FRIDAY MUSIC: Alan Price and Georgie Fame

This week features the collaboration between Alan Price and Georgie Fame. There are not many videos on youtube with both of them together. There is a comment beneath one of the videos asking why they are never featured on the many ‘golden oldie’ shows on radio or TV. Another simply says ‘from the old days when pop stardom needed real musical talent.’

The final video here is one of their TV shows - 29 minutes long. I hope that is not excessive but fans may feel it is just right!

Alan Price and Georgie Fame starred in their own BBC2 television series titled
“The Price of Fame” (sometimes referred to as Fame at any Price) in 1969. The series was produced by Stanley Dorfman for BBC2, starting with a special in late 1969 and featuring episodes into 1970.

The show featured musical performances and sketches written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones of Monty Python fame. Guests included Delaney & Bonnie (with Eric Clapton and Dave Mason), Thelma Houston, Doris Troy, Billy Preston, and Zoot Money.

The partnership between Alan Price and Georgie Fame began on a November night in 1970 at the London Revolution Club. There was a positive atmosphere among the Georgie Fame fans attending one of his rare concerts. Few of them however, were prepared for the musical fireworks which were about to come.

As Georgie Fame began to strike up the old Animals classic “Bring It on Home”, it was all over for the former Animals organist Alan Price. When Georgie - who recognized Alan Price in the audience- invited him to come onstage, he readily took up his offer. Both delivered a rock show to a stunning crowd, one that people seldom experience.

Songs such as “Rave On,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and “Oh Boy “ were full of energy and the entire club was electrified with excitement. Continuing this partnership was a logical consequence. Whoever limits this collaboration to their smash hit “Rosetta” is making a big mistake. “Together” proves that this duo has so much more to offer.

https://propermusic.com/products/georgiefamealanprice-together

1971 Alan Price & Georgie Fame - Rosetta

Alan Price & Georgie Fame - Good Day Sunshine

Alan Price and Georgie Fame - “We Was Rockin”

Alan Price & Georgie Fame - Boney Maroni

Alan Price & Georgie Fame on Sez Les - 6 September 1971

The Price of Fame - Alan Price & Georgie Fame

“An episode of BBC television’s The Price of Fame from 1969. Alan Price and Georgie Fame sing solo and together. Songs include Great Balls of Fire, Good Day Sunshine, Searching for Love, Here, There and Everywhere, Walk On By, and Bring it on Home to Me.

“Special guest Thelma Houston. Also features some crazy dancing and hairstyles. Plus Georgie Fame performing a song in a bathrobe….”

Rubbish: PMQs 11th February 2025

As the Prime Minister rose both sides of the House cheered. “I did not think that the Prime Minister was so popular on the Opposition Benches,” remarked the Speaker. Cheering and jeering have similar sounds but different meanings. Tory hands flapped at him while David Lammy and Rachel Reeves smirked.

As Quentin Letts describes, the mood became sombre as Kemi Badenoch laid into Sir Keir on the key people the PM has been “throwing under the bus” including Matthew (now Baron) Doyle (another of Blair’s old team) who had campaigned for a sex-offender Scottish Labour councillor yet was still given a peerage. Lib Dem leader Ed Davey finally triggered Starmer into a rant (says Letts) by referring to the same matter.

How embarrrassing for Labour, whose activists “have been branded “paedo lovers” on the doorsteps.” Government backbenchers must be seething inside, knowing that they had to hang together or would hang separately in the snap General Election that Starmer threatened in order to force his Cabinet back into line behind him.

Yet the Puritans may console themselves with the prospect of another three years of keeping the Tories out and only another three months before a local elections debacle that will likely trigger a leadership challenge. One more push! …. and then, as with Mohammed’s prophecy of his legacy, a battle of seventy-two sects will begin, each convinced it is the only correct one.

This is why, as Blair and his horrid crew understood, you cannot unite the Left, you have to dominate it. Zealous Muslim convert Jody McIntyre tells us:

“When Morgan McSweeney first joined Labour in 2001, he was assigned to Peter Mandelson’s Excalibur database, used to monitor “internal political rivals”. Mandelson would show Labour MPs their “Excalibur printouts” and threaten them with action if they stepped out of line.”

According to McIntyre, who in 2024 very nearly ousted Jess Phillips from her traditionally rock-solid Labour seat, “an MP who served on Labour’s frontbench has passed [JMc] details of an unknown and unelected group who “rule with a rod of iron” and are fighting to retain control of the party.”

McIntyre names Baron Doyle as one of McSweeney’s “inner circle” and goes on to allege “Starmer’s Labour is now infested with sexual predators + child rapists.” The pro-Palestinian activist is clearly hoping to widen the gap between Labour and the Islamic political faction that is developing as the Left Balkanises.

Did we miss an opportunity to stabilise the electorate when rejecting the Alternative Vote in the 2011 referendum? “Her party is dying,” said Sir Keir to Kemi; that makes two, at least.

In connection with the Mandelson affair Ed Davey’s second question urged the adoption of the “Hillsborough law” imposing “a duty of candour for anyone and everyone in public office.”

A British glasnost would be welcome, especially since the tendency appears to be in the opposite direction, what with the Goverment’s cancelling its agreement with Courtsdesk and so making searches of criminal proceedings (and e.g. collation of migrant crime data) more difficult. Debating this on Tuesday the Minister, Sarah Sackman, dressed it up as a procedural matter based on data protection.

The SNP’s Stephen Flynn made transparency a personal matter for Starmer, asking him in relation to Baron Doyle to release the House of Lords Appointments Commission’s confidential advice given to the PM “on the propriety of the proposed nominees.” Sir Keir replied “I have made my position clear. The right hon. Gentleman knows how the system works” (convention of confidentiality, another procedural escape hatch) and typically for him launched a distracting counterattack against the SNP. PMQs as Blind Man’s Buff.

