As for the election results, these are deeply depressing and frightening – in terms of fascist gains – if predictable. Whether Brown stays or goes, New Labour has clearly failed to change Britain as it once promised to do. This, combined with the recession has opened us up to new right scare mongering from the… Continue reading…
Writings
Flett on Flint
Further to my post yesterday, I think Keith Flett in today’s Guardian has a point, about Gordon Brown, the Guardian -and other papers’ – use of the Flint picture, and what he calls the ‘amalgam technique’ in politics. Below the full text of his letter today: “As a socialist I have no time for the… Continue reading…
The conundrum of Caroline Flint
For the moment, I am only going to set out a couple of questions currently buzzing round my brain about the Caroline Flint affair, in particular the matter of those photos coupled with her angry comment that Gordon Brown used her and other women in the Cabinet as ‘window dressing.’ Yesterday I had at least… Continue reading…
Jaw dropping tales.
The political world may be in free fall but so was I, for a brief moment last week, and here’s something I learned in the process. Last Wednesday night, when leaving the Orange Prize Party at the Royal Festival Hall. I tripped and fell, taking almost the entire impact on my chin and jaw. (… Continue reading…
Just discovered: a left leaning, literary, life-like delight……
Have been catching up on Nicholas Lezard’s regular column in the New Statesman about his life in London. It’s like talking to a clever friend on the phone, when you get into that free associating mix of incident, reflection, literary and musical and political references and each time, there’s a subtly different mood board. Highly… Continue reading…
Thoughts of an amateur cellist (2)
Earlier this week I spent a concentrated period of time practising ten or so bars of a middle passage of Bach’s third Suite for Unaccompanied Cello which I am currently learning ; this involves lots of string changing, tricky positions and repeated sequences. Three observations. 1) When I first played it, as if sight reading,… Continue reading…
Seven things I love
Being tagged by Normblog means I must now choose seven things I love which is easy ( apart from narrowing it down and ranking it in order which, apart from the people I love, who always come top of my list, is slightly artificial ) and then tag seven other bloggers, which will be hard,… Continue reading…
Thoughts of a non swine kind….
For the past few days I have been ill with spring flu of the non swine variety, the illness that has affected so many in recent weeks, including, so I read in today’s coverage of the Cannes film festival, the actress Penelope Cruz whom I find it impossible to imagine looking anything other than gorgeous.… Continue reading…
Crisis time.
For the first time in my life, I am worried for the future of our democracy. As the expenses crisis deepens, here are a few observations. * while MP’s from all parties have been ‘ caught out’ by careless accounting and unjustified claims, I was particularly outraged by money claimed to dredge a moat, fix… Continue reading…
Thanks to the NHS ………………
In today’s newspaper, there are reports of powerful healthcare lobbies in the US using our National Health Service and its apparent ‘ failures of choice’ – God, how I am coming to despise that word – as a means to oppose Obama’s proposals for more widespread access to healthcare. I am incensed when I read… Continue reading…
