It has been enjoyable to watch this government being unable to manage a relatively simple vote on an opposition day motion. And make no mistake, this should never have happened - the reason why it is so humiliating for the government is not becuase it is a major point of principle, but because it suggests that they have lost control in the parliamentary process. Their lot no longer care, ours are brig careful and everyone is waiting and watching for next year. It makes it nigh on impossible for the cadre trying to get things though to do so.
Because the Gurkha issue just isn't major. No-one really cares. Now, I'm not saying they aren't deserving, but there is no real logic to this sudden indignation. The deal was clear when the gurkha's signed up - they weren't paid in citizenship, but cash. And it's been going on - as far as I can tell - for decades with no real fuss. The Tories certainly didn't bother to do anything about it when they in power, and it's not been a consistent item of Liberal policy (though it may have passed through their revolving door at one point in the past). It's not a great injustice though it feels a bit unfair. I doubt we'll remember it in a year.
Yet on this issue, the government however has managed to make itself hated by the right for knocking the military and the left for hating brown people. It's lovely to watch, but let's not pretend that it's really about the issues.
Thursday 30 April 2009
Friday 24 April 2009
Literary Geek
This is a bit of a filler post. New job has hammered me with work. Anyway, I was sent this on Facebook so I thought I would knock the answers out. The original instructions suggest you don't italicise your titles though you want to, but I will do so anyway.
1) What author do you own the most books by?
E.M Brent-Dyer, all of whose 62 Chalet School stories I own
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Anna & I did manage to end up with three copies of Roddy Doyle's The woman who walked into doors
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I never really did this; in fact I cannot really remember major female characters in recent books(though this is a function of reading Powell who has no female characters)
5) What book have you read the most times in your life
I'm sure I've read many things multiple times as a child - I've definitely read E.M. Brent-Dyer, The Chalet School in Exile (it is the best) four times.
6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
I obviously cannot remember this, again probably M. Weis & T. Hickman, Dragons of Autumn Twilight (but I may a year too early)
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
A. Powell, Hearing Secret Harmonies
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
V.Nabokov, Lolita
9) If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?
L.N. Tolstoy, War and Peace
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
It will be some obscure Asian, but probably is Roth's turn
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I just don't care
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
I just don't care
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
none
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
One Jilly Cooper's I suspect
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Joyce, Finnegan's wake, but I didn't finish it - because it is indulgent claptrap
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Cymbeline
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The Russians.
18) Roth or Updike?
Roth
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
No idea
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Milton to read; Bill to see
21) Austen or Eliot?
Auten above T.S., George above both
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
D.H. Lawrence
23) What is your favourite novel?
L.N. Tolstoy, War and Peace
24) Play?
I think you're formed by your early expriences on this: and I've never forgotten Romeo & Juliet as a kid. Still my favourite
25) Poem?
I remember barely any
26) Essay?
The first essay I really read was Berlin's What's wrong with negative liberty? which I think woke me up to the possibilities of a sustained work of that type, but I suspect I wouldn't think this on rereading
27) Short story?
I forget the title, but there is a wonderful story by Asimov about entropy and ends with the words 'let there be light'. Great.
28) Work of nonfiction?
P.L. Fermor, Mani
29) Who is your favourite writer?
P.L. Fermor
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Of the major literary fiction lot, I think McEwan is overpraised and lack substance
31) What is your desert island book?
If I could take anything at all I would take a the Talmud to really keep me busy. It's the though of running of things to read that frightens me
32) And... what are you reading right now?
I. Asimov, The Gods themselves
1) What author do you own the most books by?
E.M Brent-Dyer, all of whose 62 Chalet School stories I own
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Anna & I did manage to end up with three copies of Roddy Doyle's The woman who walked into doors
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I never really did this; in fact I cannot really remember major female characters in recent books(though this is a function of reading Powell who has no female characters)
5) What book have you read the most times in your life
I'm sure I've read many things multiple times as a child - I've definitely read E.M. Brent-Dyer, The Chalet School in Exile (it is the best) four times.
6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
I obviously cannot remember this, again probably M. Weis & T. Hickman, Dragons of Autumn Twilight (but I may a year too early)
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
A. Powell, Hearing Secret Harmonies
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
V.Nabokov, Lolita
9) If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?
L.N. Tolstoy, War and Peace
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
It will be some obscure Asian, but probably is Roth's turn
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
I just don't care
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
I just don't care
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
none
14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
One Jilly Cooper's I suspect
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
Joyce, Finnegan's wake, but I didn't finish it - because it is indulgent claptrap
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
Cymbeline
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The Russians.
18) Roth or Updike?
Roth
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
No idea
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Milton to read; Bill to see
21) Austen or Eliot?
Auten above T.S., George above both
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
D.H. Lawrence
23) What is your favourite novel?
L.N. Tolstoy, War and Peace
24) Play?
I think you're formed by your early expriences on this: and I've never forgotten Romeo & Juliet as a kid. Still my favourite
25) Poem?
I remember barely any
26) Essay?
The first essay I really read was Berlin's What's wrong with negative liberty? which I think woke me up to the possibilities of a sustained work of that type, but I suspect I wouldn't think this on rereading
27) Short story?