Isn’t procedure wonderful? It can give you a monstrously unrepresentative majority in Parliament based on the technicalities of a flawed electoral system.

Independent Ayoub Khan lightened the mood when his question on the Birmingham bin strike began “Rubbish is building up right beneath my very nose.” There was general laughter.

Yet there is so much else building up under our noses that is not being cleared up.

Only disaster can save us

If the fuses keep blowing maybe the toaster needs replacing. Morgan McSweeney, Tim Allan, who’s next? Has the PM’s position become un-Number-Ten-able?

Belatedly Twitterites are starting to worry about who might come after Starmer. Sir Keir is being described as moderate and restrained by comparison.

They’re wrong.

The choice is between socialist hotheads who rush like a bull at a gate and will be defeated by a horrified populace, and crypto-communists who proceed more slowly and thoroughly - the Fabians, the Gramscians, the Pabloites.

Blair’s influence within the Labour Party continues. His Institute for Global Change is said to be deeply influential. Although Andrew Neil protests “Blair has never been Starmer’s mentor. Never. And recently they’ve barely been on speaking terms” you have to look at who has been working with the PM: tentacles of the New Labour octopus.

If TB is disappointed in KS it will be because Starmer is a clunker in presentation. We see it weekly in PMQs but here is Sir Keir in Hastings where while passing judgment on the Prince of Darkness he gives us this hostage to his own political fortune:

“No one — however well-connected, however experienced, however senior… should hold public office if they cannot meet the basic test of honesty.”

Some are saying there should now be a General Election.

Wrong again.

In the first place it is unconstitutional, as barrister Steven Barrett explains: out of the massive Parliamentary majority someone can be found to lead the Government on the King’s behalf.

Secondly the people are torn. Labour has shown its ghastly colours, the Conservatives are deeply unforgiven but Reform is still “an emotional spasm.”

The Right is split between the Tories, Reform and other nascent parties such as Advance UK. If Labour went to the country now it could destroy Reform who have an unlicked bear-whelp of a manifesto and a leader who has yet to prove he can assemble a Cabinet with strength in depth that could survive his departure.

The Left is also fragmenting - some are off to the Greens who are a combination of eco cranks and revolutionary Islamists, some to the Lib Dems, some to independents.

A GE now might be dangerous. A heartbroken electorate might stay away from the polling booths on such a scale as to realize what Tony Benn warned against in 1991:

“Apathy could destroy democracy. When the turnout drops below 50 per cent., we are in danger.”

- and again ten years later:

“The real danger to democracy is not that someone will burn Buckingham Palace and run up the red flag, but that people will not vote. If people do not vote, they destroy, by neglect, the legitimacy of the Government who have been elected.”

Already the dangerous question of legitimacy has arisen, when a Government acts as though it has a mandate for radical change when only a fifth of the voting population cast their ballots for them and many of those are suffering buyer’s remorse.

Such a crisis could scarcely come at a worse time. Starmer seems keen to get our weakened military involved in Ukraine. The rich are being driven out of Britain, many entrepreneurial types in the prime of life are emigrating. Businesses are going to the wall, manufacturing is dying because of Net Zero. Both Peter Hitchens and Rupert Lowe (see 31:25) are expecting a run on sterling at some point.

Our economy is threatened by an international trade imbalance against a background of Britain’s crippling Net Zero commitment and doctrinaire hostility to business. Unemployment is rising for these reasons and also because of mechanisation and AI. In this context the use of immigration to swell GDP can only be seen as lunatic. We are heading for a State where many millions will be long-term welfare dependants and the system will break.

It is odd that Starmer claims to work for the working class defined by him as those who do not have savings, when the public sector workers whose pay has recently been greatly boosted have not only greater job security but pensions that embody future financial benefits that personal schemes cannot match.

Foreign relations are also an issue. Why is China being allowed to build a Lubyanka-like fortress in central London? Why does it look as though the Chagos giveaway is likely to go ahead, after a period of US opposition? Did Starmer fly halfway around the world merely to get a lower tariff on Scotch whisky exports or did he give certain private assurances to the Chinese Government? Would that explain why he didn’t take his Foreign Secretary with him but instead his “national security adviser” Jonathan Powell who served a decade as Blair’s chief of staff (1997-2007)?

We seem to be weakening in every way. Is that the big idea?

As Starmer gave us his delusionary vision in Hastings we have to remember the significance of that place where almost a thousand years ago the flower of Anglo-Saxon nobility faced invasion, defeat and systematic oppression. Is Sir Keir standing on Senlac Hill or is his back to the sea?

Perhaps only a swift and full disaster will give us the opportunity to rebuild.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Tejedor, by JD

Tejedor is a folk music group from Avilés, Asturias, Spain, consisting originally of three siblings (Jose, Javier and Eva Tejedor). Eva left the band in 2010, being replaced by Silvia Quesada on vocals. Tejedor’s members play traditional Asturian styles of music using traditional instruments such as bagpipes, flutes, accordions and guitars.

Tejedor has become known on the international Celtic music scene, the two brothers of the group winning on several occasions the McCallan bagpipe awards at the Inter Celtic Music Festival in Lorient, France.

Their first album, Texedores De Suaños, was produced by Phil Cunningham and features musicians like Michael McGoldrick, Duncan Chisholm, James McKintosh and Kepa Junkera.

https://tejedorweb.blogspot.com/p/bio.html

Xota Villacondide

“Xota la Punta” - Tejedor

Tejedor - Gaites del infiernu (Bagpipes from hell)

Tejedor - El veleta

Chalaneru [Víctor Manuel, Tejedor, Chus Pedro, Ramón Prada]

Tejedor: Andolina

Just out of interest the word tejedor means weaver so they are, in a way, paying homage to Pete Seeger and his ‘Weavers’ from years ago. And andolina means swallow (the bird).

