A New Year Carol
(from Tom Tiddler’s Ground, ed. Walter de la Mare)
Here we bring new water from the well so clear
For to worship God with, this happy New Year.
Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine;
The seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.
Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe,
Open you the West Door, and turn the Old Year go.
Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc.
Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin,
Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in.
Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc.
Anon.
What does it mean? Click here.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Friday, December 24, 2004
Merry Christmas
This little Babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of hell he will surprise.
Robert Southwell (1561-95)
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of hell he will surprise.
Robert Southwell (1561-95)
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Chav
If there is an award for the word of the year in 2004 it goes to "chav". There has been a lot of debate about its origins, but the most authoritative account comes in this article from Michael Quinion's site World Wide Words:
Chav is almost certainly from the Romany word for a child, chavi, recorded from the middle of the nineteenth century. We know it was being used as a term of address to an adult man a little later in the century, but it hasn’t often been recorded in print since and its derivative chav is quite new to most people.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
St Pancras
Monday, December 20, 2004
Free speech and offence
It does save time when you find a posting you agree with every word of. So to learn my views on the Birmingham controversy, read this from Simon Titley on his Liberal Dissenter site.
School bans killer tinsel
A story from the Guardian to get us into the spirit of modern Christmas:
It has become customary for some pupils of Chipping Sodbury school in Gloucestershire to wear tinsel around their necks at a "mufti" party which they are allowed to attend out of uniform.
To the bemusement of parents and children, the school banned pupils from wearing tinsel this Christmas, citing "health and safety reasons".
Friday, December 17, 2004
House Points
My column from this week's Liberal Democrat News:
Her Majesty's Ogre
There's only one question worth asking about work and pensions: "Chancellor, why in your first budget did you decide to take £8bn from pension funds every year?"
But Gordon Brown does not attend this question time. Let's avoid the cliché of saying that made Monday's session was Hamlet without the prince and call it Shrek without the ogre - not least because, as chief secretary to the treasury, that makes Paul Boateng the donkey.
In the green one's absence, we were offered a strange form of micro politics. We weren't just given the figures for individual constituencies that seem mandatory these days. (Coventry South 840 people have participated in the new deal for lone parents. And in Nottingham North there were 745 unemployed young people as at October 2004.)
No, we heard about individual people. So it was hello to Clare Robertson from Bulwell who, thanks to a variety of government schemes and subsidies, now has a job in administration. And hello to an unnamed lone parent who has gone through her work-focused interview, gained qualifications in literacy and numeracy, and found work as a receptionist.
Well done to both of them, but there is something odd going on. The last 25 years have seen the death of the idea that governments can manage the economy. Political parties used to solemnly debate whether they should aim for three or four or five per cent growth. Today, everyone agrees that Her Majesty's Ogre - sorry, that Gordon Brown's best act as chancellor has been to give up the power to set interest rates.
Yet there are no signs of government retreating from the world of work. In fact, it is entering it in more and more intimate ways. Unemployed people are now the subject of a vast therapeutic apparatus. One of the unknown receptionist's problems, said the minister Jane Kennedy, was that she lacked self-confidence, so the state moved in to cure her.
Listening to Labour ministers it's a wonder that anyone ever succeeded in getting a job before 1997. Where would the Industrial Revolution have been with their attitude? "I like this new 'steam engine' of yours, Mr Watt, but I doubt that any of our people will have the self-confidence to use it. Better stick to ploughing."
Her Majesty's Ogre
There's only one question worth asking about work and pensions: "Chancellor, why in your first budget did you decide to take £8bn from pension funds every year?"
But Gordon Brown does not attend this question time. Let's avoid the cliché of saying that made Monday's session was Hamlet without the prince and call it Shrek without the ogre - not least because, as chief secretary to the treasury, that makes Paul Boateng the donkey.
In the green one's absence, we were offered a strange form of micro politics. We weren't just given the figures for individual constituencies that seem mandatory these days. (Coventry South 840 people have participated in the new deal for lone parents. And in Nottingham North there were 745 unemployed young people as at October 2004.)
No, we heard about individual people. So it was hello to Clare Robertson from Bulwell who, thanks to a variety of government schemes and subsidies, now has a job in administration. And hello to an unnamed lone parent who has gone through her work-focused interview, gained qualifications in literacy and numeracy, and found work as a receptionist.
Well done to both of them, but there is something odd going on. The last 25 years have seen the death of the idea that governments can manage the economy. Political parties used to solemnly debate whether they should aim for three or four or five per cent growth. Today, everyone agrees that Her Majesty's Ogre - sorry, that Gordon Brown's best act as chancellor has been to give up the power to set interest rates.
