G'day

If you need something to get you going in the morning can I suggest Methra - The Rising Sun.
Other tunes are available and more information from the band's interweb thingy Methra.
They are appearing in Suffolk even. God knows if they will find the way in. I hope they are not intending to come by train. 
(You need something these days to crawl from under the doonie. I'll give it a go... Ed)
No change there then!

News from Zimbabwe

So goodbye then Robert! Keith's mum says that there may have been a coup. A good run for your money or perhaps not yours! Much discussion as to what sort of coup it is. Helpfully, my briefing from the Grauniad arriving this morning over the interweb by e-waves suggests it is a Coup de Grace.
Worth the subscription for that alone.
(Should that not be d'Etat... Ed?)
Cherchez la femme!

A Little Danish

Damn, but those Danes are good. A bit too slick, a bit too polished, you think? Away and polish the bolt in your kneck!
NPR gives you a good taste on YouTube here.

The lads of the Danish String Quartet, something for elevenses, other tunes are available. 
(Should that not be neck... Ed?)

Danish, I'm told.

The Windows of Porto

I have not been posting much recently. In my defense, your honour, I cite a bad back, old age, senility and the general paralysis of the insane. However, I have enjoyed reading a number of books from the comfort of my bed of pain. I have travelled to foreign climes, Portugal since you ask, and enjoyed a family wedding. God, I found myself wishing the couple the best of luck, which is pretty thin gruel when you consider what they will have to deal with, better the fair love of my heart.  It was good too, to catch up with members of Herself's large and welcomming tribe. We rounded off the holiday with a stay in Porto and luckily made it back to Stansted despite the Transportations of O'Ryan.
The books below are, I am assured by my records, those which I have read!

Little Boy Blue - M J Arlidge,
The Harbour Master - Daniel Pembrey
The Three-body Problem - Liu Cixin
Nowhere Girl - Ruth Dugdall
Himself - Jess Kidd
I’m Travelling Alone - Samuel Bjork
The Pledge - Friedrich Durrenmatt

A Visit from the Bish

Herself, the head gardener, is inordinately delighted and proud of the Bishop of LLandaff who pays us a visit every year. This wee snap does not do his Lordship justice (as the actress might have said...Ed)

Poppycock!

Collinn Farrell is rumoured to be interested

The world, as you may well know, is in a terrible state of chassis. The weather, it being the height of the English Summer, somewhat cold and damp. Phwatt in the name of all that is good and holy is an old man with a bad back meant to do? Well, since you ask, curl up with a good book from Suffolk  Library. 'A man with one of those faces' by Caimh McDonnell. I won't bother you with details of the plot, the finely drawn characters that grace its pages, the wry commentary on youth, sex, drugs and country music or the dreadful state of a mangy Celtic Tiger portrayed therein. Suffice it to say that if you ever see a guard with a Hurley heading your way and your conscience has the least speck upon it run like feck or drop to your knees, extend both arms sideways, and intone 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani'.

A second volume has been prepared for your delight 'The day that never comes' which makes it sound like one of those Morse thingies, no offence there Colin, wouldn't want you turning in your grave. What with the other Collinn rumoured to be interested. ( Do we not have to be careful here with M'learned friends? He was buried, wasn't he, not cremated? Is there not an unhealthy proximity betwixt the words grave, rumoured and interested?...Ed)

I have in my hand the finest Hurley ever to smote leather or the large arse of a fecking eejit!
Eat your heart out Bunny McGarry.

Smart energy wanted.

I know, I know, I keep burbling on about energy but as the sun sets in the west, I hear the refrain, "It's the energy, stupid!" time and time again. Another one from Carbon Commentary that should knock your socks off if it wasn't summer and you weren't wearing sandals.  I particularly like the downbeat characterisation of the CEO; rings true though doesn't it?

Exytron is a plausible contender for a role as the central enabler of the energy transition. But, please note, the company itself doesn’t make this claim. CEO Karl-Hermann Busse, possibly the most pessimistic entrepreneur I have ever met, is far too aware of the obstacles the company faces. He mentions the inertia of many of the existing fossil fuel businesses as important barriers. He says that they will endlessly talk to him but then never commit to partnership. Perhaps a UK company would like an introduction to Dr Busse? No-one should be worried he is going to over-sell his invention.

(Do you not wear socks with your sandals then...Ed?)

Only if they are electrically heated with renewable energy, eejit!

Christine wants you and your sunbeams.

Nice little story from the ever stimulating Chris Goodall in the
CARBON COMMENTARY NEWSLETTER
 (23 July 2017 Subscribe at www.carboncommentary.com)

Solar in Africa. BBOXX said it had signed a deal in the small West African country of Togo to provide up to 300,000 off-grid kits. 10,000 will be installed in the next year giving light, phone charging, TV and radio to unelectrified rural households. 66% of Togo’s adults have mobile phones and can use BBOXX’s pay-as-you go system. The government said it was sponsoring the BBOXX project partly to increase the takeup of mobile money systems. Another indication of the close link between PV, the mobile phone and online payments in Africa.

