The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has welcomed news that the left candidate Gabriel Boric has defeated his clean shaven far right rival to become President of Chile.
Boric is a long time beard wearer, and the campaigners say that his beard power may have played an important part in his victory.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Gabriel Boric’s victory will be welcomed by all progressive beard wearers. Hopefully it will draw a final line under the years of dictatorship (1973-1990) which were literally years of barbers and barbarism.
The May 2020 10 Downing St Cheese and Wine ‘meeting’. Their lockdowns & ours
The illegal cheese and wine ‘meeting’ in the 10 Downing St garden in mid-May 2020 also marks another shift in the Tory Culture Wars. Any self-respecting anti-Tory knows that in the 2020s the pairing is cheese and craft beer.
The gathering also underlines what we saw with Dominic Cummings and indeed Professor Neil Ferguson of a sense of their lockdowns and ours. They can continue to go about their business as they will. No doubt others with large gardens away from public view were doing the same. Meanwhile those many, sometimes with small children, in City flats without access to outside space were being harassed and sometimes arrested by the police in parks and public gardens.
Still others will have been hospitalised with COVID or seen friends and relatives sadly die
Lockdown by class is probably no more than we should expect in Tory Britain 2021.
It reflects the culture of an arrogant political grouping believing they do not and should not be held accountable to the same standards as others, in a sense the pre-democratic culture that William Cobbett referred to as Old Corruption.
A summary of the points above together with other views is covered in the Guardian (21st December)
Nothing says Tory more than cheese & wine; cheese & craft beer is 2020s zeitgeist
The Guardian has published pictures of what appears to be a cheese and wine gathering in the garden at Downing St on Friday May 15th 2020. As the paper notes(& unlike 2021) lockdown rules then in place significantly restricted social gatherings even outside.
Johnson is there of course along with other Tories.
As if that isn’t bad enough the cheese and wine combo is so Tory 1950s. The 2020s zeitgeist is cheese and craft beer. Now that is a culture war worth fighting
Mia needs to collectivise hunting protest before Boxing Day
Mia has done the right thing again and staged a protest against Borsetshire Land’s bird shooting for the rich. This annoyed, of course, Martyn Gibson who threatened the police, and class collaborator Will who just happens to be Mia’s father. Farm manager Stella, who should really be a trade union official, persuaded Mia that while her protest was understandable, then and there was not the place for it.
The Ambridge Socialist says that Mia needs to recruit some supporters and disrupt the Boxing Day Hunt
Ambridge Socialist poll. Will you join Mia Grundy in protesting at the Boxing Day South Borsetshire Hunt?
Sgt Knacker Burns needs to wear bunting not a loin cloth for the Mysteries
Sgt Knacker Burns who is playing Jesus in the Mysteries(as in Jesus Christ!!!) has complained that he will only be wearing a loin cloth and will get cold. Perhaps the ‘missing’ bunting would be warmer but Knacker must surely reflect that a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.
So, Farewell then Blake
Blake is off to new accommodation and a new job elsewhere. It’s almost exactly a year since Moss’s modern slaving activities were ‘discovered’, although the ruling class of Ambridge had happily used his building company. There should be a statue of Blake on the village green to remind them of their negligence.
In other news
Tom and Natasha are moving in with Pat and Tony. Happy Days.
A split in the local ruling class means Brookfield’s barn may not be available for the Mystery Plays
The names of Boris Johnson’s children. Losing the classical touch?
The lives of Boris Johnson’s children are of no public interest, unless they themselves decide to make it so, but their names as decided, one hopes between Johnson and his partner of the moment, have some passing note.
Sonia Purnell’s biography of Johnson, Just Boris, reports that he wanted to call one of his children with his ex-wife Marina Wheeler, Lettice. It is as Laeticia a Latin name used in Medieval English, meaning joy, the modern translation of which is either Lettice or perhaps Letitia*. Ms Wheeler’s preference won-out and the baby was named Lara.
Other children with Marina Wheeler were called Milo, Cassia Peaches and Theodore Apollo.
He also had a child with Helen Macintyre in 2009 called Stephanie. This was revealed by Stanley Johnson in 2020.
His first baby with Carrie Symonds has been called Wilfred, Old English, which seems like a modest step forward from the Latin. Wilfrid (634-709) was an Anglo-Saxon Saint and Bishop of York. The name fell into disuse but was revived from the nineteenth century on having nowadays perhaps an association with Victoriana.
Carrie has now given birth to a second baby- a girl. It remains to be seen if the progress in history continues and a name associated with the twentieth century is chosen. In the event both Margaret and Allegra were swerved and the baby was called Romy Iris Charlotte, its seems relatively restrained by Johnsonian standards.
These of course are the seven children whose names are in the public domain
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that some supporters have expressed anger at attempts to claim that Scrooge, the central figure in Charles Dickens Christmas Carol had a beard.
One notable example is on a pump clip for Mr Scrooge a seasonal beer from Stockport brewer Robinsons. The clip has a drawing of Scrooge with a top hat and a beard, perhaps like a Victorian mill owner, rather than the City of London accountant he actually was.
Dickens described Scrooge’s appearance thus:
The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue..a frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrow and his wiry chin
Scrooge’s City of London firm, off Cornhill in the centre of the Capital’s financial district, was certainly not a centre for beard wearing in the 1840s and hirsuteness is not seen a great deal even in 2021.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, attempts to portray Scrooge with a beard, are simply a reflection of a dislike or fear of facial hair, pogonophobia. The beer is decent by the way.
