The Ambridge Socialist
18th August
A balance sheet of David Archer at 60.
David Archer is celebrating his 60th birthday but how should we draw a balance sheet of his impact on Ambridge?
Murdered a badger
Pushed Nigel Pargetter of Lower Loxley Roof
Kept The Bull going with a loan
Played a key role in keeping capitalist agriculture going in Ambridge
Marmite Defence League
18th August
Contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
Marmite Defence League hails new method of using 100% of the delicious contents of a jar
The Marmite Defence League has hailed a new method of making sure that all the delicious contents are emptied from a Marmite jar.
Traditionally it has been difficult to extract the last few servings from a jar.
However a social media suggestion from @casioroee has suggested that the problem can be solved by placing the marmite jar on its side.
With the jar left on its side the marmite left at the bottom of the jar will slide alongside its side towards the top
MDL spokesperson Keith Flett, we welcome this development as important news for all marmite lovers
Where we stand on Marmite
Marmite is a natural product deriving from brewer’s yeast. It is historically a by-product of brewing
It was ‘invented’ by a German scientist Justus von Liebig
Originally Marmite was derived from the Bass brewery in Burton on Trent.
Marmite is salty but also has some health enhancing elements to it including vitamins.
Its recent marketing focuses on a ‘love it or hate it’ element to Marmite, and it is a ‘which side are you on’ food.
The Ambridge Socialist
All the news of the class struggle in Borsetshire
18th August
David Archer is 60
David Archer, aka the Earl of Portland, is set to mark his 60th birthday apparently by going to a Dr Feelgood gig. No doubt his murder of Nigel Pargetter, and earlier, a badger, will not be featuring in coverage of his birthday celebrations.
Ambridge Socialist bid excluded from Ambridge Conservation Trust shortlist
The Ambridge Socialist bid for ACT funding has been blocked at the shortlist stage. Our plan to plant hop fields with the new Borsetshire hop Bert19 and cider apple orchards with Tumble Tussocks will now go out to a crowdfunding exercise. We will not be stopped by the Ambridge bourgeoisie.
Saint Shula is pursuing Vicardom
Saint Shula is pursuing her calling. The Ambridge Socialist has no issue with those who are religious and those who are not. However we’d prefer not hear too much about it on the BBC…
It’s the shooting season
The 12th August termed ‘glorious’ by some is the start of the annual grouse shooting season. It is a matter of considerable controversy focused around whether grouse moors create rural jobs and boost the economy or simply drain off public subsidies and destroy the environment. That’s without considering the grouse who may cease to exist as a result..
Ten years ago in 2009 Brian Aldridge was found planning a day’s shooting of Partridge later in August. Ambridge has no moorland, or grouse, but it certainly has shooting and game birds to shoot, at least if game keeper Will Grundy has been doing his job and his father hasn’t poached them.
Yet under the 1831 Game Act the Partridge shooting season doesnt start until 1st September.
The Daily Telegraph became quite excited about Brian 2009 faux pas:
After certain events which saw Brian narrowly avoid jail he is no longer Chair of Borsetshire Land and no longer responsible for gamekeeper Will Grundy.
Grundy now reports to the even more dubious Martyn Gibson.
The Ambridge Socialist will be listening to the Archers with particular interest over the next few weeks to see if any shoots of game birds do take place
In Other News
There has been a ShedEd party at Susan’s
Susan is continuing to pursue a vendetta against Ed Grundy. Neil has intervened.
Brine has broken the tractor. Josh can help, for a feee
Kate has had a further meeting with Jakob the vet
How the (Tory) Manchester Council marked the 150th anniversary of Peterloo in 1969
On the 150th anniversary of Peterloo in 1969 Manchester Council was, unusually, run by the Tories. The unpopularity of Harold Wilson’s Labour Government had led to a Tory landslide in 1968 local elections.
The Secretary of Manchester Labour Party had inquired, according to a Guardian report of March 28th 1969, of the Town Clerk whether anything was planned for the anniversary.
The report notes that Alderman Mrs Nellie Beer, the Tory chairwoman of the Town Hall Committee had opined ‘I don’t think a lot will be done. I have no very strong feelings about it. There is always somebody who wants to commemorate something’.
Ms Beer apparently wanted to celebrate something constructive, in particular the 50th anniversary In 1969 of the first Atlantic air crossing which she described as ‘a fine achievement of two very young people’.
By contrast Deputy Leader of Manchester Labour Group Norman Morris countered that Peterloo underlined that ‘the working-class would have to fight for any amelioration of their conditions’.
