IDLE

The Face of Europe

2009-11-22T15:46:00.006Z

The old quote about the EU, attributed to Kissinger, was this: "Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?"

Let us not dwell on whether Baroness Ashton of Wimmin is capable of accurately reflecting the consensus foreign policy opinions and ambitions of all 27 member states (but my hunch is that she won't even attempt to do so; this will be, as with all other things in Europe, a stitch-up by the snail murderers and sausage-noshers).

No, what I worry about is that this person will be the Face of Europe on all those occasions when X invades Y, or A shoots down B's supply plane by mistake, or when the next tsunami heads beach-ward.

And I hope you will not think me ungallant when I suggest that this is a Face that does not show Europe in her best light; that it is a face only a mother could love; that, if it were to launch a thousand ships, that those ships would be crammed to the gunwales with fleeing emigrants, keen to start another life several hundred miles away from That Face.

It is, in short, a loathsome visage. It takes on an even grislier hue when one reflects that it has never submitted itself to popular selection, to democratic vote. It is the face of someone who has climbed the greasy pole of unrepresentative politics in the way that only a slug could.

I fear that the World will think less of us when it sees and hears this thing.

The New EU Cabinet Appointments in Full

2009-11-19T22:22:00.004Z

President of the Council: Herman Van Rompuy-Pompuy (Belg)
Foreign Minister: Baroness Ashton of Wimmin (GB)

Defence Minister: Sgr Whooza Zat (It)
Farming Minister: M Nevair-Erdovim (Fr)
Environment Minister: Herr Vossisnayme (Ger)
Sports Minister: Mr Avin Alaff (Au)
Arts Minister: Miss Pula Zeeuzzerwun (Por)
Social Justice Minister: Mr Paddy Gray-Veetrain (Ire)

More Mellow

2009-11-18T22:48:00.004Z

The Tuscan recently featured a very cool dude who was quite unruffled by a near-death experience. This is different, insofar as it is staged. But he looks the sort of chap you wouldn't mind sharing a trench with.

Box Size

2009-11-17T21:52:00.000Z

http://irishsoccerinsider.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/french-and-irish-fall-out-over-box-incident/

A modern sporting-politico-diplomatic classic. Read it.

To the Breaker's Yard

2009-11-17T21:21:00.011Z

RIP Edward Woodward. Good man and a fine actor, sadly too much telly not enough films. Breaker Morant and the not-exactly shabby The Wicker Man are his highpoints.

I loved Breaker Morant. Part war film, part courtroom drama. Shades of Zulu and l'affaire Dreyfus. You never saw a more cheerful and stoic wronged man.

Look into the true story of HH "Breaker" Morant. A wonderful romantic type. Hard-as-nails Aussie drover and friend of one of Idle's favourite poets, AB "Banjo" Paterson, he of Clancy of the Overflow fame:

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago;
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow."

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar);
'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

etc

Where All That Tax Goes.....

2009-11-15T10:14:00.010Z

...... and why a Conservative victory at the next election won't make a whole heap of difference.

Being no longer idle, I fall behind on my discretionary reading, so it was only last night in the bath that I read Rod Liddle's piece on Jeanie Lynch from last week's Speccie. Jeanie is ‘Lead Officer for Equality in Children and Young People’s Services for Devon County Council’.

I can't think of any other example which illustrates quite so clearly why we have a national debt of £1.3 trillion, unfunded liabilities of another £2 trillion on top of that, and a government that consumes 50% of GDP.

Jeanie's week: Monday - Value the Difference course; Tuesday - "Building resilience for our Gypsy, Roma Traveller Achievement Services"; Wednesday - Day Off; Thursday - "Children and Sex" speech; Friday - "pulling together diversity data".

