FRIDAY MUSIC: Sixties Beat Boom, by JD

And some more golden oldies from this ageing baby boomer reminiscing about the good old days when life made more sense and there was such a burst of creativity and a sparkling variety of good music. I do hope I am not boring the youngsters of generation X or Y or Z or whatever/whoever they are. But have patience, we will not be here much longer: all of the artists featured this week and last week will now be in their late 70s or early 80s and more than a few are no longer alive.

Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men (Official Top Of The Pops Video)

Chris Farlowe with Out Of Time
This song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Farlowe’s version was number one in the pop charts in 1966 on the day England won the World Cup!

Ride My See Saw - Moody Blues {Stereo} 1968

Fleetwood Mac Albatross 1969
This is the real Fleetwood Mac which featured Peter Green, Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer; probably the only rock group with three lead guitarists.

The Box Tops - The Letter (Upbeat 1967)

Rolling Stones - Paint It Black LIVE (1966)

Data Centres: Castles of Subjection

We’ve watched as industrial jobs have been scythed away and young people face life as shelf-stackers or on the dole.

Now technology is coming for the knowledge workers and many in the middle classes will feel the cold wind of insecurity blowing around their ankles. Quasi-intelligent machines with vast memory banks will take over many functions where experts and skilled managers used to be needed.

There is a building boom in “data centres.” The State of Ohio has 250 of them planned or under construction; Texas has 962.

They also have the capacity, and it will be used, to monitor and control the people and shut down dissent. Technology multi-billionaire Larry Ellison, chairman of software company Oracle, said in 2024:

“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on.”

They are like the chain of castles (the “Ring of Iron”) built by Edward I in Wales, to keep the Welsh down. Their modern equivalent will be needed to oppress a people increasingly poorer and less free.

In the two years before that Ellison’s personal foundation invested $130 million in the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) and has pledged $218 million since then. Blair is a firm advocate for digital ID and has been photographed “living the dream” on Ellison’s yacht “Rising Sun”:

(Picture from Alamy via this Substack article)

Blair is a fantastic narcissist:

(Image: GQ magazine 2 May 2021)

- but there is no reason why we should be cast in his Matrix-type dreams (do PM Keir Starmer and Labour not share them?) and every reason not to.

China's financial "China Syndrome"

The YouTube video below, viewed today, is disturbing in its implications not only for China but for our interconnected world economy.

According to the presenter China’s debt-to-GDP is far higher than commonly understood (c. 50%), because we must also take into account local government debt and debt taken on by corporate business. The national government is progressively absorbing quantities of the last two in order to disguise their potential bankruptcy.

The total debt load is equivalent to over 300% of GDP. At the same time China’s foreign debtors are running into difficulty and they may fail to service the loans China granted them.

The economy that has seen such dazzling growth has been supported by revenues from land sales and they have declined sharply. Internal consumer demand and international trade are also affected by worry and pessimism.

In the 1979 disaster movie “The China Syndrome” a nuclear power station malfunctions and threatens a meltdown (the title exaggeratedly implies a really deep one!) Already ballooning debt plagues the US, UK and many other developed countries. Maybe China will encounter a financial crisis it cannot hide or overcome; but maybe a collapse elsewhere could be the trigger instead.

For us the lesson is not to gloat at Beijing’s problems but to hope for the best and to prepare to retrench.

FRIDAY MUSIC: From the Sixties, by JD

I see we have been here before when I did a post of music ‘The Likely Lads’ would have been listening to in their younger days - https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2025/08/friday-music-classic-hits-of-50s60s-by.html

The reference to the Golden Oldies channel on Freeview still applies and, if anything, it is worse than last year. Freeview used to have three channels devoted to ‘golden oldies’ but now there is just one and this is how they describe their ‘best of the sixties’:

“A selection of live performances from TV music shows in the 1960s for a genuine taste of the best of the ‘60s!

‘From TV music shows’ ought to have been a clue because a good proportion of the videos are from American TV variety shows and a lot of them feature unknown singers who are definitely not giving us a genuine taste of the Sixties.

This is what they ought to be playing but you will never hear them on golden oldies channels either on TV or on radio. And it is a very eclectic and always melodic mix.

Cream - Badge

Mary Wells - My Guy

The Drifters - Under The Boardwalk (Official Video) Re-Mastered

The Scaffold - Lily The Pink

The Doors - Love Street

Martha & the Vandellas - Heatwave

Ben E. King / All Star Band - Stand By Me (The Prince’s Trust Rock Gala 1987)

Plenty more where that came from. The problem was what to leave out!

And yes George Harrison did play on that Cream song but for copyright reasons he was listed on the album cover as l’angelo Misterioso.

Ben E King’s song has been covered by 400 artists and is a timeless classic. It was inspired by a gospel song By Sam Cooke called ‘Stand By Me, Father’

Hope you enjoy that selection as much as I do.

