Upgrade this afternoon - no comments

Afternoon, all.

A server upgrade is scheduled for 16:00 hrs today, so if everyone fancies visiting round about that sort of time there's a slight chance you'll find a horrible error message before I do, thus making me look like a charlie.

Shouldn't take more than a few minutes.

Windows Vista - 3 comments

I find it difficult to judge Windows technology rationally. It's more a kind of gut hatred - as one colour scheme changes to another, a sinking feeling - as icons grow larger and more photorealistic, a throbbing pain - as the work of thousands of developers, busily doubling an application's size, is distilled into no obviously new and useful features whatsoever, and a silent tear for the future as more black plastic Dell boxes are churned out by the million, two years away from their destiny on the scrapheap.

Incidentally, I have used the 2nd beta of Internet Explorer 7, and it's difficult to overestimate how much - in the parlance - it blows. With the possible exception of obsessive, in-your-face security features, it's inferior to the merely slow, irritating, and obsolete Version 6 in every imaginable sense. I won't bore you with more, but will just leave you with the cheering thought: abandon all hope now.

Update: Anthony has a video...

Ken Livingstone-themed blog post - 1 comment

One disadvantage of posting late on an issue is that all the clever titles have gone, so "Beyond our Ken" is a no-no, and perhaps John Shuttleworth's Can you ken Ken? is too obscure to use.

Anyway, I find Norm's piece the most persuasive so far, on the issue of Livingstone's buttonholing by an Evening Standard reporter, and his supposedly anti-semitic, but definitely crass, comments:

I think there's a certain amount of hot air being spoken on the subject of Ken Livingstone's suspension, though I do not myself defend the suspension. The hot air concerns elected politicians being deposed or removed by unelected officials, a type of action that apparently 'strikes at the heart of democracy'. Have those who say this kind of thing not come across judicial processes? Or the notion of impeachment?

It does seem a pointless sentence to hand down, which weakens London's government for no important purpose. On the other hand, decentralisation to a Mayor and Assembly can hardly be said to have succeeded if, as some have suggested, the Mayor's temporary absence causes a complete breakdown in decision-making.

And yes, we all hate the Evening Standard - quite rightly. Luckily for me, as I have no interest in either Princess Di conspiracies or what Cherie Blair earns on the lecture circuit, I'm able to live my life without its interference.

Here's another anti-Livingstone piece you might have missed, from the even less pleasant Spiked.

Agents Of The Regime - 4 comments

Harry's Place has the text of a George Galloway interview with Algerian newspaper, El Khabar.

There's an unbelievable amount of evidence in there that the man's completely off his head: from believing the publication of those Danish cartoons was "worse than the 11 September attacks in the US and the 7/7 incidents in London", to the delusion that "In the near future, Respect will become one of the strongest political parties in Britain." If that wasn't enough, Galloway has a private contract with God:

[Halimi] Many people are wondering where you derive this strength with which you speak and defy the powerful. Is there a secret power behind you?

[Galloway - in Arabic] This strength comes from God.

Poor sad git.

Just for luck, there's a deft little anti-Semitic touch towards the end:

[Halimi] Some two million Muslims in Britain have only four parliamentary seats, while other minorities, such as Jews, have many seats. What do British Muslims need to do to become powerful and influential within the British society.

[Galloway] Muslims in Britain have only one seat, my seat, through which I represent them. Those you are speaking about are agents of the regime. They act against Islam and Muslims...

Very impressive. Anyway, as they say, read the whole thing.

Update: fixed broken link - lousy Blogger.

Liberty Central - 1 comment

New today: Liberty Central is a new group blog/campaigning site, whose aim is to work:

...for a New Constitutional Settlement for the United Kingdom.

It would be foolish to deny that much of the impetus for the site has come from opposition to this Government's legislation, and that there is a lot of hostility, beneath the surface, to: Blair, New Labour, etc. All the same, the site is officially non-partisan, and if it can (with our help too) foster a radical, persuasive campaign for constitutional reform, and for wider, deeper democracy, then we should thoroughly approve.