The Guardian report noted that ‘any celebrations are likely to be a minor key’. This included the Central Library compiling a bibliography on the subject and mounting an exhibition’.
In the event a commemoration was held in the Free Trade Hall in August 1969 with folk singers including Leon Rosselson and speakers such as Michael Foot but it was certainly not organised by the Council.
Update
promoter of 1969 Peterloo concert was “Manchester Sports Guild” which ran Manchester’s main jazz, folk and blues venue on Long Millgate. (I suspect then as now there was a fair degree of intersection between folk audience and trade unionists) library.folknorthwest.co.uk/peterloo.htm
Thanks to @langrabbie on Twitter
Update 2
Leon Rosselson has kindly provided a note of the event
I found the programme of the event. It cost one shilling. 16 August 1969. It seems to have been something of a theatrical performance, scripted for the most part, with a narrator, songs interspersed with dramatic interventions – readings from the speeches of Henry Hunt and Samuel Bamford, extracts from the Manchester Gazette, the Manchester Mercury & the Times, the names of those killed… The songs mentioned in the programme, sung by Harry Boardman who was local, included The Handloom Weavers’ Lament, The Frame Knitters’ Petition, Four Loom Weaver, The Handloom Versus the Power Loom &, of course, With Henry Hunt We’ll Go. According to the programme, I finished the first half`: “Leon Rosselson presents some of his own songs which will bring to the audience the fact that even today there is still some struggle to be waged & won.” So no wiser as to which songs. Palaces of Gold almost certainly.
Beard Liberation Front
Press release August 18th contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
BAUM, Beard Assistant Umpire sees Jofra Archer added to Beard of the Ashes poll
The Beard Liberation Front has said that the Beard of the 2019 Ashes is on-line.
There is all to play for as front runner Moeen Ali has been dropped by England and Australia’s David Warner is suffering a beard crisis after a trim led him to lose form.
After a reference to the Beard Assistant Umpire (BAUM) it has been decided that England pace bowler Jofra Archer’s facial hair counts as a beard and he has been added to the poll
The campaigners say that things have moved on significantly since the last Home Beard of the Ashes poll in 2015.
Then former England captain Sir Alastair Cook and fast bowler Mark Wood tied for the coveted accolade of Beard of the Ashes 2015.
The highest ranked Australian player in 2015 was Nathan Lyon. His beard while adequate was inconsistent in terms of impact and delivery over the Five Match series.
In general the Australian team in 2015 made the serious error of becoming more clean shaven with each match, with David Warner shaving his moustache before the Oval game.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, after the BAUM decision we can say that Jofra Archer’s beard looks like a serious contender for Beard of the Ashes 2019
The poll is open now and the winner will be announced on the Sunday of the final Oval Test in September
Beard of the Ashes 2019
Ben Stokes, England
David Warner, Australia
Rory Burns, England
Matthew Wade, Australia
Jonny Bairstow, England
Moeen Ali, England
Travis Head, Australia
Jofra Archer, England
After two weeks The Times discovers Peterloo does have ‘wider historical significance’
Two weeks ago on 3rd August The Times published an Editorial on the 200th anniversary of Peterloo which claimed it had ‘no wider historical significance’.
The Editorial was widely criticised although the paper failed to publish letters from several authorities in Peterloo in response.
Now just two weeks later The Times has discovered Peterloo does indeed still have significance as The Times report of events on that Manchester Monday ‘transformed British politics’.
It is I suppose reassuring that there is still progress in history, even at The Times
It was a shameful act. Contrary to the BBC’s demonology, however, it had no wider historical significance and did not “change Britain” beyond feeding a tendentious account by left-wing historians of Britain’s traditions of radical protest.
Times Editorial 3rd August
Newspapers exist to describe and analyse, rather than change, the course of history.
But the Times report on the Peterloo Massacre of August 16, 1819, is an exception: the paper’s depiction of the events in Manchester that day not only still stands as the definitive eyewitness account, it also made news, transformed British politics, and altered the way the nation saw itself.
Ben Macintyre The Times 17th August
The facial hair question at Peterloo
When Red Saunders organised the Manchester shoot for the latest in his Hidden series of historical tableaux, on Peterloo, I know he paid particular care to the issue of facial hair in terms of the participants.
Mike Leigh, the famously hirsute Director of Peterloo the film, has told The Guardian that shaving is amongst other things a waste of resources.
So is there is a facial hair angle to Peterloo? The question is rather less frivolous than might be thought.
