Kmflett's Blog

55 years since the Beatles Come Together *didn’t* signal the downfall of Western Civilisation

It was 50 years ago on 26^th September 1969 that the Beatles Abbey Road was released, the last of the music they recorded together (although Let It Be was released later).

It contained two songs that were released as a Double A Side single Something (George Harrison) and Come Together (John Lennon).

Its fair to say that, 55 years on, its probably the former rather than the latter that is most remembered even if Come Together was definitively of the political, social and cultural moment of the end of the 1960s.

Even so in his Beatles discography Revolution In The Head, the late Ian Mcdonald claimed that the form and words of Come Together marked the beginning of the downfall of Western civilisation.

55 years on this seems a somewhat overblown claim and, in addition, if one were looking for a record to have this epithet associated with it, there are many other contenders.

However its worth looking at why Mcdonald said this because it does reflect something of that end of the 1960s moment.

Macdonald says:

With its sex-political title Come Together represents the last of Lennon’s espousals of the counterculture while still in the group… it pitches a stream of self confessed ‘gobbledeygook’ at the violent antagonisms of an unenlightened world..this idea was at the cutting edge of alternative politics in the late 1969

Of the line ‘one thing I can tell is you got to be free’ Macdonald writes:

The freedom invoked here differs from all forms and all norms including left-wing ones

He goes on to argue that Come Together is the archetype of countercultural anti-politics, mentioning figures such as Timothy Leary and R D Laing as influences on Lennon.

Whatever one makes of Macdonald’s claims and the song 55 years on, Come Together is a fascinating snap shot of late 1960s social history

Brewdog Angel, ‘Permanently Closed’

I haven’t passed by myself in the last few days but the indefatigable Beer Guide London has posted that Brewdog Angel has suddenly closed.

Brewdog are not a unionised employer so my first thought is that all employees have been sorted out decently. Calvin McDonald, whose twitter avatar describes him as the Brewdog Operations Manager for London & the Southeast has tweeted that staff were told in person and relocated to other nearby Brewdog bars. Credit where it is due for that obviously

Secondly to be fair to Brewdog they did say in their most recent licensing application in early 2018 that this was their last attempt to make the site work and if it didn’t they’d sell it. It appears this is the conclusion they have reached

The Brewdog site in Essex Rd, Islington (around 5 minutes walk from Angel tube for those unfamiliar but not on the main Upper St thoroughfare) has had a difficult history.

It opened as Dog Eat Dog selling beer and hot dogs with a licence that required eating in order to drink. I thought it was fine but clearly not enough people did and it shut. It re-opened as Punk Kitchen offering month long residencies to street food pop-ups (subsequently quite a popular model in craft beer pubs, although as beer writer Matthew Curtis pointed out Brewdog didnt pioneer the concept) but that didnt seem to work either.

It was been shut for a good while but a licence was obtained from Islington Council on 4th January 2018  for a ‘Hopworks’ concept which involved home brewing, a bar with a limited capacity (around 100 including outside seats) and pizzas.

The licence allowed opening only to 11pm (there are residential units above and when some of the occupiers moved in the site was used for retail and shut at 6pm) which is the earliest in the area.

It opened on June 1^st 2018.

The licence statement from Islington which is linked below makes quite interesting reading.

Brewdog are upfront that they took a wrong direction in trying to sell food as a major element of their offering and they are also clear that this was their last attempt to make the site work. If it didnt they’d plan to sell.

http://democracy.islington.gov.uk/mgAi.aspx?ID=14810

Brewdog have purged all presence on social media of Brewdog Angel but below is a blog they posted when it opened. High hopes…

Update 30th September

Thanks to Oliver Moss on social media for alerting me to this point posted on the Brewdog Shareholder’s Forum thread:

It is also stated on the thread that they have “sublet the space to another operator who are confident with a radically different offering they can make a go of the location.”

Update 2nd October

All Brewdog signage has been removed and the windows whited out. The speed seems a little unusual but no doubt there are other examples of such haste. More poignant as Brewdog has announced details of its annual mid-October Collabfest is that Brewdog Angel brewed a beer with Brew By Numbers. One hopes the beer at least survives as a tribute to the hard work put in.

PUBLISHED – 31.05.2018 COMMENTS (3)

UK Bars Homebrew BrewDog Angel

These have been a great few months for lovers of craft beer in the capital. Following hot on the heels of BrewDog Seven Dials and BrewDog Tower Hill we are psyched to open another hop hideout for the thirsty people of London. And this one is a bar with a difference. If you love great beer then at our newest bar you can make it yourself. Welcome to homebrew heaven.