Keep your eye on it.

Update: Neil has already remarked on this - substantially before me, as usual. He's also reminded me that I posted something less than a week ago on this same topic, which turns out to have been much more interesting than this particular post. It's all coming back now - Cabaret was on, wasn't it? OK, I suggest you skip this post and try the earlier one.

Labour blogs - 7 comments

A lot of people would say that the Labour Party has been particularly slow in coming to terms with the world of blogs, how they can be used, and used constructively.

I could have told you that there was an awareness of blogs within the Party, but would have had to agree - until very recently - that this had not manifested itself in any obvious support for those bloggers who (currently) brave opprobrium by publicly backing the party, programme, and record since 1997. They could have done this by linking to bloggers, or providing advice for, say, Councillors to set themselves up, get their news and views across, build links within online communities, and generally play a full part in the positive aspects of the blogosphere.

It looks like things might be changing, however. A new blogs page has appeared on the Labour Party site, with links to some of the blogging MPs, a couple of blogs that were new to me and appear to use some kind of standardised software/layout, plus a link to us (thank you!). Thanks to Newer Labour for spotting this.

Meanwhile, we're still collecting more bloggers - the total should reach 160 in the next day or so - hope the software holds up.

They Will Come For You - 5 comments

Via Pub Philosopher, a distinctly unsavoury attempt by 'our own' Diane Abbott MP (her name is misspelled in their article, though more on this later) to spread the fear of racism - and fear and mistrust of the police - among black Britons.

Familiar themes are covered; you've seen it all before, but here we go just once more time:

For one thing, the billions that Blair is spending on his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could have been better spent on schools and hospitals here at home.

How can it be that Blair has a billion pounds to spend on sending troops to Afghanistan, chasing around looking for Osama Bin Laden (who is probably in a hotel room in New York watching it all on CNN), when there is no money to provide decent facilities for the youth in Hackney?

Frankly, I'm disgusted at that - at the very least, it's unworthy of an MP.

Now, how does Diane make the jump from media condemnation (much of it justified, leaving aside the tabloid accounts) of violence-inciting Islamic protests to conjure up the spectre of orchestrated racism against black people? Simply and shamelessly:

What this media coverage plays on is fear of the outsider and the "foreigner" and, above all, the oldest racial stereotype in the book: the idea that non-white men are violent.

In other words, from one of her own hang-ups - no more, no less.

And I have no doubt that some of the "anti-terrorist" legislation that Tony Blair is trying to push through parliament, including 90-day detention without trial and arbitrary house arrest, will end up being used on black and Asian people generally.

So beware of Tony Blair and his "war on terror". If they come for the young Muslim man next door in the morning; they will come for you in the afternoon.

I don't doubt that Muslims are disproportionally suspected of being involved in terrorism (and I mean disproportionately to the actual involvement of Muslims in terrorism, not disproportionately to other groups in society), but I certainly don't believe that any group is suspected generally, seemingly on the whim of the authorities, as Diane would have us believe. No reason whatsoever is given as to why black people might be victimised - and not defended by the rest of society - let alone people hailing from India, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, or Japan, whom Diane also seems to believe she has a right to speak for.

I guess it's possible that The Voice are doing the old Viz trick: "Diane Abbot is an unemployed agitator from West Norwood and in no way connected to Diane Abbott, the MP of unimpeachable integrity and moral character". It's mysterious, though: there seem to be plenty of Google hits for both variations of the name, seemingly both referring to the same person, so I'll continue to work on the basis that this nastiness was perpatrated by one of our own MPs, hard as it is to believe.

Disruption possibility - no comments

There may be a bit of disruption in your B4L service tonight.

It's unlikely, because I'm careful, and I work unsociable hours, but apologies in advance if you find something broken on the site. Should only take half an hour or so.

Basically, I'm just whacking in a few extra racks to handle all the traffic, and fixing the thermostat in the server room. You know what it's like.