Liddle: "‘Building resilience for our Gypsy, Roma Traveller Achievement Services’. What does that mean? God knows, but she concludes, in her diary, that gypsies and Roma and travellers need to improve their ‘resilience skills’. You wonder for a moment if this cheerful middle-aged woman is teaching gypsies how to fight. ‘Grandmother’ and ‘sucking eggs’ is the first response which comes to mind. You wonder also if the people of Devon wished that their local council was instead teaching gypsies to be a bit less resilient, all things considered, or perhaps to have the requisite resilience to pack up their caravans and move to Cornwall or Somerset or Dorset. But Jeanie has only contempt for the people who pay her salary (let’s be honest — the gypsies don’t, do they?): she says the travellers face horrible discrimination from ordinary people in the wider world. Those awful people in the wider world."

Liddle discovers that there is a veritable platoon of Acts of Parliament (that would be Westminster AND the European one, natch) that makes all this worthless guff a requirement. It is not so much a matter of choice as the Law of the Land. Jeanie probably pulls in around £30,000 for this stunt. But Devon is a big old area, so she'll need a car. Call it another £3,000 on autolease. There will be expenses of course, and petrol, and oodles of stationery costs as Jeanie publishes all those glossy handouts on anal sex for 8 year olds and pamphlets telling the policemen of Tavistock not to be beastly to pikeys. And, when Jeanie finally retires to her cottage by the sea, aged 60, there will be her pension. For ever. And it's unfunded. The children she teaches anal sex to next week will be paying Devon County Council's taxes in ten years' time, partly to fund Jeanie's final salary, index-linked pension scheme. Come to think of it, a good few of them will be employed by the Council, too. Outreach Co-ordinators, probably. Or Clotted-Cream Safety Standards Invigilators.

Devon County Council is run by the Conservatives. Liddle concludes that even if they wanted to, they are buggered:

"And so, if you’re the newly elected ruling group of Devon County Council you may well be tempted just to sigh and let Jeanie go about her work.

This stuff, this ludicrous nonsense, has become unavoidable. We cannot get rid of it. And my guess is there’s a Jeanie doing her business for every county and borough council up and down the land and a Gypsy, Roma, Traveller Achievement Service in every relevant council up and down the land and a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans (sic) History Month coming to a school near you very soon. They want kids, incidentally, to celebrate the life of a famous LGBT person from history and suggest computer science would be a good place to start. Poor Alan Turing, once known as a brilliant mathematician. Now known as an unhappy homosexual."

Read the whole thing. You'll laugh and cry.

My Thoughts Entirely

2009-11-14T11:27:00.003Z

Click on the title if the Comments/Profundities icon does not show.

Back Catalogue

2009-11-11T21:47:00.003Z

Nice idea.

I have listened to the ginga bird more often than I can count.

Spot the Vegan Sab Designer

2009-11-02T22:46:00.004Z

This ad was on the back of the Evening Standard tonight. It is Stella McCartney's Gap Kids stuff. (They cut it better than this photo, and airbrushed the duck's arse out of it).

Let us overlook the ultimate cliche of the asian, the black, the older white boy and the little white girl. Multi culti gibberish, par for the course. We can only presume the American Indian kiddie with the club foot missed his bus.

Styling the cute black nipper as Michael Jackson seems a bit obvious too, but there you go. I woulda loved a jacket like that aged 4, though.

Grey? For kiddies? They like bold colours!

Ski boots? They'll never catch on in the park.

You know what's coming, don't you?

Yup, the Disneyfication of the cuddly fox, (not a flea on it), smiling whilst being cuddled by the chap in the oilskin. The chap is oblivious to the fact that foxshit is being smeared on his clothes, the fox TOTALLY uninterested in the breakfast, lunch and dinner below him.

No bigots were harmed in the making of this post, more's the pity.

Tally ho!

