An apology

Some weeks ago, looking at the Mail on Sunday, I wondered what had happened to editor Paul Dacre - its Referendum coverage was on full Project Fear.

Fool me, the editor of the MoS is Geordie Greig - sorry, Mr Dacre. According to Private Eye the two deeply dislike one another. Today the MoS charges full tilt at Brexit - something like the first dozen pages! - using the dreadful murder of Jo Cox by a madman as its battering ram.

The name may be a clue. Mr Greig is, as Polly Vernon's 2005 Guardian article about him stresses, "very kind and supportive and Scottish." There are some among Scottish nationalists who desire not only their liberty, but anything that may be to the detriment of their southern neighbours. Even it it means remaining in the EU, which will by degrees leach away what is left of Scottish freedom. [Dacre's paper campaigned for Scotland to stay in the UK.]

The vote looks to be very close. Will the outcome of the most important political decision in forty years be swayed by an emotional spasm heavily triggered by a Sunday paper and its editor's personal animosities?

Only Peter Hitchens talks any sense on the subject today.


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Referendum: 3 for 3?

The Establishment's general strategy is to offer you an opportunity and then do their damnedest to make sure you don't take it.

2011 - Labour and Conservative parties unite to oppose the LibDems' push for the Alternative Vote, which if introduced would have meant that all MPs would have to be validated at a General Election by at least half of the votes cast in their constituency. As it is, in the last two GEs two-thirds of MPs got their seats in Parliament on the basis of a minority vote.

2014 - Labour, Conservative and Liberal parties unite to oppose Scottish independence. [Oddly, freedom-loving Scots seem both to oppose Brexit and to desire for themselves some strange version of independence that is - how? - consistent with membership of Monnet's "ever-closer union".]

2016 - Labour and Liberal parties, together with the Conservatives ex John Major's "bastards", unite to oppose British exit from the EU supranational government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutions_of_the_European_Union#/media/File:Political_System_of_the_European_Union.svg

I keep saying it (and recently I have been seeing others saying something similar), we are seeing the construction of a new Habsburg empire. It suits politicians and businesspeople at a high level...

... plus much of the Fourth Estate (some for idealistic alle-menschen-werden-brueder aspirations) that is prepared to wear their livery. [I'll never forget how Jon Snow allowed Alastair Campbell to march in and take over his news programme.]

They wine, dine and recline with each other. They will intermarry until they begin to look different from the rest of us; perhaps not the Habsburg chin, but the opaque blue eyes of a Blair?

Yet the new European empire is ruinously undermined from the start, because the multinational corporations are even bigger. The status quo is rolling downhill out of control, without brakes or steering. There is no keeping things as they are; the question is whether anyone will try to get a grip.

If - and it's very iffy - this Referendum decides for Leave, and if - and it's very iffy - Parliament then decides to approve the decision, we will have taken only the first step in a long march.

The alternative is to watch matters progress to the point where the much of the world's social and economic system simply breaks down altogether and the wealthy Modern Mayans discover that even their own existence depended on a functioning society.

Seeing much of the writing and comments on social media, I'm not in favour of direct democracy - many people look as though they're not fit to be allowed out on their own, let alone vote - but if the national government of the day goes too far then under the present system the people can collectively vote them out. The EU structure above is an oligarch's dream and represents a final rolling-back of 200 years of widening enfranchisement.

Two centuries ago, most people in Britain couldn't vote, but they could riot. In bad times, they broke windows in Whitehall; in good, they unhitched the Prime Minister's horses and pulled his coach themselves.

Now, exhaustively spied upon and with super-powerful police and military to corral them, the people may commit only such disorder as the Establishment thinks fit to permit in order to justify oppressing them even more severely afterwards.

This vote matters, and it could be the last one that does.


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Friday Night Is Music Night - Tango

JD presents a selection of tango... in we go!





