3919 days ago
A friend of mine from my Shoreditch days says that he is heading off to a weekend of eating drinking and libertarianism on the 15th March and would I care to go. It looks great but then comes the libertarian dilemma.
If you are a pure thinking individual I would urge you to check out the Freedom Festival here
There are some entertaining speakers: Mark Littlewood, Norman Tebbit, Toby Young, Dan Hannan and I am sure that it will be great fun. However:
a) I am not convinced that this is ideologically pure enough for a true libertarian. I see there is a debate “is immigration a boon or a burden?” If you score straight A’s on the Ron Paul crystal pure test you would not need that debate, the answer is obvious. There is another debate “is the conservative family falling apart?” Heck, when did we join that family to start with?
b) Maybe I am a libertarian because I hate the idea of being organised. One of the joys of Shoreditch life right inside the triangle was that the residents were a pretty crazed bunch. On a day to day basis I had nothing in common with the Lebanese cookery writer for the FT, the fat American artist gay couple, the super geek IT guy from Morgan Stanley or the Australian architect with his French wife who’d been there since the sixties. I struggle to remember the other residents but occasionally we’d come together like a Wild West town
4056 days ago
We departed the Grim North (Nottingham) at 5 PM on Sunday. Sadly during my stay I did not sample local culinary delights such as Cock-on-a-stick (Nottingham) or Pikelets and Wrights Pies (Stoke). Instead it was wonderful food from the mother-in-law, who showed great self-restraint and managed to praise Tony Blair only once during our visit). And there was no time to go out and visit the abandoned factories and look at the poor folks who cannot afford shoes as they searched the garbage cans for their next meal. An opportunity missed.
Getting back to the civilised south was the problem. As we moved down the M42 traffic slowed and then ground to a halt. Perhaps there was a problem at passport control as the few thousand Northerners with a work ethic jammed the gates as they headed back to paid employment in the bountiful south after a weekend with the wife, kids and whippets? Actually it was a lorry on its way back from bringing emergency relief to the folks in Stoke, that had jack-knifed and left us stranded in the pitch black for almost five hours.
At last the Old Bill cleared the hard shoulder and we made our escape finally arriving in Bristol at 12.30. Downton Abbey was videoed and that treat awaits tonight.
4078 days ago
So where do you stand politically? Take the quiz on this website and find out. Just give your gut instinct answer and it takes a minute. I straight aced it. That is to say I scored 100% on both economic and social issues and thus come out as a purer than purer libertarian. Natch.
The Mrs, the one formerly known as The Deluded Lefty has just taken it. She ummed a bit and then scored 30% on social issues and 10% on economics and is thus defined as a pretty extreme statist believer in big Government. No surprises there. Let us know how you fare? Kit Ingoldby a straight ace man I suspect while Jonathan Price with the Mrs on economics but I hope pretty pure on the social issues.
Our correspondents from the Cultural quarter of Stoke on Trent, heaven only knows such is the Bohemian free thinking in that district.
4100 days ago
I really did not enjoy my visit to Upton Park today. West Ham looked dreadful in every part of the park. Stoke are not very good but at times they were made to look like Brazil. This one of the worse West Ham performances I have seen under Fat Sam Allardyce. Striker Maiga makes me wish we had kept Carlton Cole – he was absolutely no threat whatsoever. Without Joey Cole there seems little inventive flair. Without Andy Carroll not chance we can score.
No doubt the travelling platoon of away supporters (including Comrade Rowley of this parish) will be celebrating with cheap lager in the Cultural Quarter of Stoke when they get back to the grim North tonight. They will have few easier games this season. One nil was if anything generous on an utterly woeful West Ham side.
Tomorrow has to be a better day for me
4100 days ago
It is 9.30 AM and I am sitting outside a small café in Russell Square, decked out in my West Ham hoodie contemplating today’s match against Stoke and tapping away at my PC, enjoying a latte and a fag and reading Jimmyliar’s latest lies in The Times. “How’s Sefton going? Said a voice. Rather fearing that Jimmy had sent a hit man to track me down I looked up.
“I am sorry”, said I to the complete stranger,” how can I help?” It turned out it was a journalist from Growth Company Investor who had followed the case and thought it was fascinating. Well done said he and we chatted about the amazing tale, the revelations and also about executive greed on the AIM cesspit. And then he scuttled off promising to pop into Real Man in a few weeks’ time for a longer chat.
Having other journalists say well done is always a good feeling so many thanks to him for that professional courtesy. I wish him well with his career as he strikes me as a knowledgeable chap who knows his stuff and enjoys writing and is not doing it merely as a stepping stone to the dark side (financial PR).
