Kmflett's Blog

I post from time to time about the Society of the Spectacle, a book by Guy DeBord and also the key text of the Situationists. Their focus, in Marxist terms, is on commodity fetishism. Everything is a commodity, a brand to sold and bought. Advertising and social media multiply the experience in 2025.

In that context I note that the 2025 Pigs and Blankets Season has opened unusually early. It would not normally commence until after Halloween. A related benchmark is the arrival of the Greggs Festive Bake.

Pigs in blankets, originally cocktail sausage wrapped in bacon, has expanded (not perhaps always happily) across many variants in recent times- even extending to one for dogs (who might think would be quite happy with the original).

News of other sightings welcome. In related Christmas news I am told that the Cheese Footballs season has also opened although I have yet to see any

Tim Sanders cartoons appear in Socialist Worker, the Independent, Private Eye and no doubt elsewhere.

I once worked with him on a project to cover Chris Harman’s People’s History of the World in cartoon form. I think we got as far as the early Middle Ages… Perhaps these days it would be suitable for Tik Tik.

Even so the cartoon format still speaks more directly particularly in what is clearly a new visual age then a lengthy analysis of Labour’s authoritarian lurch might do.

Farage in Caerphilly on 10th October 2025

Dr Who brought down the Prime Minister Harriet Jones with the line ‘don’t you think she looks tired’

Private Eye

The Art of the Deal, Trump & Gaza

Donald Trump’s image is all about being successful in business (quite the reverse as the record shows) and being a brilliant deal maker.

Indeed Donald Trump wrote the Art of the Deal, or rather he didn’t. It was in fact written by Tony Schwarz who suggested the idea so Trump could fulfil a contact he had signed. As Daniel Finkelstein noted in the Times recently, Trump couldn’t write a book, he didn’t even read them.

For Trump the art of the deal is about the process of doing the deal. How it works out is not so important. There’s always another deal to be done.

The British Medical Journal has produced a study of voting habits and health which the Telegraph has helpfully amplified.

It should make sobering reading for anyone the left.

The unhealthiest Constituency in the UK is Clacton, which has the highest mortality rate under 75 of anywhere in the country and 20% of people have never had a job. What is the local MP doing about this? Presumably not a lot because he is rarely there.

The BMJ study shows that there is a clear link between class, poverty, health and voting Reform. The top unhealthiest Constituencies are held by Reform MPs. The plan to address this seems to involve privatising the NHS and making people take out health insurance who cant afford to do so (as in the US).

Even so these are issues which should be key campaigning points for the left. Not just because they are worth campaigning on but because getting rid of a class divide on health was and still should be at the centre of what the NHS is all about.

The Telegraph notes

Of course, it’s not that being a fan of Nigel Farage makes you unhealthy. Rather, people who live in deprived areas are more likely to vote for Reform UK (60 per cent of Reform’s current seats are in the most deprived parts of the country, compared with 30 per cent of Labour’s, the analysis in the BMJ shows) and people in deprived areas are also much more likely to have poor health.

Beard Liberation Front

contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett 07803 167266

15th October

Green Party leader Zack Polanski voted Beard of Autumn 2025

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Green Party leader Zack Polanski has been voted the Beard of Autumn 2025

The seasonal vote for Beard of Autumn takes place each year in the first half of October. The final shortlist was revealed on 8th October with the winner declared on 15th October after two Close Shave rounds of voting and a Beard Off Final.

Zack Polanski won 43.8% of the 1,416 votes cast in the on-line poll. Gary Neville came second with 25% of the vote.

The winner goes forward to the annual Beard of the Year vote in December.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we congratulate Zack Polanski. Green Party membership has risen to over 100,000 since he was elected leader. He clearly promotes a positive image of the hirsute, although no doubt clean shaven revisionists will disagree

Beard of Autumn shortlist

Lenny Henry, actor

Gary Neville, football pundit

Gary Oldman, actor

Robbie Savage, Manager Forest Green Rovers

Chris Woakes, cricketer

Asad Rehman, Friends of the Earth

Zack Polanski, Green Party leader

Jimmy Kimmel, US TV anchor

Social history & a lot of political music. I know all of the songs BUT its quite one-dimensional. No Motown or soul, no what today would be called Americana. It was the age of Rock Against Racism which promoted a diversity of music. The politics is reflected here but not the diversity. A useful corrective perhaps to memories of the time (for those old enough).

For those not old enough this was an end of year thing on the BBC radio show of the late John Peel. Pre internet and social media it was voted for by listeners. Peel died in 2004 and is now a controversial figure. That doesnt take away from the social historical interest of the above though