BrewDog Angel opens its doors at 12pm tomorrow, Friday 1st June!

Located at 21 – 31 Essex Rd (N1 2SA) we have a perfect location for dispensing freshly-poured craft beer amidst freshly-opened sacks of malt. Less than ten minutes’ walk from the tube station of the same name, our Angel bar is a stone’s throw from Islington Green and right in the hustle and bustle of the Upper Street/Essex Road confluence of shops and restaurants.

Inside, GM Ellery and a dedicated team of beery evangelists will be on hand with 14 taps of craft beer cold freighted from our Ellon brewhouse (as well as a few guest beers from amazing breweries we know and love). We also have a wide selection of bottles and cans to take away, either when you need to head home or if you are in the Angel area and need some beer to go!

But if you’d like to stay awhile, inside our newest London bar – the ninth we have opened in the city – you can spend time getting to grips with the art and science of brewing. BrewDog Angel rocks four 20L homebrew kits that you can hire and take for a test drive. Want to have a first crack at brewing? Sure! Already homebrew and want to take your adventures on the road? You know where to find us.

This new outlook on what a craft beer bar can be has arrived with perfect timing. Yesterday, a day before the bar opens, we released DIY Dog 2018 – all 325 BrewDog recipes recreated in homebrew-friendly format, as a free download; the keys to our kingdom. If ever there were inspiration to kick-start a lifetime of homebrewing, this is it! Just download onto a tablet or phone, book a kit and mash in!

BrewDog Angel also features a heated outdoor seating area where you can unwind once the brewday has finished – or just if you fancy taking in the sun with a beer at any time. For those after a bite to eat our bar also majors in our now-legendary BrewDog pizza menu, plus a range of wines and spirits, Hawkes cider and freshly-brewed coffee from our friends at Dear Green!

BrewDog Angel opens its doors at 12pm tomorrow, Friday 1st June and will then be open 12pm-11pm every day of the week. The first 50 people through the door this Friday at 12pm will be entered into a raffle to win epic prizes such as homebrew days, a trip to Ellon and a free Punk IPA every time you visit! How does that sound?

Angel – see you at noon tomorrow. And if there are any other parts of London we should open up in, let us know in the comments below!

Crouch End in North London is not the kind of place where you’d  expect to find a Tory in 2019. But that was rather different 50 years ago and the area elected Tory MPs until 1992.

While delving into the (unpleasant) undergrowth and background to the current Premier’s rise to No.10 I noticed a brief sojourn in Crouch End.

In July 1965 Johnson’s father Stanley and wife Charlotte left Oxford for Crouch End. They stayed only to October 1965 deciding to spend the winter with Boris, who was just over a year old at the time and newly born Rachel (September 1965) in an Exmoor cottage.

I havent (yet) been able to locate where they lived in Crouch End (a blue plaque surely beckons) but perhaps even then the Johnsons were able to detect that the area was not really the kind of place for Tories…

The Ambridge Socialist

Reporting on the class struggle in Borsetshire

29^th September

October 1^st is the start of the Peasant Shooting Season: Justin & Vince practice

October 1^st is the start of the pheasant shooting season but the ruling class of Borsetshire are not great with their ‘h’s’. Justin and Vince have had some pre-season shooting practice. Vince is spot on while Justin is useless. The class struggle by other means.

The Ambridge Socialist poll:

Lexi gives birth: It’s an Archer!!

The occasional incomer to Ambridge can sometimes be heard muttering that everyone seems to be an Archer or related to one in the village. That is of course correct. There is a Dynasty at work which can be married into but only at the price of signing over body and soul to the Dynasty.

So Lexi has given birth to Adam and Ian’s son. Adam is the son of Jennifer Aldridge and Paddy Redmond (who was definitely not an Archer). Jennifer however is the daughter of Peggy Woolley, the Godmother of Ambridge who was married to Jack Archer who ran The Bull. Hence the new baby is an Archer. How he will fit into the Ambridge Archers Squirearchy in years to come remains to be seen of course.

Abattoir crisis in Ambridge continues

The abattoir crisis continues. Justin doesn’t feel minded to tell David that his interest in the bankrupt abattoir Crowthers is so that it can be turned into offices. Lilian has had a liquid lunch with Regional animal despatcher Vince Casey at The Bull but apparently declined to reveal Justin’s plans. So far anyway

Will gives up the guns

Will has decided, prudently probably, to resign as a gamekeeper and in doing so to remove himself from guns and possible harm to himself and others. What will he do now, however?

There has been much discussion in recent days about what, if anything, the British Constitution actually is, and what the Rule of Law amounts to.

Its not a new discussion.