Interesting Times

 Some points arising out of the events of the last few days:

1. Why has Peter Mandelson been given so many chances over the years?

2. Would Starmer’s resignation change much? Or would it be the trumpet call for a clearout of the Blairites? In which case, would the general political programme remain the same?

3. Some are calling for a fresh General Election. Could that inflict serious damage on Reform, who have yet to work out what they will do and how, and how to set up and run a Cabinet?

4. If Reform are not ready and both Labour and Conservative are mistrusted, even hated, could we see the constitutional crisis thatTony Benn warned against, a voter turnout below fifty per cent and people questioning the Government’s authority to govern?

5. Such a crisis could scarcely come at a worse time. Starmer seems keen to get our weakened military involved in Ukraine. The rich are being driven out of Britain, many entrepreneurial types in the prime of life are emigrating. Businesses are going to the wall, manufacturing is dying because of Net Zero. Both Peter Hitchens and Rupert Lowe (see 31:25) are expecting a run on sterling at some point.

6. Mandelson’s insider financial tips to Epstein maybe be treacherous in a non-legal sense but not necessarily treasonous as they did not impact on the State’s security. Arguably the (planned) giving away of the Chagos islands with its implications for national defence, might be considered worse, though Starmer is not solely to blame: talks with Mauritius were instituted under the last Conservative government in 2022. Nevertheless the ICJ’s rulings are not binding; why was Sir Keir so interested in pushing the process onward?

7. Starmer’s recent visit to China resulted in a reduced tariff on our whisky exports and an easement of visa requirements for Chinese citizens visiting the UK. But while he was there might he also have agreed with the Chinese government some Memorandum of Understanding on other matters of mutual interest? Why did his National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell accompany him, but not the Foreign Secretary?

Should we abandon hope in this country, as Hitchens has, or hold onto it - remain “Klingons”?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Slim Gaillard, by JD

This time from Slim Gaillard. The comments to these videos show that most people have never heard of him which surprises me. The man was a genius! Unique, a one off, never to be repeated!

Bulee “Slim” Gaillard, also known as McVouty, was an American jazz singer and songwriter who played piano, guitar, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone. Gaillard was noted for his comedic vocalese singing and word play in his own constructed language called “Vout-o-Reenee”, for which he wrote a dictionary.

This man’s life is remarkable. He spent his childhood in Cuba cutting sugarcane and picking bananas. At age 12, he accompanied his father on a round-the-world trip but was accidentally stranded on the island of Crete. He spent four years sailing the Mediterranean, learning the basics of Greek and Arabic, and eventually boarding a ship bound for North America. During Prohibition, he drove a hearse carrying a coffin full of whiskey for the Purple Gang. As an adult, he taught himself guitar and piano, earned the respect of such big names in jazz such as Charlie Parker, Flip Phillips, and Coleman Hawkins, and he was capable of speaking six languages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Gaillard

Slim Gaillard Trio in Burghausen 1986

SLIM GAILLARD

George Melly & Slim Gaillard - Part 1 - Jazz Juke Box

George Melly & Slim Gaillard - Part 2 - Jazz Juke Box

Hellzapoppin’ in full color Slim Gaillard & Slam Stewart, the Harlem Congeroos

Slim Gaillard - Flat Foot Floogie (Live 1988)

Davos and PMQs, 21st January 2025

To adapt the My Fair Lady song, “Why can’t a Yankee be more like a Brit?” It was fun watching Andrew Neil sizzling ever hotter on X as President Trump spoke at Davos - “If the folks at Davos had a spine they’d be walking out en masse now. Leaving him to an empty room.” Neil seems to prefer the English habit of cautious precision, apology and understatement; I once unintentionally misled a Californian when I told him Colman’s mustard was “fairly warm” and watched him impressed as he slathered it on his hot dog.

Richard North takes a different angle: “Most of [Trump’s] speeches are self-aggrandising waffle with multiple factual inaccuracies. You have to listen to the song and not the lyrics.”

North is correct. The WEF, EU and Starmer’s Ingsoc are still playing with their citizen-paralysing legal architecture while China is bulldozing its way around the world. By contrast Trump is combative - who will ever forget his reaction to being nearly killed in Pennsylvania?

When Montgomery first met Churchill in 1940 and Winston overmatched him the General later said he’d thought “we’ve got our man.” Churchill didn’t get everything right either - Alan Brooke did great service in moderating most of the PM’s ideas; but what counted, and what still counts, was the fighting spirit and sense of direction.

But how Trump ruffles feathers! Suddenly Starmer has discovered “values and principles” in relation to Greenland and told the Commons he “will not yield.” To clarify, on Monday he said “any decision about the future status of Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone.”

That prompts us to ask, “which of those two?” For the Danes have not made themselves loved among the Inuit, on whom the Copenhaven government inflicted forced contraception decades ago, apologising only last August.

Naturally some people say, if the people of Greenland must make their own decision about national sovereignty, shouldn’t we also respect the result of the Brexit referendum? (And as Badenoch said, what about the Chagossians?) But don’t expect Starmer to have consistent principles on that, any more than with free speech, trial by jury and liberty generally.

Turning to national defence, where Sir Keir boasts of boosting funding, we struggle to square that with giving the Chinese the go-ahead on building a fortress-like embassy in central London, and yielding (to use his new favourite word) the strategically important Chagos islands to China-aligned Mauritius. On Monday the PM shared custard cream biscuits with Samaritans representatives; perhaps he should offer Cowardy Custard Creams to the FCO and intelligence services?

This week’s PMQs was rowdy. The Speaker issued multiple warnings to his unruly class but shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden persisted and was ordered out. Holden has been an MP since 2019 so ignorance could not be an excuse; did he want to bunk off for a fag behind the bike sheds?

