us bunnies to understand that our present system is as outmoded as the 'Empire' and that it is as curious a British eccentricity as £sd. As an' electoral college' Parliament is efficient. Separation of a 'presidential ballot' from the representatives leads to pork barrel politics and wrangling between the executive and the legislature . It's the bias of FPTP that is most egregious.
PR at least makes every vote count. [ Perhaps the constituency problem could be overcome by each MP being selected from caucuses or ' appointed' after election to an area on the same basis that priests are sent to minister to flocks. Couple it with the Lords being told to take up their beds and get out into the constituency and us coneys may be drooling. Make it interesting at least ] Whatever the pros and cons they were all dealt with by the Jenkins' commission in 1998. Going back over the same ground just to get a better pupil/teacher ratio would be lunatic and a total betrayal of the Lib Dems raison d'etre. Even bunnies don't vote for Christmas.
Shackle himself to a guy who has 'lost' a 20 point lead for a mess of potage? No-one can trust Cameron because the Tories will never allow PR. The electorate will never forgive him or the Lib Dems for not giving us a 21st century constitution. Brown may be unattractive but 52% of this country think Cameron and Osborne are dangerous tossers forever in hock to Tories who are further to the right of Attila the Hun let alone Thatcher.
Cameron cannot command an overall majority in Parliament. He has only 306 seats out of 649. Could he become PM as a minority with a 'confidence and supply' arrangement? Only if Brown/ or AN.Other and Clegg sat on their hands whilst waiting to slip a rabbit trap noose around Dave's neck and by bribing NI to share the burrow. May be sooner or later but 64% think Tory policies stink. Plus knowing the Tories delightful ability to eat their own children if they thought it would bring them power, Dave's already being seasoned for the Hassenpfeiffer.
Delicious irony.
PS On my previous posts I alluded to the loss of my iTunes due to my computer crashing. I explained the situation to Apple iTunes and they allowed my to download all 784 in my account again. Why I bought Apple 25 years back.
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