Layer 421 . . . People Power, By-Election, Miliband, Obama, America, Wikipedia and Intelligence

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Tunisia

"A lesson in people power - from the Arab world!" said the Channel 4 correspondent. Non-violent demonstrations "led by the secular middle class" have deposed the President, who has now left the country.
The protests were over unemployment, rising prices, lack of proper democracy, and State repression.

Interesting lesson . . .

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By-Election Non Shock
So the Oldham and Saddleworth result turned out pretty much as expected. So what?

I watched the studio discussion after the results came in. The Tory talking head was decent, but witless, and said nothing of interest or impact. The Labour guy was also uninspiring. This was worrying - the fact that Ed Miliband thinks so highly of Sadiq Khan and yet he seems callow, unprepossessing and lacking in style as well as substance. Of course Ed thinks that Khan, being of minority ethnic origins, is a good choice to speak after an election in an area such as O & S. He's not. He's another young politico burning with ambition and guile, and not much else. At least that's what comes across from the TV. Not an attractive personality. Not a good speaker. Not convincing.

The LibDem guy was the most interesting in that he simply twaddled on about the LibDem vote holding up - which was clearly not the case. Why let him get away with it? It's perfectly obvious that it was tactical Tory voting that kept the LibDem vote somewhat respectable. Why bullshit about this? Why not just admit that  thousands of Labour voters who either abstained or voted LibDem in order to get rid of Brown and New Labour are now back in the fold? Why not admit that thousands of people, including lots of first-time voters, who voted LibDem in order to break the Lab-Con monopoly are appalled at what the LibDems have done within the coalition, and will never vote for them again?

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And then there was Ed Miliband giving a few comments this morning. Not good, Ed! Talking about voters being against the coalition on account of the VAT increases and tuition fees. For fuck's sake - these are the minor issues! He should be hammering the coalition at every opportunity about the vicious budget cuts, and their determination to shrink State spending at a moment when it's vital it should be broadly maintained (apart from legitimate cutting of waste and crap projects). He should be hammering them about their failure to do something about the bankers and their bonuses. He should be hitting them hard about their deliberate use of unemployment as a cost-cutting measure, and about the illegitimacy of this - especially as unemployment reduces the national income tax take, and requires more state spending on individual and family support. He ought to be beating on the Tories for their illigitimate radical changes to the NHS and the education systems - their Shock Doctrine do-it-all-in-the-first-six-months-without-any-consultation neo-conservative slash and burn tactics.

Wake up, Ed! You were right to stand for the leadership in order to draw a line under New Labour, and you're a bright and decent guy - but you really have to be better prepared for interviews and say the things that are really important, the things that are most likely to make an impact. Compared with highlighting the really big issues this emphasis on the VAT increase and on the decision to ensure students pay higher fees are just pinpricks in the coalition's thick skin.

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Simon Jenkins on Obama and America

The USA, as we know, is a monster. Who'd be the President of such a huge, violent, unmanageable country? What kind of people even want to be Senators and Congressmen?

Free speech can't exist unchained. US politics needs the tonic of order

If America is to speak in a way that heals, as Obama wishes, it needs the curbs and regulations that make freedom of expression real

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/13/free-speech-us-politics-obama

The ugly American is back. Can the handsome one do anything about it? When Barack Obama addressed a shocked nation in Tuscon, Arizona, yesterday, he deployed the only weapon left to a crippled presidency: the power of rhetorical cliche. He deployed it brilliantly.

The vitriol and inaccuracy of the campaign against Obama's public health reforms last year were like those against abortion and homosexuality. To many Europeans, the echo across the Atlantic came from a people isolated from the outside world and unable to handle today's social and scientific progress. The debate was infused with nastiness and xenophobia, as if the US was a land composed of tribes bred only to hate the outside world, and often themselves.

I was asked some time ago by a university-educated Texan, in the nicest possible way, what it was like to live in a country of "baby-killers" about to be "overrun by Muslim bad guys". I inquired where he had gained this bizarre impression of Europe, which he had never visited. It turned out his sole information about the world beyond America's shore came from Fox News. He was not stupid. But he and millions of people like him considered this source of news a sufficient window on the world. He genuinely thought American troops would soon have to save Europe from "the Arabs".

Fine. But how different is this from all those in Britain who  get their news exclusively or mainly from the Daily Mail, the Sun, the Express, etc? There are lots of people here who apparently believe that BBC news and current affairs are hopelessly biased towards the left wing. And who tells them this? Those newspapers, of course. Turn on any phone-in radio programme and just listen to these morons.

When the art historian and TV presenter Sir Kenneth Clark was asked what quality best defined civilisation, he did not answer with liberty or wealth or equality. He answered with courtesy, the framework of rules governing people's tolerance of each other, so their discourse might be creative. Most of the time, it is best for that courtesy to be informal. The best rebuttal of the politics of hate is a torrent of love – or, if not love, at least of facts.

