[talking shop] we’re visiting you next week

Our President and my Minister [for Trade] are coming over your way next week, those of you in London, for an Investment Summit and to have a chat with Ian McCartney, Lord Walker and others. So if you see them out for their morning constitutional around the streets of Mayfair, say hello and maybe you know some good tearooms in the area to have a natter about trade, investment and Wigan Rugby Club. They'll no doubt have some EU identities with them as well at the time so make sure you take enough cash. I’m currently preparing for this event so posting might be light today.

[us blogs] feminism and pornography – strange bedfellows

This one’s a bit complicated for non-American bloggers: There’s a blogger, right? He, a male; he’s pro-feminist and he’s a cartoonist. But he’s losing the feministi readership [I think] and so he has to think quickly – throw himself on the mercy of the feminists? Advertise? What? He cuts a deal with a pornographer and he uses one part of his site and the pornographer the other. To get to this you must go through some links: the allure of turning Internet pimp. Now Vox Day has run the piece and commented: ... demonstrating yet again for those who have not yet figured it out that feminism is nothing more than a tool used by corrupt men to make use of maleducated women who are silly enough to believe in the magic fairy unicorn with the rainbow-colored horn named "Empowerment". Has to be one of the more classic comments I’ve seen on the illogicality of feminism .

[hm revenue] bureaucratic highhandedness crushes builder

Mr. Eugenides has drawn our attention to a particularly nauseating and egregious piece of bureaustuffup: Last week a High Court Judge ruled in a test case that Cumbrian Builder, Neil Martin had suffered from maladministration and incompetence at the hands of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (The Revenue) in failing to provide him with correct documentation under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS Scheme). Without a Certificate his company’s cash flow was massively disrupted. Despite findings that, the Revenue had delayed for 52 days and given him bad advice, he found that it owed no duty of care in negligence and were effectively immune from legal action. Neil Martin was not entitled to one penny to compensate him for the Revenue’s blunders which had caused financial ruin. Eventually he was compensated £55, which Mr. E calls a particularly sick joke. I have a similar tale about Royal Mail but let’s just stick to this one first. Would you look at Mr. E’s article in full and then carry something on your site? Then we can get the message out.

[cleese] gutless radio these days

John Cleese has told a radio conference in Sydney that networks were too willing to play safe with the programs they put to air. "Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love radio. But it has certainly lost its willingness to go with its gut instinct on what makes good radio," said Cleese, who started writing for radio in the '60s for shows such as I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again. "There is too much reliance on marketing rather than taking chances with new, edgy talent. And the worst thing is, I don't know how it can be reversed." Cleese said both television and radio relied too much on marketers. "This is a major problem around the world," he said. It leads to restrictions on programming and prevents radio from being the brilliant and vibrant medium it can be. The only advice I can give is for radio stations to take a chance with young talent and give them their head. Cleese said the BBC's anarchic The Goon Show, made in the 1950s and starring Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe, was the best radio comedy show in history.

[oil] over $59 a barrel

Oil prices rose above $59 a barrel Friday after Norway ordered production shut down at two offshore platforms, reducing flows by about 10 percent from the world's third-largest oil exporter. A decline in U.S. inventories of distillate, which includes heating oil, also played a part in the rally of more than $1 a barrel, and traders continued to watch OPEC for any sign that the cartel will cut output. Saudi Arabia _ the largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries _ has yet to publicly confirm repeated statements from OPEC's president that members are "nearing consensus" on how to divvy up a 1 million-barrel-a-day reduction. Light sweet crude for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange gained $1.42 to $59.28 a barrel. In London, November Brent crude on the ICE Futures exchange rose 99 cents to $59.73 a barrel. If you read the earlier article, you know how Bush is trying to get America thinking ‘alternative’ to oil. This so blatantly holds a muzzle to the consumer's head that I'm amazed there's no outcry. Or are the exporters actually altruistically forcing the consumer to stop polluting the atmosphere?

[dannatt] closer to the truth than most

Lieutenant General Sir Richard Dannatt

Certain things in Sir Richard’s statement struck me – he warned against a spiritual "vacuum" in the UK that he believes is posing a threat to a society no longer bound together by the Christian religion, and complained that the treatment of wounded soldiers in NHS hospitals breaks the unwritten "covenant" between the nation and its armed forces.

Sir Richard added, "It is said that we live in a post-Christian society. I think that is a great shame. The broader Judaic-Christian tradition has underpinned British society. It underpins the British Army."

This is very much what Minette Marrin has been writing about and which this blog strongly endorses.

Unfortunately, certain of my fellow bloggers, of humanistic, leftist and atheistic leanings might not pick up on these words as central to the issue and might concentrate on the 'attack on Blair angle'; I have read many of their solutions for society’s ills and though I respect these men and women as people, yet Sir Richard’s take is closer than anything else I’ve read of late.