The Ambridge Socialist

9^th August

The Grundy’s Oral Traditions

Eddie has been teaching Keira various traditions passed down to him by Joe Grundy, primarily related to cider making. As a result Keira has made her first cider cake and may well enter the Flower and Produce Show. Perhaps this new generation of Grundys will be female led…

Other Ambridge traditions

Neil has got Bert some salty liquorice from Underwoods which he says he likes but actually doesn’t. Meanwhile Amber has been doing pre-natal yoga with Kate. The BBC spared us the details

At the hospital

Amber, Brad, Eddie and George all ended up at the hospital on Thursday. Nothing of note happened. On a second visit George was diagnosed with a fractured wrist which will mean three months out of work…

Eddie, Ed & Brian, The Deal

After Eddie confessed to getting paid over the odds for tree work by Martyn Gibson in return for snitching on Brian, Eddie revealed the arrangement to Brian and it was reconfigured to allow Eddie to pass only approved information to Martyn. We only heard part of the conversation however. We did not discover what the deal between Eddie and Brian was.

George, Amber & Brad. Another Ambridge Lurve Triangle

The BBC loves this kind of thing particularly when a Grundy is involved. The Ambridge Socialist less so.

In Other News

Kenton and Jolene have paid £95 for marriage guidance counselling. Is there more to life than running The Bull. Opportunity may knock when Grey Gables finally becomes a Wetherspoons.

Chelsea’s mobile hairdressing unit has been burgled. However Sgt Burns is on the job, just as soon as he has located the missing bunting.

• Allister Heath

Rupert Lowe’s racist cheerleaders can no longer hide their despicable extremism

The ‘woke Right’ relies on insults, distortions and obscene definitions of Britishness to push their hateful agenda

The New World’s Allister Heath meme (first above) is designed to parody his frequently hyperbolic language. The second headline appears in the Telegraph (8th August) and condemns Lowe’s racism. This week he was unable to agree that King Charles is British because his father Prince Philip was Greek..

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

8th August

Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

London Beard Week 2026. W G Grace & Michael Rosen tie in Best Ever London Beard Vote

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that London Beard Week which marks the continuing growth and impact of beards in the Capital has concluded with the result of the vote for London’s Best Ever Beard.

Over 5,500 votes were cast in an on-line poll and the result saw cricketer W G Grace who lived in London towards the end of his life, and author and Arsenal fan Michael Rosen both receive 34.5% of the vote.

The result was announced live on air on LBC on Saturday morning as breaking news

London Beard Week traditionally coincided with the Campaign For Real Ale’s Great British Beer Festival at Olympia often the source of anti-beard stories in the media. However this is not running in 2026.

The campaigners say that aside from the many more beards to be seen in workplaces, shops and pubs, there is also a growth of specialist beard care shops and hairdressers offering beard trims and treatments, although the BLF generally advises against beard trims in barbers shops.

London Beard Week is a celebration of London, now one of the most beard friendly Capital cities in the world, and of London’s great hirsute heritage from Charles Dickens to Karl Marx through to modern day beards such as Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn and author and Arsenal fan Michael Rosen.

As part of the week the BLF is ran a poll to find the most impactful and impressive figure with a beard who is associated with London, past and present.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, London is striking a decisive blow against pogonophobia, the irrational dislike of facial hair. It’s now respectable to wear a beard in London but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for stylish and perhaps even world changing beards to be promoted further. We congratulate Michael Rosen and the memory of W G Grace for representing the very best of London beards past and present

London Beard Week poll to find London’s most Iconic Beard.

An online poll ran during the week. The winner is announced on 8^th August

Charles Dickens, author

Fred Engels, philosopher and activist

Michael Rosen, author & broadcaster

William Morris, socialist & designer

Jeremy Corbyn, Islington North MP

William Cuffay, Leader of London Chartism

Bernie Grant, London Labour MP

W G Grace, cricketer

In the style of Banksy but probably not an original.

One of Count Binface’s long standing demands is that a 99 ice cream should cost 99p.

The real Count has a beard and must know that 99 flakes are not beard friendly but that is a but a footnote

Tory run Westminster Council plans to ban drinking at the bar. Table service only

It takes around 11½ gallons of water to produce one pint of beer. Obviously, one thinks what a great solution it would be if everyone who drank beer drank two pints a day less. That would mean a saving not only of 23 gallons but also of six gallons used in twice flushing the lavatory.

The contribution was from the then MP for Isle of Ely. The Drought Act became law on 24th August 1976

Its August so of course a Westminster Council draft policy on licensing in the West End of London which was posted in June and for which consultation closes shortly has made the headlines.