Anorak Corner

2009-10-31T20:53:00.002Z

Christopher Monckton is no ordinary fellow. Outspoken and trenchant, he could probably start an argument in an empty room. But he is bright, and determined. He has argued credibly and loudly against Anthropomorphic Global Warming, and whilst you won't see him on the BBC (heavens, no!) those honest folk at Fox News, uncomplicated by Leftism and guided by their loyalty to their constitution, gave him a slot last week. A proper slot, lasting an hour, with the company of John Bolton, that fine undiplomatic diplomat, who calls a spade a bloody shovel.

I have given you part one above. But YouTube has to break things up into bite-sized bits, so there are 6 more after this (with a bit of overlap in places). I urge you to visit that vital haven of sanity, WattsUpWithThat, which gets 2 million hits a month, for the remainder of the show.

Are you enough of an anorak to listen to the whole lot? I was. Did you follow the mathematical demonstration first time? No, nor did I.

Copenhagen is going to cost us hundreds of billions in tax over the next few years. I smell a big fat multinational government rat. Our own discredited and ludicrous Prime Minister says we have 50 days left to save the earth, as does the quite mad Prince of Wales (but God bless our monarchy regardless, we've coped with madder and badder ones than Charles before). I think a huge and cynical con is being played upon the taxpayers of the developed nations. All power to Lord Monckton, slightly strange fish though he may be. Listen to his argument.

Send for Clouseau

2009-10-26T22:05:00.010Z

Fact One: Blair Government Reneges on Referendum Promise on Constitutional/Lisbon Treaty
(Headlines, 2005-2009)

Fact Two: UK Government Throws its Weight Behind Blair as First European President
(Headline, BBC News, 26 October 2009)

At this point, put on a macintosh, cloth hat, and leather gloves. Effect a franglais accent.

"You will notice, Cato, ze old 'It's no longeur ze Constitutional Treaty' ploy. Even zat madman Dreyfus would be able to decifer zis one. Cato, my leetle yellow friend, I 'ave ze detective's instinct and I can tell you zat zere ees something distinctly feeshy about zis. Even ze organ grinder and hees minkey would be able to solve zees."

"Cato....... Cato? NOT NOW, CATOooooooooooo!" etc

Call me an old cynic, but I do believe this was planned before 2005. Where are the Tory attack dogs to point this out in a way that even the bovine Labour clientstate voters in the Northern inner cities would understand and find revolting?

The Place To Stay in Lancashire

2009-10-19T19:22:00.002+01:00

As I was being driven from Preston to Clitheroe this morning (oh, the style of this new job!) we passed a hamlet on the A59. A sign loomed a hundred yards ahead. Black writing upon a white background, it appeared to say "BROWN LEAVES COUNTRY". The 'the' and the 'hotel' were in a smaller font. Is that a joke, I asked my Lancastrian companion. No, he replied, it's a real hotel. I can't be entirely sure he got my drift.

Sadly, I couldn't get the mobile phone into picture mode soon enough, so the pictorial evidence above comes from their website.

The rooms start at £45 a night and no, I don't plan a visit. And yes, we do have entrepreneurs near the Pennine grouse moors with eight figures to invest.

With my current output drier than the Sahara, any post will just have to do. But it's nice thought, is it not?

How to Deal With Knee-Jerk Big Government Journos

2009-10-11T20:24:00.004+01:00

Gotta love that Milton. A pint-sized giant.

PS If the comments bar isn't showing - dunno why, but it does this sometimes - doubleclick on the title and the post plus comments will appear. The idle blog follows a full-comment policy.

The Nobel Peace of Cake Prize

2009-10-09T21:19:00.010+01:00

Take one black community organiser and put him up against the boot-faced, humourless, divisive lawyer wife of a discredited (if charming) ex-president; assure the black senator's nomination.

Run against a Republican party that is labouring beneath the weight of disgust and unpopularity of its retiring two-term president, during a financial crisis of epic proportions.

Create messianic fervour for an untested socialist politician, because WE CAN! Encourage said Messiah to give speeches suggesting that the toothpaste can be forced back into the tube, the genie pushed back into the lamp, and the world denied nuclear weapons, wherever they may be, and whoever may have the recipe.

