Kmflett's Blog

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Black History Month. Still no monument of the leader of London Chartism in 1848,William Cuffay

I posted this five years ago. Despite all the hype about Wokeness and DEI and also despite campaigning nothing substantive has happened on this

William Cuffay, (1788-1870) was the leader of London Chartism in 1848, and the press of the time referred to the ‘black man and his party’.

Yet despite efforts there is still nothing to mark the role that this black Londoner played in the Year of Revolutions,1848, in central London. There has been a recent successful campaign to create a memorial in Medway where Cuffay was born and spent his youth.

The failure to recognise one of the most significant black figures of the nineteenth century by any form of official public presence is just a small part of understanding why Black History Matters and why its important to have a Black History Month.

Red Saunders Hidden from History Tableau remains perhaps the best virtual memorial to date. This was created in a day with a cast of many at Chats Palace, Homerton, a good while ago now, I provided some historical advice*

*I’m in the picture wearing a false beard that was glued on to my actual beard, hair by hair

More on Cuffay:

Black History Month: the Leader of London Chartism in 1848, William Cuffay (1)

Beard Liberation Front

PRESS RELEASE

2^nd October

Contact Keith Flett           07803 167266

HIRSUTE URGED TO ACT TO AVOID WET WEATHER BEARD ROT

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with  wet weather  set across much of the UK for the next few days the hirsute need to take care to avoid possible beard rot.

The campaign group says that after a prolonged period of damp to wet weather the beard may become water logged and beard rot may set in.

Precautions are advised and the obvious way to keep the beard dry and avoid the danger of beard rot is to wrap it in a scarf to protect against the rain.

The campaigners say that careful marination in a glass of imperial stout may also ‘wet proof’ follicles against the rain

If the beard does become damp gently drying it through with a hair dryer as soon as possible is recommended.

BLF organiser Keith Flett said, we urge extra vigilance in respect of damp and wet at the moment. Once beard rot sets in the beard is unlikely to survive. Wrapping the beard in a scarf is prudent

Hair Matters. From Fidel Castro to Arsene Wenger

Castro had a beard,

Kennedy didn’t

Marx had a beard

So did Engels

Lenin had a beard

Stalin just a ‘tache

Corbyn has a beard

Starmer has a haircut

Trump has a comb

Johnson doesn’t

Rosen has a beard

Wenger doesn’t

Fidel Castro was

An Arsenal fan

Hair matters

K M Flett aged nearly 64

Beard Liberation Front

1^st October

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Bradford on Avon pub voted most Beard Friendly of Summer 2020

The Beard Liberation Front has said that the vote for Beard Friendly Pub of Summer 2020 has concluded with the Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon shaving the Cock Tavern in Hackney in an on-line vote for the coveted title. Tom’s Tap & Brew in Crewe was third

The last days of the poll saw enthusiastic voting by supporters of the pubs but the Three Horseshoes had a clear winning margin of over 200 votes when the poll closed at midnight on Wednesday.

The on-line poll featured ten of the most beard friendly pubs and bars and the order of appearance on the poll was determined by the number of nominations each had received during August.

The Beard Friendly Pub of the Year is an annual feature in January each year and the vote will run as usual in January 2021.

However in the extraordinary circumstances of summer 2020, the Beard Liberation Front decided to run a one-off additional vote to find the Beard Friendly Pub of the Summer.

The decisive winner in the Beard Friendly Pub of the Year 2020 poll which saw 11,000 votes cast in 10 days was the Bumble Inn micropub in Peterborough. The runner up was the Cock Tavern in Hackney

Both of these pubs were automatically on the poll.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, its Cask Ale Week and competition for the most Beard Friendly Pub of Summer bristled. Of course it’s a bit of fun but in these tough times a reminder that good pubs are not only a safe place to go but also welcoming to all including beard wearers. Congratulations to the Three Horseshoes, the Cock Tavern and Tom’s Tap & Brew.

The criteria for the Award included:

A safe environment for all. Hand Sanitiser, Customer details taken for track and trace, socially distanced seating, safe serving methods, safe toilet facilities

Beard Friendly Pub: a pub that welcomes the hirsute and often has a significant number of hirsute customers, including but certainly not confined to those with modern styles of beards.

