Random overhearings

Posted on Mon 30th April 2012 by ejh

A good many years ago, through a fairly random set of circumstances, I was in the strange position of being able to overhear the Pope conversing with a group of Cardinals. Not in a private way or anything, but in a forum where they got to share their thoughts and he got to nod knowingly. Most of the speakers were in foreign, of course, and my understanding was poor. However one spoke in English; and in my opinion he spoke out of his ass. The world must be set to rights, the rich are blighters, the sentiment was straight out of the rampant SWP playbook. It was not, to my mind, the area of focus that a leading churchman should have been concerned about at that time, nor did it strike me as being particularly wise.

In entirely unrelated news, some NIrish dude who lives in Scotland has come out with similar nonsense.

In a BBC Scotland interview, he [Cardinal Keith O'Brien] said: “My message to David Cameron, as the head of our government, is to seriously think again about this Robin Hood tax, the tax to help the poor by taking a little bit from the rich.

“The poor have suffered tremendously from the financial disasters of recent years and nothing, really, has been done by the very rich people to help them.

He is, of course, absolutely right. Honest. He’s not talking out of his ass; he’s not talking about class warfare and outright theft; he’s not ignoring the simple facts about the sheer amount of money that the rich pay in tax; he’s not parroting the standard line about the rich not pulling their weight while ignoring the Robin Hood taxes which already exist (high stamp duty – paid exclusively by the rich; death duties which only the rich pay; the 45% tax rate which is added to by NI to take real tax rates over 56%).

Oh wait, he is doing all those things. Which, I suppose, means he must be wrong…

A good event, all round

Posted on Sun 22nd April 2012 by ejh

If you’ve not been reading the papers, or watching the news, or listening to any radio that features news, you may have missed the small kerfuffle about unrest in Bahrain. About the state there brutally suppressing said unrest. And about a number of very highly paid people driving very expensive cars around a track there.

First off, the race was very entertaining. Well, the bits of it that I saw on BBC were; under the new broadcast setup I didn’t get to watch it live but did catch the 2/3s of it that Auntie got. There was lots of decent racing, a few very good overtaking moves and a hard fought win by a boring driver from a very exciting (and slightly insane) driver. All good, and a race worth having.

But that’s been an aside to the main story, which has been HOW DARE THEY RUN A RACE THERE DON’T THEY KNOW PEOPLE ARE DYING OH MY GOD THE HORROR.

And it is horrible; yes, there are many nasty things going on in that small country. Yes, the F1 race is a large advert not for the country but for the ruling elite. Yes, the people behind F1 are quite easily painted as mercenary friends of the oppressive rulers of such countries. But, the same things were true last year when the race was cancelled, and the nasty things have continued since, despite the race being cancelled. It’s just that we didn’t hear about it because the news moved on after the decision was taken not to race.

This time round, there has been a fortnight where Bahrain hasn’t been out of the news, and not for reasons that any ruling clique would like. There have been images of the unrest; the news of the man dying over the weekend has been broadcast worldwide; there have been debates carried out publicly about security; the leaders of the parts of the free world that watch Formula 1 have been speaking about events.

In short, the decision to run the race has brought the attention of the world to what’s going on. Maybe that’ll help more than last years strategy (the same people taking their ball and going home, allowing all of us to forget about it).

That’s not a calculator

Posted on Wed 18th April 2012 by ejh

Every year when the Budget comes along, the web is taken over with high quality calculators, which are fun and let you know exactly how badly you’re going to get screwed come the new tax year. It’s not a pleasant thing to know, but it is useful.

So I was intrigued to see that your mate and mine, Ken Livingstone, had brought out a calculator of his own. Being a curious sort, I went and had a little look. And what I found was not a calculator but a slogan generator. Admit to travelling by train and you get told Every fare payer can save an average £250 every year for four years through Ken’s 7% fares reduction pledge. Admit that your household pays energy bills and you are reassured You can save an average of £120 every year for four years through the all-London bulk energy purchase scheme.

