We're Doomed I Telt Ye, Doomed!

Old BP's country lore:- 96 in a series.

They do say a black fox has been sighted in these parts. The legend is very clear, my dears. We are going to hexperience some dreadful times. Plague, famine, war, Gideon's Budget, terrible though they are, will all seem like a calm benefice compared to what lies ahead. The Fox was killed. Expect to see bakers marching in the streets waving French bread, investment bankers having to live on their salaries, the top 0.01 per cent of the population leaving for tax havens in droves, Germans being smuggled into the country in petrol cans.
I tell ee, it is very close to the end times!

Waiting for Gideon

A trip to Diss and despite the lack of JB and Mrs Wilson it was bliss!
At least the weather was fine. A miasma of fish and chips hung on the spring air.
On a corner, in numbers, was a menacing group of grey power activists.

Waiting for Gideon? He is likely to get a good kicking if he shows his pension taxing face here.

Interesting place Diss. Tend to do things the way they want.

No reason why they shouldn't. I was glad to avail myself of the seat and noticed that the brass plate was dedicated to the builders who sponsored the bench. I have no knowledge concerning its installation.

Homer's Willy

No doubt being the recondite bunch that you are you will all (6 on average...Ed?) be familiar with Chapman's Homer or even, for the followers of the Little Horses, Chapman's homer.
Well it gets worse. Mr Forsyth, The Inky Fool, has a discussion of the origin of the name of Troy based on an article in the London Review of Books. He then spoils the whole tone of the matter by claiming

... it gives me such puerile pleasure that I thought I should reproduce it here so that you, dear reader, can snigger.

You will not get that kind of cheapskate faux intellectual bollix here, scholarship and integrity, accept no substitute!
It's no use perorating about polyphloisboia  or even in a polyphloisboian manner. The damage is done.
(There, there, don't upset yourself. You know the cardiologist warned against that. Away and have your rashers and tea, lashings of tea... Ed!)

Embrace Political Stability

Our Great Horseperson, The Sun reader in our hearts has, with Comrade Gideon, produced a 5 year financial plan. Rejoice!
Each journey, no matter how long, begins with one small step. We are about to set out on an economic adventure which, in less enlightened times, would be called a miracle!
There may be Socialist Roaders, grey power revisionists, even enobled comrades who have given in to the crime of Tebbitism who wish to take the broad mass of the people to depths of socialist depravity. Do not let them tempt you with promises of a return to the horror of keynesian growth. Tax and spend is the road to ruin.

Ithankyouandgoodnight.

Spring is Here

Blossom Forth

Algo Wars :- Life at the Planck Length

I read the article by Donald MacKenzie, How to Make Money in Microseconds: Algo-Sniffing ( in the LRB 19 May 2011) again recently after watching the TED video by Kevin Slavin: How algorithms shape our world
I see the Algo Wars as part of the general carnage unfettered capitalism can produce. Interesting, therefore that the cosmological speed limit (300,000 km/s less change) figures in the calculations of once and future masters of the universe. How long before the fabric of space-time constrains the ability to make money from making money? I don’t suppose the markets are going to be worried about the Plank Length for some time to come.

It did get me thinking. Perhaps we should redefine ‘thickness’ in terms of 3 Plancks with a banker's clog on!

The Bullingdon Budget

I'm sure Gideon will not let his friends down. May I wish you all a very prosperous new (tax) year.
To welcome it in you could  do worse than listen to

No Banker Left Behind by Ry Cooder on the album: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

but it may not be to your taste!

One that nearly got away.

I become a caricature of myself. I could have sworn I put this link somewhere safe after 2 or 3 people included me in their loops!
I'm sure I'll find it one day at the bottom of a list of bookmarks, the electrons slightly moldy and the  HTML somewhat arcane and charming. However, the Interweb being what it is I was able to summon forth like Gabriel or was it Gladriel?  Anyway, for those who care, Cultural Equity have an online archive of the work of Alan Lomax  here.

Mr Wikipedia holds that 

Alan Lomax (January 31, 1915 – July 19, 2002) was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Scotland, England, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.

They have digitised a lot of the  fields he collected and it is possible to get lost in them, pleasantly.
Storing fields must have been murder before digitisation! (Enough or I am sure some of your regular readers will have you planted in one of them...Ed!)

Unseasonably Warm?

I have always enjoyed a rousing speech and seeing those with the ability stick it to the men!
4 minutes of this and you could be forgiven for asking Mewt What? Nitt Who? Why would anyone want a tea party in a Sanatorium?

How glad I am that there is no chance of our own dear leader Mr Millipede rocking them in the isles with a good dose of that old fashioned religion!

Thanks to Mr Naughton for the link.
(Weren't you the one complaining not so long ago about the rhetorical diseases...Ed?)