But sometimes, as Obama said, there is a yearning "to try to impose some order on the chaos". If American politics is now going the way of wounding, not healing, it needs the tonic of order. It is the great paradox of democracy. Free speech cannot exist without chains.

Obama's full speech available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztbJmXQDIGA

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Intelligence

I've finally got round to watching the recent BBC4 Horizon programme about 'intelligence'.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00x7cb3/What_Makes_Us_Clever_A_Horizon_Guide_to_Intelligence/

On the website the "key talent" for this programme is listed as the presenter, Dallas Campbell. Dear oh dear.

Dallas Campbell delves into the Horizon archive to discover how our understanding of intelligence has transformed over the last century. From early caveman thinkers to computers doing the thinking for us, he discovers the best ways of testing how clever we are - and enhancing it.

How "clever", eh?

No. Throughout this programme there's absolutely no attempt to differentiate 'intellect' from 'intelligence'. The script is so stupid it continuously uses the word intelligence when it actually means intellect.

IQ is of course the starting point - "the benchmark".

IQ testing brands us with "a single mark".
IQ testing was introduced in 1912. Almost a century ago, and we're still doing it.
How has our understanding of intelligence changed?
Sternberg was introduced and talked about "the testing 'industry'". Well we know all about that!
Someone called Gould talked about animal and insect 'instinctual' intelligence as being "automatic responses to cues"
Is this intelligence?
The presenter clearly thought not. He's obviously not even considered instinct as a true intelligence.
He was only interested in 'ability to solve complex problems'.
Chimps and bees were described as 'Intelligent enough to cooperate' - so there's some sort of inkling there about social intelligence, but it was quickly glossed over.
'When did we learn to think?'
"Humans alone plan ahead, dream and think. Other animals live from day to day."
How do we find evidence of the first recorded expressions of intelligence?
'Only humans create and can make sense of art.'
"Paintings and abstract art are expressions of thought."
The ability to store something outside the human brain.
Galton was convinced that intelligence is inherited.
He was a hero for Cyril Burt. Ah, yes. Dear Cyril. The Bogus Man.
He believed in Eugenics and 'good birth'.
Believed the poor should be prevented from having children. Hitler agreed.
Burt was responsible for the development of IQ tests and the introduction of the 11+.
He claimed to have tested separated twins - and claimed that genetics is responsible for 80% of IQ.
Only after his death were his results properly scrutinised.
'Clearly something was drastically wrong.'
Probably he never saw a single separated twin.
Robert Graham believed the gene pool was deteriorating. He hoped to use the 'sperm of clever men' to breed 'intelligent kids' with 'outstanding genes'.
His sperm bank was operational for nearly 20 years.
Three Nobel scientists were persuaded to donate sperm.
So are there inherited components of intelligence? No specific genes have ever been identified.
But a large part of intelligence IS inherited, according to recent research with twins. According to this programme.
Should we be engaging the minds of children in "something useful" ALL of the time?
Can other behaviours predict academic success?
Kids who defer gratification apparently do better at school.
Other variables? Parents? Upbringing? Wider environment?
"IQ tests seem to show we have an all-purpose thinking skill that can be measured."
Memory/intellect seems to be an all-round ability. (?)
What about a broader spectrum of skills, abilties and aptitudes?
Howard Gardner and his Multiple Intelligence Theory were eventually mentioned.
Gardner says we have at least 8 separate intelligences.
But there's NO agreed system for measuring them.
Writer and dramatist Bonnie Greer scored highest of a bright bunch of people when 'a wider range of skills' was considered. Joint top with a quantum physicist. But we never got to find out which skills she did well on.
Is a high IQ a predictor of longevity?
Can we use microwaves to alter the structure of the brain?
Could this be the dawn of a brave new world?


Lawks. Most unenlightening. Such a waste of a programme.

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Wikipedia

We've seen America's vitriol. Now let's salute Wikipedia, a US pioneer of global civility

For all its shortcomings Wikipedia, now aged 10, is the internet's biggest and best example of not-for-profit idealism

by Timothy Garton-Ash

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/12/wikipedia-us-pioneer-global-idealism

If Wikipedia's principal architect, Jimmy Wales, had chosen to commercialise the enterprise, he could now be worth billions – like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Putting it all under the not-for-profit umbrella was, Wales quipped to me, at once the stupidest and the cleverest thing he ever did. More than any other major global site, Wikipedia still breathes the utopian idealism of the internet's heroic early days. Wikipedians, as they style themselves, are men and women with a mission. That mission, upon which they boldly go, is summed up in this almost Lennonist (that's John, not Vladimir) sentence from the man they all refer to as Jimmy: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."

To suggest that this utopian goal could be achieved by a world wide web of volunteers – working for nothing, editing anything and everything, with the words they type immediately visible for the whole world to see – was of course a totally barmy idea. Yet this barmy army has come a remarkably long way in just 10 years.