Here’s the thing: I don’t believe that first slogan – the idea that an ambitious politician like Boris Johnson is sitting on a billion pound pot going into an election and has increased fares instead is ludicrous. And I don’t credit that second one either; I’m too much of a free-marketer to think that a state sponsored buying group is anything other than a bad idea. In short, it’s not a calculator. And I don’t believe it’s just a slogan generator – it’s a bullshit generator.

That said, I don’t think that any of the candidates are much use. Just that each and every one of them are more use than Ken.

25 years is a very long time

Posted on Tue 10th April 2012 by ejh

Miss you, daddy.

Drat. It happened again.

Posted on Fri 6th April 2012 by ejh

I keep meaning to update this thing. I really do. But things keep getting in the way.

Since my last update, TLW & I have taken Roxy for her first trip outside London; we stayed in a farm in the Lake District for a few days and she loved it. Although she did seem a bit vexed that we didn’t let her get some of that moving food with wool on the outside… We then had her over in Norn Iron for a few days as well, and BOY did she like that. Running on the beach, getting to meet loads of new people, all good. Perhaps it was less good having to sit in a car for hours to get there and back, but I think we all enjoyed the time there.

Aside from that, work has been bonkers; the dog has managed to ruin our fence so isn’t allowed into the garden unattended until we get it repaired; our boiler died on a freezing day and needed replaced; and cars have been developing new faults with depressing regularity.

As I say, life got in the way. But I’ll try to be better.

Where did the time go?

Posted on Sun 26th February 2012 by ejh

It was this day last year that TLW and I met Roxy, our lovable little mongrel dog.

It’s been an interesting year.

We’ve had her attending puppy classes, and be the star pupil. But then she’ll forget how to behave because she’s so easily distracted.

She means that I leave the house every morning before 6.30am, and that I have to head home most lunchtimes. She’s eaten furniture and has made the garden into a minefield of surprises. She’s made me speak to my neighbours (yes, apologising is speaking). She’s eating us out of house and home.

But just look at her… Could you stay mad?

I’m surprised that we lasted a year, sometimes. But now that we have, I can’t imagine not lasting another few yet.

A quiet revolution

Posted on Fri 17th February 2012 by ejh

While the papers are distracted by Scots nationalists and politicians going up against their wives in court, something very interesting has occurred back in Norn Iron.

Sinn Fein members on Belfast City Council are set to support plans to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in the city.

This has amazed me; I generally have a pretty low opinion of politicians, especially Norn Iron ones, but it is a sign of (a) growing maturity and (b) stunning real-politic that the most staunchly republican party to get an MP elected is happily funding a celebration of the monarch’s long reign.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? I honestly don’t know any more…

Such a shame

Posted on Mon 13th February 2012 by ejh

If last week’s game between Ireland and Wales was a heartbreaker (seriously: I’m sure that the stress of it took weeks off my life expectancy), then this weekend’s was a heartbreaker for thousands who were there, and a shame for all those planning and watching it at home.

Still, not as heartbreaking as it was for Scotland. That was an impressive collapse in the second half…

Poor BBC NI

Posted on Fri 10th February 2012 by ejh

There once was a time when BBC Northern Ireland had a serious job to do; they did some really dangerous investigations and uncovered some really important stories. But now that peace is pretty well established and the culture of secrecy surrounding many nasty things has been defeated, what is a small public service broadcaster to do?

Stunningly, their latest revelation is this: buying in bulk saves you money.

Except, being the BBC, they got it arse about tit: Cold reality for poorest households.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has been told that a growing number of households have no choice but to purchase 20 litre drums of oil that are significantly more expensive per litre than buying in bulk.

BBC’s consumer correspondent Martin Cassidy has been calculating what that means at today’s home heating oil prices.
…
The comparison shows a yawning gap in annual heating costs.

Not surprisingly the household relying on buying its heating oil in 20 litre drums is paying a lot more for fuel.

No, really? Buying fuel in amounts that is massively less efficient in packaging, transportation and general all round effort per liter is more expensive than buying a large proportion of a truckload? And this is a bad thing?

Dear BBC: find something real to get angry about. Please.

A most enjoyable way to spend an evening

Posted on Mon 30th January 2012 by ejh

One: go for a nice meal at Chez Gerard. Lots of lardy food and a nice whisky sour. Get involved.