Liberty Central - 4 comments

Talk Politics has been busy, aided and abetted by past B4L commenters, Bishop Hill and MatGB, plus several others, on what is intended to be a non-partisan, libertarian blog project. A new coalition of anti-authoritarian forces, it is intended to be.

We noticed the early rumblings, had a bit of a chat about this on Friday, and it's something that we're keeping an eye on.

It could be very interesting - if it holds together. Provided the campaign sticks to - what I take to be the fundamental aims - radical constitutional change, and opposition to centralised and bureaucratic government, then I'm sure most of us would support it. Not that that should be too surprising, though - everyone knows we've wanted it to happen for years.

What I like about this simple approach is that it's something that a huge number of people - on all sides - can agree on, is sufficiently valuable, and radical, for people to remain committed to it, while avoiding fetishising New Labour (sorry, NuLab), and treating them as special cases.

The next step in the plan (or the first step in some people's plans) appears to be the "Anyone but Labour" electoral campaign, which we couldn't possibly support. Anyone but Labour? No, that's totally irresponsible, even if a new website does appear to help you pick out the 'moral' candidate from the 'immoral' one. I'm afraid that as soon as I hear "Bliar", "Safety Elephant", "intrinsic bias", and - especially - "Infrastructure of a Police State, just waiting for the switch to be pressed", I hear a mass movement being jeapordised.

Thus far, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of thought on the following issues:

1. Libertarianism, especially on the web, seems to have been the preserve of obsessives, either frustrated with, or alienated from, the rough and tumble of real-world politics. Moreover, libertarian politicians rarely seem to win the hearts and minds of those motivated by the building of new schools and hospitals, or tax cuts - the fare of traditional British politics. So what likelihood is there of future success?
2. What role for politicians? You can manipulate the (current) electoral system to prevent those judged 'authoritarian' from being elected, but doesn't that (a) merely create a vacuum for other politicians to 'put national security first'?, and (b) fail to address who politicians are, what motivates them, and what the electorate are looking for? What politician can ever be really trusted to reform their own department? And if politicians as a class are to be dispensed with, what of democracy?
3. Though I haven't entirely had the enthusiasm sucked out of me, and my soul hammered wafer-thin, what achievements can British political bloggers - puff pieces aside - really point to?
   

Sooner or later, Labour will be voted-out, and whether Liberty Central was responsible for a fraction of 1% of that, we can't say, but clearly that defeat cannot be enough in itself to guarantee any kind of radical change. Seeing Blair's ashen face would no doubt given immense satisfaction to a lot of people, but is no kind of solution for those who see the enemy as (a) politicians themselves, or (b) the concept of managerialism in politics. It's even less of a guarantee that those who see themselves on the Left of this libertarian debate will see the kind of policies they like.

So, really, the obvious thing is for us all to concentrate what few political resources we can on a genuinely cross-party constitutional change agenda, booting the "Anyone but Labour" campaign down to page 39 or thereabouts.

Yawn!

That's it for now.

2nd B4L Meetup - London, 17 Feb - 6 comments

I expect most people who might be interested have already read other people's engaging, well-written, and surprisingly well-remembered accounts of the 2nd Bloggers4Labour Meetup in London on Friday night, but here's my contribution.

Firstly, here's the full list of attendees, with links to their own accounts:

Andrew West (aka Wongablog), Andrew Brown, Skuds (another Andrew), Damian, Kerron, Neil, Paul, Paulie, Tom, and myself. Was a shame not to meet up with Jo and Antonia again, but illness intervened.

Here's one of Paul's photos - probably the best I've seen so far (in that nobody's been taken by surprise, or at a weird angle), though I still reckon there are good ones to come:


Skuds (sleeve), Andrew W. (face), myself, Kerron, and Neil.

Well, a good time was had by all, and we all got on well. Nobody looked bored and had to be rescued, nobody got too confused by four people having the same first name, nobody got dumped out at Three Bridges station at 1 am, and a thoughtful soul even picked up the B4L banner I left behind.

It was a slight shame that the venue was about three times as busy as I had expected, and that we had to split into two groups, but never mind.