And many thanks for the dozens of kind emails, tweets and a couple of personal visits yesterday. Now to what really matters: Can West Ham triumph (without a decent striker available) against a piss poor Stoke?
4191 days ago
Islamofascist terrorist Abu Hamza is currently rotting in a US jail and will hopefully not be returning to these shores any time soon. But the wife of Hookie and his seven kids still live in Britain. There is outrage in some quarters that Mrs Terrorist lives in a £1 million house for which she pays nothing – the grateful taxpayer picks up the tab. There is apparently nothing that can be done about it.
Predictably some bigots regard this as an immigration issue – they just want her booted out, preferably with her kids. While I very much doubt that the old bag has contributed anything at all to Society that is not the answer. You cannot just say we will boot this immigrant out because they are a scumbag parasite married to an Islamofascist terrorist (i.e. she has broken no laws but we do not like her) but we will keep that hard working Mr Patel from the corner store in. You cannot make arbitrary rules on a case by case basis.
There are vast numbers of immigrants in the UK who work damn hard doing jobs feckless Britain’s would rather not do (claiming welfare instead), and in many cases as entrepreneurs making Britain richer. I would welcome more immigration and have an open door policy.
The general issue here is welfare. I work damn hard and pay tax. I resent bitterly that much of that tax goes to folks who have never worked and will never work. I resent white chavs on the Jeremy Kyle show as much as I resent Mrs Hookie. There has to be a change
4282 days ago
It was an ugly game devoid of skill and flair. If MOTD can find more than 90 seconds of highlights to show this evening I would be amazed. But having said that Stoke has a great home record and to come away with a one nil win is a great result for the Irons. At this stage of the season and on 30 points before today, who cares how we get the points just get us to safety.
And now we are on 33 points, nine (call it 10 because of GD) ahead of the drop zone. Two more wins should be enough, three wins from the last ten games really will be enough. I rather suspect that 37 points will be enough to ensure survival this season. So it is looking better.
But that does not alter my view. In May the West Ham board could offer Fat Sam Allardyce another 2 or 3 year contract and I despair that the Board seems minded to go with this option as it shows zero ambition. And so we will have two or three seasons of big ticket signings offering us a 12-16th place finish, no cup glory and football that three games out of four is a total turn off. Sam does not have the charisma or the youthful energy to reach out in the wider community in East London and Essex to build the widespread support needed to get the tills going ching ching and make West Ham a big club.
Paulo di Canio on a seven year contract would offer such a hope. West Ham’s best days have been with a younger manager who has a long term relationship with our club and whose veins flow claret and blue. Give Fat Sam another contract and I shall not renew my season ticket. I shall always support West Ham but I am not paying £650 a year for more of this. Give the job to Paulo and I renew at once.
You get flamed on West Ham chat rooms if you are seen not to be “backing the club” but if I wanted to follow a dull team with no ambition I’d have switched to Fulham years ago. That is not the West Ham way. Can the board please show ambition and call Paulo the second that safety is assured.
4282 days ago
At 3 PM West Ham are playing Stoke. We always lose against teams from Grim Northern Shot Holes and Stoke is almost a definitive GNSH so i assume it is another nil points. I also assume that because our form of late has been dire. And the excused from Fat Sam Allardyce are just woeful. Please God may we avoid relegation. And please God may Fat Sam be let go in May and replaced with Paulo di Canio.
Among Fat Sam’s classics from yesterday’s Evening Standard were:
“If we had had Gareth Bale in our side we would have beaten Spurs.”
Sam. You decided who to sign and who not to and God knows the chequebook was big enough.
“Now we have too many strikers fit ( 5) but not enough games to play in March (3).”
But Sam we keep losing. You could have seven games in March but lose every one and it makes no difference.
“We play better than the other side but keep losing”
Not always. We have been outclassed twice by Wigan and also by Reading away. They are rubbish sides. The fact is that our form has for months been fairly ropey.
39 points and our GD being so much better than that of Villa should ensure survival. West Ham is on 30. We have Reading at home to come and Southampton away. Get a win today and we are once again three wins ( given GD ) off the drop zone. Lose today and it could be less than two. If the rot does not stop soon then the pressure will mount as a relegation battle looms. It is vital that we try to come away from today’s trip to a GNSH with at least a point.
But win, lose or draw we should not be on 30 points at the start of March given how much Fat Sam had to spend. This has been a disappointing season and only a thoroughly daft board would give Fat Sam another contract in May. Sadly on occasion West Ham has had such a board.
COYI at Stoke and viva Paulo.
