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October 2014

I’m not so sure about the language here

But the basic point being made is true:

Korwin-Mikke, whose party has two remaining MEPs and received 7.5% support in Poland during May’s European parliamentary elections, is one of the most outspoken figures within the far-right groupings of parliament.

In July, he declared in English that the minimum wage should be “destroyed” and said that “four million niggers” lost their jobs in the US as a result of President John F Kennedy signing a bill on the minimum wage in 1961. He went on to claim that 20 million young Europeans were being treated as “negroes” as a result of the minimum wage. He refused to apologise and was fined 10 days of allowances for his comments.


The minimum wage
did put a lot of what we now call people of colour out of work. That being one of the reasons why it found support from certain unions: that it would stop the low wage competition from those who were being discriminated against because of their race. This is all found in the work of people like Gary Becker of course. And it’s most certainly true that there are young people today in Europe who are unemployed because there is a minimum wage. Even our own Low Pay Commission, the people who actually set the minimum wage, tell us that this is so.

What the man said is true even if the words he used to say it are needlessly provocative. On the subject of the use of the word nigger: I’m not normally swayed by political correctness over the use of language but am entirely happy with this idea that that’s simply not a polite word to use these days. Even so, the hysteria over it does go a great deal too far: people insisting that it should be removed from Huck Finn for example. Where the whole point of the passage is that Huck knows, knows absolutely because this is what he’s been taught, that if he helps that nigger escaped slave then his soul is damned to Hell for all eternity. And he helps that nigger escaped slave. This is, when properly considered, an entiorely positive use of the word even if we currently declare it to be not a polite word to use.

Another way of making the criticism is that the choice of words means people have something else to complain about rather than the essence of what was being said. That essence being true and worth getting across without giving people that other thing to complain about.

This is a lovely one for Ritchie: CHAPS

The Bank of England did not admit the shutdown had taken place for more than five hours after the system had been due to open, and was later forced to extend opening hours by four hours to 8pm to clear the backlog of 143,000 payments.

More than 10 hours after first admitting to the problem with the clearing house automated payment system (Chaps) the Bank of England eventually apologised “for any problems caused by the delays to the settlement system”.

While Chaps was down, there were fears that homebuyers and sellers around the country would be left unable to complete purchases on time and that big businesses, which also use the system, would fail to make payments. Only weeks ago the Bank said it had a new contingency plan for the collapse of the payments system. The Bank of England will subject the system to additional monitoring when it reopens at 6am on Tuesday.


The point
being that Ritchie has been telling us that the State should design all of the banking systems and just lease that software etc to the banks themselves. Because, you know, obviously the State will do a better job.

This will surprise all who know Russia

The aircraft hit a snowplough as it took off shortly after midnight and crashed – killing all on board – as it attempted to return for an emergency landing. The snowplough driver also died. Russian investigators have since discovered that the driver was “in a state of alcoholic intoxication” at the time of the crash.

I’ve been known to like a drink myself and even, whisper it, to reach certain states of inebriation. But for widespread examples of out and out drunkenness I’ve simply never seen anything at all like Russia. And yes, I have been in the centre of British provincial towns at closing time. That’s the kindergarden league by comparison.

What a wonderful world

Not that there are people who are blind in it, rather, that they’ve worked out how to play darts while being blind. And no, not in any special place, nor with any aid other than a piece of string and the dart board in the local pub:

A group of visually-impaired friends have launched Britain’s first darts team for the blind – and admit they’re already causing damage.

Pals Richard Pryor, 68, Rachael Beresford, 39, Carol Pirret, 53, and Sharon Waters, 46, have taken to the oche under the name ‘The Optimists’.

They guide their darts with a piece of string attached to the bullseye which helps them feel where the board is.

When a player heads to the oche they grab the chord with their spare hand and throw with the other.

The team have been practising but admit some wayward darts have already caused damage to the inside of their local pub, The Dolphin Inn in Grampound, Cornwall.

They have their first match coming up and father-of-two Richard Pryor says after weeks of practice his team are hitting the board about two out of every three throws.

Mr Pryor, a former social worker, said: “The landlord mentioned that the Rotary Club had organised for pubs to take part in a fast darts competition.

“He asked if we wanted to put in a blind darts team. After three pints I am up for anything and we said ‘yes’.

“No one has been injured yet, although there has been quite a bit of damage to the door and around the board.

Yes, I know, there’s blind soccer, blind golfers and all the rest. But I’m sorry, for no particular reason at all I just like this story.

