Layer 348 . . . Blair Again, Labour Leadership, William Hague, New Orleans, Katrina and Spike Lee

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Dear Diary, Summer's definitely over. The heat's gone and the light's beginning to dim - the days are markedly shorter. The past few days have been pleasantly warm and sunny, and the forecast is for even better weather today. But the fact is we're into autumn. August was pretty much a wash-out, with hardly a day of high pressure airstreams or real summer heat. And now we're into September - a beautiful month for sure, but it's definitely autumn. Sunflowers have turned to seed, tomatoes are struggling to ripen. Oleanders have finished flowering already.

I'm cursing yesterday's Guardian for putting Blair's mug on the front page - seriously scary.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/02/tony-blair-photography-guardian-journey

They also had a full page photo of him inside the paper - presumably a quid pro quo for the exclusive interview he gave the paper as a launching pad for his latest WMD. The guy just doesn't want to go away.

http://twitter.com/VizTopTips

"BRIGHTEN up your day by moving at least one of Tony Blair's books to the crime section in your local book shop."

The man's an appalling maniac. And I hate the way people still maintain that Blair somehow made (New) Labour 'electable'. How many times do they need to be told that a fucking three legged horse would have been electable after 17 years of Thatcher and Major and their vile crew? The country wanted rid of the Tories, and indeed it still doesn't, on the whole, want them back. It's just that New Labour became extremely UNelectable after people had woken up to the vileness of . . . New Labour. We voted Labour IN SPITE OF Blair - not BECAUSE OF him.

The Guardian's editorial yearns for David Miliband to repudiate and apologise for the New Labour awfulness. The editorial hints at a kind of Kennedyesque scenario being the outcome of the leadership election - the elder of the brothers becoming head honcho whilst the younger drives through progressive social and economic policies.

Labour leadership: Fraternal brotherhood

Labour's loss in the spring was as painful as it was inevitable

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/01/tony-blair-the-journey 

For all the achievements of the last 13 years, the country had wearied of New Labour, with its wars, its disdain for liberty and its timidity with the ruinous bankers. Tactical positioning had crowded out serious thought, and on some really big questions, such as the authoritarian erosion of civil liberties, the regime had become incapable of perceiving any problem at all.

In the end, new policies will count for more than a new personality, and the campaign's quiet success has been stirring a smidgen of intellectual life back into the party.

A [new] Labour leader will provide three things – a plausible economic plan, a grasp of the new shape of politics, and a decisive break with the Blair-Brown years.

Besides mastering the new politics, however, the next leader must dispense with the old. The younger Miliband has come into his own by drawing a line under the Blair-Brown era. In indulging plutocrats, trampling on liberties and invading Iraq, the last government got it wrong, and Ed Miliband is willing to say so, where his brother is not.

Ed Miliband's last posting as climate change secretary was a political blessing. It provided a platform on which to fight the good fight, which he did. Together with his sustained interest in narrowing the wealth gap, his brief ministerial record stirred hopes of replacing New Labour's
rudderless expediency with a more principled pragmatism.

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Other Viz Top Tips:

GOOGLE: Assist night surfers by replacing the "I'm feeling lucky" button with the "I'm feeling horny" one.

ALWAYS MASTURBATE whilst eating a carrot to cancel out any adverse effects.

BAKERS AND TOASTER MAKERS: Get together and decide what fucking size slices of bread should be and stick to it.

STEER clear of kettle chips. Just bought a packet; they turned to mush and welded themselves to the element.

PETER CROUCH - Avoid getting into trouble with Abbie Clancy when booking hotel rooms by using the alias Mr and Mr Hague.

SAVE VALUABLE TIME running water from the tap by purchasing pre-poured water in bottles.

http://twitter.com/VizTopTips

My son tells me he doesn't read Viz 'cos it childish . . .

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The William Hague thing is interesting. Very interesting. It even features high on the list on Yahoo's "Trending" page. Who'd have thought that Wee Willie could be so interesting to the general public?

As for what he's alleged to have done - who really gives a monkey's? Surely it's more worrying that he's a Tory than he's bisexual, or whatever?

Pretty poor show though - trying to prove his hetrosexuality by saying he keeps on shagging his missus but she keeps on aborting.

It seems most people just assume he's a liar.

