Mrs Vincent Price

Out of the blue, there is an appreciation of Coral Browne (1913-1991) by John Amis. I have long thought that Mr Amis should publish a book dedicated to the bons mots of Sir Thomas Beecham, for whom he had been a musical dogsbody. Clearly, he could do the same service for Coral Browne. I can, however, add to those on his blog a couple of her put-downs related on Ned Sherrin's radio programme - the first by her second husband, Vincent Price, shortly after their marriage, the second, if I recall correctly, by the lady herself on a later visit.

To a house-guest, inspecting the modern art at the Prices' California home, enquiring, in a scornful tone, the title of a piece: "It's called: we like it".

When the box-office clerk at a local theatre told her that on the night she wanted a pair of tickets for a particular production that there weren't any to be had. "Charlton Heston is in it, you know" Carefully timed pause, then Ms Browne responded: "How about after the interval?"

Plans for a Severn Barrage may be found in the long grass

"Escalating costs" may have caused the coalition government to postpone to an undisclosed date a decision on a barrage across the Severn Estuary. At the ONS 2010 oil & energy conference in Stavanger yesterday, UK energy minister Charles Hendry refused to answer direct questions about the barrage, but gave a clear signal that whichever scheme was chosen would not start any time soon.

It will be interesting to know if those who have been holding back on tidal lagoon schemes for the Severn Estuary, because of planning blight due to the barrage, will now be encouraged to push them forward.

Defecting Liberal Democrats

"Come in, Mr & Mrs Jones. You asked about your son's prospects after school. I have to say that his GCSE results are moderate, to put it kindly. His English is slipshod but passable, he has a shaky grasp of history and his mathematics is appalling. He does not think logically, so philosophy and science are obviously barred to him. He may, however, have the makings of a political journalist."

Azmat and Moazzam Begg

What a pity Steve Evans' documentary ("British Muslims, Father and Son") is not available on "Listen Again". The story of a father, first fleeing India's post-partition violence as a child, then making a career in banking in this country at a time when we still welcomed Commonwealth citizens, and a son whose experience of racism in Birmingham drove him to connect with the ummah, was riveting and instructive. It was all the better for being told by a relatively conservative commentator, who was therefore going to question motives throughout, while reporting scrupulously in the best BBC tradition.

There were all sorts of ironies along the way. Azmat Begg's own father had fought for Britain in World War II, and indeed the family had a tradition of serving the British colours. Azmat is observant, but not a militant Muslim, so he had no qualms about sending his boy to a Jewish primary school, the King David, because he felt it was the best. While there, Moazzam reports , he suffered no racial or religious abuse; it was only when he moved on to secondary school that the mindless chants of "Paki" (applied, he noted, also to those of Indian and Sri Lankan descent) and violence affected him.

Moazzam's career of helping, or attempting to help, Muslims in Bosnia (where he was impressed by the motivation of British forces), Chechnya and Afghanistan were outlined. In Kabul, he wanted to help run a school for young women, against the philosophy of the Taliban, and was appalled by the Taliban's violent justice. The method by which he was abducted to Guantanamo and the privations he endured there are already well-known and were lightly sketched in. There was rather more on the fight by his father to have him released. Azmat had been puzzled by his son's actions before, but knew that he could not be guilty of the crimes he was charged with by the Americans.

Evans questioned Moazzam's motivations. To me, it's an old story: a young man, reacting against his parents' generation and against discrimination, takes a radical path. He suffers a reality check, then diverts his idealism into more mainstream channels. In Moazzam's case, as director for the prisoner rights organisation, Cageprisoners, which is concerned with more than detained Muslims.

Labour spin merchants have too high an opinion of themselves

I just have to quote this item from the Indy's Business Diary in full:

Labour aides not going cheap

So much for socialism. PR Week magazine reports that "scores of former Labour Party advisers" who lost their jobs when their bosses were booted out of power are missing out on alternative careers in the public relations sector, which has always been a favourite bolthole for political aides who find themselves back on the job market. The problem, it would seem, is that most are asking for "completely unrealistic" salaries. The agencies apparently balk at their six-figures demands.

Second-generation printed electronics

Swansea University's Centre for Printing and Coating leads the way in printing electronics on to any traditional printing surface, according to this article by Sarah Arnott in the business pages of the Independent. "The prize is potentially enormous", Arnott writes. "Alongside massive revenue opportunities, it is also a rare chance to claw back competitive advantage from the East. Compared with traditional printing, printed electronics are vastly expensive, because of the high cost of materials. But by shifting the high cost from labour to materials, the structural advantage of China or India is eroded."

But Germany, the Netherlands and USA are in the same position, and the article implies that the UK lead is no more than a year. The government and British industry should learn lessons from the experience of 1930s Hungarian refugee Paul Eisler. He fled the fascists in 1936 and immediately offered his invention of the printed circuit to his new hosts in Britain, first to the radio and electronics industry (he already had a working radio incorporating a PCB as a demonstration) then, when war was imminent, to the Air Ministry as, if I remember correctly, part of a bomb-aiming device. The invention was belatedly taken up here, but it was the US who realised the benefits after the war - and apparently largely reneged on payments under Eisler's patent.

There is a Conservative mantra that government cannot - should not - pick winners. However, it is in the best position to act as honest broker to bring together the companies representing the various technologies in what is already reckoned to be a winning development, and perhaps to act as guarantor for some of the smaller SMEs in these days when banks are loth to lend.

There WAS a structural deficit

In spite of the efforts of the deficit-deniers in Labour (listed by Guido Fawkes here) with the honourable exception of Alistair Darling (also noted by Guido), the public do realise that there is a difference between the acute difficulties caused by the banking failure and the chronic condition of dependence on borrowing initiated by Labour budgets from 2000 on.

To use an admittedly gruesome medical analogy, people with a long-standing condition like AIDS are more susceptible to infections, like TB. Brown and Darling tackled the TB of the credit drought (rather too slowly, in the opinion of Vince Cable and others) but it is left to George Osborne and Danny Alexander to administer the painful anti-retrovirals.

It is also no use complaining, as Labour speakers are wont to do, that MPs then in opposition said nothing. Just a few minutes searching the Web on the term "black hole" reveals warnings such as this, dating back to the early years of New Labour.

Open-cast coal

BBC yesterday reported that the British Geological Survey predicts an increase in open-casting greenfield sites in the UK, because of our seemingly insatiable demand for power. Perhaps the Beeb is hyping the story somewhat, as "Countryfile" last night featured an item on open-cast coal. There is no corroboration on the BGS web-site, though there are some interesting statistics which show a gradual increase from a low in 2007.

A large slice of current production, and that in the immediate future, comes from Neath Port Talbot. We, as a council, have given Celtic Energy permission to extend their operations centred on the former Selar farm. I am told by one of the local councillors that the company's operation of the site, and their adherence to the conditions imposed for its restoration, are a model.

However, we must not let our standards slip. What can happen when the democratic process is subverted by large commercial interests is illustrated by the allegations of residents of mountain country in the states of Kentucky and West Virginia. There is a Huffington Post article on the subject.