Nominate the new fellow for a Peace Prize as a wild punt, expecting it will in fact be awarded to a worthy brave recipient, or at the very least a long-serving Finnish diplomat who has made many trips over many years attempting to stop rival tribes slaughtering each other in a hot, humid African or Asian backwater.

Watch, open-mouthed, as the 200-1 long shot comes in at a canter.

Let's not blame Obama for this, though. This is what happens when left-leaning peace prize committee members have too much aquavit with their sprats at the pre-vote lunch.

PS James Forsyth at the Speccie finishes his post with this:

My favourite quote on the Nobel Peace Prize comes from a friend who just reminded me that ‘it’s the prize that Gandhi didn’t win but Arafat did.’

Irish Re-Jig

2009-10-03T18:36:00.005+01:00

On 13 June 2008, I wrote a short post entitled "Brave Bogtrotters Banish Brussels". Illustrated with a picture of a couple of fair colleens in their tricoleur swimwear, I congratulated the Irish people for their good sense and robust independence. They had had a good look at the Fritzes, Christianos and Jacques who planned to run the Irish state as a satellite of Brussels, and had said "no tanks, to be sure", or words to that effect.

Well, I take it all back. It was just the old Irish sense of humour, rascals that they are; they never meant to stop the dishonest undemocratic Euro juggernaut, they just wanted to be taken seriously for for a while, until they returned meekly to heel. What a bunch of spineless fenian ratbags they are. All that gibberish about a Free Ireland for the last two hundred years, all those deaths, and now they sign up to become a cadet branch of the overbearing, stifling, malign bureaucracy that passes for government from Europe. And they'll get that wanker Blair as President if they are not careful.

So now it's down to the Czechs and Poles. Only the great Václav Klaus can deliver us from this terrible fate, if he can hold up the Czech ratification until our General Election. Don't hold your breath, but say your prayers, heathen or otherwise.

The No Caption Necessary Competition

2009-09-28T20:47:00.002+01:00

Idle Does Keats

2009-09-26T20:29:00.013+01:00

To Autumn Work

Season ticket to pissed Friday afternoons of utter uselessness.
Firm-bosomed assistants crediting maturing sums.
Conspiring with mates to loaf and to work less
And watch the time, to beat the evening run;
To bend the rules, to doze beneath the plane trees,
And fill each day, though it is such a bore;
To charm the board; catch Hazel's fragrant smells;
To telephone the Colonel; to eat pudding more,
And still more, and later, calculate my fees -
Filling in expenses being like shelling peas -
For work must never overcome my idle cells.
Idle

For those who need reminding of the original:

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
J Keats

Media Barron

2009-09-18T15:30:00.006+01:00

Brian Barron made a big impression on me in the mid 70s when I was a teenager, beginning to take an interest in current affairs and starting a Politics A Level, for which American post-war politics was a big part. Vietnam was riveting.

He was a superb journalist and a brave one too. I had an idea of emulating him after I left the Army in the 80s, but having got down to the last 24 for BBC Radio News (I think they had 2,500 applicants for half a dozen places), they failed me on the voice test. I should have tried ITN where they were much less chippy about public school accents, but a job offer came my way from the City and the money, though modest, was a lot better than that of a trainee broadcaster. If I'd known there were going to be so many wars just round the corner, I'd have stuck at it.

From the Telegraph obituary:

He began his career on the radio and built his reputation with his gift for using words to paint a scene with enviable immediacy and economy: the North West Frontier comes to life in "a dingy, smoke-filled eatery in Peshawar – a place awash with stomach bugs, assassins, spooks and Afghan rug sellers".

Superb; even a touch of the George Macdonald Fraser about it. I've been to Peshawar and this is on the button. Sorry he didn't make old bones. R I P

To the Sweatshop

2009-09-17T13:34:00.005+01:00

Idle no more.