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There were some excellent letters in the Guardian yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/01/drawing-a-line-moving-on

Polly Toynbee's spot-on tirade almost brought a lump to my throat (These vain, venal has-beens should bow out and shut up, 31 August). In May I reluctantly voted Lib Dem in the hope of creating a fairer, better politics. What made me abandon my lifelong affiliation was not any catalogue of Labour's policy mistakes, not even its mad war. It was the rancid ethos created and exuded by Blair, Brown, Mandelson and their acolytes. I'd grown to despise these men for betraying Labour's very raison d'etre, a commitment to a more just and equal society. I despised them because they didn't seem to care. For many thousands, this is the toxic legacy of Blair and co. Let's hope the new Labour leader, like Pip at the end of Great Expectations, grasps his chance to throw open the windows, let out the bad smell and let in some fresher air.

Alan Clark

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/01/opposition-must-be-ready-coalition

The trouble with the Labour leadership election is that it is difficult to see any of these affable candidates as party leader, let alone prime minister. It's hard to work out exactly what they stand for or what it is that inspires and motivates them. I struggle to find anything new or exciting in either substance or style. I wonder if I were to get to meet any of them, who would I rather have patronise me in order to gain my support?

If only one of them would have a serious bitch about something important – like what has happened to the Labour party, like the Labour MPs who have scrounged thousands out of the parliamentary expenses system, like how the rich continue to exploit the rest of us.

Democracy not just about getting people to vote for your party so you can form an administration and have a career in politics. It's about having a voice and being heard. While the candidates waffle on about being able to run capitalism more efficiently than the real capitalists in the Tory party, millions of people remain without representation and feel that nobody is listening to them.

Keith Luckey

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/01/labours-choice-chance-for-renewal

Polly Toynbee is mistaken in thinking there is not much to choose between the Miliband brothers (The Labour project now is the reverse of 1994, 28 August). In fact their differences over strategy – with David wanting to continue to pursue the centre ground, and Ed seeking a "progressive coalition" – go to the heart of Labour's problem. David's solution is a dead end, one which offers only another centre government, when the voters eventually get fed up with the Con Dems, but not very different from theirs, or Blair/Brown's. Ed offers something more leftwing that will win back the support of Labour's lost "core" vote and retain that of the "progressive" middle class. This is feasible, but only if we change the electoral system to one of full proportional representation. Under our current system parties will always pursue the centre ground to win, as elections are decided by "don't knows" in a minority of seats. It worked for Blair and Cameron, and could work for David, but it won't deliver a radical government. That requires a proportional system, where a "progressive coalition", even if it initially consists of Labour and Lib Dems, can sustain its trajectory. So vote Ed, vote AV, forward to PR. (I'm sure Ed will soon come round to it!)

Peter Rowlands

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The problem with all these candidates is that they all look like, and sound like, a load of muppets.

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Last night, to mark the anniversary of the Katrina disaster, Channel 4 screened parts 3 and 4 of Spike Lee's 4 hour documentary about what took place in New Orleans.

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/arts_entertainment/film_tv/when%20the%20levees%20broke/168015

This was Lee's attempt to let the people "have their say". What the film brilliantly shows is the appalling neglect and incompetence by all levels of government and their agencies - leading up to the disaster, during it, and afterwards.

Wynton Marsalis, who really does have a way with words, said,

"In this moment we see a lot of what's wrong with this country."

Indeed we do. It's hard to consider America a civilised country when it has such incredible levels of poverty, inequality, neglect, filth, destitution, unhappiness and bitterness.

There were amazing stories of searches not being done properly, new mobile homes piled up in depots and not distributed for months on end, electricity not being reconnected, insurance companies refusing to pay out, levees not being reconstructed adequately, properties being bulldozed and people being evicted so that neighbourhoods could be gentrified, etc. Horrendous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Levees_Broke
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Layer 337 . . . Music, Spiritual and Emotional Intelligence, Synchronicity, Wynton Marsalis, John Besh, Culinary Arts, BP, Big Oil, and Grand Prix

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"Music teaches us that we all have two lives: our internal lives and our external lives." - Wynton Marsalis (Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, October 18, 1961)
http://www.wyntonmarsalis.org/

Synchronicity

This is how synchronicity works.