He’s not the only one to transgress protocol. Starmer once again introduced the session with a party political broadcast and when the Greens’ Dr Chowns asked about agricultural water pollution she was treated to an aggressive interrrogation of Zack Polanski’s policy toward NATO. Speaker Hoyle brought him up short - “We do not ask the Opposition questions” - but after eighteen months in power surely the PM should know how not to be a hooligan.

The first query was a softball about the new Warm Homes plan. Even if the figures are right the £15 billion investment might take over a decade to pay for itself but that doesn’t solve the problem that our energy prices are four times higher than in the US and consequently our industry is withering. Does the unyielding PM have the spine to cancel Net Zero and redeploy Miliband the Mad?

It’s odd how Starmer is willing to pay for palliative measures rather than seek fundamental cures when it comes to energy, immigration and wealth production. Instead his radicalism comes out in cowing and de-democratising the people.

On the other hand Trump is resented for his willingness to use America’s might in order to tackle systemic matters. Would-be statesman Ed Davey said today that the Don is a “crime boss”; Labour’s Steve Witherden called him a thug and bully. One supposes they prefer the bureaucratic gradualism of their European political colleagues, the ones who so dragged their feet when Ethiopia was starving and needed Bob Geldof’s popular support to galvanise them into action.

It’s not just that Trump is an old man in a hurry. Like his predecessors he is under the gun, having only two years (if that) to make his mark before the mid-term elections (all members of Congress and a third of the Senate) that could change the balance of power and hamstring his efforts to restore the Republic and cleanse its institutions of subversive zealots (both Left and Right.) He is a flawed and fallible man but we need to rise above soap opera judgmentalism to consider the great challenges in this newly multi-polar world.

FRIDAY & BURNS NIGHT MUSIC, by JD

This week something different (again!) The music comes from Kenneth McKellar, known as ‘the Scottish tenor’ and because Sunday night will be Burns night I’m sort of combining the two by including a couple of Burns songs.

===============================================

Kenneth McKellar (23 June 1927 – 9 April 2010)

McKellar studied forestry at the University of Aberdeen and after graduating he worked for the Scottish Forestry Commission. He later trained at the Royal College of Music as an opera singer. He did not enjoy his time with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and left them to pursue a career singing traditional Scottish songs and other works.

In 1965, the BBC selected McKellar to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in Luxembourg. He sang five titles from which viewers selected “A Man Without Love” as the 1966 entry. According to the author and historian John Kennedy O’Connor’s The Eurovision Song Contest – The Official History, the Scottish tenor – who had changed into a kilt at the last moment – drew gasps from the audience when he appeared on stage.

The Irish jury gave the UK song top marks, one of only two occasions the Irish have done so in Eurovision history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_McKellar_(singer)
https://projects.handsupfortrad.scot/hall-of-fame/kenneth-mckellar/

The Midges

Ae Fond Kiss

MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE - Kenneth McKellar

Flower of Scotland

YE BANKS AND BRAES KENNETH MCKELLAR

Skye Boat Song

Comedy Club: PMQs 14th January 2025

Too much of our political judgment is simply visceral. If Starmer were a teacher the class would begin playing him up out of instinct, sensing him to be “different.” But there is little point in complaining about his personality. A battering-ram does not need character. What counts is who is using him and for what.

Granted, it would be easier for his Party if he were a slicker like Blair. Failing that he has a team who write jokes and insults for him as he trudges through the inconvenience of Prime Minister’s Questions.

Who is on that team? Judging by the material they feed him they are half-educated and louche. Here is Sir Keir on the Tories’ frequent management changes:

“They had more positions in 14 years than the Kama Sutra. No wonder they are knackered; they left the country screwed.”

That is bar-room talk, not Commons decorum. Soon after he turns to sneering at

“…the Ikea shadow Cabinet. The trouble is that nobody wants to buy it, it is mainly constructed of old dead wood, and every time you lose a nut it defects to Reform.”

Yuk, yuk, yuk. How we nearly laughed.

Not as good as the old one about Cecil Parkinson impregnating his mistress: “Why are the Tories like MFI? One screw in the wrong place and the whole cabinet falls apart.” But again, that wasn’t said in the Debating Chamber.

How much further will the PM’s ground crew take it? Will they start inserting jokes alluding to drug-taking, which I assume is as rife in Spadland as in advertising and PR? If they really want to get edgy they can come up with something about colostomy bags (if you know, you know.) It could be a sell-out performance…

… like Chagos, which Trump has finally criticised as “an act of total weakness.” Can the country recover from the structural damage inflicted by this administration?

The evisceration of PMQs continues. Yet again Sir Keir padded-out his introduction with remarks on Iran, deploring brutality to protestors there (but not to those in London) and Labour’s development plans for the North of England. Another time-filler was thanking before answering - Starmer did it eleven times to questioners and once to an NHS hospital.

In the main exchange with Badenoch his gibe about defections to Reform was given further point the next day when Robert Jenrick crossed over - officially he was sacked though one rumour has it he left his draft resignation lying around to bounce Kemi into action. I heard Jenrick’s name muttered as a possible Conservative leader in a side meeting at the Birmingham conference several years ago; perhaps his moment passed when Badenoch’s Parliamentary performances began to strengthen.

Nevertheless his subsequent speech at Reform’s presser confirmed what we see weekly at Westminster: the two main parties have ruined us. If Kemi’s October conference comment is right, that Labour acting on its principles must fail, then the question is why the Conservatives copied them for so long.

A blue reset (rinse?) might be possible, but only if the “broken Britain” failure is frankly addressed and according to Jenrick’s account of a recent shadow Cabinet meeting a few of them

“… had a third view. It is broken but we can’t say so because the Conservative Party broke it.”

If they don’t say so then Labour will, and does it regularly.