It's a dashed bad show, but the bursar from the idle girls' country club is clamouring for a cheque, the lady idle will insist upon Caribbean winter breaks, and the wine merchant has applied for charitable status, so long is it since he had a sniff of a guinea from yours truly.

I had a chat with a man who knows someone in the City who told him that the smoke had cleared and as far as he knew no more large banks were going to go down the swanee. Furthermore, some of them were actually hiring and paying a living wage. Something to do with Government guarantees. Splendid.

So I'll see if I can quantitatively ease myself into the old dark navy blue, dust off the bowler and polish the silver ring on the umbrella. A word in the ear of the head steward at the club, and I'll be expecting the usual table at 1pm for the forseeable.

So, Monday morning, up to the smoke. Up in the air to Jersey, actually, for a quick shufti, followed by some nice fish, one hopes. More than that I cannot really say, but I'd appreciate no snide comments about bankers' bonuses or taxpayer bailouts. The way I was going, in a few more years I would have been eligible for the Nat King Cole, housing benefits and I dare say council tax relief as well. One's credit rating would have simply died. Just think what you have saved yourselves.

Given that only three of you read this, it won't be missed if it becomes a once-a-week job, will it? I will continue to visit the comment threads of more industrious bloggers.

The name of this blog is not changing. It wouldn't do to break into a sweat; busy people in a frightful rush tend to forget things and worry the horses. No, Idle it remains.

Thirty Years On

2009-09-14T18:42:00.024+01:00

Idle spent his weekend in unbroken sunshine in Ulster. It looked lovely, but there is pain behind the beauty of the benighted province.

Some parts of Northern Ireland really are beautiful, such as Narrow Water above Warrenpoint. The layby just downstream of the old castle tower jutting into the water from the dual carriageway, and the gates opposite, were the scene of the second of two cowardly IRA atrocities on 27 August 1979, the first of which had killed Lord Mountbatten and members of his family at Mullaghmore. It was a warm and beautiful August Bank Holiday. A trailer of straw sat in the layby.
This is what the first Warrenpoint bomb would have looked like (the picture is of a simulation, carried out after the event). It was set off from across the water/border in Ireland, as a convoy of two army trucks and a land rover passed. Though targetted at Royal Marines, whose duties included safety at the small port at Warrenpoint, the victims were in fact a detachment of Paras, who were providing an extra company to the Queen's Own Highlanders, the battalion responsible for the bandit country of South Armagh.

The first bomb, about half a ton of explosive, killed six paras. The survivors, believing themselves to be under attack from across the border (the heat of the explosion having caused bullets and ammunition in the wrecked land rover to explode), returned fire across the water. A most unlucky civilian, a footman from the Queen's Household on holiday in Ireland was shot dead. (Independent reports afterwards confirmed sniper fire from the Republic). Immediately, the CO of the Queen's Own Highlanders scrambled with his signaller and medical team by helicopter from Bessbrook, a few miles to the north. Standard operational procedure required an incident command point to have been set up close to the explosion. Lt Col David Blair arrived to find that a stone gatehouse across the road from the old castle tower had been chosen.

His immediate concerns were to secure the area and evacuate the seriously wounded, which took time. He felt the gatehouse too obvious a location for the ICP and ordered those that could, to fall back further into the park behind the gatehouse (in the gateway bay opposite the castle tower in the top photograph, no longer there). But there was no time; the second explosion, half an hour after the first, was devastating (left). The IRA set it off just as a helicopter was taking off with wounded. Even larger than the first bomb, it destroyed the gatehouse and killed another twelve soldiers, including Lt Col Blair. Extraordinarily, the helicopter managed to just about escape the blast and ditch successfully, but the IRA's low cunning of second-guessing operational procedure had worked. To this day, the Queen's Own Highlander colonel is the highest ranked victim to have been killed in action by the IRA.