Yet there are no signs of government retreating from the world of work. In fact, it is entering it in more and more intimate ways. Unemployed people are now the subject of a vast therapeutic apparatus. One of the unknown receptionist's problems, said the minister Jane Kennedy, was that she lacked self-confidence, so the state moved in to cure her.
Listening to Labour ministers it's a wonder that anyone ever succeeded in getting a job before 1997. Where would the Industrial Revolution have been with their attitude? "I like this new 'steam engine' of yours, Mr Watt, but I doubt that any of our people will have the self-confidence to use it. Better stick to ploughing."
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
It's not cricket
Sports can go down in popularity as well as up. The proof?
The case against this decision is well made by John Grogan, the Labour MP for Selby, in the Guardian:
Market mechanisms are fine when the outcome does not matter. If everyone stops drinking Coca Cola and drinks Pepsi instead then no one need worry. But you would expect the cricket authorities at least to be concerned at the prospect of people giving up cricket and taking up other sports instead. So they have to have some concern for the long-term health of the game as well as for short-term income.
They should also remember that show jumping lost its popularity when people stopped calling horses things like Penwood Forge Mill and started calling them Sanyo Music Centre instead.
Money isn't everything, as the cricket authorities may soon be reminded.
- In 1966 Bobby Moore was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year and Geoff Hurst finished third. Second place was occupied by a speedway rider.
- Remember how popular show jumping was on television in the 1960s and 1970s? You rarely see it now.
- Thirty years ago the British heavyweight boxing champion was just about the biggest name in sport - think of Henry Cooper. Can you name the current holder of the title without using Google? I can't.
The case against this decision is well made by John Grogan, the Labour MP for Selby, in the Guardian:
"I think it's disastrous for English cricket," said Mr Grogan. "Cricket doesn't enjoy such strong support as football, and there is a real danger that it will disappear from half the public's consciousness and youngsters will take up other sports.The article also quotes the Liberal Democrats' own Sue Doughty, who:
"It is tragic that this should happen at a time when the England cricket team is performing so well. The England cricket board has ignored the advice of numerous former England players and captains.
"They have done this for short term gain, but what they gain in TV money they may stand to lose in sponsorship in the long term."
said it was "absolutely essential" that the government looked once again at the issue of listed events.Yes, there is a case for saving the cricket authorities from the consequences of their own stupidity, but it would be far better if they were not so stupid in the first place.
"This affects people who value sport on TV most," she said. "I am thinking of older people who have been cricket supporters all their lives, and who can ill-afford the extra cost of Sky. If you have a pension then you don't want to be spending a large chunk of it on Sky."
Market mechanisms are fine when the outcome does not matter. If everyone stops drinking Coca Cola and drinks Pepsi instead then no one need worry. But you would expect the cricket authorities at least to be concerned at the prospect of people giving up cricket and taking up other sports instead. So they have to have some concern for the long-term health of the game as well as for short-term income.
They should also remember that show jumping lost its popularity when people stopped calling horses things like Penwood Forge Mill and started calling them Sanyo Music Centre instead.
Money isn't everything, as the cricket authorities may soon be reminded.
So farewell then David Blunkett
Any comment on David Blunkett has to begin with a tribute to him for not allowing blindness to prevent him following a major career in politics. And the fight he had to put up to get a proper education probably explains some of the cheerlessness in his approach.
Nevertheless, I cannot pretend to be sorry that he has resigned. His presence as home secretary was central to a discreditable Labour campaign strategy that involves a populist attack on civil liberties. This attack is largely designed to lure the Liberal Democrats into opposing it in the belief (mistaken, I argued yesterday) that this will cost us votes.
All that can be said in Blunkett's defence is that unlike many of his colleagues he is not cynical. With his background in South Yorkshire Labour politics he really believes in curbing people's liberties.
Nevertheless, I cannot pretend to be sorry that he has resigned. His presence as home secretary was central to a discreditable Labour campaign strategy that involves a populist attack on civil liberties. This attack is largely designed to lure the Liberal Democrats into opposing it in the belief (mistaken, I argued yesterday) that this will cost us votes.
All that can be said in Blunkett's defence is that unlike many of his colleagues he is not cynical. With his background in South Yorkshire Labour politics he really believes in curbing people's liberties.
And Sid James must score!