Worse still, reform with a lower case “r” may now be unachievable. The several crises that beset us may not be resolved by a little tax-cutting here and a little benefit-pruning there. Drastic action is needed, on a scale that the general public may not feel able to support and that certain elements may oppose vigorously, even violently. Look at Minnesota and at Democrats like Bernie Sanders fanning the flames.

In the meantime we must endure Labour acting on its principles, the first being to maximise its chances of re-election. In this session Badenoch called for the sacking of the West Midlands’ Chief Constable but in the event the easy way was taken instead: his early retirement. Politics is personalised and this scapegoating is useful to distract attention from how the decision to exclude Jewish fans from the Villa match was made, and what that reveals about influencers within the safety committee as well as the organisers of mob intimidation outside the ground itself. No Grunwick grit here and weakness invites more and worse.

The Opposition leader also had fun twitting Starmer with his alleged U-turns, missing what is really going on: not a turning around but a stepping back to jump higher. Inheritance tax on farmers has not been abolished entirely, nor has digital ID or the crushing business rates on the hospitality industry. The ground has been broken.

The Seventies dreamers spoke of “smashing the system” and we are getting to the point of having a smash but possibly no working system after that.

There is a deal of hope riding on Farage’s creation but he has steep hurdles to jump. If he is to be ready by 2029 he has to attract experienced individuals so that he does not take over with ignorant ingenues like Labour did. But can he control them? And can he control himself - is he able to run a Cabinet without firing dissidents? Farage has spent decades as a political heckler; will he be able to stand in the spotlight and deliver? Does he have it in him?

Do we have it in us?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Julio Iglesias, by JD

This week in the videos we are among hot blooded latin ladies and the dulcet tones of Julio Iglesias.

Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva is a Spanish singer and songwriter. Iglesias is recognized as the most commercially successful Spanish singer in the world and one of the top record sellers in music history, having sold more than 300 million records worldwide in 14 languages.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julio-Iglesias

On a personal note, I was aware of Iglesias; difficult to avoid really. His devoted fans call him Agosto Catedrales i.e. one step up from July Churches.

And then I was persuaded, very reluctantly, to see him in concert at The Bernabeu, Real Madrid’s stadium. And I’m glad I went, he was very good. Not that I will ever buy any of his records but he is worth seeing in concert.

Julio Iglesias Canta - Videomatch

Julio Iglesias - La Gota Fría

Willie Nelson, Julio Iglesias - To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before (Official Video)

Julio Iglesias - Agua Dulce, Agua Salá (Video Oficial)

JULIO IGLESIAS- 2001--MAL ACOSTUMBRADO

Julio Iglesias - La Carretera

"The Archers" and the EU

A couple of days ago I watched a TV interview about a British radio serial called “The Archers.” It features a fictional Midlands community and began 75 years ago as an entertainment vehicle to convey useful information on farming matters, as our country needed to modernise agricultural practices.

The BBC interviewee said that the educational role was removed in 1972. OpenAI offered me a number of reasons, mainly that it had achieved its aim.

But then I realised that we were just about to join the EEC aka the Common Market which we did formally on 1st January 1973.

Imagine if farmer Dan Archer had to muse daily on the impact on his business of European legislation, grants etc. Perhaps a coastal fisheries contact could also have been telling him of the disastrous Heath government’s decision to let EU nations - especially the French - catch fish in our waters right up to the shoreline.

So, was the remit of this narrative modified simply to suit the political narrative of that time?

Law vs custom :PMQs 7th January 2026

He’s done it again. Defying the Speaker’s displeasure, Starmer indulged in yet another time-wasting preamble, starting with a crack at Reform:

“I begin by saying that I hope all colleagues had a happy Christmas. It probably feels quite a long time ago now, but not for Reform, of course, because today is the day that they celebrate Christmas in Russia.”

The fool who wrote that for him invites comparisons that are not entirely to our advantage, whether in balance of trade, governmental debt-to-GDP, assertion of national sovereignty or democratic validation of the leader. Pound shop Russophobia isn’t enough to win elections. No wonder Labour is busy disenfranchising 10 million Britons.

Sir Keir ploughed on, first with what Labour has done for the people of Reading, and then about his “coalition of the willing” in support of Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader is now unelected, what with a war being on. (PM: hmm…)

At last Starmer delivered the short conventional formula about ministerial meetings and let MPs get a word in edgeways.

After an initial puff from Labour’s Ruth Cadbury inviting the PM to speak about the forthoming leasehold and commonhold reform Bill, Kemi Badenoch was invited to begin the session proper.

She did not disappoint, targeting Starmer’s disregard for long-established protocols. Kemi asked why he had not made a statement to the House that day about his commitment to put British troops in Ukraine.

Chiding Labour ‘chunterers’ the Speaker concurred: “I have also requested an early statement; the House should always be informed first.”

Badenoch said:

“His comments about making a statement in due course are frankly not good enough. It shows a fundamental lack of respect for all of us here, and for the people we represent... Why is today not the earliest opportunity? The truth is that the Prime Minister does not want everybody in this House to be able to ask him questions.”

Ah, “the people we represent”! That opens a can of worms. Who listens to the people? Christmas is coming for uniparty turkeys in May; that is, wherever voting is permitted.

Sir Keir even thinks it is for him to speak for the Opposition:

“She has six questions, and she is not even asking a second question about what we did yesterday. She has the opportunity.”

Sir Lindsay quickly put him right (“That is their job.”)

Funny how a punctilious lawyer is happy to trample custom and tradition underfoot.

Starmer over-reaches in other ways. He is threatening to ban X under the pretext of child protection and not at all because it is a talking-shop for his critics. Why not go further? Iran has shut down the Internet to help maintain its authority. There must be many good central-control ideas flying about at Davos, which (like the UK) Tehran’s Strategic Affairs VP attended last year; certainly the PM feels more comfortable there than here.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey quoted Geoffrey Robertson KC as saying President Trump’s intervention in Venezuela “is in breach of the United Nations charter.” This is an era in which the legitimacy of government and law - especially international law - are coming into question and this video by barrister Steven Barrett may help clarify our thinking.

