Critics across the border - and even some closer to home - have been a bit sniffy about Katherine Jenkins' qualities. What they can't stand, it appears, is that she is popular. Admittedly, her publicity machine can get a bit much at times, but that is par for the course.
A former choirgirl of the year, from Cimla, can surely do no wrong. However, there are those who may consider this blog to be prejudiced. That is why I was pleased to catch up with John Amis's view of the Jenkins/Bussell enterprise.
Sunday, 10 August 2008
The Lord Russell-Johnston
A recent email from the "Make Votes Count" campaign (and please join in at their web site) reminds me that I haven't yet posted about the death a fortnight ago of Russell Johnston. The connection? Well, he had the distinction of holding, in 1992, a uniquely four-way marginal seat. It is arguable that he was successful because of the First Past The Post system, although his local connections were obviously important.
Obituaries in the Telegraph, Independent and Guardian rightly stress his European credentials. There is mention of his oratorical skill, but not of his wit - and the two do not necessarily go together. He had that rare ability to skewer a political opponent with a phrase.
Nor do the obituaries mention his literary tastes, which must have included Walter Scott or Charles Dickens, or both. Certainly, his vivid description (in a speech to the Liberal Democrat history society) of the pre-revival Liberal Party headquarters in Edinburgh, as like something out of "Bleak House", will live in my memory for a long time.
Obituaries in the Telegraph, Independent and Guardian rightly stress his European credentials. There is mention of his oratorical skill, but not of his wit - and the two do not necessarily go together. He had that rare ability to skewer a political opponent with a phrase.
Nor do the obituaries mention his literary tastes, which must have included Walter Scott or Charles Dickens, or both. Certainly, his vivid description (in a speech to the Liberal Democrat history society) of the pre-revival Liberal Party headquarters in Edinburgh, as like something out of "Bleak House", will live in my memory for a long time.
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
ID cards - a season to bury bad news?
With MPs on their holidays, it has been announced that the contract for a prototype has gone to Thales. Thales is the largest French arms company, and seventh largest in the world. The French government owns a 33% stake. Thales Identification has been in charge of producing ID Smartcards in China since 2002.
Government spokesmen have been dismissive in the past of claims of escalating costs of the National ID Register by opponents, such as No2Id. Well, the prototype was estimated to cost ten million pounds, and has come in at eighteen million - so far.
Government spokesmen have been dismissive in the past of claims of escalating costs of the National ID Register by opponents, such as No2Id. Well, the prototype was estimated to cost ten million pounds, and has come in at eighteen million - so far.
Tuesday, 5 August 2008
Can dinosaurs scrutinise?
There was an interesting council seminar on the subject of scrutiny last week. It would have been even more interesting if we as councillors (and I don't exempt myself from this criticism) had entered into the spirit of the proceedings.
John Dixon and a colleague from Cardiff City Council made the journey to Port Talbot to share with us their experiences of scrutiny. Although it was moderated by the non-partisan Welsh Audit Office, and the stress throughout was on a spirit of cooperation, not of instruction, not one question was directed at any of the presenters. Instead, the general attitude of senior Labour members was that of resentment that people from the capital - and, what's worse, from a non-Labour council - were daring to tell the council with the best refuse collection and the best social services in the country how to conduct their business.
It should have been obvious from the presentation that scrutiny is more than having officers present at scrutiny committee, and answering questions, which seemed to satisfy all the Labour councillors who spoke. Bryn Roblin and Steve Hunt (both independents) got the message that there was more to it than that.
But I think that the Cardiff people should have been pressed on a few points. It seemed to me that they had employed every method in the scrutiny manual. Surely such a shotgun approach had its drawbacks?
What about the back-benchers? John Dixon made much of his chafing under the pre-2004 one-party rule as an opposition back-bencher being kept in the dark (along with Labour members who didn't find favour with the leader, it should be added). Has the situation improved for Cardiff back-benchers, of whatever party?
I also had the impression that Cardiff's lively scrutiny scene had much to do with the fine balance between the political parties, but ducked out of pressing this point. The chair had already called John Warman to give a speech of thanks, and it is doubtful whether he would have accepted another contribution from the Liberal Democrat quadrant.
I would have expected at least one Neath Port Talbot member of the ruling group to have picked on Cardiff's use of pre-scrutiny as an endorsement of our county borough's early adoption of this approach.