Hopefully our meetups can continue to move northwards, so that next time some of our chums from Oxfordshire, the Midlands (that's 27 already), and perhaps Wales (about 15), who have never been able to make it down so far, can come along too. And then, someday, we can really hit the North. Does anyone know of any big, Labour-oriented events timed for, say, the summer? Would anyone else like to organise an event?

A couple of people have remarked on the lack of political discussion. I don't know, I thought there was a fair amount - about as much as most people can manage before their eyes start to glaze and they start fingering their empty glass suggestively. I'd also tentatively raise the suggestion that we agree on quite a lot of things...

It is noticeable, though, how little organisation you really need for people to have a good time in a pub, and how little organisation is desired. There was one question I really wanted to get the group's view on, but the idea of me standing on a chair and addressing the throng, or tapping a glass and calling for hush in a busy, Friday night pub, just seemed silly. Oh well, there are other ways.

Anyway, I think these meetups are great - they demonstrate that a 'community' exists, and they also strengthen it too. The challenge is to extend it to bring in more of those dozens of people (not all of whom are male, we're pleased to say) who perhaps could have attended an event - if it were advertised better, held at a more convenient venue, or at a better time, or if they hadn't felt that nobody would have known who they were - without turning the meetup into some kind of hideous clipboards, handouts, and group hugs-type event.

Time for another photo - table two:



Finally, it's been mentioned a few times, but Andrew W. features the full text of Neil's run-in with an elderly weirdo, who had spotted his camouflage jacket, and possibly the assault rifle and wooden leg that had been carefully tucked under the table. I couldn't make out a word when it happened, having a hearing range that extends around me to a distance of one person, but it's quite good:

Old Guy: What rank are you?
Neil: I'm not in the army
Old guy: What rank are you?
Neil: I'm not in the army
[Old Guy walks away, then turns and comes back]
Old Guy: That's very confusing, you know. It certainly fucking confused me!
[Old Guy makes wanking gesture, and leaves]

The more observant blog-watchers will know that Neil has caused a certain amount of controversy over the past 9 months or so, and attracted a fair bit of stick for the views he has expressed, but as Andrew remarks, "We were very impressed at this ability to offend without doing anything at all!".

That's all I can manage for the time being. Hopefully I'll get some time to post more, soon.

Update: So many photos are knocking around now, Kerron has started a caption competition.

First Anniversary - 3 comments

Bloggers4Labour will be a year old at about 11.30 pm this evening!

Here's what I had to say after six months - there's a bit of story there about how B4L got started.

I haven't got the time to post reflections on the year that has passed - not right now, anyway, but perhaps if I squeeze everything into Thursday evening something will emerge. If not, at least there's the do on Friday, where Labour-backing bloggers can mull over these issues.

There may also be a few changes for next year but, again, that's up for discussion. We've tried guest posters, Summer Essays, and a community-written Manifesto, and if anyone has any interesting ideas of their own, let me know.

So, have we gone down a storm? Well, I don't know about that. The hitcounter is saying 49,858 and it'll be touch and go whether we reach the big 50,000 by the end of the night. It's not a huge total, but then again many people use B4L simply to find out what other people are saying, rather than what this blog is saying.

There are two other factors: (a) I don't find it easy to post as often as I like - especially during the day - and (b) I do feel that if I don't have a good grasp of a particular issue, I'm better off keeping quiet than taking valuable eye-time from bloggers who are on the ball, or copying straight out of The Guardian or the Wikipedia.

Anyway, that's it for now - more later.

Busy / New Bloggers - no comments

Lots going on in the world - the smoking ban controversy (no, support for the ban is not universal), and the Terrorism Bill, to name just two - and the world is demanding to see roundups of the arguments and just what Labour people are saying. Well, I'm just too busy at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to something this evening.

By the way, all sorts of new bloggers have joined our ranks over the past couple of weeks. I shouldn't have got out of the habit of posting descriptions of the new ones, but if you check Recent Posts you should see some of the new names. The current total is an impressive 153.