A fascinating story and film clip from 1958 on the BBC site:
Singer Alma Cogan kicked off the game, which also included actors like James Mason, Sid James, Stanley Baker and Alfie Bass.Learn more here.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
How not to beat the Lib Dems
There is a thoughtful posting in the uk.politics.electoral newsgroup occasioned by this article in the Birmingham Post where Peter Hain reveals his fear that "disillusioned Labour voters could hand 11 Midland seats to the Conservatives by defecting to the Liberal Democrats".
The newsgroup poster "hotelier" writes:
It does reinforce the impression that the Lib Dems are remarkably fortunate in the tactics their opponents are using. Not only are the Conservatives obsessed with Ukip and happy to ignore the voters they are losing to us, they have now gifted us the status of being the only party which is opposed to compulsory identity cards.
At the next election this will be a high-profile and easily understood issue. It may be a minority concern but, as "hotelier" argues, it is an issue that will appeal to precisely those people - disillusioned liberal Blair supporters - whose votes we are trying to attract.
The newsgroup poster "hotelier" writes:
It may well be that those holding liberal views on crime and civil liberties are in a minority in Britain. But it is a sizeable minority and it includes many people who did not vote Liberal Democrat at the last election. If Labour wants to push them towards us we should thank our good fortune.I think Peter Hain is correct to be worried about natural Labour supporters voting Lib Dem. I may be one myself. But it seems to me that Labour are going about enticing us back in exactly the wrong way. They portray the Lib Dems as soft on crime in that civil liberties are important to them.
The trouble is we know that and agree with that analysis. That's why we're considering voting for them.
It does reinforce the impression that the Lib Dems are remarkably fortunate in the tactics their opponents are using. Not only are the Conservatives obsessed with Ukip and happy to ignore the voters they are losing to us, they have now gifted us the status of being the only party which is opposed to compulsory identity cards.
At the next election this will be a high-profile and easily understood issue. It may be a minority concern but, as "hotelier" argues, it is an issue that will appeal to precisely those people - disillusioned liberal Blair supporters - whose votes we are trying to attract.
Headline of the day
From the BBC not the Shropshire Star, though it does concern that part of the world:
Badgers blamed for canal collapse
Monday, December 13, 2004
Bill Cash not valued
From our you couldn't make it up department (via UKIPwatch).
UKIP is to oppose the notoriously anti-EU Tory MP Bill Cash at the next general election. Their deputy leader Mike Nattrass, a West Midlands MEP, has been chosen to fight Mr Cash's Stone seat.
Nattrass says of the Staffordshire MP:
UKIP is to oppose the notoriously anti-EU Tory MP Bill Cash at the next general election. Their deputy leader Mike Nattrass, a West Midlands MEP, has been chosen to fight Mr Cash's Stone seat.
Nattrass says of the Staffordshire MP:
So far, Mr Cash has been posing as a eurosceptic. Does he believe in the sovereignty of Parliament and the self-determination of the British electorate in all matters or does he believe that powers should be ceded to the EU?
If he believes in the former he should sign a UKIP membership application form immediately and fight the seat as a UKIP candidate.
Trivial fact: William Cash's political career has been aided by the family nametape fortune.
Latent latest
Peter Black points us to an extraordinary report in the Western Mail:
Peter also reports that Leighton Andrews is setting up his own blog. I wonder if it will have a comments section?An astonishing behind-the-scenes row between the National Assembly's Presiding Officer and a prominent Labour AM culminated in an incident where the AM is said to have told the Presiding Officer to "**** off" in a Cardiff restaurant.
Relations between Plaid Cymru peer Lord Elis-Thomas and Rhondda AM Leighton Andrews have been under severe strain since the Assembly's Queen's Speech plenary debate on December 1.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
The Curious Incident of the WMD in Iraq
While I am it, here is a book review from the same issue. I shall add it my other Liberal Democrat News reviews on Lord Bonkers' site in due course.
The Curious Incident of the WMD in Iraq
Rohan Candappa
Profile Books, 2004, £5.99
During their first brush with fame in the 1960s John Bird and John Fortune would entertain audiences at Peter Cook’s Establishment Club by simply reading out official documents. As their present-day collaborator Rory Bremner says, such publications are often funnier than anything a scriptwriter can produce.
Rowan Candappa also appreciates the comic possibilities of a deadpan account of real events. He describes Tony Blair’s career, emphasising the run up to the conflict in Iraq. His model is Mark Haddon’s bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which is narrated by a 15-year-old autistic boy. The clever thing about Haddon’s book is that its style, which reflects the hero’s difficulty understanding human emotion, is nevertheless extremely moving.
Candappa is no Haddon, and his Anthony Algernon St Michael Blair owes much to Adrian Mole and the secret diary of John Major that Private Eye used to run. I am sure it was their Major who first owned a Letts Prime Minister’s Diary. But The Curious Incident of the WMD in Iraq is consistently amusing and the product of thorough research.
