3903 days ago
Up to London for a lunch with libertarian fellow Shoreditch refugee Philip, a CEO meeting and then to the offices of a City law firm to moderate a panel presentation for Liquity – a new platform for investors in unlisted stocks. It is an interesting proposition and I wish the firm the best of luck, not least because it employs my fave Tory blogger Charlotte Argyle. Rather conceitedly I thought I was on pretty cracking form.
I was certainly getting a few laughs but it is quite possible that many of those present were laughing at me not at my witty asides. You never really know.
As soon as the formal bit was over I headed outside for a quick nicotine fix and a fellow who was leaving congratulated me on my style and cynicism and said I gave a most enjoyable performance. Thank you said I. He then introduced himself as a full time member of the House of Lords and thrust his card into my hand saying that he had read my blog but would become a more regular reader from now onwards.
I shall not name this fellow to spare his blushes but I find praise from a member of the political classes a bit disconcerting. Does he not know that when the Popular Libertarian Front sweeps to power in 2020 one of the first acts of Dear Leader Richard Poulden will be to have the entire political class strung up from lampposts? Naturally I shall be there in the front row with my knitting needles gloating as the tumbrils pass along the Mall.
But for his kind words tonight, I shall put in a good word with the PLF and Lord X will have his sentence commuted to 20 years in the newly established salt mines in the grim Northern Wastelands surrounding Stoke on Trent. But it got worse.
3998 days ago
I am devoid of ideas and must rush home to feed the cats as I complete my domestic odessey vfrom Rivington Street to Bristol. As such I offer up a simple picture for you this week and ask for your captions by 9 AM next Friday. Simply post then in the comments secti9on below.
For what it is worth my entry is:
“New management calling the 15% of our passengers who have not already abandoned ship…anyone fancy coming to an investment show in late April?”
Last week I asked you for a caption to this picture in the robber capitalist issue.
4064 days ago
It is a quiet afternoon at Real Man with a nice couple sitting here having a glass of wine or four… They tell me they have travelled 300 miles to come to Real Man Pizza in Clerkenwell. And who can blame them with our great new cook Leo earning rave reviews. So where are you from? I asked. Stoke on Trent they say.
I say that I have correspondents (Messrs Green & Rowley) who try to educate me to the delights of the Cultural Quarter of lovely Stoke. I say “yes you have some sort of pies don’t you.” They explain about Wrights pies but say that the famous oat cakes are even better and that Stoke’s third culinary delight is a Picklet (pronounced Pike-let) which is a bit like a muffin. Whatever…
I have now learned two new “facts”.
1. Stoke is not as I thought in the Grim North. Everything north of the cultural quarter is the North, everything south of it is the south. The cultural quarter is the centre of the universe.
2. If you stick a compass in the cultural quarter and draw a 70 mile radius circle around it you go as far south as Stratford and 70 miles further into the Grim North. Apparently it is a fact that this circle contains the birthplaces or more men and women who changed the world than any other such circle anywhere on the planet.
I sense that correspondents Green & Rowley have been underselling the cultural quarter and I feel like a moth to the flame, increasingly drawn to make a pilgrimage.
4157 days ago
You may remember that last summer I spent a long while as the sole guest of a hotelier in Corfu called Spiros. I am back. He greeted me like an old friend and there was good news and bad.
The bad news is that I do not have his undivided attention. There seem to be two other rooms occupied this year. The good news concerns money. My rate per night has fallen from 35 Euro a year ago to 25 Euro this time. And as a bonus, Spiros has given up trying to quit smoking and so now buys his own rather than smoking all of mine. That is worth another Euro and a half a day.
Sitting in the pool this afternoon (all alone) I pondered the suggestions from our correspondents in the GNSH that is Stoke on Trent that after my experiences in Athens I should abandon Greece and book a holiday in the Potteries. I am assured that Stoke has a brand new bus station, is 30 degrees in the shade and has much else to commend itself. Truly it sounds like the new Athens of the North… well at least in terms of youth unemployment it probably is.
Hmmmm, shall I swap lounging the pool in 34 degree heat with an almost personal service of café frappes from Spiros for an afternoon trekking round the pottery heritage trail? It is a hard call. I promise that one day I shall go visit David and Chris in Stoke for a bit of welfare scrounger porn, but on balance for a summer break, I have to conclude that Greece more than edges it.
4158 days ago
I am now in Corfu preparing for five days of rest and writing before my deluded lefty partner arrives to whisk me off to the former socialist paradise that is Albania. I travelled here by bust from Athens – a 10 hour trip and so feel a little on the tired said as we arrived at 5 AM. Athens Bus station is a total shit hole. It is what I imagine that Stoke on Trent is like. Only hotter.
I arrived early (fleeing the clip joint) to buy my ticket and wandered into a ticket hall with a desk for each location. At that point there were four of us trying to buy tickets and I counted 11 staff manning the desks.
The Corfu counter had no-one behind it but a full ashtray (in a non-smoking building) and cup of coffee suggested that there was life somewhere. But fear not,