Now if only that nice Mr Musk or even our Christine Le G. could  dig their hands into baggy pockets and provide a few (Ever)readies for storage we would all get along just fine!

(Could you bring that light over here, I can hardly see the hand behind my back it is so cloudy and dull...Ed)

Summertime and the lighting is easy!

I'll publish yours if ...

Occasionally BP encourages an open debate between editorial and creative members of the cooperative. The usual parenthetical delimiters  and the employment of ellipses is dispensed  with to encourage a full and frank discussion much like the old catechistic method of inculcating doctrinal certainties.

Has there been a bit of a ruck about the old BeeB and the payment of the workers?

There has, indeed. 

Have some of the troops been what can only be described as peeved?

Deeply, I suspect.

Emily, Jane and the women, have been up in arms about it, have they not?

Monstrously so, I fear. 

Could we suggest some names are quite notable by their absence?

A very taxing arrangement, I would judge.

I hope you are not implying, given the alacrity of m'learned friends to seek redress, any malfeasance.

I would not wish to evade the issue but, allegedly, it is wholly avoidable.

Amen

What's your poison?

I was reading a post in the blog by David Spiegelhalter, Understanding Uncertainty, titled
Medicine, poison poison, poison. 
It contained the paragraph:-

At one unit a day (half a standard glass of wine), they estimate a tiny overall benefit for men and a slightly larger, but still small, overall benefit for women. But the Department of Health appears very eager to avoid the message of “a small glass of something for medicinal purposes”.

 That phrase “a small glass of something for medicinal purposes” pinged my short term memory to the day before when I had seen the women behind me in the supermarket queue load 3 bottles of Sonatogen Tonic Wine on to the belt and cover them with a large bag of spinach. Of course it could be that she was in need of a tonic or was short in the iron department or even that it was her tipple of choice, god bless her. Who am I to point the finger of shame having drunk more than my lifetime's allocation of red wine and other electric soups but I do love that - medicinal purposes.

(I feel in the interest of balance I should point out other health promoting  beverages are available; didn't Harold Wilson enjoy the odd 7 pint party can of Hall's Tonic Wine and your own good parents treat the family to a bottle of Buckfast -Bucky- at Christmas time... Ed)

In vino veritas

ADUP

In line with the use of names to designate a quantity of money:- a pony, a monkey, a grand.
Let me suggest         A DUP =£1billion
On this auspicious day, of course, there may be those who would wish to suggest (an orange) dinosaur! Whatever, must pop out for my annual packet of Jaffa Cakes! It's only polite to offer them around

(Doesn't our own TM, peace be upon her,  have a degree in colouring in ... Ed.)

The future is orange or an austere grey, Maybe!

Everything in the Garden

Summertime and there is a certain uneasiness about the world (I do wish you would avoid the pull of the understatement... Ed.) However, as the sun shines and the butter flies, the bees polish their knees and life takes on a softer feel, for some, it is interesting to reflect on the boon of the land.
Patrick Barkham enumerates the benisons but not without reference to the political in a Grauniad article today.  To quote

A garden is more than a space to recharge, though. As George McKay points out in his book Radical Gardening, the collective endeavour that gardening can often be is evinced by everyone from Gerrard Winstanley’s 17th-century Levellers to today’s guerrilla gardeners. It isn’t always progressive – plenty of fascists revere gardening – but when enlightened gardening meets political power, it can rearrange the way we live. Ebenezer Howard’s reimagining of urban life in the 1890s led to garden cities such as Letchworth, and they continue to inform urban planning today.

McKay argues that allotments are “profoundly anti-capitalist” spaces. Modest council rents never reflect the true land value or what councils could earn from allotment land. Produce grown on allotments is consumed locally, and often swapped. Through allotments, we reject today’s dominant ideology of allocating resources via money and globalised markets.

I love that - plenty of fascists revere gardening - !

I would at this point show a picture of the family estate the pride and joy of us all including the head gardener, peace be upon her,  but I have a bad back, I am a lazy swine at the best and a wee bit of pain finishes me off! (You are excused, just the once, but man up there princess we only have one blog... Ed)

That's Oil Folks

You May believe that we have reached the end times because we have been DUPed. You may believe that we are all going to Hell in a Hand Cart because Washington has turned into a dystopian Trumpington, Mr Kim's ICBMs or whatever. I bet  if you  go to sleep worrying about oil, it is   burning too much of it, getting enough of it,  fighting for it,  stealing it or using it on that squeaky bottom bracket. However, the reason we should have night sweats and terrors is that Central Bankers are at a complete loss as to how to decouple the system and environment of financing (low interest rates, QE and its effects) and our addiction to the oily stuff for the economy and anti-squeakyness.
I am alerted to this by the exceedingly informative podcast - Talking Politics- of a Mr Runciman and in particular by a discussion ( the last 15 minutes of the podcast if you are pushed for time) of the book - Oil and the Western Economic  Crisis- by a Ms Helen Thompson. Both I believe hold professorial posts at a nearby university.  Others are available!
Sweet dreams.  