We do not yet know if the shooting in Tucson, Arizona, was a direct product of the vitriolic incivility of American political discourse, as heard on talk radio and cable channels such as Fox News. A crazy man may just be crazy. But America's daily political vitriol is an undeniable fact. Against that depressing background, it is good to be able to celebrate an American invention which, for all its faults, tries to spread around the world a combination of unpaid idealism, knowledge and stubborn civility.

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I was intending to finish this blog with a piece on another TV programme about children under pressure, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow. Y'all come back now.

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Layer 356 . . . Cocks, Roosters, Ed Miliband and the New Leader's Speech . . .

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Hazel Bleeding Blears was on the Daily Politics show panel today, chatting with the Neil Scotsperson. I've no idea why.

In the leadership contest it seems she voted for the other three guys in the contest ahead of Ed Mili. Interesting. Clearly, for Hazel, New Labour isn't 'over'.

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Cocking It Up

Boost for Ed Miliband as new poll puts Labour ahead of the Conservatives

As Ed Miliband prepares to give his first major speech as party leader, a new poll shows support for Labour on 40% compared with 39% for the Conservatives

Hmmmm. So who is this Ed Miliband? Does anybody really know him? Oxzen's exclusive research has come up the following personality profile.

Ed is a Cock. Or Rooster if you prefer. Such people are found in professions where security is assured without excessive risk-taking. Deep down they are extremely conservative. Oh dear.

It seems Roosters are dandies who feel that appearance is everything in life.

What's more, Ed, being born in 1969, is an Earth Rooster. This means that this particular Cock is egotistical, and preoccupied with his own success, security and appearance. He's happy to profit from other people's work, and is not overly imaginative. And he's realistic, pragmatic and shrewd rather than creatively intelligent, insightful, enlightened, visionary, radical or imaginative . So much for Red Ed.

So far, so New Labour. So very Blair/Brown.

And it goes on. Due to his egotism, he's not burdened with too many principles. Earth Roosters rapidly climb to the top in their profession, especially in politics, property and banking, not hesitating to elbow others out of the way. These people need activities that flatter their pride while assuring them of fame and comfort. They need to be seen and admired.

As it happens, Ed is also a Capricorn, and all of the above can also be said of most Capricorns. So now we know. You read it here first, folks!

I'll continue.

The Rooster is the incarnation of the forces of youth, hope and clarity. "With his mixture of conformity and eccentricity, aggressive impulses and meditative leanings, the Rooster is a rather strange and paradoxical animal. This captive king is a bizarre and contraDicTory creature (my emphasis), a ruler and a slave whose bravery and despotism are confined by the narrow limits of his farmyard. In this sense the Rooster is an analogy for the frailties of prestige and power, confined within the inevitable enclosure of time and death."

Honest, frank, obliging, courageous, vain, thoughtless, preoccupied with appearance.

Hates any attempt to probe his private being or expose his motives.

"Sooner or later one begins to question whether the Rooster superficiality is real or a game. The answer is that they conceal their inner selves with near desperation, obstinately camouflaging their lack of inner confidence the fact that, at bottom, they are only fragile birds. What remains of a Rooster when one takes away his feathers and his cock-a-doodle-do?"

We shall see.

On the positive side - "Rooster/Capricorn is just and full of integrity. he is also the most hard-working and clear-sighted of all the Roosters."

Which is all very well, but the likes of Thatcher, Blair and Brown were also hard-working. The question is - to what ends?

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The Big Speech

Ed walked into the conference hall hand in hand with his partner - with her bump, and her tragic haircut. A purple tie day.

More boring displays of brotherly love. More silly grins from his bro. Hello Ed! - We don't fucking care about your family and your sibling history! You've said too much already!

Tedious tributes to Darling and Straw. Dullards and hacks. Visionaries - not.

"The new generation of Labour is different."

"Why I'm here. It starts with my dad. His escape from the Nazis. His family arrived in Britain with nothing. They worked hard and got on. My dad learnt English. He joined the navy to fight for Britain.

Secure and loving homes. The aspiration to succeed. People of courage and conviction can make a huge difference. We do not have to accept the world as we find it. Never walk by on the other side of injustice.

Freedom and opportunity are precious gifts. My values are my anchor. My sense of right and wrong. Dedication, energy and the determination of activists makes the difference.

But we had a very bad election result. Now we're out of power and we cannot change our country for the better. We must make sure this is a one-term government.

But we need humility. We should blame ourselves, not the electorate. This will require strong leadership. And lead I will.

Tony and Gordon took on conventional wisdom. They were reforming, restless and radical. They lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. Newly-built schools and modernised hospitals. Saviours of the National Health Service. We helped deliver peace in Northern Ireland.

Development spending around the world. Working for malaria eradication.

Tony and Gordon had the courage to take on Establishment attitudes. But where did we go wrong - how did we lose so many votes.?

