In the Moon Under Water it is always quiet enough to talk. The house possesses neither a radio nor a piano, and even on Christmas Eve and such occasions the singing that happens is of a decorous kind.
George Orwell, The Listener, 1943
Meanwhile Tim Martin has banned speaker phones and tablets playing music etc in all Wetherspoons pubs. He argues that Spoons pubs should be an ‘oasis of tranquillity and contemplation’
This may seem optimistic but at least in the early period of Spoons, the 1980s and 1990s, Martin was much taken by Orwell’s ideal pub the Moon Under Water.
I drank in the first Spoons pub in Colney Hatch Lane, Muswell Hill (I still stop by Spoons on occasion btw) and if there was a significant noise it was that of Tim Martin (who has quite a loud voice) expanding on his views. In those times getting on for 50 years ago now, the views while robust were perhaps more palatable then they have been in more recent times
Keni Badenoch is engaged in a Great Moving Right Show for the Tory Party. She is on record as saying that any Tory candidate including ex-MPs (there are lots) who wants to be on the Tory approved list must reject Net Zero and the ECHR. Both of course are already Reform ‘policies’. In addition during a varied Minsterial career Mordaunt was, or appeared to be, a supporter of trans rights. Not something that would commend her to Badenoch.
Former Minister Grant Shapps has already been purged, for unknown reasons. The Times (17th August) reports that Penny Mordaunt may be next for the chop. Best known for holding a ceremonial sword at King Charlie’s Coronation, Mordaunt was meant to have been told whether she was accepted or not in June. So far, nothing.
The Times reports that with Badenoch candidate selection is ground zero. It doesn’t matter if an applicant was a former Minister, it counts for nothing.
My interest of course is in the demise of the Tory Party and it looks like it is going well.
An estimated 30,000 people have attended a vigil for Prof. Jason Arday in Trafalgar Square on 17th August. The vigil was called by Stand Up To Racism
BBC Report
Thousands gathered on Monday for a vigil organised by Stand Up To Racism in Trafalgar Square, where Labour MP Diane Abbott said Arday had been subject to a “vicious and bitter media campaign”. She said attacks by “people who didn’t believe a black man should be a Cambridge professor” started as soon as he was appointed by the university in 2023.
“This was a campaign against all of us,” she added
August 17th 1839: Day Six of the Grand National Holiday against the smooth faced men
On 12th August 1839 the Chartists called a Grand National Holiday, a month long general strike to bring down capitalism. It had a good deal of popular support, it did actually happen but ultimately could not be sustained.
A key populariser of the idea was the veteran radical William Benbow 1787-1864. He had toured industrial districts in 1838 and 1839 speaking at meetings.
The Northern Star for 1st June 1839 captured part of a ‘spirited and excellent speech’ he made at a packed meeting at the Stanley Arms Inn in Stockport.
Benbow directed his speech ‘exclusively to the industrious classes and not to those middle-men, those smooth faced..men who had sold the people to the Aristocracy and would sell God himself if he could be personified on earth’.
Clearly Benbow had in mind not just the exploitation of employers but also their appearance.
Appearance was important to the Chartists. Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor often addressed supporters as those wearing fustian jackets and having unshorn chins. Surviving drawings of Benbow suggest he as clean shaven but evidently not smooth faced.
Christopher Hill. His highest ambition was to be a Yorkshire cricketer but be became one of the most well-known British Marxist Historians
A biography of the British Marxist Historian Christopher Hill(1912-2003) has long been awaited and Michael Braddick has now written one (Verso 2025).
There is a wealth of interesting information and some fascinating incidental detail.
The Hill family were from Yorkshire and fielded a family cricket team. Braddick notes that Hill’s ambition was to play cricket for Yorkshire. Hill told the historian Penny Corfield that ‘I practised and practised but I wasn’t any good’.
Hill became a leading of the Communist Party Historians Group, leaving in 1956 and the author of numbers of important works, informed by Marxism, on the English Revolutionary period from the 1640s to the 1660s. He was also Master of Balliol College Oxford
Perhaps Hill made a bigger longer term impact in this context than if he had become a left-wing version of Yorkshire batsman Geoffrey Boycott
On the improvised cricket pitch, however, he was energy itself. He confided that his youthful ambition was to play for his natal county of Yorkshire. To us kids, imbued with stalwart Yorkshirism from our mother, Christopher’s first aim in life seemed entirely laudable and natural. ‘I practised and practised’, he then explained, ‘but I wasn’t any good’.
He told fellow historian Penny Corfield in a 1988 interview that he had a birth qualification which would have allowed him to play cricket for Yorkshire. It was his highest ambition, higher even than playing cricket for England.
Penelope J Corfield appreciation of Christopher Hill
Interestingly Geoffrey Boycott, now well into his eighties, has given a series of interviews to the Telegraph where he notes that in the early 1960s, as he transitioned from being a civil servant to being a cricketer his ambition was to play cricket not for England but for Yorkshire.
The Hundred has finished for another year. The first year it had been franchised.
Crowds were down at all venues except Cardiff were ticket prices were not increased.
In the last few days any amount of official bluster has been deployed to explain a) smaller crowds were all part of the plan b) things can only get better.
I did venture to a daytime womens and mens fixture at Cardiff (attendance 10,288) and a lot of the hype of the earlier years had gone. In fact it looked very much like a T20 game with very minor tweaks.
The Sunday Times (Editorial 16th August) has entered a ‘not guilty’ plea in relation to the media pile on that appears at the very least to have played a part in the tragic death of Jason Arday.
To an extent that is fair enough. The paper only published three pieces on Arday. However it appears only once a week and shares ownership and journalistic resources with The Times that appears on the other six days. The Times published 59 pieces the most of any media outlet
The Observer Editorial (16th August) concludes in part ‘who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel’ Alexander Pope’s question became a warning about disproportionate use of power. It would be good to see those media outlets that have gorged on the Arday story ask themselves two questions: has their reporting been proportional? And have they thought sensibly about their treatment of an autistic man now dead?
The Sunday Times Editorial suggests not, or at least, not yet…
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