The Colonel's widow, together with many officers and Warrant Officers, marked the thirtieth anniversary of the horror last weekend. Services at Warrenpoint, at Ballykinlar and at Palace Barracks, Holywood were sombre occasions. But the drinking and carousing in honour of all the dead were less sombre. At a time when our armed forces are being starved of equipment whilst fighting unpopular and unwinnable wars, it gives us a melancholy pride to know that the tours of duty that we carried out in Ulster were done for a righteous cause, and were done superbly. It was said the Troubles could not be won militarily, but eventually the IRA sued for peace, by then infiltrated at every level and unable to sustain their war.

Gender Politics

2009-09-11T14:06:00.002+01:00

Is it a girl? Is it a boy?

No, it's an IT.

Well, that's cleared that up, then. Probably wasn't a great idea to pose like that on the podium, though.

Yes We Liked It

2009-09-10T10:00:00.007+01:00

To my shame, I'd never been to The Globe until last night. Four of us spent a couple of hours over tapas and cava before the show ripping into the carrion that is Brown and his government, and generally rubbishing the state of our once-great country. It was, we concluded, hopeless.

Well, my friends, I can tell you that three hours later, we were of a different opinion. Notwithstanding the fact that it took an American, Sam Wanamaker, to get the massive project done, The Globe is a wonderful thing. The look, the texture (lovely oak), the atmosphere, the good-humour and manners of the punters were all a joy. I will go back often, and I am more than happy to stand in the yard for a fiver if the seats are all gone.

We saw As You Like It, which suited a late summer evening at The Globe very well. Our lovers were excellent, particularly Rosalind, an actress called Naomi Frederick whose flat chest proves a positive as she hangs out with the lads in the forest clad in soft brown leather. No beauty, but sexy. Touchstone, the fool, delivered his puns and put-downs with error-free machine gun delivery and had us laughing hard. Too often the 'funny' parts are played by unfunny actors. This chap, Dominic Rowan, is a comic. You've never heard a voice so full of fruity melancholy as Tim McMullen's Jaques, and when he got to 'All the world's a stage...', well, where else in the world would there be a better stage to give the great soliloquy? Magic. The genius bard at his best. You have until October 10th to see it. Wrap up warm, smuggle in a hip-flask, and spend that fiver.

Pink Adair

2009-09-07T16:42:00.006+01:00

A loyal reader of this blog (there is one) noted a lack of inspiration on my part of late. She is partly right, but a trip to the idle folks in Somerset, (lunch at the pub with Lil and Elby - de rigeur for all discriminating vistors to East Somerset) and plans to become less idle have all been contributing factors.

Work? you splutter. Yes. The 0645 train beckons, and I plan to do my bit to put out those fires, still burning in the nation's banks, and return at least one of them to the private sector, with a profit for the taxpayer and considerable spondulicks for yours truly.

This is where Adair Turner comes in. Or shall we call him Lord Turner of Ecchinswell? (A title derived, surely, by the reaction of his former colleagues - Lord Turner? Feckin 'ell!)

You see, Adair is head of the FSA, and despite their utter incompetence over the past three years (bonuses all round for 2008, natch), this coiffured ponce has seen fit to declaim that the banking sector should shrink (already done that, thanks Ades) and meet some 'socially useful' target (sounds familiar? It's got NewLabour stamped on it). Oh, and a global tax. I would have thought that a man who made his name in that temple of flim-flam, McKinsey, before buggering up the only major pension review undertaken in god-knows-how-long, should deal with the plank in his own eye before pointing out specks in others'. (Remember that he subsequently wished he'd been more radical with his review and had recommended raising the state pension age to 70. That's right - not raising the public sector pension age from 60 to 65, but the OAP from 65 to 70. Wanker)

If the financial sector is too big in Britain (and mostly responsible, therefore, for producing the tax revenue fire-hosed upon Brown's client state of public services), the answer is not to tax and socially-engineer it into retreat, but to encourage those other areas of enterprise that used to be so productive in Britain. Sadly, as we are now a country that exists in order to sell mobile phones, capuccinos and overpriced dwellings to one another, but achieve little else, the die seems cast.