Trapped by our own certainties? Over time we looked more and more like an old Establishment. Failure to re-regulate the City. Immigration. Personal debt. Tuition fees. Claims of having ended boom and bust. The scandal of MP's expenses. Our style of politics and our remoteness from the people.

We cannot claim we know all the answers. But we have to set a new direction. We know there's more to life than work and money. Foreign policy must be based on our values.

To change Britain we need a new politics. We need to build a new economy. We need to reduce the deficit. We need to win back fiscal credibility.

We were too exposed to financial services. We should take responsibility for not building a more resilient economy. Growth should now be our priority. We should go on rebuilding schools. We need to lead the world in new technology. No plan for growth means no credible plan for deficit reduction.

We need a higher banking levy to protect the services that people rely on. We need an economy and a society fit for our kids to live in.

My ambition is for us to learn deeper lessons about changing our economy for the future. There are too many people stuck in low pay. We must redistribute prosperity. Labour must be the party of enterprise and small businesses.

We did not do enough to address the concerns about globalisation and its consequences - wages driven down by immigration. Those consequences should have been dealt with. Migrant labour should never have been allowed to undercut people's wages. We need proper protection for agency workers. Workers need to make their voices heard. Basic standards of decency and fairness. Trade unions are part of a decent society.

But we need to win the public to our cause - not alienate them through irresponsible strikes.

And we also need responsibility from business. Decent wages. Living wages. Fair pay. Not just a 'minimum'. A living wage must be the foundation of our economy in the future.

High quality apprenticeships.

The gap between rich and poor DOES matter. What does it say about the values of our society? Excessive salaries must be challenged. The lives of the poor can be transformed. Those in need must be protected.

Work is central to life - but it's not all that matters. Strong families, love and compassion, time with our families. Do we just know the price of everything and the value of nothing? We must shed old thinking.

Post Office closures? Identikit high streets? We believe in community and social solidarity. How do we protect families? People working 60 - 70 hours a week - how does this help kids?

How do we think about the State, and what it can achieve? Government must be accountable and responsive.

Flannel flannel comprehensive schools flannel flannel failing schools flannel flannel.

Civil liberties must never be given away lightly. Protecting freedoms.

The new generation must challenge old thinking in foreign policy.

Our boys in Afghanistan . . . thanks. Stabilising the country. Supporting our mission.

But Iraq! I criticise nobody - but I do believe we were wrong. War was not a LAST resort.

Our alliance with America . . . Our values . . . International support for the problems in the Middle East. Israel must accept and recognise the Palestinian right to statehood. The attack on the Gaza flotilla was wrong!

We must change our politics - its practice, its workings, and its reputation. Vote yes to AV! Fully elect the House of Lords! More local democracy and decision-making.

Protecting the environment.

Working with the other parties. Praise for Liberals like Keynes and Beveridge. And  Ken Clark on prisons. Teresa May on stop and search.

Let's have a grown up debate about ourselves and our country - not silly name calling.

A difference in attitudes and ideals to the Tories. Optimism! Let's be humble about the past, and inspire people with our vision.

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He spoke well. His delivery was good. His voice is not unpleasant. Infinitely better than Blair or Brown. A decent effort. And he might well get better.


He deserves support AT LEAST for what he said about inequality, the gap between rich and poor,  re-regulating the City and financial services, values, work-life balance, civil liberties, Palestine, Iraq, support for the Alternative Vote, creating new businesses and industries, and above all redistributing prosperity, tackling low pay, and introducing a living wage.

This is indeed a new beginning. Bye bye New Labour. Well done Ed.
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Layer 194 . . . Fair Play, Delights and Rapport

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Fair Play

It's not often when you watch a live football match on TV that you experience a moment of sheer joy that has you yelling out or jumping up in ecstatic amazement and excitement - and this goes for whichever team you support (as if sitting on a sofa constitutes support!), or whatever match you're watching. Those moments of terrific surprise and delight when somebody or some team does something so beautifully and so unexpectedly that it sends a shock through your nervous system so as to cause an involuntary spasm of shouting, cheering and swearing – such moments tend to be very few and far between, especially if you're English and you enjoy football.

To have it happen three times, then, in a match - and what's even more amazing, in a match involving England - is a rare treat. To see an England team completely dominate and outplay another team ranked in the world's top 10 is – well, unknown. Almost. I won't forget the 5 – 1 thrashing of Germany, in Germany. And so it was when England defeated Croatia 5 – 1 at Wembley last night, and in doing so qualified for the finals of the World Cup in South Africa next year. Job done. Capello 8 – Others 0.

What a guy. Talk about emotionally intelligent! He doesn't fake or exaggerate excitement, or anger, or disgust, or frustration – and if he feels those things he doesn't necessarily try to stop himself from showing small signs of them either. What you see is what you get, and what we have is a team manager who's a real man – a mensch – who can keep a check on his dominant emotions without completely covering them up or denying they exist.