This is an excerpt from the film "Tango" by the Spanish film director, Carlos Saura. The whole film is a visual and musical delight and well worth seeing:



"Gotan is, as you will have guessed, just tango with the last syllable placed at the front of the word. It is a style of 'argot' in the Boca district of Buenos Aires.

"I first came across it years ago when I was listening to a girl yakking away over the dinner table and she kept saying Tabogo and the penny dropped eventually when I realised she was talking about Bogota!"

- More to come in the weeks ahead.


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

They are different

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Rich Boy (1926)

There is much that one could say about this quote. Few of us would turn down the chance to be rich if there were no insuperable caveats, but few of us would use it well. The rich are still different today and there are more of them, but not only the rich. Celebrities are different too, and as far as one can tell they are often different in much the same way because they think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are.

It is something we do to people via money or status, including political status. The problem affects both left and right political classes in that they think they know what is best for us. Those who don't tend to be corrupt in one way or another, apart from a modest few who actually try to leave political life in a better state than they found it.

In Wikipedia there is an interesting quote from Matthew Bruccoli about Fitzgerald's story.

"'The Rich Boy' is a key document for understanding Fitzgerald's much-discussed and much-misunderstood attitudes toward the rich. He was not an envious admirer of the rich, who believed they possessed a special quality. In 1938 he observed: 'That was always my experience—a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton...I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works.' He knew the lives of the rich had great possibilities, but he recognized that they mostly failed to use those possibilities fully. He also perceived that money corrupts the will to excellence. Believing that work is the only dignity, he condemned the self-indulgent rich for wasting their freedom."

Money corrupts the will to excellence, but not money alone. When the political classes become too secure in their status, their generous salary and allowances, their opportunities to mix with the rich and powerful, then they too seem to ape the self-indulgent rich. They too waste the freedom they have been given to make the world a better place. The will to excellence is easily corrupted.

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Each Man's Thumbscrew

Find out each Man's Thumbscrew. ’Tis the art of setting their wills in action. It needs more skill than resolution. You must know where to get at any one. Every volition has a special motive which varies according to taste. All men are idolaters, some of fame, others of self-interest, most of pleasure. Skill consists in knowing these idols in order to bring them into play.

Knowing any man's mainspring of motive you have as it were the key to his will. Have resort to primary motors, which are not always the highest but more often the lowest part of his nature: there are more dispositions badly organised than well. First guess a man's ruling passion, appeal to it by a word, set it in motion by temptation, and you will infallibly give checkmate to his freedom of will.

Baltasar Gracian - The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647)

Does Cameron keep his hand in his pocket these days? I must check.

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

A Turner sunset

...he resembled a Turner sunset, and attracted both admiration and attention.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - This Side Of Paradise (1920)

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Sunday Serenade - Folk music

JD is back, after his little local IT difficulty.... 

Before I was rudely interrupted I was compiling a miscellany of English folk music which may not please the puritans but I like them plus a few more I can't find just yet.

Richard Thompson:


Wilson Family:
 

Florence Welch singing Shakespeare's sonnet 29:


Perhaps not a recognised 'folk singer' as such but... Florence Welch - What the Water Gave Me:


 And now for some folkoric dancing(?) - Three man morris:


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

The chocolate Referendum

It has become apparent that the Referendum voters do not know what they are voting for. To correct this defect, the EU has commissioned an updated edition of Fry's famous "Five Boys" chocolate bar:

It is only right that the citizens should associate the mouthwatering delight of an iconic luxury consumer item with the sweet five Presidents of the EU who, like Fry's, are there to serve and please them.

Coming soon: bucking the trend of Wagon Wheels and Cadbury's Creme Eggs, the EU plans to make its product even larger (but don't tell anyone yet, it's "under wraps"!)...

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Duck luck

A mallard duckling tries to scale a waterfall on the river Dove this morning. Its mother was pecking around on top apparently unconcerned. Could explain why she only had one duckling left.