Iron Man / Kamm on Clooney - 1 comment

Having been persuaded by Neil to undergo the superhero meme that I have so far assiduously avoided doing, it turns out that I am a "70% match" for Iron Man (pictured below).


It being Valentine's Day (humbug) it's a sad indictment that a child's comic character represents my best chance for future contentment. Hmm. I approach this thought with the same trepidation and grim sense of foreboding that Oliver Kamm undoubtedly felt when asked to (culturally) comment on George Clooney films on Radio 3 this evening.

I was engaged in a darts duel at the time, and I must say that our throwing actions were frequently disrupted by what I can only describe as silent screams.

Wodehouse quotes - 1 comment

According to S&M, here is the world's best site. First one up for me was this gem:

‘I have got to take a few pints of soup to the deserving poor,’ said Myrtle. ‘I'd better set about it. Amazing the way these bimbos absorb soup. Like sponges.’

Anselm Gets His Chance (1940)

If only there was a clever bit of JavaScript that would spit one out at random (or a particular one for special occasions), that I could then stick on all my pages, making the world a sunnier place and slowing your browsing down even further.

B4L Meetup 17th February - 3 comments

I've decided to go with the first suggestion, the The Lord Moon Of The Mall in Whitehall for our London get-together.

As there could be quite a few of us, I thought we'd need something spacious, rather than some place where we'd have to start hunting for stools after the first four of us had arrived. Also, food provision is more predictable at these places (the word I've been careful not to say thus far is Wetherspoons, but what you lose in discernible 'atmosphere', music, and feeling part of the local community, you gain with Who Wants To Be A Millionaire machines, jelly bean dispensers, and a decent choice of drinks). Another reason is that in the SW1 district of London you don't have to watch traders spending five-figure bonuses on champagne for themselves and any female colleagues who've opted to forego intelligent company for the duration. London Bridge and City are a nightmare at the moment.

Anyway, here's a map to guide your way, with an arrow pointing to the location.

For those of you planning to literally drop in, here are two Google Earth images: the first showing the route down and across from Charing Cross (venue is in bottom-left), the second showing the trip up from Westminster Underground. I'm not quite sure which end of Whitehall numbering starts, so it's possible that the venue is the other side of the Whitehall Theatre (now known as Trafalgar Studios). Click for full-size versions.



Some people are coming a long way and will have to leave early, so we'd better get started early. Let's say 7.00 pm, though I might get there earlier than that.

Let me know if you have any travel queries. Westminster's only a couple of tube stops from Victoria, while Charing Cross (which is much closer) is about 7 minutes to London Bridge on surface rail, but it's horses for courses.

Update: Paul has a photo of the pub. Looks like a bunch of backpack-wearing students are in the process of being ejected...

Co-operative Tube - no comments

An interesting idea for improving the London Underground from Stumbling and Mumbling:

The prospect of yet more strikes on London Underground raises the question: why do we tolerate a state of affairs where class conflict is so entrenched that it renders an organization obviously unfit for purpose?

Here's my proposal - turn the underground into a co-operative. Give it away to workers and customers, who elect managers.

This would avoid strikes simply by allowing workers a direct say in the trade-offs between safety, working hours and pay. It would make Bob Crow redundant, beecause he'd have no management to oppose; it would be democratically elected.

And remember. The evidence of the John Lewis partnership shows that worker co-ops deliver customer satisfaction and good financial performance. When was the last time there was a strike at Waitrose?

It's surely worthy of consideration. Some potential problems are raised in the article, and in the comments, but it's surely progressive to replace the existing, clearly adversarial arrangement (managers on one side, workers - whether unionised or not - on the other) with something in which all sides have a stake in the success of the organisation.

It might also take some heat out of the issue of whether London Underground is in the public or the private sector, given that the former is a euphemism for "unions having too much power", and the latter for "fatcat bosses having too much power".

Chris, however, is not optimistic:

There's one thing I'm sure of, though. The chances of this happening are much lower than the merits of the idea would warrant.
This is because our main political parties are bought and paid for by capitalists and unions. So they won't want to do anything that makes these redundant.