According to Leo Rosten, the author of The Joys of Yiddish, a mensch is “a person of integrity and honor, someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being “a real mensch” is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, and a sense of what is right, responsible, and decorous”.

Capello's a three-dimensional human being who's a thinker and a planner, a plotter and an analyst, a calculator and a strategist, as well as someone who knows how to relate to the people he's leading and managing, both as professionals and as human beings. He has intellect, plus emotional, social and spiritual intelligence, in abundance and in harmony, in contrast to every dork of an England manager you can possibly remember, with the honourable exceptions of Bobby Robson, dearly departed, and maybe Ron Greenwood and Alf Ramsey.

He doesn't try to be overly pally with them, like the Rain Man - the Wally with the Brolly - who shall remain nameless, who so shamefully and so spectacularly fucked up on the job, finally crashing and burning in a corresponding fixture with Croatia two years ago, a game that England unbelievably lost 2 - 3 at Wembley.

Capello is polite, and courteous, and professionally distant, as he should be. But he also knows how to coach, how to explain things, how to empathise, how to enthuse, and how to motivate. But not in a gung-ho up-and-at-em ridiculous pumped-up adrenaline-rush kind of a Keegan or (ahem) 'Turnip' Tayloresque way. (I still have to smile to myself whenever I remember dear Graham's little gems – Do I Not Like That!, You've Just Cost Me My Job!, etc)

http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/sport/graham_taylor
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/graham_taylor.html

“Very few of us have any idea whatsoever of what life is like living in a goldfish bowl, except, of course, for those of us who are goldfish.”
No – forget I said smile - laugh uproariously out loud.

Two of the goals last night gave a quiet little buzz of pleasure – when Lennon jinked his way through to a penalty and Lampard efficiently slotted his kick, and when Rooney also unspectacularly threaded the ball past the goalkeeper after the hapless chap had dreadfully mis-kicked to our unmarked striker. (A real shame for the poor goalie – his superb 'keeping had kept the score down to only 2 – 0 at half time when it could easily have been 5 – 0 by then.)

The other three goals were all superbly made and superbly taken headers that flashed into the net – very “English”, as Bilic, the Croatian manager, might have said. Cue ecstatic celebration. To be fair to Bilic he later admitted his team had been humiliated and destroyed.

Whenever someone asks me which team I support I have to admit I don't really 'support' any team. What I do is watch with interest, and hope to enjoy some brilliant action – thoughtful, disciplined and passionate teamwork, great skills, effective defending, dynamic attacking and brilliant goalscoring. I hope to see the game well played, with lots of goals, and victory going to whichever team deserves to win.

I know people who are passionate supporters of a particular team – certain Millwall supporters for example – who don't give a shit about the quality of the football or the justice of the result. Winning is all that matters, no matter how badly the game is played, no matter how dire the football. It's 'my team right or wrong', which is pretty much the way they play the game of life. Within their own little world, their family and their mates can do absolutely NO wrong, and they'll support them and fight for them no matter what, against all comers if necessary.

Sadly such people often only get really excited in life when they're seeing their team win a match, or when they're having a fight or a 'bundle' on 'behalf' of their team or their mates. They might admit to themselves that their team deserved to lose, and they might mention it to their mates down the pub, but they'd never let on to an 'outsider'.

Thankfully, though, there are many more people who have a sense of 'fair play', and who will even feel some odd little sense of satisfaction when their team loses a match, on the basis that the useless f****** b*******'s deserve to be beaten up and defeated. Lots of English people don't like winning if it's a result of cheating or unfair tactics, and lots of us don't even like winning if the victory is undeserved.

But even those of us who are the least partisan and the least nationalistic feel some sort of emotional attachment to our national and our city or town teams, and we get enormous amounts of enjoyment when 'our lads' do their jobs as well as they did them last night.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/sep/09/world-cup-qualifier-england-croatia

It's the women's turn this afternoon – 5.00pm BBC2 – England v Germany – European Nations Final.

Bafana Bafana? Crazy name, crazy guys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_national_football_team

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PS Try to record the sounds you make (by using some mechanical or electronic means) as you read the following quotes, because I guarantee you will never laugh so much again in your entire life. If anyone ever doubts the power of words and language to affect our moods – here's the proof. Have some tissues handy to dry your eyes. Do NOT read this if you're in your office, supposedly working. But DO make a recording of your laughter the first time you read it because nothing's ever as funny the second time around.

http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Palms/6687/managers.html

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Life's Little Delights

Yesterday on the Today programme there was a discussion about what delights us in our day to day lives. Oxzen had always been a strong believer that the capacity and the ability to experience delight is a strong marker of spiritual intelligence. It's the little things . . .