The bright spot of the proceedings was that leader Derek Vaughan, unlike most of his party colleagues, declared himself to be in favour of pro-active scrutiny as practised in Cardiff. He had created posts for two officers dedicated to the task of servicing scrutiny. He wanted to extend scrutiny beyond council policy to services, such as the police, fire service and public transport, in which the county borough had an interest. (I, personally, would welcome the last.) He invited members of scrutiny committees, especially the opposition, to put forward proposals.
Industrial heritage comes to mind.
John Dixon and a colleague from Cardiff City Council made the journey to Port Talbot to share with us their experiences of scrutiny. Although it was moderated by the non-partisan Welsh Audit Office, and the stress throughout was on a spirit of cooperation, not of instruction, not one question was directed at any of the presenters. Instead, the general attitude of senior Labour members was that of resentment that people from the capital - and, what's worse, from a non-Labour council - were daring to tell the council with the best refuse collection and the best social services in the country how to conduct their business.
It should have been obvious from the presentation that scrutiny is more than having officers present at scrutiny committee, and answering questions, which seemed to satisfy all the Labour councillors who spoke. Bryn Roblin and Steve Hunt (both independents) got the message that there was more to it than that.
But I think that the Cardiff people should have been pressed on a few points. It seemed to me that they had employed every method in the scrutiny manual. Surely such a shotgun approach had its drawbacks?
What about the back-benchers? John Dixon made much of his chafing under the pre-2004 one-party rule as an opposition back-bencher being kept in the dark (along with Labour members who didn't find favour with the leader, it should be added). Has the situation improved for Cardiff back-benchers, of whatever party?
I also had the impression that Cardiff's lively scrutiny scene had much to do with the fine balance between the political parties, but ducked out of pressing this point. The chair had already called John Warman to give a speech of thanks, and it is doubtful whether he would have accepted another contribution from the Liberal Democrat quadrant.
I would have expected at least one Neath Port Talbot member of the ruling group to have picked on Cardiff's use of pre-scrutiny as an endorsement of our county borough's early adoption of this approach.
The bright spot of the proceedings was that leader Derek Vaughan, unlike most of his party colleagues, declared himself to be in favour of pro-active scrutiny as practised in Cardiff. He had created posts for two officers dedicated to the task of servicing scrutiny. He wanted to extend scrutiny beyond council policy to services, such as the police, fire service and public transport, in which the county borough had an interest. (I, personally, would welcome the last.) He invited members of scrutiny committees, especially the opposition, to put forward proposals.
Industrial heritage comes to mind.
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
egyptian queens, vers libre poets and ... wotthehell
Don Marquis was born 130 years ago today in Walnut, Illinois, and died on 29th December 1937.
He is best-known for creating the all-lower-case poems of archy the cockroach, perhaps inspired by the loftier aspirations of e e cummings and rainer - oops! - Rainer Maria Rilke.
Marquis takes a swipe at theosophy (trendy in the early years of the twentieth century) and the belief of its founder, Madame Blavatsky, in reincarnation, in the introduction to the collected poems.
He goes on: "We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning, and discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about on the keys.
"He did not see us, and we watched him. He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machiine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just suffient to operate the amchine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a greate deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor, he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a
nest of the poems which are always there in profusion.
"Congratulating ourself that we had left a sheet of paper in the machine the night beofroe so that all this work had been in vain, we made an examination, and this is what we found:
expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook on life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it
there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have
removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she
catch rats that is what whe is supposed to be for
[...]"
Mehitabel the cat reveals to Archy that she was Cleopatra in a former life, though the poems she has Archy transcribe for her reveal a salty turn of phrase, "wotthehell" appearing frequently (though she is also "toujours gai").
The complete "the lives and times of archy and mehitabel" is well worth looking out for, especially as it includes the illustrations of another cult figure, George Herriman.