First thing in the morning the London Review of Books arrives on the doormat, and for breakfast I voraciously read its lead article, a review of "The Rise and Fall of French Cuisine", by Michael Steinberger. The book is an account of the influence of the French approach to food and eating, and whether it's been overtaken by innovative approaches to the culinary arts by masterchefs in Japan, Britain and the USA. Apparently there are now more Michelin three-star restaurants in Tokyo than there are in Paris - 11 of them to be precise.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n15/steven-shapin/down-to-the-last-cream-puff

"France taught Americans how to eat. The lessons were about more than just eating well; they were about living well. It was never merely about the food, and the idea that there was nothing mere about food, that food was never merely fuel, was lesson number one."

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For lunch I devour a superb 'diary' piece in the LRB, written by Rebecca Solnit, on the reality of the BP Gulf of Mexico blowout, and what it means for people living along the coast of Louisiana, and in particular New Orleans.

"The blowout is about global capital, and about policy, and about the Bush-era corruption that turned the Minerals Management Service into a crony-ridden camp that didn’t do its job, and about Big Oil, and about a host of other things. But it is also about the destruction we’ve all seen in the images, which are horrible in a deep and primordial way. I went out on boats twice and saw an oiled pelican through binoculars and some faint oily traces on wetlands grass and couldn’t quite make out the oiled terns in the distance. And I saw what everyone else could see too, the photographs and footage from those who went to Ground Zero of this catastrophe.

Mary Douglas said that dirt is matter out of place, and petroleum is out of place everywhere above ground. We design our lives around not seeing it even when we pump it into our cars and burn it, and when we do encounter it, it’s repulsive stuff with a noxious smell, a capacity to cause conflagrations, and a deadly impact. Nature kindly put a huge amount of the earth’s carbon underground, and we have for the past 200 years been putting it back into the atmosphere faster and faster, even though we now know that this is a project for which words like ‘destructive’ are utterly inadequate."

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n15/rebecca-solnit/diary

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At supper time there's a wonderful programme on Sky Arts 1, part of the Iconoclasts series produced by Robert Redford, featuring jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and masterchef/businessman/philanthropist John Besh, both of whom were born and brought up in New Orleans, and reflect upon the importance New Orleans has had on their lives and work.

Change the way you see celebrity. Iconoclasts is the innovative series in which some of today's top creative talent meets those people who have inspired them. In this episode from Series 3, legendary jazz musician Wynton Marsalis meets chef John Besh

This is the third season of the critically-acclaimed series, Iconoclasts. A series of intimate, unpredictable portraits of creative visionaries whose passion for what they do has transformed our culture.

Both of these guys are passionate about what they do, but modest about their outstanding achievements. Both are inspirational speakers and team leaders, as they see themselves. Both give full credit to their entire teams and point out that without their colleagues they couldn't function. Both are non-religious, but full of spiritual intelligence.

Wynton Marsalis has written a book , "“Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life”.

http://thewatchery.blogspot.com/2008/09/movados-ambassador-wynton-marsalis.html

http://www.skyarts.co.uk/film-docs/print/iconoclasts-wynton-marsalis-meets-john-besh/iconoclasts-wynton-marsalis-meets-john-besh

To be fair, that's not really how synchronicity works. That's about what synchronicity can look like in practice. It's also about the zeitgeist. Nobody knows how synchronicity works. Not even Carl Jung.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

http://www.carl-jung.net/synchronicity.html

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Emotional Intelligence.

We know plenty about how emotional intelligence works, or fails to work.

Michael Schumacher is not so much lacking in emotional intelligence as practically psychopathic in his complete ruthlessness and contempt for those he considers his inferiors. Even to the point of putting their lives in danger.

The good thing about his return to F1 is the opportunity he has given himself to reveal his true nature (again) and expose himself for what he truly is. He's made so many enemies down the years it's not surprising they're now willing to lay into him whenever an opportunity presents itself.

At today's Hungarian GP, for example. Racing for 10th place and a single world championship point, he first of all blocked Rubens Barrichelo for several laps, and then tried to put him into the pit wall when Barrichelo finally got close enough to slipstream him and overtake on his inside. For a split second Barrichelo had to decide whether to stand on his brakes at 180mph whilst running on the 'hard shoulder", and risk spinning his car into the wall, or continue his overtake and risk smashing into Schumacher. Being the skilled driver he is, Rubens squeezed past and then swerved back onto the track, whilst keeping his car under control.