Here's a description of the book called Delight that JB Priestley first published in 1949 – taken from the Amazon website -

“In the years following the Second World War, there didn't seem much to smile about, but as JB Priestley illustrated in the classic "1949 Delight", there are many joys to be found in even the simplest things. This charming book comprises a series of short essays, which all depict a simple pleasure - the smallest things in life that Priestley delighted in at that bleak time - a notion that chimes perfectly with the current national mood. Just some of the simple things Priestley enjoyed include; fountains; a walk in a pine wood; a new box of matches; Sunday papers in the country; reading in bed about foul weather; suddenly doing nothing and waking to smell bacon . . .

Priestley's sense of humor and literary flare are in evidence on every page. Each self-contained essay is a joy to read and will no doubt bring a little 'delight' to the reader - just as Priestley originally intended sixty years ago. In 'timeless mornings' Priestley muses, 'There is one kind of morning in early summer that is for me very special, the most delightful of all mornings. The sun is up and blazing somewhere but not visible yet down here, where there is a lot of gold mist about and the birds are singing from lost thickets.' The new 60th anniversary edition of "Delight" contains the full, unabridged text of over one hundred of Priestley's personal joys and pleasures.”

On the Today programme Alexei Sayle, the one and only, the wonderful, said he delights in re-reading old copies of guides to restaurants and bars that no longer exist.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delight-J-B-Priestley/dp/1905080670

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/j-b-priestley/delight.htm

http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/07092009/19/paxman-brand-reveal-delights.html

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Rapport

I have a new theory that the secret of his success is the 'rapport' that Capello has developed with his players, and it's also what readers have with a writer like Priestly, or whoever their favourite authors happen to be. To have rapport with someone doesn't mean you have to like or admire that individual. You may have reservations about them as an individual, and you may even dislike some aspects of their behaviour or their ideas. But what you do have is the ability to be on their wavelength, and to be able to communicate or empathise from a basis of shared assumptions about life or about the nature of the task you're working on, or whatever.

To experience 'flow' is hard enough as an individual. For two or more people working together to experience it simultaneously whilst engaged in a particular project, or activity, or game, is almost impossible unless you have rapport. I suspect that what great coaches can do is build rapport, between themselves and others, and between other individuals.

It's a shared sense of what's right and what's wrong, what's effective and what's not, when to do something, and when not. It's part instinct, part empathy, part logic, part knowledge, part understanding, and part intuition. We need rapport that's both inner and outer, within oneself and with others. It's a coming together in three dimensions. It's harmony and resonance, like voices in a choir or strings on an instrument.

Or players on a pitch. England's play last night had a 'flow' to it. They're finally starting to play as a team whose members have a proper rapport. After years of failing to play well together, people like Lampard, Gerrard, Lennon and Rooney are beginning to 'gel' and harmonise. It's partly down to experience, and partly down to the consistent messages and sets of beliefs and understandings that a good coach or manager is able to instil. It's the fine tuning as well as the correct choice of strings, instruments or players. Without rapport and flow nothing is achieved. You can have great skills and individual flair, but without rapport you tend to go nowhere.

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Obama and his Congregation

Like a priest talking to his parishioners Barack Obama yesterday met with, and spoke to, the Congressmen and women and the Senators of the House of Representatives who may or may not be willing to vote for his health care proposals. It seems he made a great speech, or delivered a great sermon, whichever way you prefer to look at it. It seems like a great effort to establish, or re-establish, some rapport with the teams that must function properly together if anything is going to be achieved, and if the country is to make any progress towards becoming more civilised and properly democratic. The country voted for change. Will it be allowed to have it?

30 million Americans can't even get health insurance, let alone are able to afford it. 46 million of them have no health insurance whatsoever.

Check out clips of his speech here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-address

“We did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”

Full text of the speech here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-reform-speech-full-text

Michael Tomasky's blog on the speech:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/sep/10/barack-obama-healthcare-big-speech

Tons of comments on it already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama
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Other Random Musings

Abdullah Abdullah

In case you haven't been paying attention, this is the name of the hapless guy who lost out in this week's election for the presidency of Afghanistan. How lucky is he! However, he's now complaining that the vote, and the count, were fixed. Some people just don't know when to shut the fuck up and just be grateful.

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

I'm always fascinated by these guys with double names, like Boutros Boutros-Ghali – people so good they name them twice. Imagine Obama Obama, or Barack Barack. Which would it be?

Brown Brown. Cameron Cameron.

I remember Billy Connelly once making a comment about posh people in Scotland having surnames as first names. Like Cameron.

This naming business is really bizarre. What happens to people, that they want to actually change their names? The most famous examples are when people change their religions, or suddenly adopt a religion. On the other hand, why should we stayed lumbered with names we don't like?

Oxzen Oxzen. Definitely a ring to it.

