Kmflett's Blog

London Beard Week finds London is the Beard Capital of the UK

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release 9th August

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

London Beard Week focus on Karl Marx, Michael Rosen and Central Hackney

The fourth London Beard Week which ran from 4th-8th August and was designed to highlight the place of London as a leading world centre for beard wearers has been hailed as a success in raising the positive profile of the hirsute in the Capital.

A poll to find the best ever London beard found Karl Marx and Michael Rosen as the wearers of London’s Best Ever Beard.

https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2020/08/08/michael-rosen-karl-marx-tie-in-best-ever-london-beard-poll/

Another key issue addressed was which part of the Capital are you likely to see the most (and arguably) the best beards?

The Beard Liberation Front ran a London Beard Week poll to find out

https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2020/08/06/london-beard-week-which-is-the-most-hirsute-area-of-the-capital-2/

Central Hackney came out an easy winner with Tottenham and Hackney Wick runners-up. Votes for South London areas were less focused.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, London is without doubt the Beard Capital of the UK

Reopening of schools: The ‘moral economy’ of Boris Johnson. A brief reprise

Boris Johnson has written an article for the Mail on Sunday about the need for schools to re-open in September. Unlike some of his efforts for the right-wing media it is free to access and if you have an interest in the matter it may be worth a hopefully rare Google of the Mail website. At least then you’ll be able to see what Johnson actually wrote rather than the spin put on it.

As most will know Johnson is a political chameleon quite capable of holding contradictory position according to which way the wind is blowing, but always ultimately with the aim of boosting himself.

Johnson’s actual phrase is not that there is a ‘moral duty’ to re-open schools but that social justice demands it.

Its not really a term one associates with Johnsonism. He underlines the importance of compulsory schooling, notes that the less well off are harder hit by not attending school and that this harms their life chances later on. Who could disagree (well Johnson himself at most other times for a start).

The reality is though that Johnson has played what might be called the ‘moral economy’ card before.

In a pre-2015 Election interview with the London Evening Standard Boris Johnson, then still London Mayor and Tory candidate for Uxbridge (subsequently MP), spoke of his view of a ‘moral capitalism’.

The moral economy here is a conservative traditional culture, sometimes enforced by radical means including on occasion, riot. It involved a recognition not that society was equal or should be so but that the poor were entitled at least to a basic standard of living.

Johnson’s interview with the Standard had some of this understanding.

He argued that wealth creation by capitalists, whatever their intention, is the thing that helps to fund public services. He also said of those self-same capitalists that since they were making good profits they could afford to pay the London Living Wage and not expect the wages of their employees to be topped up by the taxpayer.

Johnson argued that there is a ‘moral purpose to wealth creation’. Adam Smith might have grudgingly conceded the point, the eighteenth-century crowd (who Johnson would probably call the mob) would certainly have agreed.

Despite his claim that London was a less unequal City because of his Mayoralty this was not backed by evidence. His support for the London Living Wage was not for example matched by any actual action to get more employers to pay it.

Then came the £350million NHS Brexit lie. An attempt if there ever was one to pervert the idea of a moral economy in favour of a market politics.

Now it’s the turn of schools.

He makes a ‘progressive’ case for re-opening and writes of various ways this will happen. Absent of course is any mention of things like social distancing, masks or even hand washing.

As always with Johnson the bluster fits the moment.

The Ambridge Socialist

9^th August

The class struggle in Ambridge. Which side are you on? Emma or Alice

Alice, part of the ruling Archer Dynasty in Ambridge is struggling with her employment position. She was sacked from her previous job and there seems little doubt that drinking is an issue. Even her partner Chris has now criticised her leading to Alice first moving her bottle stash to the garden shed and now the farm office at Home Farm where she is standing in for Adam.

While we can sympathise with the alcohol issue for which Alice needs to get professional help, we have less concern for the Archer Dynasty.

Meanwhile Emma Grundy also looks likely to lose her job at the tea rooms after persistent interventions by leading Ambridge neo-liberal Natasha Archer. Natasha is unconcerned about people losing their jobs, though she is probably sympathetic about Alice.

The Ambridge Socialist knows which side we are on.

The Joe Grundy Flower and Produce Show

Emma has been promoting the idea of a virtual flower and produce show via series of Zoom meetings. Fallon has an alternative plan and opinion is apparently split. The Ambridge Socialist believes that the only way forward is to rename the event in honour of Joe Grundy which should promote a united response, except from Bert Fry obviously.