An Englishman in Madrid

Summer Reading facts no. 92 in a series.

Did you know that the above book by Eduardo Mendoza is 9 out of 10 in the top sellers at the LRB  Bookshop?

Remember you read it here first.

What I can't remember though is whatever happened to Gurb?

A Falling Woman

Not the most significant thing to have happened recently but a sign perhaps or even a portent.

TM does her impression of a Falling Woman.

I hasten to add

In case you  think I May have a down on the besom for any Trumpish reasons it's "just poli'ical". In my defense I would point you in the direction of an inspirational character, the subject of a programme in the 'great lives series' of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Shirley Chisholm.
I proudly wore the badge, "Shirley Chisholm for President",  45 years ago, even though I did not have a pig in the race as my ancestors might have had it!

(Lost, lost! I have no idea what you are blethering on about. Lord save us... Ed)
Keep up there fella, as Commander Hastings would say. we are in for quite a ride.

A Poke in the Eye with a Sharp Chip!

Didn't I tell you this, so called, snap election is more about food than pictures! The puns and possibilities are endless. What joy! She May be a "BLOODY DIFFICULT WOMAN" or she May be an insecure geography graduate with a chip on her shoulder. The degree comes in useful, no doubt,  as she sCurries about the country from one group of the faithful to another. It is a bit like a Safari Supper for the Nasty Party. There are many reasons people visit food banks, hunger and a lack of money for food being just two of them. I'm sure that poke of chips would have tasted better with  Pickles but then where are your chums when you need them and the chips are down. Speaking of which I'm sure Phil (which one?) will help her out with the poke when she tires of the chips. Lynton Chrispy must be heaving a sigh of relief that she was not pictured with a bit of battered cod or an old haddock!
(Phwhat in god's name are you talking about??? I think this democracy stuff has finally got to your brain or what is left of it...Ed)

Read and Enjoy the Video!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/02/theresa-may-liberal-democrats-defectors-south-west-stick-with-tories?

Food for thought and elections

It's that time again. Elections couldn't you just vote without them!

Our political food correspondent writes...
On the menu this election is a choice between 
Strong Glands Table Leadership or a Collation of Chaos

Now here's a little candle lit dinner that went a rye... too much sourdough?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/how-junckers-downing-street-dinner-turned-sour?

(Jaysus! Can you not give a bit of a warning when you are about to dash into production again. I was at the sister's looking after the wains when the alerty thing popped up on the old interweb. I nearly spilt me tea all over meself!...Ed)

Bushmills tea is that, without milk?

Indexing we trust? p91

Indexing - now there's a thing.
I bet you haven't given much thought to that while I've been absent from these pages or indeed the pages themselves have been absent. The Grauniad had a nice wee article  on indexing on National Indexing Day by Sam Leith. Undoubtedly a piece of crass propaganda for the Society of Indexers.  We might as well go back to the days of craft guilds, 99 year apprenticeships, permanent indentedness, free beer,  protectionism, pre-brexitism  and so called Trade Unions! It is however very interesting and, of course, contains a 404 for the link to the Society.
Deliberate?
(Do you think we might have an index on this blog? I could knock you up a passable index for a few sovs extra each week. Now we have to take the bairns off on holiday when the schools are out it can be very expensive, and we have been going for over 10 years...Ed)

Expletives -obscene
                  -expressing the negative, p 92

West Wing Mark II

A find in the podosphere. A Mr O'Bama has recently stood down from some job or other and I have not always been appreciative as I might have been! (I very much doubt that he even knew let alone gave a tinker's damn... Ed)
However, the link gives about 40 minutes of thoughts, banter, and a few flashes of what the progressive future might have involved (and hopefully may yet involve). I must say that my one moment of queasiness came when your man O'Bam was discussing what the hell happened if the USA defaulted on its debt. Jokes with the gang about minting a trillion dollar coin aside, nobody knew! You have to give it to him, he did keep the show on the road in some very difficult times. His analysis of how the Trumpet of massive investment in infrastructure will lead to a call much later for a roll back on welfare is very scary. A Mr Freedland, who scribbles for some lowbrow rags from time to time, had an equally scary scenario for this in, The Third Woman, his latest penny dreadful.