John Cooper Clark

I  think I wrote about JCC some time ago, and yesterday I came across a poem of his on Spotify that you should listen to if you ever get so angry with someone you want to beat them up and call them a twat. It's called Twat. Just type Twat in the Spotify search box.

http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/twat.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS5QMT-JUt4

Dion, Dion

I know I've mentioned Dion before, but I'm going to put in another plug for King of the New York Streets because I think it's possibly the best anti-drug song ever written. It's not didactic – it just sets out what it feels like to be someone living a coke-fuelled life, thinking he's the boss and the head honcho of his neighbourhood, or whatever, and ends with a blank statement - “This attitude comes from cocaine lies ”- the delusions of that particular drug. The refrain goes, “I was only sixteen years, so what could I have known . . . . ?”

The very best thing about the track is that it ROCKS. You want to listen to it on account of the great rhythm and the driving groove, plus the great vocals. Catch it on Spotify and YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMYT3DoMOPU Steve Cropper's wearing the same sweater he wore on the Booker T/Green Onions video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOCW8brdBaE&feature=related

The lyrics are hard to find on the Internet, but you can see them here:
http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2009/05/layer-156-musical-interlude-vision-for.html

http://johnnyyen.blogspot.com/2009/05/dion-king-of-new-york-streets.html

http://www.diondimucci.com/main.html
http://www.diondimucci.com/king_albums/dm_notes.html – a great piece of rock n roll writing by Dave Marsh. Read it at your leisure.

Dave Marsh

Here's another great example of his writing – about Springsteen:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sLJZ84jaxhsC&pg=PA518&lpg=PA518&dq=%22dave+marsh%22+%2B+dion&source=bl&ots=gimIMO0Xpd&sig=xdH7E24gFbIwsLfxpQfgWSvFRA4&hl=en&ei=2OqoStDUEOaZjAf22-GCCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

“Marsh is also a member of the National Advisory Board of PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children.”

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

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/dmarsh_1001.htm   -  The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made.

This man has TASTE! Feel the rapport.
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Layer 131 Brown, Congress, Mando, Witless Crap and Apologies.

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Oxzen’s view that the world is full of twats and self-important tossers has been amply reinforced in the past couple of days.

BBC2 last night screened an hour-long documentary about the cringe-makingly awful British contribution to the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics - 8 minutes of tacky, embarrassingly awful rubbish.

I needed to watch it because I’ve been wondering who was responsible for such a pile of complete dross - and now I know. Step forward Martin Green and Stephen Powell - godfathers of garbage, impresarios of shameful bilge that made Britain the laughing-stock of the entire planet.

What made matters worse, of course, was the fact that the Chinese had just mounted what may be regarded as the greatest-ever show on earth, when you consider the opening and closing ceremonies combined.

And in comparison, those 8 minutes of British naffness looked unbelievably horrible, nasty, silly and unworthy. Because this country does have some great artistes and creative geniuses, here and there. So who put these two twats in charge?

And who allowed them to carry through with their insane idea to make a roof-shedding London double-decker bus, a footballer and a bunch of crap choreography the centrepiece of ‘our’ contribution? (See Layer 71 - Goodbye To The Games - August 26th.) Lord Sebastian Coe - that’s who. He listened to the ideas of Green and Powell, looked suitably unimpressed, and nodded his daft little head. Deal done. Idiot.

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One of the worst aspects of Gordon Brown is how much he resembles David Blunkett. OK, he’s only 50% blind, but still he has eyes that don’t see, that don’t focus, that clearly aren’t working, that are never animated or sparkle or engage with whoever he’s supposed to be talking to. Two dead eyes that convey nothing at all - no emotion, no warmth, no reaching out or taking in.

Watching him on TV with Obama in the White House was just embarrassing. Two different species of human being. One who’s alert and alive and vibrant, and one who’s a burnt-out wreck.

Brown also has the Blunk’s thick-set dour unattractiveness, the same machine-politician’s dull and deadly delivery, an air of having carefully prepared everything he’s about to say with his clique of readers, researchers, advisers and consultants. He’s therefore a mouthpiece for a set of professional political policy-makers - a group of people that are forever in the thick of it, so to speak - trudging from briefing to briefing, from committee meeting to focus group to Whitehall office.

Brown’s speech to Congress was also embarrassing. A mixture of the leaden and the wooden, with cogs grinding and gears clanking. Why was he doing it? PR of course - selling himself and his dodgy, worn out ideas, whose very structure could be heard creaking and groaning with every dull, clunking sentence. Not so much a big clunking fist - more a set of big, clunking, obsolete ideas.

Obama’s been telling America that it’s the disastrous ideology of Chicago-school free-trade market economics that has brought the world’s economy to total ruin. And here was Brown - having the utter gall and the complete idiocy to lecture Congress on the need to press ahead with open markets and non-protectionist free trade, regardless of the consequences for the downfall of national strategic industries and unemployment.

He expects the Americans to allow their motor industry, for example, to go the same way as ours - either down the plug hole completely, or sold off to smarter foreign operators who will asset-strip and relocate it. And to whose benefit? Does he really still cling to the Friedmanite doctrine that everyone eventually benefits from greater ‘efficiency’ and lower prices, which are supposedly the outcomes of globalisation?