We first meet Blair at Fettes College, which was “Just like Harry Potter. Except that back then I couldn’t do magic”. A profound thinker – he stresses his belief in “The People’s God” – he gravitated to politics. He recalls that as an aspiring Labour candidate “it was very important to wear the right badges. My best badge was a CND badge. I used to wear it all the time.”
Once at Westminster the young Blair set about reforming the party with his friends Peter and Gordon. (“This was not the 1960s singing duo Peter and Gordon as I first thought.”) He soon became leader, changing its name to “New Labour” after toying with “I Can’t Believe We’re Not Tories”.
As prime minister he preferred to leave domestic affairs to Gordon. Abroad, it was easier to know “The Right Thing To Do”. So after 9/11 he was happy to help George W. Bush defeat the “Dangerous and Uncontrollable Rogue State of Afghanistan and its Evil Taliban masters by doing Bombing Back To The Middle Ages”.
They then turned to Iraq, but “George must have been really busy at this point because he didn’t have time to ring me and get me involved in any of this planning and decision making”. The invasion took place even so and we are still living with the consequences.
Mark Haddon’s narrator concludes by announcing his ambition to take a first class honours degree and become a scientist. Anthony Algernon St Michael Blair’s career may not end so happily.
The Curious Incident of the WMD in Iraq
Rohan Candappa
Profile Books, 2004, £5.99
During their first brush with fame in the 1960s John Bird and John Fortune would entertain audiences at Peter Cook’s Establishment Club by simply reading out official documents. As their present-day collaborator Rory Bremner says, such publications are often funnier than anything a scriptwriter can produce.
Rowan Candappa also appreciates the comic possibilities of a deadpan account of real events. He describes Tony Blair’s career, emphasising the run up to the conflict in Iraq. His model is Mark Haddon’s bestseller The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which is narrated by a 15-year-old autistic boy. The clever thing about Haddon’s book is that its style, which reflects the hero’s difficulty understanding human emotion, is nevertheless extremely moving.
Candappa is no Haddon, and his Anthony Algernon St Michael Blair owes much to Adrian Mole and the secret diary of John Major that Private Eye used to run. I am sure it was their Major who first owned a Letts Prime Minister’s Diary. But The Curious Incident of the WMD in Iraq is consistently amusing and the product of thorough research.
We first meet Blair at Fettes College, which was “Just like Harry Potter. Except that back then I couldn’t do magic”. A profound thinker – he stresses his belief in “The People’s God” – he gravitated to politics. He recalls that as an aspiring Labour candidate “it was very important to wear the right badges. My best badge was a CND badge. I used to wear it all the time.”
Once at Westminster the young Blair set about reforming the party with his friends Peter and Gordon. (“This was not the 1960s singing duo Peter and Gordon as I first thought.”) He soon became leader, changing its name to “New Labour” after toying with “I Can’t Believe We’re Not Tories”.
As prime minister he preferred to leave domestic affairs to Gordon. Abroad, it was easier to know “The Right Thing To Do”. So after 9/11 he was happy to help George W. Bush defeat the “Dangerous and Uncontrollable Rogue State of Afghanistan and its Evil Taliban masters by doing Bombing Back To The Middle Ages”.
They then turned to Iraq, but “George must have been really busy at this point because he didn’t have time to ring me and get me involved in any of this planning and decision making”. The invasion took place even so and we are still living with the consequences.
Mark Haddon’s narrator concludes by announcing his ambition to take a first class honours degree and become a scientist. Anthony Algernon St Michael Blair’s career may not end so happily.
House Points: 10 December 2004
Here is Friday's column from Liberal Democrat News. Not funny, but I think it is true. It's an issue I have been thinking about for a while, but I was influenced by this article from the Trash City site.
Copyright
In politics things are often the opposite of what they appear. Take Monday, when the Labour MP John Robertson asked Estelle Morris what she was doing to promote music among young people.
You would naturally have assumed he wanted them to have more of it. That was certainly what Morris thought he meant. So she boasted of the government’s music manifesto and its aim of providing every young person with access to musical experiences.
But that was not what Robertson had in mind. For he then asked if Morris agreed we should be educating young people about the value of the creativity involved in making music. It’s not clear that those words mean anything, but she did agree.
It turned out that Robertson wanted the government to endorse the music industry’s "Respect the Value of Music" campaign. This is intended to discourage young people from downloading music from the internet.
