The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to the great US composer of musicals Stephen Sondheim who has sadly died at 91.
Sondheim was responsible for some of the best known and loved post-1945 musicals including A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet St.
Sondheim was also reliably hirsute for most of his adult life, wearing a gravitas adding beard which certainly influenced his musicals.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Stephen Sondheim was one of the most well-known post 1945 beard wearers, a real hirsute icon. He, his work and his beard will be much missed.
Storm Arwen: emergency guidelines for beard wearers issued
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that as high winds caused by Storm Arwen are set to continue across much of the UK for the rest of Saturday beard wearers are strongly advised to take special care of their beards.
The campaigners say that while danger to life and limb is the central issue when extreme weather hits, a secondary concern for organic beard wearers is that exposing the beard to high and blustery winds may blow the beard out of shape and can cause permanent hair and follicle damage in some cases.
It is less likely that designer and some hipster beards will suffer significant wind damage
The BLF advises the following precautions:
Keep the beard slightly damp at all times by immersing it in a glass of hazy IPA or imperial stout. This will give solidity to the beard hairs and prevent them being blown around.
Use a scarf or snood to protect the beard at all times
Secure the beard with elastic bands, strapping the hairs to the chin
If the beard is blown out of shape use a hair dryer to re-form the hairs in the correct position and then stay indoors for a several hours to allow the hairs and follicles to recover
BLF organiser Keith Flett said, the answer is most definitely not blowin’ in the wind today. We advise the hirsute to take care out there
On Friday 26th November 2021 in an introduction to a study of polling data on the Tony Blair Institute site, Tony Blair, who was first elected as an MP in 1983 noted: large numbers of Labour voters in 1983 felt our economic policy was not credible and our attitudes across a range of cultural questions were profoundly alienating.
Looking at his electoral platform in that year its a little difficult to be sure what he means. There are two policies- Leaving the EU and scrapping Trident- that remain controversial in 2023. The remainder of the economic policies outlined look mainstream and there is actually nothing of note about cultural questions.
Certainly Labour lost seats and votes in 1983. Mrs Thatcher had won the Falklands War and the SDP split from Labour in 1981 caused a significant split in the Labour vote. Blair’s memory of 1983 and use of it in 2021 seems debatable.
Blair on Labour electoral strategy 2021: still not the history man
One of the cornerstones of New Labour was that it was about looking forward not back to the traditions of the past. Tony Blair never made it to the Durham miners gala despite being a local MP and his grasp of history was never great.
In one of his rare but frequent interventions Blair has written the introduction to a new study by the pollster Peter Kellner of the northern ‘Red Wall’ and how Labour might win votes. The whole thing is on-line (link below) and worth a look.
Blair’s introduction covers some interesting ground. He repeats the claim that in recent decades the working class has declined and so Labour must move on from traditional socialist values. The same thing was said after the 1959 Election defeat (Must Labour Lose) and by Marxism Today after the 1979 and 1983 defeats. Saying it again does not make it right though. The working class has changed- there are no miners left of note- but it’s still very much with us. That’s why the fight for a decent living wage is so important.
Blair’s obsession with what he terms the ‘far left’ (i.e people who hold mainstream European social democratic views in reality)seems to be getting worse. He never bothered much during the New Labour years (but then he was in Office) and one might get the impression that he is now more interested in attacking the ‘far left’ than in getting Labour elected. He of course thinks the two are linked.
On Tory Culture Wars he makes a more interesting though arguable point (misrepresented by click bate media) that while Labour should be ‘liberal and tolerant’ it should avoid ‘woke-ism’. He doesn’t define what that is because after all, might it not just be refusing to put up with racist ideas and practices? That said its quite difficult to see Starmer as either ‘liberal’ or ‘tolerant’ and this is where we get to the (possibly unintentionally)interesting part of Blair’s argument.
Blair discusses the New Labour Governments he headed from 1997. Firstly he seems to make one of the clearest admissions yet that the Iraq War was a disaster (a deadly one). It was a complete distraction from what the Government was meant to be doing. He lists some of the things that were done (there was others that were less great like PFI) and these were achievements that made a real difference to the lives of many. The charge was and remains that given he was elected with massive majorities twice he really could have done a lot more.
The bottom line though is awkward for Starmer who spends much of his time agreeing with the Tories. There is little in what he has said that suggests that he is interested in achieving the modest but real progress that Blair did, perhaps because in different economic times the challenge is harder.
It’s a challenge nevertheless. Why vote for a party that says it will make the impact of neo-liberal capitalism on working people a bit less onerous if actually, it seems to be suggesting it will do nothing of the sort?
The last Labour government had many faults, as all governments do. Even the best end eventually. And the anger at some of the decisions, particularly Iraq, was understandable.
But there were radical improvements in public services; large reductions in poverty; some things like the Northern Ireland peace process which took years of patient effort, and some like trebling the development budget or the minimum wage which took political will. And much that we did – on a daily basis – spoke not just to different policies but to different values.
Black Friday in 2025 is the day after the Thanksgiving festival in the US and a time when commercial enterprises discount stock, marking arguably the real start of the pre-Xmas sales season such as it is this year.
In recent times it has spread significantly to the UK even now into some of the upper echelons of UK retail.
Black Friday has a quite different meaning in British history however referring to the date, 15th April 1921, when transport unions refused to back miners action against wage reductions. This was part of the precursor of the industrial class war that was the 1926 General Strike.
Another impact of Black Friday was the formation of the General Council of the TUC…
Boris Johnson was at the excellent Almeida Theatre in Islington on Tuesday to see a production of Macbeth, a prescient play to watch in his present situation one might suggest.
Despite a very clear requirement to wear a mask he was of course not wearing one, much and mainly at all.