To save those who have other matters in August I have read both documents consisting of 150 and 39 pages respectively.

Most of it is simply repeating good practice but there are a couple of bits that are seeking to change quite fundamentally how pubs work.

In the 150 page document its suggested that since most issues in pubs occur after 10pm it would be better if they shut by or before then. Pub hours vary a lot by location and use but this seems odd for an area like Soho with a flourishing nightlife.

Actually the rest of the document carries on as if closing time is 11pm and if a pub wants to stay open after that it’ll need a late night licence (the same as now)

In the 39 page document the following passage can be found

Examples may include: • Fixed seating layouts. • Minimum seating requirements. • Waiter or waitress service. • Restrictions on customers consuming alcohol while standing.

Draft Good Operator Guidance.pdf

Its this that has caught the headlines since it seems to imply that vertical drinking, standing at the bar, queuing at the bar(stop it) are to be discouraged if not designed out.

Personally after many demonstrations the knees arent what they were and I prefer to sit in a pub. However a chat standing up while at the bar or on the way to the toilet is all part of pub life.

The ideology behind all this is that pubs will be better if they have fewer customers. They will also go out of business quicker.

Westminster Council is controlled by the Tories. Perhaps Kemi Badenoch who this week proclaimed pubs as one of the engines of economic growth could have a word…

The Telegraph often runs stories that are not entirely true but make good culture war headlines, although even veteran interplanetary traveller Allister Heath finds Rupert Lowe too much.

Sometimes however its cynical take on things hits home as with this Matt cartoon

This is not a recommendation to buy the Spectator. Most of the views of the contributors on Rod Liddle can be found on social media. Michael Gove states that Liddle must be compared to Orwell and Swift as a great writer and indeed satirist.

The Guardian’s Obituary provides a corrective

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/04/rod-liddle-obituary?CMP=share_btn_url

Zoe Williams has also written in the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/06/i-knew-rod-liddle-and-hated-what-he-became?CMP=share_btn_url

For eulogies Boris Johnson (on Twitter obviously) has posted this:

Heartsick at the death of Rod Liddle – an outrageously funny and gifted writer with a beautiful conversational style. He had a unique talent for finding the thing that was obviously true but supposedly unsayable and then saying it with such panache as to give the maximum possible offence – and to all the right people. Spectator readers absolutely loved him.

Michael Gove, The Spectator’s editor, said: “Rod Liddle was a journalist of genius. In the tradition of Swift, Cobbett and Orwell, he was a satirist who found society’s most sensitive spots and made merciless fun of our follies.

Peter Oborne’s opposing view

Rod Liddle played the politics of hatred – we should be honest about his legacy | Middle East Eye

When I knew Liddle on Teesside in the second half of the 1970s, he was then a socialist punk, I recall him as personable and amiable. Looking at the many comments after his death was reported from those who knew him more recently, it seems that on occasion he retained those elements of his character. Clearly also on many occasions he did not…

Hundred match between Leeds Sunrisers and London Spirit this week

The Hundred a 100 ball a side cricket competition is in its first season as a franchised operation.

The franchisers already own cricket sides around the globe all of which play 20 over cricket with the Indian Premier League being the template.

A stated aim of the franchisers is to move towards 20 overs without a timescale being mentioned, but in the context of The Hundred being the second biggest short form tournament in the world after the IPL (which is played earlier in the year)

The drift to 20 overs appears already to be underway.

In the Hundred Mk1 bowlers could have 5 or 10 ball sets with a maximum of 20 balls. The word ‘set’ has now disappeared and ‘over’ is being used although the focus is on the number of balls. Overs in cricket have been fixed by one of the Laws of Cricket to six balls, but only from 1980. Before that it varied and the Laws of Cricket change frequently.

Secondly its notable that Hundred statistics are now being added into T20 ones. Who made this decision is unclear to me at least, although since the two forms are increasingly similar some logic can be seen.

The real issue is where all this leads.

If The Hundred as a franchised operation moves to 20 overs it will be in some kind of competition with the existing T20 Blast which is County based. An undercurrent to The Hundred for some has been to replace or reduce the number of Counties most of which are mutually owned.

If the IPL is the template there will be demands for more Hundred matches over a longer timespan (this has already started in fact).

Secondly while Hundred games are meant to last for 2.5 hours to fit TV schedules (the BBC in particular) some games are already going beyond that. IPL matches tend to meander on for quite a while. That might mean, for example, splitting the current women’s and men’s double header format.

The key thing here must be not to let the Franchise owners and the ECB railroad through changes without discussion with players, fans and the existing County structures