I should add that I don't use the tube; not because I don't like it, expect long delays, or have had bad experiences, just that I'd much rather do the 18 minute walk from London Bridge to Broadgate than pay a few extra quid for adding extra hassle to my journey.

Benjiwatch - 11 comments

Read this thread at David Aaronovitch's new blog, and the follow-up here, and tell me they don't make your heart sink.

One of the great things about Harry's Place is that its comments section provides the left-wing UK blogosphere with a single location for most of the sniping, trolling, and posturing that goes on, thus sparing other blogs from the pointless abuse and personality battles that some people really get off on. So the last thing we need is for that group to spread to other blogs.

That's not to condemn all HP commenters. Besides, occasional gems are revealed amid the mass of text, but - let's face it - it takes a huge amount of commitment, and a fine tooth comb to find really worthwhile stuff. I guess that's free speech for you.

Anyway, I was discouraged. It was almost as bad as this: Whale meat 'made into dog food'. Or this.

Dunfermline and West Fife - 3 comments

We lost - read it and weep.

The Lib Dem candidate, Willie Rennie, won with a surprisingly large majority of 1800 over Labour. I don't have all the figures with me, but it looks like a swing of approximately 16% from Labour to Lib Dem.

For what it's worth, the Conservatives piled up 2702 votes, which I reckon is under 8%. Probably squeezed, but not particularly relevant.

More tomorrow, no doubt.

Challenged - 13 comments

I've been challenged to:

... come up with a good reason to support a bill giving the government the right to enact legislation without troubling itself with getting the agreement of Parliament...

Well, I can't, though this is largely because I neither know the background to the bill, nor its intent.

Maybe someone out there could throw some light on it?

Update: One way or another, Owen and Talk Politics have picked up on the article - good. Maybe the wires will be red hot by the end of the day, but I don't think I have anything to add right now. I would at least like to hear an explanation from the horse's mouth - which B4L is not.

Update: The BBC have picked up on this.

Egged - 9 comments

I felt a bit sorry for Ruth Kelly, who has again been the victim of a protester's egg attack, this time outside the court where she had been hearing evidence against her previous assailant - a "Fathers 4 Justice" idiot.



Doesn't she look cute, though? Never really noticed it before. She's only 8 years older than me, which is nothing, is it?

The Wikipedia has a single piece of trivia about Ruth; researchers have discovered, and can exclusively reveal, that:

Kelly has, for a woman, a particularly deep voice.

"I raised issues" - no comments

I found these badges amusing. Perfect for any non-partisan political friend...

Politics Test redux - 4 comments

Thought it might be interesting to gather together the results from that Politics Test everyone seems to have been doing. I was mainly prompted to do this because people's results seemed so similar.

Bear in mind, I'm not taking this even remotely seriously: it's a flawed test, and this is hardly a statistical survey, just playing with numbers. Excuse the colouring of the chart, which has no political significance, but shows how bad Excel's other colour schemes are.



Firstly, the two outliers: well, they're not of our ilk. The one on the left is Stephen Pollard, the one on the right, the Lib Dem: Forceful and Moderate. They're there because I found the test at their blogs, and their results certainly demonstrate a clear divide.

Clearly we're all social liberals, but there seems to be a point beyond which we don't go: perhaps that's "the need for responsibility". Most liberal here is Andrew West (81%), with Paul Burgin back on 61%.

There's a greater range on economic issues, as we'd probably expect. None of us are even remotely close to Pollard or the Lib Dem, but I come highest up this list with 33%, which is enough to cost me the "Socialist" tag and make me a "Democrat" (shudder). Other Andrew, and Tom, are close-ish. Jo scores 6%, which should have a few currency traders quaking in their brogues and fingering their necks to check their heads are still attached, and there are a few on 13%.

Well I thought it was interesting diverting. I'll keep an eye out for other people doing the test to see where they fit into our tight little bunch.