After the race, various F1 drivers were asked about Schumacher's behaviour, and all condemned him outright. The majority also seemed to say, "But what else can you expect of Schumacher?".

Schumacher himself brushed the accusations aside by saying, "You know me - I always fight hard against my opponents". To which one can only say, "Michael old bean, it's not about fighting as such - it's about how you fight, you dirty bastard".

Thankfully, two other German drivers utterly condemned his behaviour - Alexander Wurtz and Nico Hulkenberg, whose manager also manages Schumacher. Wurtz said,  "This is not what the sport needs! There are some lines you shouldn't cross. If Michael didn't see what was happening behind him then his mirrors must be illegal, or he has something wrong with his eyesight and should be declared unfit to drive".

The German driver who's opinion on the incident wasn't solicited is Sebastian Vettel. As Eddie Jordan pointed out, Vettel has several times this season tried to block other drivers or push them towards the edge of the track. Plus there was the notorious incident when he deliberately steered into his team mate to try to intimidate him, a la Schumacher - causing both of them to crash whilst leading the race. It's not hard to see who his role model is.

Typical of comments on today's incident (on the web) was,

"As Rubens said, he [Schumacher] was closing the door - edit slamming it - too late, having deliberately left it ajar. He knows he can only change line once, so he was inviting him to come through in a position on the track that he could try intimidation to block the move, Dirty Dick Dastardly, ask Damon Hill/Jacque V.

"If you try and pass I'll have you off" always was and always will be his modus operandi. Nothing has changed except the position he is fighting for. Bit pathetic really, Rubens is a fine example of how an "elder statesman" of F1 should conduct himself, the Big Chinned one is just becoming an embarrasment. I was looking forward to viewing his "second life, beginning to wonder why now."

http://www.pistonheads.com/GASSING/topic.asp?h=0&f=42&t=800273&i=140&mid=0&nmt=How%20many%20races%20until%20Schumacher%20has/does%20one%20of%20his%20%22stunts%22

Last season, when he was new and fresh and just a rising star, Vettel impressed people with his ability and his enthusiasm, just as Schumacher had impressed in his first season in the sport. This season, however, now that he thinks he ought to be winning races and leading the F1 championship, Vettel is showing his lack of experience and lack of emotional intelligence. Especially when you compare him with guys like Button and Hamilton, whom I've praised in previous blogs for their high levels of maturity and emotional & spiritual intelligence. Which some people call simply "attitude".

Vettel screwed up badly today - in his own words he "fell asleep" - by not following the right distance behind the safety car when it was deployed. He was somewhat calmer whilst talking about the incident after the race, that's to say, after his team had let him know he was definitely at fault.

During the race, however, it was a different story. There were angry, petulant, immature and irresponsible words and actions whilst behind the wheel at racing speed. During his drive-through penalty he was even seen taking his hands off the wheel and shaking them as though demented, whilst shouting and ranting - "What did I do? What did I do?"

When interviewed about his driver's behaviour after the race his team boss, Christian Horner, said - "He's a young guy. He's still very emotional." As if that tells us anything.

We've seen lots of young guys in their first couple of years of F1 racing who nevertheless show that they have plenty of emotional intelligence, and plenty of humility. Hulkenberg seems to be one, as were Hamilton and Button. Being emotionally intelligent is being able to keep a lid on your anger, and behave professionally whilst at work. Preferably also when not at work. But if you can't conduct yourself responsibly, calmly, considerately and thoughtfully, and keep destructive and egocentric, not to say childish, emotions like anger under control whilst doing your job in a dangerous profession where lives are at risk, then you ought to be suspended until you learn how to.

Will Vettel ever learn? The almighty sulk on his face in the post-race TV interviews, after he'd come third instead of winning the race as he should have done (had he not "fallen asleep"), doesn't bode well. Mark Webber, who was the winner, thoroughly deserved to do so, especially as a reward for the way he showed real emotional intelligence and amazing self-control prior to last week's race when his team decided to take from his car an experimental prototype front wing and put it on the car of Vettel, his so-called team mate. They did this on the grounds that Vettel was ahead on points in the championship, and therefore more likely to win the championship for himself and the team. How stupid that decision by his team manager now looks.