We need less jabbing of fingers at rule books and more concentrating on realism and social cohesion; less commanding and more leading, conciliating and persuading. 

FRIDAY MUSIC: Dutch Swing College Band, by JD

The Dutch Swing College Band is a traditional Dixieland band founded on 5 May 1945 by bandleader and clarinettist/saxophonist Peter Schilperoort. Highly successful in their native home of the Netherlands, the band quickly found an international following.

The band provided the interval act for the Eurovision Song Contest 1976 presented live from Den Haag.

The band continues to tour extensively, mainly in Europe and Scandinavia, and record directed by Bob Kaper, himself a member since 1967, following the former leader, Peter Schilperoort’s death on 17 November 1990. Schilperoort had led the band for more than 45 years, albeit with a five-year sabbatical from 13 September 1955, when he left to pursue an engineering career before returning to lead the band again officially on 1 January 1960.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Swing_College_Band

Dutch Swing College band 1960 At the Jazzband Ball

High Society - live performance by the Dutch Swing College Band

Dutch Swing College Band & Lindy Hop dancers - Doghouse Blues

Dutch Swing College Band - Klazz (by Menno Daams)

Big Butter and Egg Man - Dutch Swing College Band

When You’re Smiling - live performance by the Dutch Swing College Band
The Dutch Swing College Band performing ‘When You’re Smiling’ together with guest artists Leroy Jones (vocals, trumpet) and Adonis Rose (drums) during their Ministry of Jazz concert tour 2022 in The Netherlands.

The decline and fall of PMQs

A keynote of the modern British Left is arrogance.

We see this with PMQs. Blair (so busy) cut their frequency to once a week, though not the total length. Starmer (when present) maintained the length but filled them with his tangential nonsense and scorn for the Opposition.

Sir Keir has gone even further, beginning sessions with some time-wasting preamble. The Speaker was heard to fume “never again!” on 3rd December yet two weeks later the PM inserted a disgusting slur:

“I have a little festive advice to those in Reform: if mysterious men from the east appear bearing gifts, this time report it to the police.”

The reference is of course to Reform’s former leader in Wales Nathan Gill, jailed in November for taking Russian bribes; but as an MEP, not in the yet-to-be created Reform Party and six-plus years ago. However there is no obvious opportunity to riposte to such rubbish when so placed.

Presumably it was scripted for Starmer by some snickering midwit. The average IQ of Labour’s front bench has been a matter of concern for some time but one wonders about the intellectual and moral decline among civil servants who resort to lazy smears as part of the nation’s formal discourse.

Reform’s representation in the House is so small despite its 4.1 million votes in the last General Election that its Party is given very little chance to submit questions or counter sinister insinuations. Nigel Farage retreated to the Visitor’s Gallery last October in protest against the shadow-banning and has done so again now, putting his queries via Times Radio instead.

Labour’s discourtesy manifests itself elsewhere. Previous administrations have broken protocol by releasing information to the press before informing Parliament, but Starmer’s government has already repeated the offence several times. Speaker Hoyle has reprimanded it twice over Budget leaks, and again in relation to last year’s Strategic Defence Review.

The rudeness extends to what one might call courtesy and service issues. On 10th December there were three post-PMQs Points of Order: Rachel Blake (Lab) complained of Chris Philp’s filming interviews in her constituency; her colleague John McDonnell said that a week had gone by and the Secretary of State for Justice had yet to reply to a letter sent on behalf of MPs re the Palestine Action prisoners’ hunger strike; Jeremy Corbyn (Ind) asked Hoyle’s assistance in getting a Minister to make a statement to the House on that issue. The Speaker said he could not control the agenda but hinted at alternative procedural strategies with which McDonnell and Corbyn would be familiar.

One senses a government getting out of hand, impatient of attempts to call it to account. When you simply know you are right and you have an overwhelming majority in the House, why bother answering malcontents, swatting such pesky flies?

Yet Starmer’s sense of entitlement rests on a crumbly foundation - two-thirds of the seats but only one-third of the ballots. To what extent can one pursue a radical agenda with so little support? The PM thinks like a lawyer yet a criminal court could not convict a defendant on the basis of four jurors giving a verdict of guilty against the opinion of the other eight.

And there are matters of such grave import that referenda might be justified - e.g. compulsory ID and the abandonment of Chagos, neither of them covered in the 2024 Manifesto. Not that a manifesto is binding in any case.

We are beginning to wonder to what extent Westminster’s rule is universally accepted as legitimate. The behaviour of the party now in power is in danger of raising that question. Its advisors may have forgotten the lessons learned from the stiff autocracy of the Stuart monarchs.

Venezuelan regime change - foreseen in 2019

Reposted from Broad Oak seven years ago:

Venezuela has suddenly become part of the news agenda, or maybe it is part of the 'fake news' agenda. It is hard to tell these days.

Unlike the majority of pundits and commentators, I have actually been to the country. For about three months in 1992 I was working in Caracas on a pipeline project bringing water to the capital to service the 'barrios' the shanty towns encircling the city. Most, if not all of these 'favelas' were without running water.

It was a long time ago and I have forgotten most of the details of what I was doing on the project but I did garner some vivid impressions of life there so here are a few. I will offer a few thoughts on the current situation later.

I had already worked for this company on another project in Zaragoza in Spain so I knew their ways reasonably well and they wanted me because I can speak Spanish and especially the engineering and technical terminology.

I was lodged in the CCT hotel which is itself incorporated into a very large shopping complex. First thing I noticed was the armed guards at every entrance to the shopping centre and not just one man with a pistol, there were four or five at each entrance and very visibly armed. Among all the shops were bars and restaurants as well as night clubs and through the windows of one I could see and hear some very lively and energetic dancing. Clearly these Venezolanos know how to enjoy themselves!