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Friday Night Is Music Night - there is a fault

Owing to a technical problem, JD is unable to share his latest selection. He suggests a test card placeholder, and so here is the first British tuning signal image, from 1934:

This and more, here: http://www.meldrum.co.uk/mhp/testcard/bbc_tune.html

... plus a BBC interlude film:



... and a relic interesting from several points of view. I suppose I should put in a trigger warning about old colonial attitudes, but I hope the visitor to this page can look beyond emotional back-readings to the original intent and the value of historical records:



READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Like twilight on a harsh landscape

Routine comes down like twilight on a harsh landscape, softening it until it is tolerable. The complexity is too subtle, too varied; the values are changing utterly with each lesion of vitality; it has begun to appear that we can learn nothing from the past with which to face the future — so we cease to be impulsive, convincible men, interested in what is ethically true by fine margins, we substitute rules of conduct for ideas of integrity, we value safety above romance, we become, quite unconsciously, pragmatic.

F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Beautiful and Damned (1922)

Behind the endless debates and controversies of the public arena there is a cold and passionless reality. We experience the complexity of it all as intelligence, reason, debate, honesty, dishonesty, integrity, lies, errors, laughter, tears, jokes, tragedies and so on and so on. This is the joy of living, of discovery, of understanding that harsh landscape which is the only one we'll ever know. Apart from those invented to deceive us of course.

As Baruch Spinoza knew, a defence against deception is our ability to observe the workings of natural law. We observe and are influenced by what we see and feel. Those influences feel like intelligence, curiosity, decision making, choice, debate, compromise and options but they are all of these things and yet none of them. They are the effects of natural law.

Only when we understand natural law do we get closer to that harsh landscape because by understanding it we adapt to it and come to know and even love it. Our understanding is an integral factor in its passionless workings, even down to the long forgotten trajectory of a flint tipped spear. That is all the freedom we have but it is enough. In spite of all our limitations it has dragged us from that spear to where we are now.

Elites know all this at an instinctive, grasping, predatory level. They know that if they limit our curiosity and our consequent understanding of natural law then they also limit our freedom and our ability to participate in the way things are and the way they have to be. They limit our ability to distinguish true from false.

To my mind this is why the public arena has become so peculiar, so riddled with emotional blackmail and obvious drivel. Reason has finally become inconvenient, a hindrance to government by elites. They need to preserve their social distance but for some time natural human curiosity has been eating away at the mystique on which their puny Olympus sits.

So they substitute rules of conduct for ideas of integrity.

And they encourage us to value safety above romance.

And we cease to be impulsive, convincible men.

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Referendum conundrum, simplified

If you don't believe in democracy, don't vote. If you do, vote "Leave".

If you think it doesn't make any difference, you will soon be taught a devastating lesson: the EU is already privately tossing around ideas for Britain's punishment:

https://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/news/house-of-lords-warned-eu-will-punish-uk-if-it-votes-for-brexit/


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Sunday Serenade: Hoffnung's Horrortorio

Listening to Radio 3 (for a change) yesterday I heard an interview with the composer Joseph Horowitz (it was his 90th birthday and they'd made him a cake). He spoke of being commissioned by Gerard Hoffnung to write a Gothic comedy piece with a clever barrister who "knows nothing about music." Dracula's daughter marries Frankenstein's son:



Hoffnung's legendary wit and raconteurial ability are shown in his 1958 address to the Oxford Union:




READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Friday Night Is Music Night: tinkling the ivories

JD writes: More musical delightfulness; this time on the piano. Hard to know what to include and what to leave out but these are some of my favourite pianists.

The piano: King of instruments- "No other instrument has been as important to the history of Western music as the piano. Since its invention in Florence three hundred years ago, the piano has become many things to many people—a bridge between the worlds of classical and popular music and the ultimate composer’s companion." http://www.films.com/id/749

And here are some of the finest players of that 'king of instruments' in the world of popular music-

Duke Ellington, Willie 'the lion' Smith, Billy Taylor:



There is added poignancy to this video by Allen Toussaint in that he died a few hours after the show:



 And here are two of the best from the world of classical music:

- Glenn Gould who, as usual, is so engrossed in the music he sings/hums along with it. He IS the music:



- and Nikolai Demidenko:

-

Enjoy :)


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Step by step

Foxconn have been working on this for some time. From the Independent we hear

60,000 workers at Apple supplier Foxconn have been replaced with robots, according to reports.