Two: wander up the road to see Matilda the Musical. The excellent work of Roald Dahl with a smattering of input from Tim Minchin and many other extremely talented people who produce an outstanding couple of hours of musical theatre.

That second item clearly provided a more entertaining time of it, and I heartily recommend it to anyone that has the opportunity. There are a great many things that work well in it; the cast (especially the kids, but special mention must go to Miss Trunchbull), the adaptations to the book (which work well; they’re in the spirit of the book rather than true to each word), the set design (I particularly liked the desks, and the way they introduce the alphabet), and the little tricks.

Get thee there. Now. Richard Wilson did, and he managed to sit a few rows in front of us. Good celebrity spot, I though.

Another thing I forgot to do anything about

Posted on Sat 28th January 2012 by ejh

TOday nine years ago, I wrote the first post of what became this blog. Clearly this last year hasn’t been the busiest of years for the blog; for whole months of the year I’ve completely neglected the blog. But I keep meaning to keep the blog going, so I’ll not lay it to rest just yet.

The stats, as is traditional.

5,224 posts
6,502 comments
106,000 unique visitors, apparently

And that’s all the interesting numbers that I have…

If you’re going to steal, be honest

Posted on Thu 26th January 2012 by ejh

That is my mantra of the day, and it is the reason that I’m admitting that I stole this list from Grannymar. I’m not a big one for email forwards, but I thought I’d give this a go here where it can just sit and not bother people who choose not to be bothered with it.

The idea was to:-

Hit forward and place an X by all the things you’ve done,
remove the x from the ones you have not, and send it to your friends. So being a good sport, I am prepared to share it with all of you:

This is your life:

(x) Shot a gun (not very well…)
( ) Gone on a blind date.
(x) Skipped school (and generally got caught)
(x) Watched someone die (too many, and some too recently)
Visited any of the following:
(x) Europe (well, duh)
(x) Africa (Egypt)
(x) Asia (Malaysia)
( ) Australia
( ) Antarctica
(x) Canada (quality skiing in Banff)
(x) North America (New York, the south west and Colorado)
( ) South America
(x) Flown on a plane (a great many times, but not yet enough that I’m bored of it)
( ) Served on a jury
(x) Been lost (oh, many many times. But it’s fun because you get to find your way again)
(x) Travelled to the opposite side of the country (in both Ireland and England)
(x) Swam in the Ocean (the Atlantic, clearly)
( ) Cried yourself to sleep (not in memory)
(x) Played cops and robbers
(x) Played cowboys and Indians
( ) Recently coloured with crayons
(x) Sang Karaoke (badly. Very badly)
(x) Sang a solo or duet in public (not sober)
(x) Paid for a meal with coins only (and demanded the extra cheeseburger that my NUS card entitled me to at the same time)
(x) Made prank phone calls (the fun that only the Scouts can bring, eh…)
(x) Laughed until some beverage came out of your nose (which is worse: warm beverages or carbonated beverages? Discuss)
(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Had children
(x) Had a pet (the Roxinator)
(x) Been skinny-dipping outdoors (a very long time ago)
(x) Been fishing
(x) been boating (both in silly little sail efforts, and in more style)
(x) Been downhill skiing (not this millennium; I prefer snowboarding)
(x) Been water skiing (in the Bann. It was cold.)
(x) Been camping in a trailer/RV (only if a caravan counts)
(x) Been camping in a tent (a decade in the scouts and one or two festivals)
( ) Flown in a small 4-seater airplane (should probably do that at some point…)
( ) Flown in a glider
(x) Flown in a helicopter (on my own, too. I even got to play with the big boys!)
( ) Flown in a hot air balloon
(x) Walked on a glacier
(x) Driven a motorcycle/been a passenger (yes, and I have a certificate to prove it)
( ) Been bungee-jumping
( ) Gone to a drive-in movie
(x) Done something that could have killed you-but not (of course, but yet here I am)
(x) Done something that you will regret for the rest of your life (obviously, but no big things)
( ) Rode an elephant
(x) Eaten just cookies or cake for dinner …and ice cream for breakfast (Yes, I was a student)
(x) Been on TV (and I even have proof!)
(x) Stolen any traffic signs (why yes, I was a student)
(x) Been in a car accident (with the head of the local CID, no less)
( ) Donated blood
( ) Gone Curling
Favourite drink: Good coffee with better whiskey
Favourite number: 42
Favourite Colour: blue-ish
Favourite movie: Oh, so many.
Favourite dessert: ALL OF THEM
Where you hope to be in 10 years: With TLW, somewhere sunny.
Furthest place you will send this message: As far as the ‘publish’ button