I forget the title, but there is a wonderful story by Asimov about entropy and ends with the words 'let there be light'. Great.
28) Work of nonfiction?
P.L. Fermor, Mani
29) Who is your favourite writer?
P.L. Fermor
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Of the major literary fiction lot, I think McEwan is overpraised and lack substance
31) What is your desert island book?
If I could take anything at all I would take a the Talmud to really keep me busy. It's the though of running of things to read that frightens me
32) And... what are you reading right now?
I. Asimov, The Gods themselves
Saturday 18 April 2009
Underappreciated
When we come to write the economic history of the 1990s (and there will be lots of them), people will be surprised at the hostility and reputation for incompetence that the Conservative government of the time will be held. Major's personal reputation may have been slightly rehabilitated in recent years, but largely as a result of him being seen a nice chap, with interesting sidelines, rather than anything he did in office.
Reading the obituaries of Eddie George, who died today, reminds me just how unfair this is. Given where we are now (as the centre-left finally realise that it is hard to get economies to work and stay working). it is striking how little credit goes to the mid 90s Tory policy on this issue, which actually took a deep-seated problem in the UK economy (high inflation) and fixed it. This of course contrasts with our current position where we took a positive position and tanked it. Labour claimed credit for this once, but they did nothing towards achieving it, only reaping the rewards.
Eddie George gets an enormous amount of credit - it's never easy being a central banker, especially when (as in the 90s) the Chancellor can override you as Clarke did a couple of times. Yet, despite the heightened tension of a recovering, but still weak, economy, he worked better with his meddlesome master than Brown and King appeared to have done. And he got the job done, while having time for jokes, the BBC obit reprises the old one about there being three kinds of economics, ones who can count and those that can't. Few other people will note his passing today, but he deserves to be remembered and he deserves to take credit for a very difficult job well done.
Reading the obituaries of Eddie George, who died today, reminds me just how unfair this is. Given where we are now (as the centre-left finally realise that it is hard to get economies to work and stay working). it is striking how little credit goes to the mid 90s Tory policy on this issue, which actually took a deep-seated problem in the UK economy (high inflation) and fixed it. This of course contrasts with our current position where we took a positive position and tanked it. Labour claimed credit for this once, but they did nothing towards achieving it, only reaping the rewards.
Eddie George gets an enormous amount of credit - it's never easy being a central banker, especially when (as in the 90s) the Chancellor can override you as Clarke did a couple of times. Yet, despite the heightened tension of a recovering, but still weak, economy, he worked better with his meddlesome master than Brown and King appeared to have done. And he got the job done, while having time for jokes, the BBC obit reprises the old one about there being three kinds of economics, ones who can count and those that can't. Few other people will note his passing today, but he deserves to be remembered and he deserves to take credit for a very difficult job well done.
Normal service resumed
I've been relatively silent of late, for good and bad reasons. My absence abroad accounts for much of the missing time, but - and viewers of the photos will have noticed already - I've managed to break my right arm.
More accurately, a rollerblader broke it for me. So, mere days after highlighting how good cycling has been, the experiment came to a sudden stop (an irony that has not gone unoticed). It went on Monday 29th March and I won't be allowed back on bike for eight weeks. As a result, typing has been a bit difficult, but seems to be close to OK now.
So back now.
More accurately, a rollerblader broke it for me. So, mere days after highlighting how good cycling has been, the experiment came to a sudden stop (an irony that has not gone unoticed). It went on Monday 29th March and I won't be allowed back on bike for eight weeks. As a result, typing has been a bit difficult, but seems to be close to OK now.
So back now.
Wednesday 1 April 2009
Bibliography, March 2009
Acquired (3)
J. Lees-Milne, Another Self
S. Sturlsson, King Harald's Saga
B. Unsworth, Land of Marvels
Read (13)
BOTM: B. Bryson, Life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid
J. Lees-Milne, Another Self
S. Sturlsson, King Harald's Saga
B. Unsworth, Land of Marvels
Read (13)
BOTM: B. Bryson, Life and times of the Thunderbolt Kid
J. Darwin, After Tamerlane
M. Drabble, Jerusalem the golden
H. Hesse, The Glass Bead Game
T. Mann, Death in Venice
G. Menzies, 1421: The year China discovered the world
G. Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
S. Sturlsson, King Harald's Saga
G. Vermes, The Resurrection
F. Wheen, How Mumbo-Jumbo covered the world
A. Wilson, Late Call
Some major disappointments this month: Hesse, like all his work I have read save Steppenwolf, was disappointing, with a good premise vanishing into absurd mysticism and a rubbish end. Vermes, sadly, is past it. BOTM was deserved, though for a fun filled romp through my favourite post-war decade (and constrasts strikingly with Drabble which I read immediately after covering a not dissimilar period). Bryson literary skills are well known, and it's a mark of how effective they are that he manages to essentially write about nothing for 300 pages or so without the reader feeling this drags at all, and to evoke that feeling of optimism and fear that characterised the 1950s, and in some ways, children of all (recent) times. There are other works here with more lustrous reputations, but Bryson was better.
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