Michael Rosen faces three contenders in 2nd Beard Off Round, Beard of the Year 2021
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that the first Beard Off final round for Beard of the Year 2021 saw Benjamin Zephaniah and Richard Osman progress to the final Follicle Fight. There are two Beard Off rounds where the top two in each will go on to compete in a final Follicle Fight round for the coveted Beard of the Year accolade
The second Beard Off round see current joint holder Michael Rosen face Moeen Ali, Billy Bragg and Gareth Southgate for a place in the final Follicle Fight
Author and broadcaster Michael Rosen and England football manager Gareth Southgate are among four beard wearers who were guaranteed a place in the final Beard Off rounds from 15th December. They have won hirsute accolades during the year.
Eight others featured in two preliminary rounds which determined a further four follicle fashionistas to feature in the December Beard Off rounds.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Beard of the Year is the hairiest and most hotly anticipated event of the beard wearers year. Ultimately it’s all down to hirsute democracy and the voters.
Link to 2nd Beard Off Round vote:
Beard of the Year 2021. 2nd Beard Off round. Top 2 join Richard Osman & Benjamin Zephaniah in the Follicle Fight
MICHAEL ROSEN VOTED REAL ‘ORGANIC’ SANTA OF THE YEAR
The Campaign for Real Santas, which campaigns for Santas to have genuine organic or knitted beards, has said that for the second year running author and broadcaster Michael Rosen has been voted the ideal organic Santa of the year
The Votes for the for Real Santa of 2021 were:-
Philip Ardagh, author 11%
Brian Blessed, Actor 27.5%
Michael Rosen, author & broadcaster 41.3%
Ricky Tomlinson, actor and activist 20.2%
The Campaign for Real Santas believes that only Santas with genuine, organic or knitted beards should be deputies for Santa, world famous for his organic beard, in the run up to Xmas
The best organic Santas not only of course have a genuine beard but the gravitas and presence that Santas bring to their annual appearances.
CFRS organiser Keith Flett said, We don’t know for sure that any of the people on the shortlist do help Santa at this time of year but we do think they are potentially excellent role models for real Santas as opposed to the absurd false bearded types. Michael Rosen deserves congratulations for winning the vote two years running. He is a role model for all aspiring Santas
An On-Line poll for the Organic Santa 2021 was held between 11th-16th December
Notes
HOW TO SPOT A GENUINE SANTA
Tug the beard of the Santa. If it comes away, then the Santa is FAKE
Tug the beard of the Santa again. If the Santa swears then they are genuine. If they simply repeat a ‘ho ho ho’ mantra they are FAKE
The Campaign For Real Santas says that genuine Santas must have just the right mix of bonhomie and gruffness and a real organic beard.
Organic Santa of 2021 is announced on 18th December. Michael Rosen was the 2020 Organic Santa of the Year
He was interned at Alexandra Palace from late 1914 until 1918 and unsurprisingly after that left the UK.
He has now been remembered in a beer brewed by the Tottenham Brewery One Mile End who also run the White Hart pub at that address. Rocker lived and was politically active in Stepney during his London years.
Its an interesting way of bringing London’s radical history alive to a new generation who are unlikely to have heard of Rocker.
The beer itself was a 5.7% winter spiced ale when first brewed in 2016 but in 2021 seems to be a 5% American Pale Ale
North Shropshire By-Election: One step forward, two steps back
Anyone who has seen the corruption and incompetence of Boris Johnson’s Premiership must be pleased to see the Tories lose so heavily in the North Shropshire By-Election. Given that Labour clearly if informally stood back for the LibDems some will see it as a victory for a broader progressive politics.
Historically things look rather different. The seat was created by the 1832 Reform Act, a measure that was passed after a wave of popular protest for democratic reform that actually did very little to allow participation by working people in Parliamentary politics. In the nineteenth century the seat was a contest between the Whigs (Liberals) and the Tories and independent labour politics had no place.
That changed from 1900 and at the 2017 General Election Labour took 31.1% of the vote. The 9.7% Labour got on Thursday suggests not progress but a road back to 1832.
There is an interesting study* of Parliamentary Elections in the unreformed and reformed Parliament between 1819 and 1841 for Shrewsbury. The constituency then returned two MPs. The constituency of Shropshire was split between North and South Shropshire in 1832
There were 1500 electors in Shrewsbury in 1841 but while the majority did not have the vote they could still campaign and have a say at election meetings. Most elections saw one Whig (after 1859 Liberal)and one Tory candidate elected. While Party labels were not always used there was an appreciation between the reform candidate and the conservative one.
However in a sharp reminder of much more recent times (2010-2015) the differences between the two positions were not always clear cut. In the 1837 Election the Tories attacked the new (Whig) Poor Law and Workhouse pointing out that, for example the new Whig dietary plan replaced a daily allowance of 12 ounces of good table beer with four pints of gruel and allowed no beer at all.
By 1841 when Disraeli was a Tory candidate for Shrewsbury (having moved from Maidstone) the Tories were attacking the Whigs as the Party that had been responsible for deporting the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia.
In short both Whig and Tory were parties quite capable of promoting reactionary policies and attacking each other for doing so.
Labour first stood in the successor constituency of Owestry (from 1885) at the 1918 Election and with no Liberal candidate got 40% of the vote. The 1950s saw Labour votes in the high 30%s (again when no Liberal stood). When both Labour and Liberal candidates stood the combined vote (if it had combined) would have defeated the Tory. However the crossover between the two parties was at best partial
*Journal of Modern History Vol 63/4 December 1991John A Phillips and Charles Wetherell The Great Reform Bill of 1832 and the Rise of Partisanship