Butcher and Behead / BNP - 1 comment

Via Laban (also this), this photo of an apparently peaceful protest from Muslims in London features some decidedly iffy slogans if viewed at full size (click to enlarge):



"Butcher Those Who Insult Islam"
"Behead Those Who Mock Islam"

Which is hardly the right spirit, is it? In fact there are plenty more threatening ones out there.

These statements don't seem to be aimed at "the institution, not the member", they are intended to threaten - and to limit the freedom of speech and action - of ordinary, free-thinking people.

This is important, because failing to utterly condemn these sentiments, and failing to commit the Left to the campaign for freedom of speech - and against religiously/racially-motivated abuse and all threats of violence - seems to me to guarantee the future success of organisations like the BNP, who exploit double-standards, and whose raison d'être is to pick at society like vultures, feeding off anger and frustration to fuel the racist campaign of their grassroots.

By the way, I haven't commented directly on the BNP acquittal. Both Griffin and Collett express repugnant views, many of which can only be attributed to a pitiful education, psychological problems I'm not competent to diagnose, and many years immersed among political views that make the Daily Express look thoughtful and considered. All the same, I can't see any great advantage to their being in prison - 3 minutes questioning of Collett on primetime TV ought to be enough to put a few BNP councillors on the dole. We need to concern ourselves with those people who are susceptible to these views, rather than 'purifying' ourselves, or wasting time on the tiny hardcore of tiny [heh] fascists, as well as ensuring that toleration of religious extremism doesn't allow the BNP to portray themselves as the voice of secular, non-PC Britain [choke!].

Finally, Newsnight go to hell!!! Now that is going too far...

Going underground - 2 comments

The Guardian Unlimited Blog has published a London Underground map that turns the various tube lines into musical genres, and stations into bands and artists, with intersections denoting (not too surprisingly) those artists who have "traversed the genres", in the opinion of its creators.



It's quite clearly a bit of Friday fun for young and hip, PC-bound, Guardianistas (help us reclaim that wonderful word!), though about 50 commenters seem not to have realised that. If I'm able to get over the omission of such luminaries as The Orb, Autechre, A Certain Ratio, Pet Shop Boys, Faust, and The Fall, without condemning the whole enterprise, surely they too can find it in their hearts...

A number of my current favourites seem to be in the Notting Hill area, and even more on the journey from Bow out to Dagenham, which, coincidentally, is the journey that Bill Drummond describes in the 1998 addendum to his and Jimmy Cauty's The Manual, as he dwells upon the success of the KLF, and how the Golden Rules of Pop have changed (or not) since the heady days of 1988.

Cameron at Demos / Sexy - 5 comments

A couple of articles about Cameron's "Modern Conservatism" speech, from two Labour bloggers who managed to get in. A Conservative spokesman failed to answer rumours that tickets had been going for "silly money" on eBay before the event, and that a St. John's Ambulance was parked by the fire exit, the volunteers told to expect fainting girls and crush injuries.

According to Steve:

My favourite Francophile philosopher/historian/guru Theodore Zeldin was there too and he put it nicely: Cameron's just not 'beautiful' enough. He's dead right. The man has the charisma of a bag of sugar and none of Blair's almost hypnotic charm.

And, says Tom:

There was no rhythm, no passion, no cadence. He didn't modulate his tone or choose his language in a way designed to get an audience on his side, despite itself. The typical Cameron sentence is delivered so that it ends on a higher note than it starts on - so, subliminally, it conveys uncertainty and lack of confidence, and a desperation to get to the end. Compare that to Tony Blair's speeches - whether you like the content or not, they're constructed and delivered to carry you along with him.

Sexy

In stark contrast, the BBC reports that Cameron is "among" (i.e. right at the bottom of) a poll on the world's 100 sexiest men, conducted by New Woman magazine.

Explaining her readers' choice, Ms Rapley said the Tory leader had probably benefited from being the "new kid on the block" in British politics.

"Power is quite intoxicating for women," she said. "He is obviously on our readers' radar because they are quite celebrity obsessed and news media savvy."

So, probably not a magazine aimed at feminists, or indeed the sentient. And what's all this about "power"?