So what Robertson really wanted was for young to have less access to music. And Morris obliged: “We must make sure that everybody uses and accesses music in a way that protects the copyright of those who write it.”
Yes, the music industry is in a state of flux, busy seeking a business model that will enable it to exploit the net. But every technological advance produces winners and losers. Some exisiting companies thrive, others are elbowed aside and eventually a new order settles down.
And every technological advance is treated as a threat to performing artists. (Music companies only care about artists, of course; they never think of their profits.) Once, home taping was supposed to be killing music. In reality, it encouraged people to listen to music and they ended up buying more records. Then the film companies tried to have home video recorders banned. Fortunately for them they failed, and cinemas have been booming ever since. It is hard to see why, in the long run, the availability of music over the net should be any different.
By endorsing the "Respect the Value of Music" campaign Estelle Morris is siding with the industry’s losers. Government certainly has a role in the arts, but it’s hard to see why protecting unsuccessful multinational companies by limiting the access that young people have to music should form part of it.
Copyright
In politics things are often the opposite of what they appear. Take Monday, when the Labour MP John Robertson asked Estelle Morris what she was doing to promote music among young people.
You would naturally have assumed he wanted them to have more of it. That was certainly what Morris thought he meant. So she boasted of the government’s music manifesto and its aim of providing every young person with access to musical experiences.
But that was not what Robertson had in mind. For he then asked if Morris agreed we should be educating young people about the value of the creativity involved in making music. It’s not clear that those words mean anything, but she did agree.
It turned out that Robertson wanted the government to endorse the music industry’s "Respect the Value of Music" campaign. This is intended to discourage young people from downloading music from the internet.
So what Robertson really wanted was for young to have less access to music. And Morris obliged: “We must make sure that everybody uses and accesses music in a way that protects the copyright of those who write it.”
Yes, the music industry is in a state of flux, busy seeking a business model that will enable it to exploit the net. But every technological advance produces winners and losers. Some exisiting companies thrive, others are elbowed aside and eventually a new order settles down.
And every technological advance is treated as a threat to performing artists. (Music companies only care about artists, of course; they never think of their profits.) Once, home taping was supposed to be killing music. In reality, it encouraged people to listen to music and they ended up buying more records. Then the film companies tried to have home video recorders banned. Fortunately for them they failed, and cinemas have been booming ever since. It is hard to see why, in the long run, the availability of music over the net should be any different.
By endorsing the "Respect the Value of Music" campaign Estelle Morris is siding with the industry’s losers. Government certainly has a role in the arts, but it’s hard to see why protecting unsuccessful multinational companies by limiting the access that young people have to music should form part of it.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Claus wars
It seems I was wrong and Santas do require constant surveillance. The Shropshire Star (of course) reports:
Still a big hello to the appropriately named PC Slaymaker, who is quoted in the article.
Fun runners dressed as Father Christmas were involved in a drunken brawl after the end of Newtown's famous charity run, police revealed today.It's a sign of the times that the use of CS gas by the police in such circumstances is now treated as commonplace.
Officers had to draw batons and use CS gas to quell the behaviour of a crowd of yobs in the town centre on Sunday night. Some were still wearing their Santa costumes.
Still a big hello to the appropriately named PC Slaymaker, who is quoted in the article.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Wolves and bears and boars
So far the greatest achievement of the environmental movement, I have often argued, is to make us all terrified of the natural world. By emphasising the number and urgency of the threats we face, the greens risk turning the environment into a malign force that is out to get us.
I thought I was pretty much alone in this view, but I recently came across a passage from the late great Christopher Lasch saying much the same thing. I shall post it to Serendib in a day or two.
Anyway, given my view of the greens, I was delighted to see this piece in the Guardian. It is written by one of the most prominent Greens, George Monbiot, and positively revels in the richness and strangeness of the natural world:
I thought I was pretty much alone in this view, but I recently came across a passage from the late great Christopher Lasch saying much the same thing. I shall post it to Serendib in a day or two.
Anyway, given my view of the greens, I was delighted to see this piece in the Guardian. It is written by one of the most prominent Greens, George Monbiot, and positively revels in the richness and strangeness of the natural world:
I want to live in a land in which wolves might prowl. A land in which, as I have done in eastern Poland, I can follow a bend in a forest path and come face to face with a bison. In which, as I have done in the Pyrenees, I can stumble across a pair of wild boar sleeping under a bush. I am prepared to exchange a small risk to my life for the thrill of encountering that which lies beyond it. This is a romantic proposition, I admit. But is it not also a rational one?Gratuitous plug: There are more nice quotations about nature in this article of mine from Openmind.
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