To repeat: ” “He asked if we wanted to put in a blind darts team. After three pints I am up for anything and we said ‘yes’. No one has been injured yet”

It what makes Britain Great.

Of course Ukip Calypso should be Number 1

The BBC is under pressure not to play a “calypso” record released by Ukip, which was today denounced as offensive by rival MPs.

Nigel Farage endorsed a song written and performed in a cod-Jamaican accent by Mike Read, the former Radio 1 DJ and Ukip supporter. He called for supporters to send it to number one in the singles charts.

Conservative MPs urged the BBC not to play the song, saying the lyrics, hailing the prospect of Nigel Farage in Downing Street, amounted to political advertising in the run-up to the Rochester and Strood by-election. Last night the song had reached 17 in the iTunes download charts.

The song laments “illegal immigrants in every town”, EU “bans” on bent bananas and Jean Claude Juncker, the president-elect of the European Commission. It says Labour and Conservative are “shaking in their boots” in the face of Ukip.


Come along
now, why not? As a country we’ve had My Ding A Ling, Mr Blobby, Clive Dunn, St Winnifried’s and the Sodding Brotherhood of Man as Number 1 singles. It’s impossible to argue that this is worse than all of those: and Lord Knows politics needs a bit of lightening up at present.

The Amazon download is here, iTunes here somewhere or other.

These people are mad

A student who was born female felt perfectly comfortable identifying as a man at Wellesley College — until people said he shouldn’t be class diversity officer because he is now a white male.

Timothy Boatwright was born a girl, and checked off the “female” box when applying to the Massachusetts all-women’s school, according to an article in the New York Times. But when he got there, he introduced himself as a “masculine-of-center genderqueer” person named “Timothy” (the name he picked for himself) and asked them to use male pronouns when referring to him.

And, by all accounts, Boatwright felt welcome on campus — until the day he announced that he wanted to run for the school’s office of multicultural affairs coordinator, whose job is to promote a “culture of diversity” on campus.

But some students thought that allowing Boatwright to have the position would just perpetuate patriarchy. They were so opposed, in fact, that when the other three candidates (all women of color) dropped out, they started an anonymous Facebook campaign encouraging people not to vote at all to keep him from winning the position.

“I thought he’d do a perfectly fine job, but it just felt inappropriate to have a white man there,” the student behind the so-called “Campaign to Abstain” said.

“It’s not just about that position either,” the student added. “Having men in elected leadership positions undermines the idea of this being a place where women are the leaders.”

Boatwright told the Times that his high-school friends knew he was transgender, but he identified himself as female on the application to Wellesley because he didn’t want his mom to know. Of course, Wellesley is also a female school, and “it seemed awkward to write an application essay for a women’s college on why you were not a woman,” he said.

Complete fucking nutters.

Questions in the Daily Mail that we can answer

Why is this coat just £89 in one catalogue but £115 in another?

The same coat is £115 from Freemans but just £89 from Kaleidoscope
The French Connection Abney dress, costs £85 on the brand’s website
It’s the same price at Very.co.uk
But if you buy the dress at K&Co or Littlewoods, it will cost you £108
A Joanna Hope sequin and lace maxi dress is £95 at Julipa.com
But it’s only £99 at Marisota.co.uk

Because we have a market economy.

Fiendishly difficult questions

Over at The Guardian and at least some of them aren’t in fact that difficult:

8. When asked why he robbed banks, he apocryphally said, “Because that’s where the money is.” Which US bank robber gives his name to a rule of focusing on areas with likely high returns, or ruling out obvious explanations first?

Well, some on now, everyone knows that’s Willy Sutton.

9. The Oscar-nominated documentary Waste Land by Lucy Walker is about the “pickers” or “catadores” who scavange Jardim Gramacho, an enormous dump in which city?

Rio de Janeiro
Manila
Mexico City

Rio, obviously. The other two are Spanish speaking/influenced, and Jardim is Jardin in Spanish. It’s Portuguese for Jardim to be Jardim. So, err, D’oH!

Some of the others though are pretty tough.

This restaurant might be a little too expensive

The corn-fed, dry-aged Nebraskan rib-eye, with a carbon footprint big enough to make a climate-change denier horny, is bloody marvellous: rich, deep, earthy, with that dense tang that comes with proper hanging. And at £100 a kilo it bloody well should be. At that price they should lead the damn animal into the restaurant and install it under the table so it can pleasure me while I eat.