Brown, and by extension Turner, espoused 'light touch regulation' for the financial sector. They then divided this responsibility between three jealous and untrusting partners. Light touch became no touch, and mayhem ensued. Don't assume the City hates regulation - it doesn't mind it a bit, as long as it is clear and unambiguous. And that is what needs to come out of this. Not creating an incomes policy. Just a clear set of rules, subsequently enforced. (Does anyone remember the government sacking Fred Goodwin when it took over RBS? No, thought not. The man more closely associated with corporate greed and crazy risk-taking than anyone else in Britain was allowed to retire early. With THAT pension pot. Only public outrage caused the government to try to negotiate a less vomit-inducing deal with The Shred).

Adair Turner may find himself out of a job if the boy Osborne does what is necessary, and gets rid of the FSA. But he will be given a golden parachute and will achieve a soft landing with another sinecure. He's clever, by all accounts, and nice (a friend found himself on holiday for a week with Turner and the small Ecchinswells, and said he was charming), but competent he ain't.

Will this do, Pip?

Pull the Blog Chain

2009-09-01T15:59:00.007+01:00

Now and again, driving in the evening, I find myself listening to that odd duo, Radcliffe and Maconie on Radio 2. They seem to know their music. They have a thing called The Chain, where each song must be connected, in some way, to the previous show's 'Chain' song. Sometimes the link is obvious, sometimes tenuous, often quite complicated.

I am going to attempt a Blog Chain, to coin a phrase. Lilith did a post yesterday which she called #1 in an occasional series of her Desert Island Dance Tracks. It was the daddy of all rock and rollers, Chuck Berry, with Brown Eyed Handsome Man.

I could have headed off towards Van the Man with Brown Eyed Girl, or any song by that great duo the Handsome Family. You see how this works? But my song, continuing the chain, is the first single ever released by the Stones. It is Chuck Berry's Come On. Berry released it in October 1961; the Stones released their cover less than 2 years later, so it was still pretty fresh. Berry's original was a slightly slower tempo, so the Stones rocked it up a bit, but didn't try anything too fancy. Where Berry had short flashes of lead guitar, the Stones went with Brian Jones' harmonica. Perhaps Keith was still finding his feet. The rythm section sounds sublime, as ever. I always have this on the playlist when we are dancing in the tent here and it never disappoints.

Okay, who's going to take this chain further? Ideally, you do a post on your own blog (flag it up in the comments section here so we know where to go). I fully expect this chain to sprout in myriad directions, and still be going strong in a year's time. I think it would help if you posted the best YouTube version of it you can find. I have not been able to find live footage of this one; never mind.

Get those discs spinning, folks. Let's see where it leads.

Dénouement

2009-08-30T08:56:00.006+01:00

This, I think, will be enough to send Brown to the knacker's yard. The remnants of the Labour party, in all its guises, can meet in the gay capital of Britain in a month's time, and have a monumental hissy fit, resulting in the kindly old socialist postie being promoted to the Ejector Seat for an autumn general election (or are we to suffer another unelected leader for 6 months whilst the Labour party wait for something - anything - to turn up?)

A Torygrapher has likened it to Watergate. This isn't just about a lie, this is about letting off a convicted mass murderer in order to ginger up an oil deal. And whatever the prognosis for Megrahi - whether he dies in 3 weeks or 3 years - the British public seems overwhelmingly pissed off about his release. And they smell a big, greasy, brown rat. One from Cowdenbeath.

My bet is that the leaks on this affair will be so plentiful and so quick, Brown and Straw will be toast in a fortnight. No wonder Brown has been pouring his toxic treacle all over Teddy Kennedy's twitching corpse; he is gunning for some academic sinecure in liberal New England, where he can escape the humiliation of being the Worst Prime Minister Ever.

Buy a one-way ticket, Gordon.