Webber won that race regardless (thanks to Vettel spending energy at the start trying to block Webber instead of concentrating on staying in front from pole position). He's now won 4 races this season to Vettel's two, and now leads the championship.

Another guy who showed incredible restraint and emotional intelligence last week was Felipe Massa, who showed hardly a blip of anger after his team had virtually ordered him to let his team mate Alonso go past him, also on the grounds that Massa had more championship points and was therefore better placed to win the championship.

Schumacher has been given a penalty by the race stewards for his behaviour today - being demoted 10 places on the starting grid in the next race. Let's hope by some miracle he qualifies 1st and not 20th. Someone else has commented that they hope he qualifies 20th and has to start behind the safety car. Let's hope he pisses off again at the end of this season, if not before.
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Layer 79 Spiders, Government, Doctor John and the Dome.

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Having a shower last Saturday I noticed a medium sized black spider, not the common or garden variety, hanging around where the wall tiles meets the ceiling. I’ve never seen a spider in the bathroom before, and have never seen any flies in their either, for that matter.

Nevertheless, as the shower filled with steamy damp air, the spider became very active and started dropping down on a line all the way to the water control knob, attaching the line, and then climbing back up to where it started, then down again, and so on. It had attached about 4 or 5 lines by the time I’d finished showering, by the time I needed to crank the water knob back round to the off position and destroy all its work.

Unlike Robert The Bruce, who was seemingly inspired by the persistence of a spider, I could only conclude what a futile and desperate business life on earth is, for the most part. The spider dumbly assumed the shower control, and the shower cubicle for that matter, would make a suitable website. Think of all the dumb things we humans think, and do, and waste our time doing.

Wikipedia has some interesting stuff on Robert The So-Called Bruce, who’s never been what I would see as an inspirational figure. Wiki says,

On 21 March 2008, Dr. Bruce Durie, academic manager of genealogical studies at the University of Strathclyde, opined in The Guardian, "that despite his romantic reputation, Robert the Bruce was an absolute scoundrel". "The first thing he did after taking power was destroy Stirling castle and he was a self-serving, vainglorious opportunist who was determined to be king at any cost," Durie added. Sounds like most of the politicians who are striving for power and influence today.

As a non-historian who’s now more able to read history, the first thing I notice when I take time to read about ancient times is how appallingly nasty and violent life was for the majority of people, especially when the so-called leaders and monarchs spent most of their time planning to attack and kill people in order to increase their power and prestige.

Spiders ought to be role models in that they catch insects only in order to stay alive, insects that arguably catch themselves by venturing into sticky webs, and they have no wish to dominate, control and exploit other spiders.

Robert’s ego, of course, let him imagine that the spider was an inspiration to make even greater efforts in his self-serving murderous quest to become the head honcho. From the average peasant’s point of view it doesn’t matter a damn which particular King, ruler or oligarch is in power and using brute force to maintain their ascendancy and exploit the population in general. The struggle for existence goes on regardless.

As is the case today, of course.

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Major news at the weekend was a meeting of head honchos from around the globe, getting together to discuss what’s to be done about the world-wide financial crisis, and the planetary chaos that’s been unleashed now that the tipping point has been crossed.

Bringing order to chaos that’s the inevitable result of worldwide deregulation of finance and capitalism is a pretty tall order. We have a European Parliament, and there are regional forums on every continent - so why not a World Parliament? Is there any other way of ensuring a world order that’s based on human values, justice, peace, love and concern for the weakest? Because that’s not what we have in the world.

First, of course, we’d have to agree on a guiding ideology. Maybe the current situation will be a big enough shock and a spur to do just that. Even our own Chancellor of the Exchequer is now talking about “economic imbalances”, which I take to mean economic injustice and desperate poverty in too many countries. At least these things are under discussion in certain quarters. And there’s more chance of these issues of justice and human values being addressed in the big one, the USA, if Obama wins the presidency.

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The real power on the planet, however, is wielded by wierdos and werewolves like the super-rich and their henchmen - the oligarchs of every nation, along with the Rothschilds, the Bullingdon cliques, the Mandlesons and so on.

Marina Hyde, whose writing in The Guardian is invariably funny as well as bullshit-revealing, had this to say on Saturday:

Even a Bullingdon baronet can struggle in the rarefied air above democracy.

Osborne's Corfugate error was to break the club rules of the powerful rich who, sweetly, let political types appear important.