The most well-known leader of Chartism Feargus O’Connor frequently began addresses to Chartist gatherings by noting the ‘fustian (cotton) jackets, unshorn chins and blistered hands’ of those present. Their appearance indicated that they were working men and hence Chartists
The ‘Gentleman Leaders’ (in effect full-time financially independent political organisers) of radicalism and then Chartism were invariably clean shaven. I don’t recall ever seeing an image of Henry Hunt, the main speaker at Peterloo, arrested and jailed afterwards, as anything but clean shaven.
One of the main chroniclers of Peterloo Samuel Bamford, who was there on the day (with partner Jemima) but who only wrote about it several decades later, was certainly hirsute in later life and indeed before Peterloo. Whether he had a beard on 16th August 1819 and how that would have fitted with his perspective of his role on the day isn’t known.
It was a matter of facial hair distinguishing between leaders and led, although by the mid-Victorian period leaders too had started to have beards.
We obviously have no photographic evidence of Peterloo but we can at least look at Mike Leigh’s film
Henry Hunt is clean shaven as a Gentleman Leader would be expected to be. Samuel Bamford has a beard, which is sometimes did have. The Yeomanry were obviously clean shaven but the army- the Hussars- had sideburns and handlebar moustaches. The magistrates were clean shaven but William Hulton (foolish Country squire, The Guardian) their chairman had stylish sideburns.
Beard Liberation Front
Press release August 17th contact Keith Flett 07803 167266
Beard of the Ashes 2019 poll wide open as Warner has beard crisis & Moeen dropped
The Beard Liberation Front has said that the Beard of the 2019 Ashes is on-line.
There is all to play for as front runner Moeen Ali has been dropped by England and Australia’s David Warner is suffering a beard crisis after a trim led him to lose form
The campaigners say that things have moved on significantly since the last Home Beard of the Ashes poll in 2015.
Then former England captain Sir Alastair Cook and fast bowler Mark Wood tied for the coveted accolade of Beard of the Ashes 2015.
The highest ranked Australian player in 2015 was Nathan Lyon. His beard while adequate was inconsistent in terms of impact and delivery over the Five Match series.
In general the Australian team in 2015 made the serious error of becoming more clean shaven with each match, with David Warner shaving his moustache before the Oval game.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, unless Steve Smith grows a beard, which seems unlikely, the coveted Beard of the Ashes title looks wide open
The poll is open now and the winner will be announced on the Sunday of the final Oval Test in September
Beard of the Ashes 2019
Ben Stokes, England
David Warner, Australia
Rory Burns, England
Matthew Wade, Australia
Jonny Bairstow, England
Moeen Ali, England
Peter Fonda (1940-2019) the man who moved facial hair out of the 1960s
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has paid tribute to the actor Peter Fonda who has died aged 79.
The campaigners say that in one of his best-known roles in the film Easy Rider, Fonda’s iconic sideburns moved facial hair on from the flowing organic beards of the 1960s to the more sharply defined and styled hirsuteness of the 1970s designed to grapple with the end of the post-war economic boom.
According to Charles Bramesco writing in The Guardian (15th July 2019)
Situated at the end of its decade, Easy Rider literally and symbolically marks the turning point at which the idealism of the 60s curdled into the indulgent solipsism of the 70s. Though Wyatt and Billy’s long hair, sideburns, and far-out couture outwardly align them with the flower children and estrange them from squares at small-town diners giving disapproving looks, they’re far from avatars of peace and love.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Peter Fonda will be remembered for his acting but his facial hair in Easy Rider informed a generation
Sleeping on the site of Peterloo
I was at the TUC in Manchester in 2018 and stayed with my union delegation in a nearby hotel, the Radisson in Peter St. So far so far perfectly usual. You have to stay somewhere. Note however the address: Peter St. The Radisson is on the site of the old Free Trade Hall. Nowadays just the front facade of the Hall stands. I attended trade union meetings there in the 1980s but I am of course far too young to have heard Dylan in 1966.
The Free Trade Hall itself was built on the site of the Peterloo Massacre that took place on 16th August 1819. It was the HQ of the Anti-Corn Law League and Manchester liberalism. Disraeli made a famous ‘one-nation’ Conservatism speech there and later the Hall was the base for the Halle Orchestra
A small plaque on the outside wall marks the occasion. Inside there are ‘of course’ hotel meeting rooms including those named ‘Peterloo’ ‘Bamford’ and ‘Hunt’.
Sleeping in the hotel was a slightly odd experience given what had taken place there 200 years ago. Possibly only in Britain though could it end up being marked by the names of meeting rooms. This was not I think what Henry Hunt or Samuel Bamford had in mind on that August Monday
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