Thumbs Up for the Archers Monologues

The Ambridge Socialist poll last week saw 56% say they preferred to listening to the Archers monologues and 0% to whatever may be on Times Radio at 19.02 hours on Monday-Thursday evenings. 44% preferred neither but it is August and they were probably in The Bull

Beard Liberation Front

8^th August

Chris Woakes key to England cricket victory. Beards win matches

photo Toby Wood

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that Chris Woakes who played a key role with bat and ball in England’s Test victory against Pakistan at Old Trafford.

In England’s second innings Woakes key partnership with Jos Buttler was key and Woakes ended on 84 not out and took 4 wickets in the match.

Woakes has been the most consistent beard wearer in the England cricket team and he now takes his place with other great England hirsute cricketers including Ian Botham, Freddie Flintoff and Ben Stokes.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Chris Woakes could be a contender for Beard of the Year in December. In the meantime he has proved that not only catches win matches in cricket, beards win matches too

Tottenham nine years on. Black Lives Still Matter. Racism still exists

Tottenham protest 8th August 2020

I was present at the Tottenham riot nine years ago on Saturday though accidentally. I lived then as I still do in central Tottenham but had been for a meal with my partner elsewhere in London. Alerted to events by a friend on twitter I hastened back. After all as Secretary of Haringey TUC in 2011 I thought it my duty to be there and see what was happening.

I was of course aware that some form of protest after the police shooting of Mark Duggan two days previously, not 5 minutes from my Tottenham flat, was likely and indeed quite justified. The precise form it took was a surprise to me, and I suspect to most. The reaction or perhaps more accurately the lack of action of the authorities did not help.

The death of Mr Duggan still remains an ultimately unexplained matter, perhaps particularly to those who were close to him.

Despite the Kaiser Chiefs record you can’t predict a riot. In 2016 The Guardian published a useful piece by one of those behind the important 2011 Reading the Riots project noting that conditions in Haringey had not get better and indeed some areas worse in the years since. That remains relevant.

As I noted in the Guardian in 2011 the general sense of pissed-off ness in the area was the background to the riot. It was not the motor. That was the failure of the police to relate properly to the shooting of Mark Duggan. It quite rightly enraged people.

Riots are chaotic situations and that night nine years ago was no exception. Fortunately I was able to return home- indeed buses were running to within a few hundred yards of the riot.

As I noted at the time, whether you think riots have a place or not is one thing but condemning what took place hardly helps. People were pissed off with a lack of opportunity, with overbearing policing, racism and much else. Nine years on many still are and the Black Lives Matters movement has given an important new voice to the fight for justice.

Nine years on Stand Up to Racism has been very active in the area, has have others, highlighting the explosion of police stop and search tactics against black people during lockdown and the unjustifiable police use of tasers against black people. The Windrush scandal and institutional racism frames the whole thing.

No Justice, No Peace was the mood nine years ago in Tottenham and it still is

Keith Flett is the former Secretary of Haringey TUC and Editor of the History of Riots (CSP 2015)

Beard Liberation Front

Media Release

8th August

Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Michael Rosen & Karl Marx tie in Best Ever London Beard poll

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that a poll to find the Best Ever London Beard has concluded with a tie between Karl Marx and author and broadcaster Michael Rosen.

The poll was part of the annual London Beard Week which marks the continued growth of beards in the Capital.

Michael Rosen and Karl Marx both got 23.6% of the vote, Jeremy Corbyn came third with 18.1% and W G Grace was fourth with 12.2%.

The campaigners say that there was a record vote with people choosing between well known London beard wearers from the past and those currently in the public eye.

London Beard Week is a celebration of London, now one of the most beard friendly Capital cities in the world, and of London’s great hirsute heritage from Charles Dickens to Karl Marx through to modern day beards such as England football captain Harry Kane and author and Arsenal fan Michael Rosen.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we can’t of course congratulate Karl Marx on his victory in person but we can send best wishes to Michael Rosen who has already been voted Beard of Summer 2020. He is an outstanding ambassador for the hirsute.

London Beard Week poll to find London’s Best Ever Beard.

The Best Ever London Beard 2020

Sigmund Freud, d Hampstead

Darcus Howe, anti-racist campaigner

Bernie Grant, Tottenham MP

Charles Dickens, author

Karl Marx, philosopher and activist

WG Grace, cricketer d Mottingham

Michael Rosen, author & broadcaster

William Morris, socialist & designer

Harry Kane, footballer b Walthamstow

William Cuffay, Leader of London Chartism

Keir Hardie, London Labour MP

Richard Thompson, singer & composer

Jeremy Corbyn, London Labour MP

Edward Lear, writer

William Booth, Salvationist

Ryde, Isle of Wight July 1874. Marx encounters a group of temperance campaigners

With summer agenda featuring holidays I’ve been looking at Marx and Engels regular sojourns to Victorian seaside locations and spas.