Will he never admit that it’s always the little people that get screwed and then tossed crumbs of comfort after the mega-deals and mergers have gone through, commissions pocketed, lawyers paid off, shareholders paid out, the bosses and their consultants and bankers showered with booty?

He can’t even see how sick we all are of politicians like him acting as the mouthpieces of the fat cats and the bankers, desperately trying to make a busted and broken-down system function as it did before. Not that it ever really worked in the way it was supposed to. As even George Soros has had the honesty to admit - unregulated globalised capitalism itself is the problem, not the solution to anything.

And Brown just doesn’t get it.

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I don’t want to be unfair on Brown. I’m sure he has good intentions, and was as brainwashed as Blair and the others into honestly believing that Chicago-school economics was/is the only game in town, and that it was/is pointless and/or counterproductive to try to regulate Big Finance.

My difficulty in feeling any sense of empathy or caring for him is that he patently failed in the empathy and decency stakes when it came to standing up for principle and what is right. Where was his empathy with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were bound to be war victims and bound to suffer homelessness, injury and death? Where was his empathy with the millions of anti-war protestors?

Whereas Obama could see from the outset that the invasion of Iraq and the notion of a war on terr’r was always going to be a ruinous disaster, and had the courage to say so, Brown ranged from staying silent to actively supporting Bush and Blair.

Whereas Will Hutton and other progressive economists & commentators said consistently that NuLabour must re-regulate the City and the money markets, Brown sat in No. 11 Downing Street and paid them no attention - and showed them no respect.

It’s not as if Brown continued to play ball with Bush and the big boys whilst at the same time warning that things had to change, that the party was over, that tax havens had to be closed down, that the bonus culture was no longer acceptable, that the gravy train was about to hit the buffers, as so many predicted it would.

So now he ought to be big enough to deal with the derision and indeed hatred that’s being rained down on him for doing nothing whatsoever to get a grip on the excesses of the City and the bankers, for allowing tax havens and tax avoidance on a huge scale to continue, for allowing industry to flounder, for allowing the bonus culture and naked greed to run rampant, for encouraging oligarchs to prosper and seek refuge in Britain, for allowing the minimum wage to remain so inadequate, for encouraging more and more privatisations and ‘private finance initiatives’. In a word, he ought to apologise, and just say sorry for his pitiful inadequacy as the man in charge of the economy and finance all these years.

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In the Guardian today there’s a piece by one of Blair’s former speechwriters - one Peter Hymen - sorry, Hyman - a callow little twat of the first order if you go by his photograph - whose verdict on the Brown speech was that he “didn’t just give us substance but a little style too”. Substance? Style?!!

Whereas Michael Billington said emphatically that the speech was “low on substance”, and that Brown would do to remember that Mark Anthony’s seemingly triumphant speech was “short-lived and followed by civil commotion, global turmoil, and his own ultimate downfall . . . ”

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Mando

Someone on Radio 4 yesterday described Lord Peter Mandleson as ‘effectively’ the Deputy Prime Minister. As it happened I’d just been thinking about Harriet Harman, the Deputy Prime Minister, and the attempts by the political establishment to marginalise her and disown her recent statements to the effect that government would ensure that the bankers would not get their fat pensions, regardless of what the current law permits, or insists on.

So let’s think about this. Mandleson, a failed politician and a European Commissioner, a professional bureaucrat, is plucked from Brussels by our Prime Minister and installed as a noble Lord in Parliament, with such duties and status as to make him effectively the Deputy Prime Minister. And we think we live in a democracy?

A man who is regarded by the majority of the population as a scumbag and a toff, a nasty piece of work, and the co-architect of NuLabour, who we therefore hold responsible for the betrayal of the electorate after 1997 and All That, is now someone we should regard as a ‘Lord’, and effectively the Deputy Prime Minister, even though he’d never win any election he now entered.

Not only that, he’s made it his business to press ahead with part-privatisation of the Royal Mail completely against the wishes of the electorate, which is coming round to understanding that nationalised industries, especially where they are also monopolistic and potentially able to benefit from economies of scale, are preferable to privatised businesses which owe no responsibility to the electorate, and operate solely in the interests of shareholders.

It’s clear the man is a megalomaniac and egotist of the first order, with no inclination whatsoever to pay attention to what people actually want, such as radical social change that benefits regular people rather than fat cats. He’s therefore a would-be dictator, with contempt for the masses, and a determination to pursue his own political agendas regardless of the consequences for social justice and democracy.

It’s as though Brown has installed in Parliament as his philosopher’s stone, his business guru and his private mentor, someone with the tendencies of a Hitler, someone who uses every opportunity to use dirty tactics, to smear and ignore opponents, to use disinformation, to do business through cliques and cabals, to empower himself at the expense of everyone else. Which is another very good reason for disliking and reviling Brown, and wanting him to just pack it in and push off.
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