In the Making of the English Working Class, E P Thompson, discussed the meaning of the Rule of Law to those who fought for democratic rights in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries:

‘If law is open to rich and poor alike, said Horne Tooke, so is the London Tavern: ‘but they will give you a very sorry welcome, unless you come with money sufficient to pay for your entertainment’. But the conviction that the rule of law was the distinguishing inheritance of the ‘free-born Englishman’, and was his defence against arbitrary power, was upheld even by the Jacobins. The London Corresponding Society, in an Address of 1793, sought to define the difference in status between the English commoner and the commoner in pre-revolutionary France: ‘our persons were protected by laws, while their lives were at the mercy of every titled individual..’

Something perhaps to remind the Tories about as they meet in Conference in Manchester this week

Beard Liberation Front

press release 29th September

Contact keith flett 07803 167266

Beard Friendly Party Conference 2019: can the Tories compete?

The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that with the Party Conference season concluding with the Tories in Manchester the battle is well and truly joined again in the poll for the ‘Most Beard Friendly Party Conference’.

The BLF has had observers watching each of the main conferences, LibDems in Bournemouth, Labour in Brighton and will keep a close eye on the Tories in Manchester with the winner announced on October 2nd the final day of the Tory conference.

The title still looks set to be Labour’s to lose again with its first bearded leader since Keir Hardie stood down in 1908, as Jeremy Corbyn marks the 4^th anniversary of his election as leader.

There is an on-line poll which closes on 2nd October.

BLF Organiser Keith Flett, these are uncertain times politically and it looks like the competition for the Beard Friendly Party Conference is very much in play. However the Tories have been the party of the clean shaven since the last hirsute, Tory Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, stepped down in 1902.

Recent winners of the Beard Friendly Party Conference

2013 Liberal Democrats

2014: Liberal Democrats

2015 Labour

2016 Labour

2017 Labour

2018 Labour

2019???

London Socialist Historians

Media Release

29^th September

Contact Dr Keith Flett 07803 167266

As Tories meet on the site of Peterloo will Johnson at last acknowledge the 200^th anniversary?

The London Socialist Historians Group, which organises the socialist history seminar at the Institute of Historical Research in central London has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to acknowledge the 200^th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre and the important role it played in promoting the rise of Parliamentary Democracy in Britain.

The Conservative Party Conference meets at Manchester Central for its 2019 Conference which stands on an area that was part of where the Peterloo Massacre took place. The new monument to the Massacre by Jeremy Deller is immediately adjacent.

The Massacre in which 18 died and hundreds were injured in a protest to demand the vote took place two hundred years ago this year on 16^th August 1819. Boris Johnson was silent on the anniversary itself.

There is no question that the Conservatives have baggage when it comes to Peterloo as the man who sent the Yeomanry in on horseback to disperse the crowd, William Hulton (1787-1864) was a lifelong Tory and after the 1832 Reform Act a founder of the South Lancashire Conservative Association.

However the historians say that after 200 years a Conservative Prime Minister should at least be able to state that the Massacre was wrong and should not have happened.

London Socialist Historians Convenor Dr Keith Flett said, it would be odd indeed if the leader of a democratic political party meeting on the site of Peterloo in the 200^th anniversary year did not acknowledge both the dreadful events of that day and the important role they played in the history of British Parliamentary Democracy

Tory Party Conference: Last Orders have been called

The Tory Party Conference starts in Manchester on Sunday when it is reported that Johnson will speak after he failed to persuade MPs that they should prorogue Parliament for three working days so he could address the Conference on Wednesday.

The Peoples Assembly have called a protest

The conference is mainly, unlike Labour (or indeed on a much smaller scale the Liberal Democrats) a chance for lobbyists to have access to senior Tories, currently also Ministers. Not that many members attend and they do so as individuals not delegates

How many of these members are there actually?

We do know that in the early 1950s the Tory membership was 2.7m. These were the days before many had a TV let alone the internet and it was often a social and networking thing. That said it was also a very powerful network to spread Tory ideas informally. In some areas the ‘Conservative Club’ remains a social centre although usually only very vaguely at best connected to the Party.

As recently as March 2018 the Tory membership was reported to be 120,000 and even that was believed to be optimistic.

It was these people of an average age of somewhere between their mid-50s and early 70s (again the precise detail is unknown) overwhelmingly white and rural who voted for Johnson to replace May as Tory leader and hence become Prime Minister.

The declining number did however spur Tory chair Brandon Lewis into action. He wrote an article in the Sunday Telegraph. He is responsible for Tory organisation. As he made clear he is not actually responsible for doing it, or little would have happened. Rather he employed some people to do it.