So, does anyone feel they know me any better?

Bugger. It happened again.

Posted on Mon 23rd January 2012 by ejh

Last year, there was a period of about, oh, two months where I forgot about this place. I felt bad about that. And I tried to come back again, but the same damn thing happened.

So, five weeks after my most recent post, I’m back. Once again (thanks to a minor issue at my web host, I’ve had to do a lot of reinstalling and password changing (always fun), but the site is back up and running. Which is nice.

What has happened since I last posted? Not a lot. Work, eat, sleep. Got excited by some football results, and very annoyed about others. Wondered why the world was getting annoyed about many things and not about other things. Pondered why anyone was giving Occupy! the time of day. Spent quality time with TLW. Watched seasons 1-3 of The Wire, and cursed FX for screwing with the scheduling so that I missed season 4. Attended a funeral. Had a Christmas. Cursed the dog for killing the fence at the bottom of the garden.

So, not much really…

International diplomacy

Posted on Tue 13th December 2011 by ejh

Two stunning examples of international figures being statesmanlike:

Cameron saying “It’s my ball and I’m taking it and going home”; not immediately successful, but I think that it’s important that someone finally says no to the EU. If he sticks with it, it’ll be a bit impressive – after all, the EU doesn’t like to hear the word “no”, and tends to just keep asking the same question until it gets the answer it wants. We shall see.
Obama saying “It’s my ball and I’d quite like it back, please”. I don’t imagine that Iran will respond favourably, given that they didn’t a few years ago when it was actual Royal Navy people they had (or even longer ago, when it was an entire embassy). Now that it’s a bunch of wires and stealth materials, I’d wager that they’ll tell the US to bugger off…

Is either actually being a statesman? Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell in the first case, but I think that we know the answer in the second case.

The times, they are a’changing

Posted on Mon 5th December 2011 by ejh

In 2006, I was a low rank nerd, with a score of 68. I was single, lived on my own, and spent many hours of every day on blogs and the like. Computer games were played often.

In 2011, how have things changed?

Hang on; I spend much less time on t’internet than I used to. I spend less time playing computer games. I’m married, fer crying out loud. How can my nerd score have gone up?

It gets worse: by some metrics I’m actually nerdier.

How the hell did that happen?

Priorities

Posted on Thu 1st December 2011 by ejh

Yesterday, as you may know, there was a fairly large (pointless strike. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect; the country struggled on and lots of people lost a days pay. The world continued to turn.

But you’d think that such a thing would still be the main news item on the national news, wouldn’t you. And it is, generally. The BBC front page is all about it; as are the local stations and the grown-up BBC radio stations.

Not so Newsbeat on Radio1. No, news-for-spanners has spent the time concentrating instead on calls for state regulation of hairdressers

Priorities are brilliant there, guys. Plus, state regulation of non-essential industries is to be filed under NOT ON YOUR FUCKING NELLIE. We don’t want a licensing system for hairdressers; it’s the first step towards government control of scissors and nobody wants that…

Pointless comments

Posted on Tue 29th November 2011 by ejh

Seeing as how I’ve been writing nonsense to these pages for eight years, it’d be extremely stupid of me to say that writing comments on t’internet was not actually that useful. It’d be just silly for me to denounce campaigning Facebook status updates as pointless, and good for no more than letting you know who to ignore.

But I’m going to say both of those things anyway.