The office was somewhere downtown and a taxi from the hotel basement was the best way to get there. Taxis were all fairly nondescript American 'barges' which usually feel like floating about in a hovercraft. Up in the lift at the office block to the twelfth floor and sitting in the lift lobby was a uniformed guard with a gun and his back to the window. On the 12th floor? What sort of country is this?

As time passed I began to learn that Caracas is a sort of 'inside out' prison with all the good guys living their lives behind bolted and barred doors, and with all the bad guys free to walk the streets. I never felt threatened at any time but I was always aware of my surroundings. Lunch was a cafe/bar across the road and was very good. I especially liked the black beans with arepas, spicy and tasty.

I noticed that it rained every day regular as clockwork in the afternoons. A cloudburst of very heavy rain and it was literally a cloudburst. Something to do with the microclimate generated by the high altitude and the surrounding mountains. (Climate scientists do not like to acknowledge such things because it upsets their computer modelling; see previous post on climate.)

And then one day, during my final week there, our office manager was shot on his way home from work. He was driving home and was waiting at traffic lights when he had a gun pointed in his face through the open window. The robber took his watch and then shot him in the thigh. He then fired two or three bullets into the engine for some reason. I went to visit him in hospital and he was not seriously wounded but he did seem to have been traumatised by the episode and was nowhere near his usual cheery self. The hospital, by the way, was spotlessly clean and had an air of calm about it. I think our NHS could learn a thing or two from Latin America; a few years later I visited a colleague in hospital in Chile after he had a heart attack and it had the same air of unhurried calm and was spotlessly clean.

A couple of days before I left I was told by the senior project manager to go and get a ticket for the BA flight - "You have to be patriotic" or words to that effect.  So I went to the travel agent on the ground floor of the building to book the flight. Only two seats available, one in first class and the other one at the back among the backpackers. No contest, I'll have the first class ticket please! Project manager had gone back to Paris by this point so I didn't say anything and nobody checked in the weeks after. I am worth it anyway, that's my excuse! Later that afternoon there was a power cut in the building. When the power was restored we found out that there had been a bank robbery at the bank next door to the travel agent. The robbers had somehow interrupted the power supply which allowed them to do whatever they did.

I think I have related elsewhere how the company's 'Mr Fixit' took me to the airport and escorted me from kerbside to 1st class lounge in about 10 or 15 minutes just by waving his security pass at everyone! That's the only way to travel!

A few thoughts on the current situation starting with some background information taken from my copy of the South American Handbook, 1992:

* The Spanish landed in Venezuela (little Venice) in 1498, what they found was a poor country sparsely populated with very little in the way of a distinctive culture. It remained a poor country for the next 400 years or so, agrarian, exporting little and importing less.  Oil was discovered in 1914 and everything changed. It became the richest country in Latin America and the known reserves were estimated to last for 40 years. (i.e. until 2032)

* Only about 20% of the land area is devoted to agriculture and three quarters of that is pasture. (In effect, animal husbandry with little in the way of food crops)

* 84% of the population live in urban areas.

* Venezuela is Latin America's fourth largest debtor despite having foreign reserves of approximately US$20 bn accumulated by the mid 1980s from oil wealth.

Carlos Andres Perez was president of Venezuela while I was there in 1992 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Andr%C3%A9s_P%C3%A9rez

Note the importation of 80% of food during his first term and the huge loan from Washington during his second term. If there are food shortages it means the supply chain has been cut and knowing how and why that has happened will be a clue to the reason for the current crisis. All of those loans will come with strings attached and any spending will be monitored by the 'money changers' with very little leeway.

 I watched the TV programme about Chavez last week and both Chavez and CAP seemed to me to be pursuing similar policies, trying to improve the living standards of their people. But they also made the same mistakes; relying solely on oil revenues and not investing in the future for when the oil runs out. The conditions attached to the various loans will probably mean that the social programmes of both Chavez and CAP will be abandoned in favour of 'austerity' as is happening in Europe.

During the last few days (at the end of January) the US policy on Venezuela has become blatantly obvious: regime change. And I look at the history of the continent and I cannot help but see that the US has supported every dictator in Latin America.

Since 1492 the imperial powers of Europe have sought to control the whole continent, both north and south. Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British have been playing a perpetual power game in order to exploit the 'Eldorado' of the new world. Now the US has joined the game and their main objective is oil, it is always oil for the US. It is the foundation of their foreign policy. I saw a comment somewhere that it wasn't really about oil because the US has more than enough oil in their own country. A very naive comment indeed; I first worked in the oil industry in the 70s and it was made clear to me that there were indeed massive resources in the US. Hundreds of wells have been drilled and capped and they serve as their reserve. Almost all of the American engineers I encountered would gleefully boast of how they were going to deplete the resources of other countries. After all, the supply is finite. The earth is not manufacturing oil any more. It was a great joke among Americans that when all of the foreign resources had been fully exploited then they would open the taps on their own wells.

With the whole world supporting the US actions except Russia and China who are lining up behind Maduro and the Venezuelan people, this is not going to end well so I leave the last word (28th January) to Ron Paul -
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2019/january/28/trump-s-venezuela-fiasco/
___________________________________________
Sackerson adds: these stories seem to imply that Venezuela "needs saving from itself"...

World Bank Reports Venezuela Oil Output Falling Since 2000

Venezuela’s collapse: How far will oil production fall? 

Another 42 stars on the US flag?

Grabbing Canada and Greenland - the idea came well before Trump. Plus Mexico! Below is a repost from Broad Oak in 2008:

"Deepcaster" continues to hint at the operations of "The Cartel". His theory is outlined in this post of August 11, 2006. In a nutshell, there's a plot (a) to dissolve the US and make a new entity by combining it with Canada and Mexico, and (b) ruin the dollar in order to replace it with the "Amero", presumably to recommence the thieving by inflation. So it's like what some think the EU project is about.