Writing in the Telegraph on 26th May 2019 Lewis claimed that the membership had increased from 124,000 in last year to 160,000 now. Lewis suggested the growth rate has been much higher in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland than England. In England the bigger increases have been in the East Midlands and the North East. One suspects these are mainly former UKIP members seeking to make sure the Tories pursue a No Deal Brexit. The cost of joining the Tories is only £25 a year which equates to around 8 pints of lager in Brexit friendly pub chain Wetherspoons so only a little amount of drinking has to be sacrificed to pay for it.

Brandon Lewis also said that the Tories youth membership has increased by 64% with one hundred new Young Conservative Associations. I take it that previously the numbers of Young Tories must have been very low indeed and if the average age if the membership is around 70 then perhaps anyone below 60 qualifies as a Young Tory.

These are just statistics and reality provides a more useful perspective.

I’ve been a trade union activist for 40 years and up to around 20 years ago one would run across workplace representatives and activists who certainly voted Tory and in some cases were members. They invariably went on about tax cuts allowing them more freedom to spend their own money.

Such people don’t seem to exist anymore, or if they do keep very quiet about it. Likewise the Party’s elected representation on local Councils in urban Britain, which is the bedrock of mainstream party organisation in the UK, has gone.

The 2019 Tory Conference may turn out to reveal that the Party is almost over

Campaign for Real Conkers

Press Release September 28th Contact Keith Flett, 07803 167266

Conker Trees not at risk in UK, conker playing is

Photo: Hazel Potter

The Campaign for Real Conkers, the group that opposes bans on conker playing, has said that as the 2019 conker playing season is reaches a peak, with large numbers of conkers falling to ground, fake news stories about the demise of the game are again to be found.

The campaigners say that conkers is one of the most mis-reported of traditional games. For some years the false story that the Health and Safety Executive had said playing conkers was unsafe circulated and led to bans.

This year the story is that conker trees are facing extinction.

The story comes from genuine research by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Guardian has reported (27^th September)

The horse-chestnut – beloved by generations that played conkers as children – has been classified as vulnerable due to the spread of an invasive leaf-miner moth that damages its leaves. This adds to existing pressures from forest fires, tourist resort expansion and logging.

However the report goes on to underline that horse chestnut trees are actually under significant threat in three countries, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania, and certainly not at the moment in the UK

Campaigners say that the real problem is that conkers lie on the ground uncollected.

The CFRC has warned that the game of conkers is in significant decline in some areas and unless a new generation of players is found it may not exist in 20 years, well before any likely shortage of horse chestnut trees

The campaign believes that conkers is a game that is free to all play and should also be free of rules and regulations whether imposed in contests or petty bureaucrats who argue wrongly that playing conkers is in some way dangerous.

Campaign organiser Keith Flett said, the issue is not a shortage of conkers but a shortage of people prepared to give the traditional game a go. Our aim is to encourage conker games wherever we can. The season is a brief one and will be over in the next few weeks.

The Campaign for Real Conkers promotes free for all conker playing across the UK an alternative event to the World Conker Championships on Sunday October 13th where it encourages people to have a go at playing conkers without the need for rules, regulations and teams.

Where We Stand

The CFRC believes that conkers is one of the few sports that can be played for free. All that is required is a conker and some string.

It is opposed to championships, rules, regulations and commercial sponsorship.

It seeks to encourage young people to play conkers. It should not be the preserve purely of those of mature years.

‘World Conker Championships’

https://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/

London Socialist Historians

Seminars & Events Autumn 2019

While the IWGB boycott of Senate House continues (which we fully support) the London Socialist Historians are organising and supporting a number of off-site seminars and events in central London

Monday October 28^th 5.00pm David Edgerton, Some Reflections on the Rise and Fall of the British Nation, Room S 8.08, 8^th Floor, Strand Building, Kings College

Tuesday November 12^th BUIRA IS Seminar on British and German Labour Unrest pre-First World War

BUIRA History of Industrial Relations Study Group

Labour Unrest pre-First World War: Germany and the UK Compared

3.30pm for 4.00-6.00m (Tea/ coffee from 3.30)

Room tbc, University of Westminster Business School,35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS (opposite Madame Tussauds and nearly opposite Baker Street tube)

The event is free and no need to register in advance but for further details , please email Michael Gold (m.gold@rhul.ac.uk)  or Linda Clarke (clarkel@wmin.ac.uk).

Thursday 14th November 2019, Bookmarks Bookshop 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QE, time to be confirmed. Launch of Treason: Rebel Warriors and Internationalist Traitors Edited by Steve Cushion and Christian Høgsbjerg

TBA (late November) Martin Hoyles on his new book on Ira Aldridge