The railways are being nationalised, the banks have forgotten that they are, the IPPR have decided that being a pacifist is cheaper and I am still in T5.
Oh yes the F1 community are ripping themselves to pieces, the fans are astonished that its about money and the sun is out. According to a number of high brow newspapers London was hotter than Brazil yesterday.
Lets go back to the beginning. Michael Jackson’s death. Is the world a better or worse place as a result of this. I suggest it is unchanged. He might have been a great bloke but as I never had the pleasure I will never know. The songs, videos and dances were amazing, changed the face of pop. Obviously having changed the face of pop the next thing was for the proceeds of pop to change his face.
Glasto was great, not that I was there but the sky box is stuffed to the gunnels of its hard drive with hours of great music. Yes Springsteen was pretty special, the Durbury boots and guesting with Gaslight Anethem were both taking points but then again he is an old pro and knows how to get a crowd on his side. For me the performance of the weekend had to be Pendulum, I had never come across them before but that blend of techno and rock is just what we all need. We had a bit of a night of it on Saturday, a couple of friends came round for sundowners and we all ended up properly pissed in front of Bruce, with the kids coming downstairs telling us to turn the music down as it was one o’clock in the morning and they wanted to go to sleep!
A couple of the bits of Neil Young were special and bang on for the Glasto vibe. Florence and the Machine did it in the JP tent and Blur managed to get on stage as a group and do want they do well, have fun.
During the Bruce stuff M and the guests actually agreed to go to Gasto 2010 so see you there.
Check out Lucy Kellaways blog on the FT website as she is always great and never more so when deep in introspection. She is deep in middle aged mum land having just made 50. Worth a listen to her podcast.
Likewise The lady Magazines new Literary Editor Paul Blazard. The old Editor was non other than Charles Dickens, it has taken a while to find a suitable replacement. Much as I love the great Blez “suitable” is not the world I would use for him. He has a great log at http://libradoodle.blogspot.com. Tune in.
On the subject of tuning in if you are a petrol head go a look up www.sidepodcast.com or better still subscribe to the podcast and enjoy. This is for both supa-sad F1 people who really need to get a life outside there Excel spreadsheet analysis of Fantasy League F1, the real races and anything else that fits in rows and column. However if you are just a bit interested and want to hear some great interviews with F1 journo Joe Seward it’s a must. Joe speaks as well as he writes, even if he is either very tired or very “emotional” when the folk at SPC interview him. Again tune in, down load and find out the truth that is not F1 you read about in the papers. I love F1, not the racing its usually a dull a life devoid procession around a shiny new circuit in a shiny new country. It’s the politics and the technology that floats my boat. The level at which the gamesmenship is played is always breathtaking and sometimes heart stopping. Obviously its about the money the money and nothing but the money. Its no different from the Premier League, the PGA or whoever runs world tennis just the business of sport. Joe and the folk at sidepodcast understand this, talk about it well as both fans and world weary cynics.
As to pacifism, well I suggest anyone trying to understand why we want to spend lots of our national debt on either a nuclear deterrent or a couple of aircraft carriers read the first couple of chapters of Tony Giddings new book, The Politics of Climate Change. He offers the best and most succinct discussion of why at least the carriers will get built. A quick précis goes like this. We live in a globalised world economy, that was a one-way valve, we cannot go back, to that end trade routes are vital as everything we consume from Lego to petrol to newsprint and coffee come to our island by ship. As we have all seen, piracy is a growth industry, protecting the merchant shipping in the Gulf of Aden is one of the few areas where there is real cooperation amongst the navel powers of the world. All signed up to keep the cogs of global trade turning, we see joined up navel operations between the Chinese, Russian, French, British and US Navies, to name just a few. It is common to find one nationals air patrols spotting a suspicious vessel that is then investigated by helicopters from other forces, whilst fast response RIBs from a third deploy their marines to board and search. The air assets being refuelled by any ship with chip and pin, and club card points.
As we start to run out of stuff and it takes longer to find the replacement sources of energy, water, food etc, the only way to maintain the supply chain into British ports is to be an effective navel power. This means expense ships with even more expensive aircraft on board. A mix of fixed wing patrol/AWACS and rotary assault means a couple of carriers at least and hopefully a couple of cheaper HMS Ocean style assault ships. That should keep the shelves of our supermarkets full and childhood obesity on the upward trend.
Trident? As a fully signed up old hippy I do not like nuclear weapons but if the spokes really do not know where the Pakistani/North Korean or Irainian nucs are and who has the key. I do want some kind of seat at the top table and I suspect giving up being a nuclear weapons would result in a another revolving seat being created on the Security Council. We may be a tin pot nation, and I am a long way from being a little Englander, but until the EU have demonstrated a degree of solidarity in the face of “hostile” nations I want HMG to stay at the top table.
It might be cheaper to try and stick together an effective European military force but until we have, can we empty the piggy banks and melt down our fillings to pay for some real navel power, a half decent Air Force and an Army that is a little bit bigger than the home gate at Old Trafford. As to the Vanguard boats I have always found that gaffa tape and cable ties can fix most things, in the short term at least.
And finally. Yes its hot and sunny, that happens in the summer, even in the UK. Oh yes I am not in T5 any more, via a long bus tour of Heathrow I am now X thousand feet of England on my way to Newcastle airport. Deep joy. On an unexpected 767 not a cramped airbus. BA do get it right some times, even if its by accident.
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I'm revelling in being thought of as 'unsuitable' and am tempted to say "my work here is done!' Bless you (or should that be 'Blez you'? ) for the accolade!
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