Although it has to be said that the mental image of Jay Rayner being pleasured by a dead cow is one that hope I manage to forget soon.

As I’ve pointed out myself

David Cameron’s plans to cap migrants coming to the UK from Europe are illegal, the European Commission’s top official has warned, as he said that Britain would have only a “marginal relevance” in global affairs if it quits the European Union.

 

Limitations on intra EU migration simply ain’t legal.

 

 

But wasn’t this what it was designed for?

A daily dose of Viagra could become a safe treatment for heart disease, researchers have said, after finding it improved blood flow.

The drug, normally used to treat erectile dysfunction, was found to prevent changes to the heart associated with disease.

Didn’t they originally make it with an eye on heart disease and then switched because everyone taking it had a permanent stiffie?

‘Ome is where the Picalilli is

Not exactly the world’s most profound revelation this. But I’ve been on the road for four days. See the parentals (excellent time) go to London, give a couple of short speeches. See an old school friend, see another old friend, some readers here. Wander around the Tower and that Poppy installation.

 

All just great: but I have also been on the road f0r four days. I am now back in the flat rental in Czech and I’m not here in any form of luxury. On the drive back from the airport I picked up a half a cold but cooked chicken, bit of bread, half bottle of vino and am now at 1 am, having my supper. So far so very, very boring.

But I’ve been in this flat for a year or so: the fridge has odd bits and pieces that are *mine*, not just the standard stuff you get in a hotel room, or a takeout or whatever. One of those bits of *mine* was some posh style Picalilli. Which does make this chicken and bread better. Again so far so boring.

But it strikes me (and still sober, because I’ve been driving and it’s only a half bottle) how much it strikes me how different this is. I could have had a half chicken, some chutney and some wine when in the hotel in London. But it wouldn’t have been *my* fridge that I took *my* chutney out of. Nor would it have been my fridge that the not empty jar goes back into for the next time.

 

The striking bit being quite how little of a space has to be that mine to make me think of this as my space, my home. Or, if we’re to be totally accurate, something I’ll regard as *mine*, even if it’s not home (which is, of course, something I own, contains a wife, the detritus of 50 years of life and even, among the pets, life forms unambiguouly pleased to see me).

 

I don’t mean that I wept with joy to see a jar of chutney: only that I’d quite clearly been here before, influenced this place, and was glad to be back for that reason.

 

We’ll be back to your regularly scheduled economic sneering tomorrow…..

 

In search of old pulp novels

I’m looking for a stash of old pulp novels. The sort of things that was the 60s and 70s male equivalent of Mills and Boon. The Executioner series, Nick Carter, that sort of stuff. Ideally I’d like to get 50 or 100 of them (there were several such series, each of which ran to hundreds of novels).

Back in Bath for a day I checked the various second hand shops and all agreed that they used to be very common. But they’ve not been around for perhaps a decade as the sort of stuff that flows through such shops. I’ve not yet looked on Amazon or e-Bay, where I assume I will be able to find them.

But does anyone have any other bright ideas? Perhaps someone has a few shelves full that I can buy off them? There’s a specialist shop somewhere that delights in supplying such things?

As to why I want them, well, have an idea for a little project. About which more some other time.

I’m warming to this new Commissioner

The German politician was named as the next digital chief on September 10, and immediately found himself under fire for stating that celebrities who had their naked photos stolen and posted on the internet were “stupid”.

“The fact that recently there have been an increasing number of public lamentations about nude photos of celebrities who took selfies – I just can’t believe it,” he said.

“If someone is dumb enough as a celebrity to take a nude photo of themselves and put it online, they surely can’t expect us to protect them.

“I mean, stupidity is something you cannot – or only partly – save people from.”

Agreed the job shouldn’t exist, the institution shouldn’t exist, but if both are to then why not have someone sensible doing it?

Banning the Double Irish isn’t going to make all that much difference

US companies including Apple and Google could be hit with demands for billions of dollars after Ireland yesterday unveiled plans to close the ‘Double Irish’ tax loophole.

However, a new tax break and pressure to tackle avoidance elsewhere in the world means US companies are unlikely to depart from the struggling eurozone economy.

Analysts and tax advisers predict that corporations which need access to the European Union’s 500 million consumers will find it difficult to set up equally effective schemes in other member states, as Brussels investigates other arrangements that involve paying minimal tax rates

Well, Holland, as far as I know, has a 5% tax rate for royalties. So the Dutch Sandwich will still work pretty well. Tax rates might end up being higher than they have been but not all that much is my prediction.