Beard Friendly Ambience: a pub that may have fewer hirsute customers but is welcoming to the hirsute through some bearded bar staff and beard friendly beers, plus has a generally relaxed atmosphere for all.

The campaign group says it welcomes diversity in both appearance and drinking. The truly beard friendly pub will have a genuine mix of customers not just a load of old blokes grumbling about life.

Why the fight against racism & for equality is never won

Below (for those who may not have read it…) is a fletter from the Guardian (30/9).

A link to several other letters on the same thread is below. The discussion is framed in terms of identity politics or otherwise.

That’s not particularly where I’m coming from rather making, as might be expected, a wider historical point.

The fight against racism and for equality is of course one of political ideals and priorities. It is also one that is strictly practical.

Tottenham along with a number of other areas in London had the highest death rates during the COVID-19 peak in April and May. Those with low income and living in poor housing were hardest hit and many of those people were from black and other ethnic groups.

The fight against racist prejudice and discrimination and for a society where they don’t exist has strictly practical outcomes, where it works.

The issue is that even where it does work, it doesn’t stay done, at least not while market capitalism continues as the dominant mode in society.

Unless the fight is renewed in each generation- arguably every 20 to 30 years- the priority can fade and achievements of earlier times are lost.

I don’t think for a moment that Keir Starmer is anything but concerned about racism and inequality. The point is that he comes from a more recent political generation where it was taken that progress had been made in this area. In some ways it had but progress isn’t maintained until pressure is kept up.

• I agree with Nesrine Malik that, under the new leadership of Keir Starmer, Labour nationally appears to be less focused on issues of race and discrimination in key areas such as employment, education, housing and policing. This despite the context of a huge Black Lives Matter movement.

But the reality is, as many people in areas such as Tottenham know, that these things do not just happen. Making sure that the issues of racism and inequality are brought to the fore is something that has to be fought for. The late Bernie Grant didn’t become leader of Haringey council and then Tottenham MP by accident. That was the work of many campaigners, and it is not something that, once done, is complete for all time. It has to be constantly campaigned for and achieved in each generation.

Keith Flett

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/29/why-keir-starmer-is-right-to-avoid-identity-politics

Beard Liberation Front

30th September

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Friendly Pub of Summer 2020. Bradford on Avon v Hackney

The Beard Liberation Front has said that the vote for Beard Friendly Pub of Summer 2020 is now open on-line and will close at midnight on 30th September. It was extended by 24 hours from the original deadline due to the level of interest.

With just hours left to vote the lead has changed several times between the Three Horseshoes in Bradford on Avon and the Cock Tavern in Hackney.

The on-line poll features ten of the most beard friendly pubs and bars and the order of appearance on the poll has been determined by the number of nominations each has received.

The Beard Friendly Pub of the Year is an annual feature in January each year and the vote will run as usual in January 2021.

However in the extraordinary circumstances of summer 2020, the Beard Liberation Front decided to run a one-off additional vote to find the Beard Friendly Pub of the Summer.

The decisive winner in the Beard Friendly Pub of the Year 2020 poll which saw 11,000 votes cast in 10 days was the Bumble Inn micropub in Peterborough. The runner up was the Cock Tavern in Hackney

Both of these pubs are automatically on the poll.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, its Cask Ale Week and as the poll draws to a close competition is appropriately bristling. Why not stop by a pub before 10pm and check out how beard friendly it is?

The criteria for the Award include:

A safe environment for all. Hand Sanitiser, Customer details taken for track and trace, socially distanced seating, safe serving methods, safe toilet facilities

Beard Friendly Pub: a pub that welcomes the hirsute and often has a significant number of hirsute customers, including but certainly not confined to those with modern styles of beards.

Beard Friendly Ambience: a pub that may have fewer hirsute customers but is welcoming to the hirsute through some bearded bar staff and beard friendly beers, plus has a generally relaxed atmosphere for all.

The campaign group says it welcomes diversity in both appearance and drinking. The truly beard friendly pub will have a genuine mix of customers not just a load of old blokes grumbling about life.

