Boris Johnson changes his mind on the fall of the Roman Empire
Giving an interview at the end of the G20 summit in Rome on Sunday Boris Johnson said:
“When the Roman Empire fell, it was largely as a result of uncontrolled immigration. The empire could no longer control its borders, people came in…and Europe went into a dark ages that lasted a very long time. The point is that it can happen again”
In 2006 Johnson wrote a book which was also a TV series called the Dream of Rome.
At that time he argued (correctly) that the Empire had collapsed due to revolt
‘people who rejected toga wearing as a revolt against control from Rome were..ancient versions of today’s Eurosceptics’.
No doubt that as in an inconvenient message for Johnson in 2021 but the history still stands.
Campaigners say Pogonophobia had role in sacking of Nuno at Spurs
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that pogonophobia, irrational prejudice against facial hair, has played a part in the sacking of Spurs manager Nuno on Monday.
Nuno has been famous for his footballing managerial beard power but he clearly arrived in the middle of a period of turmoil at Spurs, not of his making and largely beyond his ability to control.
However the campaigners say that Spurs boss Daniel Levy is follicly challenged and may feel that hirsute managers are a threat to his own authority.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Nuno is one of the most distinctive beards in football management. Clearly his beard power did not align well with the current situation at White Hart Lane but he will surely prosper elsewhere.
Bert Fry, the Bard of Borsetshire, is dead. He was found in his seat at The Bull on Monday
It came a day after the Bard of Borsetshire had read some of his Borsetshire Lad poems at the Brookfield Harvest Supper. Bert’s poems about rural life were not however his most noteworthy achievement.
Although never reported by the BBC he was the long-time Secretary of Borsetshire Trades Council. He never lost a negotiation with his employer David Archer. He was also a member of the Borsetshire Communist Party before it wound up in 1990.
Bert Fry was a determinedly rural character and the last born before World War Two in the Archers after the sad demise of Joe Grundy. With his death an era ends. Clarrie Grundy, the daughter of Jethro Larkin, is now the senior rural proletarian in Ambridge.
Meanwhile Eric Allan the actor who has played Bert Fry for 25 years, is fortunately far from dead. Rather he has decided to retire at 81, according to the BBC at least in part to collect conkers.
Perhaps there should be an annual Ambridge conkers tournament in memory of Bert
Bert’s son Trevor Fry has paid a visit to Ambridge following his father’s death. Trevor has a remarkable similarity to actor Julian Rhind-Tutt. He has the capacity to hold a conversation about nothing very much at some length. Some of the other residents of the village seem to think that this means Trevor is boring without realising that this is exactly the same way they go on themselves.
The Ambridge Socialist poll. Who is the most boring person in Ambridge?
It appears Joleen has decided to cancel the Bull’s Halloween event out of respect to Bert. However the film show at Lower Loxley is going ahead compered by Call Me Russ and Freddie. Russ and Trevor would surely get on well together..
Indeed I am 65 today, being born on 31st October 1956 as the Russian tanks swept into Budapest & just as Britain, France and Israel were starting the debacle that was Suez.
Clearly I learnt my politics at birth.
I’m not a great fan of birthdays, although they are statistically significant-a year to my State pension, but as an historian one does note the passage of time.
The Beatles wrote When I’m 64, that appeared on Sgt Pepper in 1967. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney with clarinet by George Martin. I’m pleased to say that as my 64th year is now complete, by no means a certainty in these uncertain times, that I no time did I visit the Isle of Wight.
Anyway on my 65th birthday I’m in Cardiff,(but I still live of course in Tottenham) I haven’t quite yet retired and I remain an active socialist and trade unionist.
Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.
NEIL HAMILTON & LAURENCE FOX VOTED ‘SCARIEST’ HALLOWEEN BEARDS
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, which campaigns against irrational prejudice against the hirsute, has said that the crypt door is firmly open as Halloween approaches and controversialist Laurence Fox and UKIP leader Neil Hamilton have been voted the Scariest Beards of Halloween 2021.
The unlikely pair saw off a number of other contenders to take the annual accolade, which is designed in practice to debunk the idea that beards are scary at any time of year.
The title is awarded each year on October 31st, and takes a wry look at Halloween festivities by identifying the scariest beard in the public eye. The winner is likely to win by the narrowest crack of a squeaky floorboard.
The BLF does not believe that beards are scary, a view promoted by generations of pogonophobes.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, facial hair is part of Halloween tradition. We aim every year to subvert some of the pogonophobia that lies behind that, while looking in a light hearted way at ‘scary’ beards.
Terry meets Julie, Waterloo Station, every Friday night,& goes for a Punk IPA
Brewdog announced another UK bar opening this week, and another ‘flagship’ bar. They seem to have had quite a few.