The collection should be dipped into, as with most poetry collections. However, my acquisition of the complete volume thirty years ago coincided with a long period of bed rest, and I read the whole volume at a stretch. It has to be said that the carefree verses of the early years are gradually replaced by gloomier thoughts, culminating in rather isolationist opinions, presumably dating from the early thirties. At the very end, the poetry returns, and is more philosophical. The final words could be prophetic (my italics):
men talk of money and industry
of hard times and recoveries
of finance and economics
but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
for while men talk they are making deserts all the time
getting the world ready for the conquering ant
drought and erosion and desert
because men cannot learn
rainfall passing off in flood and freshet
and carrying good soil with it
because there are no longer forests
to withhold the water in the
billion meticulations of the roots
it wont be long it wont be long
till earth is barrne as the moon
and sapless as a mumbled bone
dear boss i relay this information
without any fear that humanity
will take warning and reform
archy
But I prefer to think of Mehitabel's enduring optimism:
but wotthehell do i care
i neithe whine nor fret
what though my spine is out of line
there s a dance in the old dame yet
He is best-known for creating the all-lower-case poems of archy the cockroach, perhaps inspired by the loftier aspirations of e e cummings and rainer - oops! - Rainer Maria Rilke.
Marquis takes a swipe at theosophy (trendy in the early years of the twentieth century) and the belief of its founder, Madame Blavatsky, in reincarnation, in the introduction to the collected poems.
He goes on: "We came into our room earlier than usual in the morning, and discovered a gigantic cockroach jumping about on the keys.
"He did not see us, and we watched him. He would climb painfully upon the framework of the machiine and cast himself with all his force upon a key, head downward, and his weight and the impact of the blow were just suffient to operate the amchine, one slow letter after another. He could not work the capital letters, and he had a greate deal of difficulty operating the mechanism that shifts the paper so that a fresh line may be started. We never saw a cockroach work so hard or perspire so freely in all our lives before. After about an hour of this frightfully difficult literary labor, he fell to the floor exhausted, and we saw him creep feebly into a
nest of the poems which are always there in profusion.
"Congratulating ourself that we had left a sheet of paper in the machine the night beofroe so that all this work had been in vain, we made an examination, and this is what we found:
expression is the need of my soul
i was once a vers libre bard
but i died and my soul went into the body of a cockroach
it has given me a new outlook on life
i see things from the under side now
thank you for the apple peelings in the wastepaper basket
but your paste is getting so stale i cant eat it
there is a cat here called mehitabel i wish you would have
removed she nearly ate me the other night why dont she
catch rats that is what whe is supposed to be for
[...]"
Mehitabel the cat reveals to Archy that she was Cleopatra in a former life, though the poems she has Archy transcribe for her reveal a salty turn of phrase, "wotthehell" appearing frequently (though she is also "toujours gai").
The complete "the lives and times of archy and mehitabel" is well worth looking out for, especially as it includes the illustrations of another cult figure, George Herriman.
The collection should be dipped into, as with most poetry collections. However, my acquisition of the complete volume thirty years ago coincided with a long period of bed rest, and I read the whole volume at a stretch. It has to be said that the carefree verses of the early years are gradually replaced by gloomier thoughts, culminating in rather isolationist opinions, presumably dating from the early thirties. At the very end, the poetry returns, and is more philosophical. The final words could be prophetic (my italics):
men talk of money and industry
of hard times and recoveries
of finance and economics
but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
for while men talk they are making deserts all the time
getting the world ready for the conquering ant
drought and erosion and desert
because men cannot learn
rainfall passing off in flood and freshet
and carrying good soil with it
because there are no longer forests
to withhold the water in the
billion meticulations of the roots
it wont be long it wont be long
till earth is barrne as the moon
and sapless as a mumbled bone
dear boss i relay this information
without any fear that humanity
will take warning and reform
archy
But I prefer to think of Mehitabel's enduring optimism:
but wotthehell do i care
i neithe whine nor fret
what though my spine is out of line
there s a dance in the old dame yet
Friday, 25 July 2008
Unfinished Books
I shall be found by the fire, suppose,
O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows,
And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!
- Robert Browning, "By the fire-side"
Peter Black's posting about books only started, never finished, causes me to reflect on my unachieved ambition to catch up on the great works of literature which I missed out on during my working years.
I didn't miss out completely. I read Ulysses through twice, the first time devouring it over the span of a week, aided by long train journeys and long nights in a hotel room while working on a contract in England. What drew me on was the fascination with the different language and styles with which Joyce plays in the book. Perhaps A-level English and other languages prepared me for this. "Ulysses" also cured me of any delusion that I, too, could become a great writer.