The visits were sometimes health related but were also holidays.

On 15^th July 1874 Marx was in lodgings in Ryde, Isle of Wight. He wrote as he did regularly to Engels who was in Ramsgate. This was rather a reversal of locations since Marx was often in Ramsgate and Engels frequently in Ryde.

Marx noted that one of his daughters Laura had been to stay and he had accompanied her to the Portsmouth ferry when she had to leave:

When we went down to the pier to see her off we witnessed the arrival from Brighton of a temperance gang back from an excursion. Half of them were drunk. As an old Englishman next to me remarked ‘it was the worst lot he had ever met with in his life’ and neither have I ever encountered such a mob of stunted, loutish and smutty-minded idiots all at once…For foreigners this sample of Freeborn Britons would have been an amazing sight

My initial piece on some of Marx and Engels favourite seaside town is here:

https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/the-marxist-staycation-marx-engels-at-the-victorian-seaside-in-1857/

Beard Liberation Front

7^th August

August 2020 Guidelines for eating ice-cream while wearing a beard

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has issued updated heatwave guidelines on eating ice-cream in warm or hot weather after high temperatures have been forecast for the next few days for some areas of the UK.

The campaigners say that while the hot weather naturally provokes the desire for a cooling ice-cream, extra care must be taken when it is hot to make sure that ice-cream does not melt in the beard, creating a sticky mess that can seriously damage the follicles.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, our advice to the hirsute is clear: take care out there when eating ice-cream. Tempting though it is in hot weather to eat ice-cream if you don’t follow BLF guidelines you could both make an unpleasant mess and seriously damage your beard.

Updated Guidelines on heating ice cream in hot weather

For the inexperienced beard wearer eating ice cream in hot weather is best avoided. The ice cream may melt and find its way into the beard while being eaten, creating a sticky and unpleasant mess

Lollies are not advised. They are highly likely to drip into the beard which will them become sticky with damaged hairs a likely outcome.

If ice-cream must be eaten there are three BLF approved methods:

1 Eating ice-cream cornets must be done with care. Make sure the paper covering is kept on as you eat the cone and that the bottom is contained in a handkerchief or similar to avoid drips in the beard

2 From a tub, where amounts consumed can be carefully controlled with a spoon1

3 In a sandwich, currently fashionable where the ice-cream is contained between two substantial biscuits (NOT wafers)

Beard Liberation Front

^7th August

contact Keith Flett 07803 167266

Beard Liberation Front says players at Old Trafford may need a lunch beard trim as 27C forecast

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has issued a rare ‘permission to trim or shave’ note to supporters as temperatures are set to rise in some parts of England on Friday.

The campaigners say that hirsute players of both teams in the Second Test between England and Pakistan may consider a lunchtime beard trim as temperatures by tea at Old Trafford are set to reach 27C with a humidity of 78%

The campaigners say that it would be exceptional to shave the beard, but in the absence of appropriate cooling mechanisms it is authorised in extremis.

Generally it is recommended that the beard is cooled by the use of a hand held fan or by visiting the freezer department of a supermarket.

However both may be impractical due to mask wearing in current circumstances.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, we dont issue trimming advice lightly but a combination of high temperature and humidity can be uncomfortable

IPA Day & Black Lives Matter

6^th August is IPA day.

I tend to view it primarily as a commercially focused opportunity to promote IPA but that didn’t stop me from having a glass of Verdant’s Pigs All Day West Coast IPA at the excellent and open again Bubs in central Cardiff.

Pete Brown has dealt with some of the debates around IPA here:

https://www.petebrown.net/2017/08/03/a-quick-blog-post-for-ipa-day/

The link with various aspects of far from always great British imperial history is difficult to avoid.

What did the ships that took IPA to India return to Britain laden with? As often Martyn Cornell has an answer, in relation to a ship returning from Calcutta in 1838:

cargo including raw cotton, 83 elephants’ tusks, coffee, wool, pepper, ginger – and opium

http://zythophile.co.uk/2015/10/12/the-ipa-shipwreck-and-the-night-of-the-big-wind/

In other words profitable parts of British imperial rule that should have gone to those who laboured to produce them in India.

In short, enjoy the IPA but keep in mind its history and that Black Lives Matter