The figure comes from a local government official, who said employee numbers at one of Foxconn's factories in Kunshan, near Shanghai, have been drastically slashed in recent months.

Perhaps the Chinese government has an expanding role for all those dumped workers.

The Chinese government plants 488 million fake comments every year

Harvard Study based on leaked email archives reveals massive astroturfing operation

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

REFERENDUM CONUNDRUM

Someone who supports Remain in the issue of membership of the institutionally undemocratic EU, is happy with the idea that the people's vote shouldn't matter.

So why would they vote in the referendum?

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

AI drama

From alphr comes a story about the literary exploits of Google's foray into artificial intelligence.

One of the reasons why the Turing Test continues to be such a steep bar for AI to clear is because artificial intelligences just don’t talk like normal people. Artificial chatter is often grammatically sound, but feels stuffy, formal and just not quite right. Getting artificial intelligences to sound human has been a tough old nut to crack.

Google has an interesting solution to this, and has posted a paper outlining how it taught its artificial intelligence a flair for the dramatic by what I can only describe as cruel and unusual punishment. Inspired, no doubt, by the seemingly endless streams of Mills and Boon style romance novels cluttering up charity shops around the country, Google fed a neural network model 12,000 ebooks, some 2,865 if which were of that much maligned genre.

Here's an example of its output.

“this was the only way. it was the only way. it was her turn to blink. it was hard to tell. it was time to move on. he had to do it again. they all looked at each other. they all turned to look back. they both turned to face him. they both turned and walked away.”

Not impressive, but what if the researchers eventually succeed and we can't tell the difference between human and machine output? I'm not sure, but take another look at the example above. With a few adjustments and a few key words it could easily be turned into an EU referendum argument because the standard is not high is it? 

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Sunday Serenade - British light classical music

We start in the country, as it used to be....

"Pastoral Montage", by Gideon Fagan (1950):



Ronald Binge - "Autumn Leaves"



Then it's into the outskirts of town...

Knightsbridge March by Eric Coates (1933):



... heading for the West End...

Robert Farnon - Westminster Waltz (1958):



... and a glamorous night out:

Trevor Duncan - High Heels (1950):



BONUSES

Long programmes...

"A Little Light Music - Friday Night Is Music Night" (BBC):



"A Little Light Music - Music for Everybody" (BBC):



... a 77-track,  4-CD compilation "British Light Music Classics" by the New London Orchestra, conducted by Ronald Corp, can be sampled and bought here: http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDS44261/4 ...

... and finally, there's a specialist blog dedicated to British Classical Music:  http://landofllostcontent.blogspot.co.uk/


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

Who's leaned on Paul Dacre?

Today's Mail On Sunday front page - moronline edition:

BUT in the influential hmm-must read-this-again-have you-seen-this print version:

And there's more - much more - of that sort of thing inside.


READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.

The Empty Brain

This essay from aeon is worth reading.

Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or 

store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer

No matter how hard they try, brain scientists and cognitive psychologists will never find a copy of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in the brain – or copies of words, pictures, grammatical rules or any other kinds of environmental stimuli. The human brain isn’t really empty, of course. But it does not contain most of the things people think it does – not even simple things such as ‘memories’.

READER: PLEASE CLICK THE REACTION BELOW - THANKS!

All original material is copyright of its author. Fair use permitted. Contact via comment. Unless indicated otherwise, all internet links accessed at time of writing. Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog; or for unintentional error and inaccuracy. The blog author may have, or intend to change, a personal position in any stock or other kind of investment mentioned.