The number of occasions a maskless Johnson has been spotted has been growing.
The most well-known was when Johnson visited a hospital in Hexham on earlier in November. He did promote getting the vaccine and the booster which was worthwhile.
But just as he shook hands with patients in February 2020 so Johnson appeared in an NHS hospital unmasked. Of course everyone else was wearing one. It echoes the situation in the Commons where despite guidance from the Parliamentary authorities some Tory MPs, notably leader of the House Rees-Mogg continued to appear mask-less until very recently. Johnson now wears a mask in the Commons.
The hospital later claimed that Johnson wore a mask in clinical settings, but that didnt help. In that case the release of pictures Johnson unmasked sent the message that it didnt matter.
The public health advice on this is clear. Wearing a mask protects the wearer and others from Covid and flu and indeed all airborne viruses. Of course the protection is not that great (vaccines are much better at the job) but it’s a matter of social responsibility. These are two words not in the Johnson dictionary because for him, Rees-Mogg and others it’s about personal responsibility or lack of it.
It is a classic debate between individualism and basic collectivism but in this case a potentially somewhat deadly one
The start of winter nights: the history of the poor & night shelters
Tottenham saw the first mild frost of the winter on Tuesday. On subsequent nights the temperature is set to fall below freezing, very cold if you have nowhere to go and no heat.
In recent times in London the Mayor has made efforts to provide overnight shelter for those on the streets as winter weather sets in. The situation is certainly worse because of the pandemic and cost of living crisis. Nor is it a new thing
In his essay Comers and Goers (in Dyos, the Victorian City), the late historian Raph Samuel surveyed the seasonal migration of labour into and out of cities in the late Victorian period.
He noted that many came to winter in London, where, depending on the weather, night shelters, straw yards as they were called by those who used them, funded by private charity, opened up each November. The shelters were free and without obligation. People could stay for up to a month and they were heated with a huge open fire. The largest was at Playhouse Yard Cripplegate. The alternative was the Poor Law funded Casual Ward where a stay was limited to two nights and had to be paid for by a day’s forced labour.
Samuel lists many other places where people slept rough in London including railway arches and around the main hotels where heat was to be found, but the picture remains disturbingly similar 150 years on. Progress….
We may at least be thankful that Suella Braverman has been sacked and there are not vigilante night sleeper patrols
E P Thompson on Britain, Europe & a history of refugees & solidarity
I was looking through E P Thompson’s Peculiarities of the English for quite other reasons and came across the passage below which has interest in the context of 2025.
It’s an argument about why Britain is not an exception to the rest of Europe (a debate he was having with Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn in the 1960s) and why links existed both in the realm of ideas and in practical solidarities of fighting fascism and welcoming refugees.
Certainly a message for our times from European history
Here is this island, and there, across a few wet miles, are Other Countries. Those waters have, on occasion, been crossed. That city, London, is not in the Antarctic but has been, alongside Paris, Vienna and Prague, a great European capital. In its East End there have been deposit after deposit of refugee and immigrant workers. In the universities there have been deposit after deposit of émigré intellectuals. Across that water there came, in the 1930s, wave after wave of refugees from Fascism; across that water there went, in the early 1940s, wave after wave of troops to assist in the liberation of Southern and Western Europe; and across that water there came, in the later 1940s and 1950s, a further wave of refugees from Eastern Europe.
Strictly’s John Whaite faces cartoonist Steve Bell in second Beard of the Year Close Shave vote
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said the second Close Shave preliminary round of Beard of the Year 2021 is now open. Two of the four contenders will go through to December’s Beard Off rounds
The first Close Shave round for the Beard of the Year 2021 saw poet and author Benjamin Zephaniah shave opponents to reach December’s Beard Off rounds. Cricket broadcaster Daniel Norcross came second and also goes to the Beard Off rounds.
Author and broadcaster Michael Rosen and England football manager Gareth Southgate are among four beard wearers guaranteed a place in the final Beard Off rounds from 15th December. They have won hirsute accolades during the year.
Eight others feature in two preliminary rounds to determine a further four follicle fashionistas who will also 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 its all down to hirsute democracy and the voters.
Beard of the Year 2021. Close Shave Preliminary Round Two. Top Two go thru to December's Beard Off votes
The Campaign for Real Santas, which promotes Santas with genuine organic beards, has launched its 2021 initiative to promote real Santas with genuine beards by warning people to be aware of absurd false bearded Santas as the busiest pre-Christmas shopping weekends get underway.
The Campaigners say that with unemployment and under-employment amongst mature men over 50, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to use an assistant Santa who does not have a real beard.
At the same time the Campaign is also keen to encourage more female Santas with organic knitted beards.
Campaigners are urging parents and children to demand that Santas virtual or actual vigorously tug their beards as a definitive test as to whether they are in the presence of a real Santa or not.
CFRS organiser Keith Flett said, we are launching the campaign early again this year but the reason is hopefully obvious to most. Christmas decorations and lights are up in main High Streets and Christmas tat is everywhere. Our task of exposing false bearded Santas is more important than ever.
THREE STEPS TO SPOT A GENUINE SANTA
1 Ask the Santa to tug their beard. If it comes away, then the Santa is FAKE
2 If the beard remains intact ask the Santa to tug their beard again. If the Santa swears then they are genuine. If they simply repeat a ‘ho ho ho’ mantra they are FAKE
3 The Campaign for Real Santas says that genuine Santas must have just the right mix of bonhomie and grumpiness and a real organic beard.
Notes
The Organic Santa of 2021will be named on December 18th. In 2020 Michael Rosen shaved Brian Blessed for the annual honour
The Campaign for Real Santas is organised by the Beard Liberation Front