The Campaign for Real Conkers

Media Release. Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

30th September

Exercise & relaxation in restricted times: conker playing

The Campaign for Real Conkers, that opposes bans on conker playing and unnecessary rules and regulations in games has said that that with the 2020 conker season now well underway it is the ideal game for exercise with new social distancing regulations.

2020 has seen a good crop of conkers in many areas, helped by often windy weather

The campaigners say that while they are maintaining their usual ‘anything goes’ approach to conker games, to encourage people to play without arbitrary rules, in 2020 some COVID-19 safety guidelines will apply.

Campaign Organiser Keith Flett said, conkers requires only two people and they would normally be socially distanced. Our 2020 guidelines however provide additional safety measures. We were pleased to see Shadow Justice Minister David Lammy propose a conker game with Boris Johnson earlier this week. Its just the thing needed for safe exercise in these restricted times.

Guide on how to play real conkers safely in 2020

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

2] Do not allow your chosen conker to be handled by others and once selected immediately sanitise it.

3] 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

4] 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.

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

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

7] You are now ready to play.

8] Please wear a mask when playing and make sure your opponent is also wearing one

9] 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.

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

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

12] If the conker does come into contact with an opponent please sanitise it before a further round

13] 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

14] Play safely and enjoy!

Beard Liberation Front

29^th September

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Tory Ex-MEP Daniel Hannan makes false ‘can’t grow a beard’ claim

Former Tory MP Daniel Hannan has written in the Sunday Telegraph (27^th Sept) criticising the trend towards beard wearing, while claiming he can’t grow one himself anyway.

His piece begins:

I wish I could tell you that I had gone clean-shaven on principle. I could then write a column about how beards carried the stale whiff of Corbynism, how they were redolent of scruffy lecturers on their way to SWP meetings imagining that they looked like Marx or Lenin or Trotsky….

The Beard Liberation Front says that Mr Hannan’s grip on reality on issues like Brexit has seemed to many doubtful in recent times and this has been amplified by his approach to beards.

As recently as 2018 Hannan did in fact have a perfectly reasonable beard.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we suspect that the real reason Daniel Hannan shaved his beard off, while oddly claiming he couldn’t grow one, was because he realised that if he wore it any longer he would become a Marxist.

London Socialist Historians Group

Media Release 28^th September

Contact Dr Keith Flett  07803 167266

Historians warn guidelines could see E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class banned from schools

The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research at London University, has warned that new Department for Education guidelines could see books like E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class banned from schools.

The guidelines prohibit use of material from organisations that take ‘extreme political stances’ and in part say:

a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism, or to end free and fair elections”; opposition to freedom of speech; the use of racist, including antisemitic, language; the endorsement of illegal activity; and a failure to condemn illegal activities done in support of their cause.

The historians say that there are two key issues involved.

Firstly while the guidelines apply specifically in this version to the relationships, sex and health sections of the curriculum it seems likely that they are intended for wider use.

Secondly a book like E P Thompson’s 1963 classic Making of the English Working Class is actually centrally about how people built relationships and joined together as communities in the first half of the nineteenth century.  An extract from it might well be useful in the classroom in understanding how people interacted in the past.

LSHG Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, E P Thompson was a member of the Communist Party until 1956 and later a leading member of CND. Neither organisation one suspects would meet the Government’s new guidelines. However The Making of the English Working Class remains in print and is read all over the world. The one place where it might not be read in future are school classrooms in England.

Guidelines

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum

Beard Liberation Front

28^th September

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Campaigners urge Trump to go ‘follicle free’ after spending £55,000 on hair styling

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has urged Donald Trump to adopt a follicle free approach after a leaked tax report showed he spent £55,000 ($70,000) on styling his hair.

The campaigners say that Trump was wasting his money- something he is thought to be good at. His artificially constructed comb-over is a pretence too far.

The BLF says that Trump should go follicle free and shave his head and grapple, hard as it is for him, with the realities of his age.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett, some men who lose follicles on the top of their head grow a beard to compensate but we are clear this is not acceptable in Trump’s case. Bald may not be beautiful here but it will at least save him some money which he can use on buying fake tan for the top of his head.