The current pointless comment that’s doing the rounds is as follows:

Remember when Teachers, Policemen, Police staff,Ambulance staff, Nurses, Midwives, Doctors and Fireman crashed the stock market, wiped out banks, took billions in bonuses and paid no tax? No, me neither. Please copy and paste to status for 24 hours to show your support against the government’s latest attack on pensions and public sector workers

See what it does? It lets people show support without doing anything, and it does this by supporting a completely nonsensical statement. I don’t remember things like that statement, y’see. I remember all of us working in the public sector being happy to take pay rises and very generous pensions on the back of taxes paid by the rich and the (now loathed) banking sector. I remember the country borrowing money even when the economy was booming.

I remember those good times, and I recognise that they’re gone. And no amount of fatuous statuses will bring them back.

Pleasant little surprises

Posted on Thu 24th November 2011 by ejh

Belfast, for all its little virtues, never really did it for me as a culinary city. There were a few nice restaurants, to be sure, but none that really set my soul alight. So I often preferred eating in pubs and getting by on their simple fare, rather than attempting to be wowed and leaving underwhelmed.

London, on t’other hand, is fully stocked with fine dining places. We’ve only sampled a few, but I doubt that Belfast has anywhere to rival a branch of Gaucho, and I know that it has nowhere that can compare with the Ritz. And when I lived there, there was nowhere that excited my group of friends as much as Mother Mash has.

The idea of the place is simple: you choose which type of mashed potato you want, what kind of meat goes with it, and was gravy goes over it. They then provide you with it, and remove less than a tenner from you. Simple, yet delicious.

Where I think our table went wrong was on desserts. Some of us, me and TLW included, did this properly; we had things like sticky toffee pudding and chocolate cake. Others were so enamoured of the mash that their dessert was, in fact, more mash and gravy.

This is wrong on so many levels. And the restaurant didn’t even try to make it right by putting a flake in said mash, to make it look like a dessert. Their only flaw…

Not subtle?

Posted on Mon 14th November 2011 by ejh

Back in Belshaft, I was rarely bothered by political canvassers. Most of the political parties were content to rely on tribal ties to get their vote out, and the ones that made the effort to pound the pavement tended to be the ones that I’d never vote for.

Over here, it seems to be a little bit different. For example, only this weekend I had a knock on the door from my local MP, who had a little team with them and seemed to be knocking on each of the three hundred doors on my road.

“So,” said she, “Mr Hillan, I’m sure that you’re aware that the London mayoral elections are coming up next year, Ken v Boris… Do you happen to know who you’ll vote for?”

“Yes, I do. And I’m sorry, but it’s not your guy.”

“Oh I’m sorry to hear that, do you mind if I ask why?”

“Because he’s a mentalist and he scares me.”

Three things that I think, following this encounter:

My self restraint is better than I thought, I managed to avoid pointing out that her seat could have been won by a donkey with her colour of rosette; I managed to avoid mentioning the word ‘demagogue’, I didn’t mention anything about election stealing, Marxism or individual and non-mandated foreign policy decisions. My, I must be growing as a person.
Fair play to her, wandering the streets of an afternoon when there could be any number of people who’ll answer the door and point out some of the things mentioned above.
I’m not entirely sure that TLW will ever let me answer the door again…

Why the jubilation?

Posted on Tue 8th November 2011 by ejh

So, the Jackson death trial. There’s something about it that just sits very wrongly with me.

It’s not the verdict; I can see why it was so. It’s not the media, for you can count on them to be fucktards given the slightest opportunity. It’s not the prosecutors, for much the same reason.

It’s the complete loons outside, who were dancing in the street and announcing that “justice had been done”. No, it hasn’t. The wheels of the justice system have turned, and someone who is probably guilty of being bloody stupid has been caught and punished for it. But that’s not the same as justice; justice would be getting all the people who surrounded Jackson, who were catering to his every whim, who put him in a place of being in terrible pain and having to prepare for a show that clearly he wasn’t capable of doing. Justice would be letting the world know the cost of being a media creature for your entire life, and trying to stop it happening again.

Justice, in fact, would be demystifying the poor man. And getting the nutters on the street to move on. But they’re not going to dance to celebrate that, are they?

I didn't quite catch that…

If you're happy and you're Irish, don't clap your hands. You'll drop your beer.