Except I don't think the EU or its North American equivalent are driven by sinister motives; just venal ones. Concentrating wealth and power makes very juicy opportunities, provided you can simplify the command structure. All that consulting the common people and getting their agreement is so tedious.

America grows. She acquired 29 states in the nineteenth century and five in the twentieth. Where next? Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories; Mexico has 31 states and one federal district; Greenland is owned by Denmark but has been granted home rule. But Canadians, Mexicans and Greenlanders may have their own views about assimilation.

Democracy is inconvenient, by design. I think the thirteen stripes on "Old Glory" remain there, not just as a historical quirk, but to remind the Federal Government that it's very important to say "please" and "thank you". Even in the first go at making the nation, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey chose to delay the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, until certain issues had been resolved to their satisfaction.

Here's to the awkward squad.

The Grand Union Flag of 1775, flown by John Paul Jones

Billi the Cat

Our neighbour across the fence acquired a kitten. As soon as it got out the back door it shot up a tall conifer at the end of the garden.

Coaxing was no use. Nor was borrowing a ladder and trying to reach for Pussy who only climbed higher. Finally the owner called a tree surgeon who roped himself up and seized the escapee. Some days later we heard the lady say “If you go up that tree again Mummy’s going to be very cross with you.”

One day a little black-and-white cat came snooping by our French window. It was very hesitant and twitchy so we thought it was a tom but had the good manners not to inspect him too closely. We named him Billy.

He was happy to accept food. Boy, that hasn’t changed, except he’s stepped it up to four packets of meat a day plus several handsful of crunchies.

Eventually we worked out he was female and since we live in an increasingly Asian neighbourhood we modified her name to Billi which means cat in Hindi and Urdu (the male equivalent is “billa.”)

She tends to “eat and run” like a teenager but as she ate more we began to wonder who her real owner was. She has had several collars so someone must have thought she was theirs. Maybe they moved away.

We bought an outdoor cat cabin and lined it with newspaper and a towel. We positioned it here and there in the garden - by the shed, in the plastic greenhouse, on the wooden bench to get it off the cold ground - but as far as we know she never used it though one or two other local cats may have done.

Instead she has established a roost - the roof of a tall garden tool cupboard just outside the living room. At dawn we draw back the bedroom curtain and look down to see her there and wish her good morning. Open the kitchen door and in she shoots.

Her usual route for coming down was to trot along the fence to a raised bed and leap onto the earth and from there to the ground. But when summer came and the plants rose up she didn’t fancy jumping into them and instead nervously launched herself direct from the fence. So rather than have her sprain an ankle we bought one of those folding ramps to help elderly dogs into cars, and set it up halfway. She soon got the idea of the chute.

As winter approached and we began to plan holidays the question of ownership raised its head again. These days when Billi left the garden it would be to our right so I made an is-this-your-cat flyer and posted copies to the houses along the road there but no-one responded.

We repositioned the cabin to by the tool cupboard and success! It became Billi’s night shelter against cold weather; and increasingly during the day also.

Until wandering cats took to pissing on the outside of her bedroom. Miserable gits! That put her off and it was back to rooftop sentry duty for Billi.

For the last several weeks she has decided to stay indoors with us but not on the couch as she used to. No, it’s the bathroom for her and she sleeps on the laundry basket; we can hear the thumps as she scratches herself next to the airing cupboard.

Now she has taken to curling up in the bathtub. Why, we don’t know; it must be colder than by the radiator.

And so here we are at the beck and call of a fat feline. Take a few steps downstairs and she will rush past you to the dinner plate in the kitchen; and up again. If we soften and let her stay overnight she will wait till we visit the toilet at 2 a.m. and demand to be let out.

How did we get into this? How do we get out of this?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Gerry Cinnamon, by JD

Gerard Crosbie, professionally known as Gerry Cinnamon, is a Scottish singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist. In 2020 his second album, The Bonny, reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and became the third biggest selling UK album released that year. He sings using Glaswegian dialect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Cinnamon

https://www.gerrycinnamonmusic.com/

Diamonds in the Mud

Gerry Cinnamon - Canter

Gerry Cinnamon Discoland

Gerry Cinnamon - Sometimes (Official Video)

Belter

Gerry Cinnamon – The Bonny (Official Lyric Video)

No to a degree, yes to skills

The days of the higher education scam are numbered.

A recent survey by Microsoft identified 40 knowledge-based jobs at risk of replacement by Artificial Intelligence. So much for borrowing many thousands to go to “uni.”

Instead young people should consider skilled manual work and personal services. This will be the age of the toolbelt-wearing “husky” and the massage therapist.

Just imagine being able to earn money straight out of school, debt-free, and to start a family in your twenties!

All that remains is to make housing affordable somehow.

Here are some jobs that are thought likely to survive, some better paid than others:

Bridge and lock tenders

Car glass installers/repairers

Cement masons and concrete finishers

Dishwashers

Dredge operators

Embalmers

Eye health technician

Firefighter supervisors

Floor sanders and finishers

Foundry mold and coremakers

Gas compressor/pumping station operator

Hazardous materials removal workers

Highway maintenance workers

Industrial truck and tractor operators

Logging equipment operators

Machine feeders and offbearers

Maids/cleaners

Massage therapists

Medical equipment preparers

Motorboat operators

Nursing assistants

Oil and Gas labourer

Oral and facial surgeons

Orderlies

Packaging and filling machine operators

Painter/Plasterer assistants

Paving/surfacing/tamping

Phlebotomists

Pile driver operators

Plant and system operators

Production worker assistants

Prosthodontists

Railway laying and maintenance

Roofer assistants

Roofers

Ship engineers

Surgical assistants

Tire builders

Tire repairers/changers

Water treatment plant operator