Labour's corporate bullshit

A front page article in The Times says a study from Cornell University shows that people who are taken in by ‘corporate bullshit’ tend to be stupider and more likely to find their leaders inspirational.

Coincidentally or not, the front page also features a piece in which Tony Blair offers his statesmanlike advice to the Labour Party. Apparently a change of leadership is not helpful if there is no change in policies. A longer summary on page 10 says that compared with the big boys - the USA, China and soon India - we are in danger of being ‘marooned on an island of irrrelevance.’

That ship has sailed, you may say. Though when the real ‘Robinson Crusoe’ was marooned it was for predicting his ship would sink - which it did shortly afterwards. He was ‘better off out’ then and so are we now, if only we seize the chances Brexit gave us.

More bullshit on page 5 where Home Office Minister Mike Tapp tells us that while Reform are squabbling ‘the Government is actually bringing down immigration.’ The official gross figure for y/end 2025 is c. 813,000 compared with 948,000 in 2024. But that’s assuming the Government actually knows the numbers. For over a decade MigrationWatch has predicted our total population will eventually hit 70 million; last October Ed West guessed that we’re already past that point; some think that given data on shopping and utilities it could be millions more than that.

Blair’s rich fantasy life pitches his Party the idea of representing a ‘Radical Centre.’ Hardly a new notion: the 1997 manifesto said ‘New Labour is the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole.’ Now his Institute is recommending ditching various 2024 manifesto commitments so we don’t go under.

I would suggest that the average Briton 1) is not a radical and 2) does not know what is in the various Party manifestoes, 3) would be a fool to think they are binding and 4) votes partly tribally and partly in an emotional spasm when disappointed.

Apparently, according to ‘The Master’, Labour won the 2024 General Election by being ‘an acceptable… default option to a Conservative government.’ If he is implying that voters switched from Tory to Labour he must be hard put to explain why Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership got more ballots in 2017 and 2019 than Starmer’s.

Corporate bullshit.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Benny Goodman and Swing, by JD

 “Creativity grows out of two things; curiosity and imagination”

- Benny Goodman.

Benjamin David Goodman was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader, known as the “King of Swing”. His orchestra did well commercially. From 1935 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benny-Goodman
https://www.bennygoodman.com/

Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman - Stealing Apples (high quality)

Benny Goodman Quartet - Moonglow

King Porter Stomp - Benny Goodman 1985

Benny Goodman Trio (China Boy and Sheik of Araby)

12-min version of “Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)” live @ Carnegie Hall, 1938

Labour law and "human-heartedness"

Our current Prime Minister is fond of using law as an expression of his autocratic power. A recent government press release states:

Eleven foreign far-right agitators intent on coming to the UK to spew their extremist views have been blocked from entering the country, as the Prime Minister takes action to protect British communities from vile hate.

Note the intemperate emotive language: “spew” and “vile.” This is not merely cool-headed administration but propaganda. It goes on in similar tone:

… violent thugs who spew hatred on our streets will face the full force of the law.

Among the banned speakers are a Polish MEP and a member of the Belgian Parliament. This does not sit well with Starmer’s assertion to the US President and Vice-President last year that he is proud of our tradition of free speech:

We all remember the case of Lucy Connolly but the Europe to which the PM wants to draw nearer can be even harsher to dissidents. Last year a German pensioner was investigated for calling Chancellor Friedrich Merz ‘Pinocchio’ on social media. Under Article 188 of the German Criminal Code a politically damaging criticism can be punished by up to five years in prison.

In 2024 the European Union itself extended the list of EU crimes to “hate speech” and “hate crime”; the potential for stretching this to include expressions of anger aroused by the negative consequences of mass immigration is obvious. Nevertheless two months ago the EU Parliament voted for tougher measures against illegal migrants, with deportation to “return hubs” outside the bloc.

The thing about “reactionaries” is that they are often reacting to something. Where does the fault lie?

We are entering what may become an age of social instability and it brings to mind China’s “Spring and Autumn” period a couple of thousand years ago. During this time the great teacher Confucius (born “Kong Qiu”) lived and taught his principles, which are based on “ren,” empathic “human-heartedness.”

A different approach to his was “Legalism” whereby order should be maintained by incentives and draconian punishments. Master Kong observed:

“If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of the shame, and moreover will become good.”

For Confucius social harmony is promoted by the personal example of individuals who are benevolent and have mastered their own passions.

Here Sir Keir fails, not only in his use of language in public messaging but shouting in the House of Commons and hitting the Speaker’s chair when reprimanded for his persistent failure to answer Opposition questions. If certain rumours are true his lack of self-control has also been expressed in other, grosser ways.

If the Kingdom is to be restored to peace and prosperity we shall need fewer damaging and divisive policies forced through in a tyrannical way, and more “ren” from our leaders.