Kmflett's Blog

The FT journalist Stephen Bush (who lives in Camden) has highlighted an issue (or possibly a non issue) about where the Green candidate in the Holborn and St Pancras By-Election actually lives. Bush underlines that the only person who seems bothered about this is Polanski himself.

The Green leader was living on a houseboat at Springfield Marina which is borderline Hackney and Walthamstow. He now lives somewhere in the latter place. However he has revealed that his barber remains in Camden where he lived for a period in the early 2000s (Agar Grove).

The Labour candidate, who also leads Camden Council, does not live in the Constituency either, but does live in the Borough of Camden.

I live in Central Cardiff and Tottenham for both personal and work related reasons but I tend to think that when it comes to an election the real question is whether a candidate is in tune with the concerns of voters.

We can easily find a precedent. Keir Hardie was born in Lanarkshire but he went to be elected as Lib/Lab MP for West Ham and then as Independent Labour MP for Merthyr in South Wales. The key issue here was not that he was Scottish or where he might have been living but that he stood up for the concerns of the working class voters in those locations.

Authenticity of politics rather than place.

Andy Burnham met Donald Trump at the UN on 22nd September, It appears to have gone as well as any meeting with the Mango Mussolini can do.

However there were important matters. The BBC’s Chris Mason was there and he got to ask the first question and then he got an interview with Burnham. So all in all a good day for Mason’s CV

Chris Mason: From inside the room, how Burnham survived first Trump meeting – BBC News

Gil Scott Heron’s song The Revolution Won’t Be Televised made a strong point but in 2026 social media, You Tube and much else means it might be. Mainstream media does not for example carry much about protest in support of Palestine around the world, but it is easy to find reports via the interwebs.

Meanwhile after Trump banned CNN and others from covering White House press conferences, the entire press pool including his favourite Fox News channel have implemented a boycott. They won’t cover Trump. The Guardian has a podcast covering the detail.

Trump has set up his own You Tube Channel but at least for now it doesn’t have the capability to cover his daily rants and ramblings.

In the UK no doubt GB News, BBC News and Radio 4 Today will continue to enlighten us on Trump’s progress but the US Midterm Elections in November take place of course in the US not the UK

(23) Trump v the media: US networks unite in boycott | The Latest – YouTube

St Pauls Cathedral: The Times holds The Rest Is History host Tom Holland to scrutiny for remarks on its use for concerts

The Times (14^th September) has reported that St Pauls Cathedral plans to hold more all seated music concerts. The use of religious premises for concerts is hardly unknown.

It reports the view of Tom Holland, co-presenter of The Rest Is History podcast, and not someone noted for his progressive views. He comments that ‘a church that comprises a sense of itself as a sacred space does risk diminishing itself to the status of a landmark’.

The Times seeks other views. Diarmaid MacCulloch an Emeritus Professor of Church History at Oxford notes that when St Pauls was known as Paul’s Walk it  was a ‘backdrop to anything Londoners felt like doing there’ and concludes that it’s a ‘fuss about nothing’. JG Davies in the Secular Use of Church buildings wrote that before the Great Fire of 1666 St Pauls ‘hosted eating and drinking, the selling of goods, meetings, legal proceedings, financial transaction, storage and games’.

It seems that whatever Tom Holland may think music at St Pauls is in line with the traditions of the place

Trump’s speech to the UN on 22nd September was a typical example of losing yet more friends and influencing no one, but how to characterise a Trump speech in 2026. I ran a poll and the results are below

Ramble 69.6%

Rubbish 21.7%

Rant 4.3%

Tirade 4.3%

410 votes

Perhaps a little generous to Trump…

The Campaign for Real Conkers

Contact Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social

22nd September

2026 conker season goes ahead despite summer heatwave

The Campaign for Real Conkers, that opposes bans on conker playing and unnecessary rules and regulations in games has said that that the conker season is open as usual and will run until mid-October.

Claims that the summer heatwave could mean there are not enough suitable conkers in 2026 have turned out not to be true. Campaigners have found ample conkers around the UK

The campaigners say they are maintaining their usual ‘anything goes’ approach to conker games, to encourage people to play without arbitrary rules

Campaign Organiser Keith Flett said, climate change is having an impact on seasonal conker playing activity. However fortunately there are enough usable conkers for the 2026 season. Claims by the World Conker Championships that conkers must be two inches in diameter are absurd. There is no place in conker playing for such random ‘rules’.

Guide on how to play real conkers safely in 2026

1] Select your conker. Do this yourself. DO NOT use a conker provided by someone else who may give you a poor specimen.

2] There is no specific kind of conker that makes a good game winner. Large conkers may more easily splinter for example. Some prefer conkers with flat and sharp edges

3] You may use the conker ‘as is’ known as ‘organic’. Alternatively you may seek to harden it by baking it, soaking it in vinegar etc. There is no guarantee that an artificially enhanced conker will perform any better than an organic one.

4] Drill a small hole through the conker. A nail will often achieve this. Again you must do this yourself

5] Thread the conker through the hole you have drilled. A strong chord, perhaps a shoelace is best

6] You are now ready to play.

7] Make sure that the chord is long enough to allow you to stand at least 1 metre plus away from your opponent. This would generally be the case as space is required for the conker swing.

8] Players take alternate turns to try and hit and destroy their opponent’s conker

9] Those with poor aim may hit the knuckles of their opponent more often than the conker so you may wish to wear gloves.

10] The winner is the player who determines their opponents conker unusable in further rounds, usually by causing it to splinter into two or more pieces

Play safely and enjoy

22nd September

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to the beard power of England fast bowler Mark Wood, as he announces his retirement from international cricket.

Mark Wood was probably the fastest bowler ever to play for England and there is no question that his beard played in a role in that. It allowed him to utilise air currents to direct his deliveries in a way that he could not have done had he been clean shaven,

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Mark Wood stands as a reminder to those aiming to be fast bowlers in 2026/7. Beard Power is essential.

The result of the Berlin elections on 20th September saw The Left (Die Linke) top the poll, doubling its vote. The fascist AfD also advanced while the traditional parties of left and right the SDP and CDU saw their votes decline.

The political great moving right show sees Die Linke described as hard or far left. In reality its focus on housing and the cost of living underlines its politics as mainstream social democracy (or what used to be mainstream). It also supports Palestine solidarity although certainly at the leadership level mildly so.

Whether or not Die Linke will be able to construct a ruling coalition we shall see. The SPD and the Greens (who are well to the right of their UK counterparts) claim Die Linke is anti-Semitic. This of course is familiar to anyone on the UK left and the answer remains the same. Solidarity with Palestine offers no quarter to anti-Semites.

The increase in votes for Die Linke has come from younger votes, often voting for the first time, and those who previously did not vote. This is not of course the entire future of the left but it is a part of that future.