Poor George Osborne. He is a sort of anti-Groucho Marx. One cannot help but suspect he has spent his life desperately caring to belong to clubs that don't really want him as a member.

To class Osborne as socially out of his depth in all of this might seem odd: he has led a gilded life, after all. But reading this tale of yachts and billionaires and people who need not trouble themselves with anything so vulgar as democracy, he seems a mere parvenu, whose maladroit grasp of etiquette now threatens to destroy him

George's family are in wallpaper. Trade, I suppose you'd call it for a laugh, and though he wouldn't be required to use the back entrance - his father is the 17th baronet - there is much to suggest he has always been more Charles Ryder than Sebastian Flyte.

At the Bullingdon Club he was known as Oik, on account of having gone to St Paul's as opposed to somewhere proper like Eton or Harrow. It's only surmise, but one suspects he was rather more often the Bullingdon's raggee than the ragger, with one such ragging a neat metaphor for what has been happening to him all week. The young Osborne was held upside down by his fellow members, who banged his head on the floor each time he failed to answer correctly the question: "What are you?" He got it eventually. The unexpurgated answer was: "I am a despicable cunt."

Whatever goes on in the rarefied air above democracy will always be politicians' dirty little secret. If it wasn't such a dirty big one, that is. The only mystery is why we seem to restrict use of the word oligarch to Russians.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/25/osborne-rothschild-deripaska-corfu

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This weekend was New Orleans weekend in London, or some parts of it, at least. American football was in town, with the New Orleans Saints (geddit?) playing the San Diego Pirates at Wembley. I’m not sure why. The game, on Sunday, was televised by the BBC, and was quite entertaining, if you like that kind of thing, but the real entertainment was at the O2 where Festival New Orleans was taking place on Friday and Saturday, with the best and most legendary New Orleans musicians having been flown in to perform free concerts in the concourse areas of the dome throughout those two days.

It was an absolute gift to people like me who’ve been wanting to see Dr John play live for decades. Whilst I’d much rather have seen him in some little club, like Ronnie Scott’s, the temporary Dome stage (not the O2 auditorium itself) with its poor acoustics and cavernous space was just fine, or at least adequate. Dr John’s live album, “Trippin’ Live”, was, incidentally, recorded at Ronnie Scott’s in 1997, and is a brilliant piece of work, as was this concert on Saturday.

The best American blues and jazz musicians just have a quality that’s truly arresting and outstanding. The drumming and bass playing was tight and crisp, languid almost, and yet dynamic. The guitarist was a good soloist. The horn section adds another dimension, especially when the trumpet, sax and trombone can also play fine solos.

And of course there’s Dr John’s piano and Hammond, ranging from good-time upbeat grooves to delicate, edgy, soulful blues. He was in really fine voice too, though not really comfortable in such a strange venue, I suspect. Certainly there was relatively little communication and rapport with the audience going on.

Unlike Alan Toussaint, who preceded him on stage, who spent part of his set joyfully flinging New Orleans memorabilia - Mardi Gras masks, etc, - into the crowd.

A fairly strange crowd it was too. Ranging from same-generation long-time fans who seemed to find a spot and stay there transfixed and enthralled throughout the set, to youngish folks who spent most of their time hyperactively pushing and shoving backward and forward through the throng, annoying the hell out of the people they were jostling, who were actually trying to concentrate on the music.

Which is what happens when you give a free concert and people just turn up because they’ve got nothing better to do on that particular night - people who know nothing about the music to begin with and whose cloth ears can’t appreciate the quality of what’s going down.

The dome complex itself - tacky, gaudy and visually quite nasty; full of over-priced fast food outlets, cafes and ‘bars’ of various ‘international’ persuasions - seems permanently full of grim-looking young people congregating in an effort to ‘have fun’. It’s a kind of out-of-town ‘leisure’ complex where people shove their way through a fairly narrow ‘street’ full of chain outlets, in the hope that something enjoyable will ensue. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to it in the ‘recession’. Probably not much.

Incidentally, I loved the story about Mandleson, Osborn, Rothschild and Deripaska, the King of Russian Aluminium, leaving the ‘yacht’ and going out to eat in a 60 Euro per head taverna on one of the Greek islands. As one commentator said, that’s a bit like paying £50 each in a hamburger joint.
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