The bar will on the site of the old Eurostar terminal at Waterloo, which for those who are not as familiar with station as I’ve become over nearly 50 years, is on the side of the steps up from York Rd
The site is 26,500 sq ft and the bar will be over 2 floors
Brewdog say a bowling alley and Grindr coffee bar amongst other possible attractions. It will also sell beer and is due to open in Summer 2022.
Waterloo is decently served for craft beer with the Waterloo Tap and Hop Locker very near the station but the size of the Brewdog operation is on a different scale. Quite who will drink in it is another matter since many at Waterloo are trying to leave as quickly as possible.
While Brewdog could have invested money in terms and conditions for employees (and it can still do that in anyway) the Waterloo announcement reflects another stage on the journey if not yet to Big Beer then certainly to Bigger Beer.
With COP26 starting in Glasgow a wide range of issues relating to climate impact and change are being discussed.
One is whether it’s a good idea to eat vegetables and fruit out of season in the UK, since where they are to be found (and they usually are) they are air freighted from elsewhere in the world. That’s hardly environmentally friendly, but its important not to be one-dimensional. Someone makes a profit out of doing that but also some people’s jobs and livelihoods depend on it.
Social media has carried pictures of supermarkets using pictures of asparagus to cover empty vegetable baskets. Supplies of vegetables grown in the UK can vary a lot due to the weather so shortages and conversely gluts are not unusual. However asparagus is not in season in the UK so if it is on the shelves its come by air often from Peru.
How many now appreciate the issue of what is or is not actually in season I’m not sure. However brewing is doing its bit by promoting green hop beers.
Hops are harvested in early Autumn. This was originally done by hand but has been automated since around 1960. These days its also possible to forage or grow locally enough hops to make a beer genuinely local.
Green Hop beers have been around for a while but the trend to brewing them is growing.
A couple of weeks back I tried two green hop beers on cask brewed by Beerblefish who have a tap room on the Blackhorse Lane beer mile in London E17. They were both decent.
This weekend the Hackney brewer Five Points have a green hop festival at the Pembury Tavern with cask and keg beers.
Drinking one is a practical commitment not just to the importance of seasonality but also to one of the aims of COP26
From Engels to Bolsonaro: the return of ‘social murder’
Friedrich Engels book on the Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844 is a well known classic of social history. His investigations helped to inform the important understandings of Marx and himself about how capitalism does and does not work.
One concept that he mentions in the book has recently begun to receive attention again. People that he spoke to and the Chartist press argued that working and housing conditions of the proletariat in mid-nineteenth century England had such a significant impact on the health and life expectancy of many that the Government was guilty of ‘social murder’. It was aware of the conditions and the short lifespans of many but did little about it.
Engels wrote:
Society in England hourly and daily commits what the working men’s organs call social murder, that it has placed the workers under conditions under which they can neither retain health nor live that long that it undermines the vital force of these workers, little by little, and so hurries them to the grave before their time…society knows how injurious such conditions are to the health and life of the workers, and yet does nothing to improve these conditions.
One of Engels aims in writing the book was to demonstrate that this was indeed the case. He wrote that he broadly accused the ruling class of social murder and that it should either address the issue or hand over the running of society to the ‘labouring classes’
The Office of National Statistics has reported that a newly born boy in 1841 was expected to live to 40.2 years while in 2011 this was 79. The figures for a girl were slightly higher. Of course these figures looked across all classes. The average lifespan of a male worker in Manchester in 1850 was 38.3 years.
However life expectancy has been dropping slightly. The pandemic of the last eighteen months has had an important impact but in fact, while the expectation has been that how long people would live would continue to gradually increase, it hasn’t.
The change can be traced back to the period after the 2008 financial crash and in Britain in particular to the election of a Government committed to a policy of austerity. Despite the ‘levelling up’ agenda of Johnson we remain in that framework.
The impact of consistent cuts to NHS spending, and public services, together with a push towards privatised jobs with poor conditions, led to precisely the kind of consequences that Engels saw in the 1840s, although obviously on a much smaller scale.
The pandemic has magnified all this and also provided a sharper focus on politicians who could do something about this but choose not to.
The politician most in the media frame has been far right Brazilian leader Bolsonaro. He promoted the COVID-deniers mantra that the virus was essentially a bad flu. He did nothing to stop the spread of the pandemic in the country and purposefully delayed the effective roll out of vaccines. He did catch COVID himself but managed to survive despite being unvaccinated. There have been calls for him to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
This may seem familiar to a British audience because it is so similar to how Boris Johnson has failed to deal with COVID and is still doing so. It’s true that he did promote the take up of vaccines but that aside he delayed taking action in March 2020 and is doing so again now even though the likely consequences are clear.
Engels 1844 accusation of a Government committing social murder still seems relevant.