There were many others, mostly modern. Two come to mind: Nigel Balchin, because it is his centenary this year; and Don Marquis, whose birthday falls next week. More then, if I can remember.
Unfortunatly, when I found I had more time, I also found that my concentration was less fierce than it used to be. This can't be just old age; Gladstone in his later years would think nothing of reading a classical work in the original, and writing an extensive commentary on it.
Television must have something to do with it, and possibly the sheer weight of written material which passes in front of ones eyeballs. Though newspapers are less dense than they used to be, there are more journals out there, largely as a result of joining charities and societies. When programming, one had to wade through turgid systems specifications, which made reading a chore rather than a pleasure. Now there is the load of council papers, written in 21st-century pudder.
For the record, the unfinished books on my bedside table include "The Arabs" by Albert Hourani, "Collapse" (Jared Diamond) and the memoirs of Peter Walker and Don Shepherd. This is no reflection on the quality of writing (though Hourani can be hard going), more on my inability to keep my eyes open for more than ten minutes at the end of the day.
O'er a great wise book as beseemeth age,
While the shutters flap as the cross-wind blows,
And I turn the page, and I turn the page,
Not verse now, only prose!
- Robert Browning, "By the fire-side"
Peter Black's posting about books only started, never finished, causes me to reflect on my unachieved ambition to catch up on the great works of literature which I missed out on during my working years.
I didn't miss out completely. I read Ulysses through twice, the first time devouring it over the span of a week, aided by long train journeys and long nights in a hotel room while working on a contract in England. What drew me on was the fascination with the different language and styles with which Joyce plays in the book. Perhaps A-level English and other languages prepared me for this. "Ulysses" also cured me of any delusion that I, too, could become a great writer.
There were many others, mostly modern. Two come to mind: Nigel Balchin, because it is his centenary this year; and Don Marquis, whose birthday falls next week. More then, if I can remember.
Unfortunatly, when I found I had more time, I also found that my concentration was less fierce than it used to be. This can't be just old age; Gladstone in his later years would think nothing of reading a classical work in the original, and writing an extensive commentary on it.
Television must have something to do with it, and possibly the sheer weight of written material which passes in front of ones eyeballs. Though newspapers are less dense than they used to be, there are more journals out there, largely as a result of joining charities and societies. When programming, one had to wade through turgid systems specifications, which made reading a chore rather than a pleasure. Now there is the load of council papers, written in 21st-century pudder.
For the record, the unfinished books on my bedside table include "The Arabs" by Albert Hourani, "Collapse" (Jared Diamond) and the memoirs of Peter Walker and Don Shepherd. This is no reflection on the quality of writing (though Hourani can be hard going), more on my inability to keep my eyes open for more than ten minutes at the end of the day.
Friday, 18 July 2008
Liberal Democrats and tax-cutting
Nick Clegg, introducing the party's new glossy, "Make it Happen", to the media, said that he was looking for ways to reduce the overall tax burden. This laudable aspiration was seized on by the media as an attempt to seize the Conservative ground.
The media commentators (who mostly have their own agenda, and would like nothing better than for the Liberal Democrats to disappear) either did not read the document or wilfully ignored it. There is nothing in it to comfort the wealthy. The main points are:
- to cut taxes for ordinary families
- to switch taxes from people to pollution - so it pays to go green
- to put Britain at the heart of Europe to make us a force for good in the world
- to stop ID cards so we can keep control of our privacy
- to change the voting system so everyone's voice counts
- to bring communities together with local people in charge
- give communities a say in how offenders pay for their crimes
The first two points make it obvious: lower-paid people will be taken out of tax; the people who pollute most, overwhelmingly those with higher disposable incomes, will pay more.
The media commentators (who mostly have their own agenda, and would like nothing better than for the Liberal Democrats to disappear) either did not read the document or wilfully ignored it. There is nothing in it to comfort the wealthy. The main points are:
- to cut taxes for ordinary families
- to switch taxes from people to pollution - so it pays to go green
- to put Britain at the heart of Europe to make us a force for good in the world
- to stop ID cards so we can keep control of our privacy
- to change the voting system so everyone's voice counts
- to bring communities together with local people in charge
- give communities a say in how offenders pay for their crimes
The first two points make it obvious: lower-paid people will be taken out of tax; the people who pollute most, overwhelmingly those with higher disposable incomes, will pay more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)