FRIDAY MUSIC: Waiting for St Patrick, by JD

It is St Patrick's Day this coming Sunday so for this year's musical celebration, something slightly different. All of the music here is impromptu, unplanned, occasionally slightly chaotic but all are an illustration of the inherent music in the Irish soul looking for any excuse to burst forth into an unsuspecting world.

And the world responds with great joy as this selection of comments appended to the videos shows:-

"They say an Irish Funeral is more fun than an English wedding..."

"These are the people who keep our traditions going. Other nationalities look on and wonder 'where did we lose it all'."

"Fantastic musicians. They put sunshine into peoples' hearts, and smiles on their faces."

"It's really fantastic seeing people of all the ages playing and dancing the traditional songs of their country. I've only see this in irish people and its something fantastic, the love that they have to their traditional folk is really really amazing."

....and the final video here is a delight (it takes about 8 minutes before the music begins) but you may need to turn up the volume because it was impromptu and the recording was not 'professional'

Gran Tourismo, by Wiggiaatlarge

Back in the Sixties there was a renaissance of sorts for big-engined gran touring cars, this was the original concept of GT unlike the hot hatchbacks today that tack on the GT label to cars that are in no way touring cars.

The Gran Tourismo goes way back in motoring history with cars from all the top manufacturers fitting the bill, all were top end price models from Bentley to Bugatti and many in between.

WWII saw the class disappear along with many other luxury automobiles as the war effort found many of the same factories diversify into military production, and it was some time after the war before luxury cars of any sort started to reappear in the showrooms.

By the Sixties however the automotive industry was in full swing again and the utilitarian vehicles of the immediate postwar years were being superseded by much more advanced models. Cars such as the Citroen DS from ‘55 showed the way ahead, and the revolution in design of racing cars that was spearheaded in this country from the likes of Colin Chapman, John Cooper, Eric Broadley and others not only transformed racing cars but the ideas filtered down into production vehicles and for a short period we were at the forefront of car design.

What the Sixties saw was the re-emergence of the Gran Tourismo model. Fuel was cheap and big engines proliferated, American V8s became the go-to engine of choice for many of these luxury cars providing a lot of power with little fuss, big 5.7 litre Fords and Chrysler hemi 6 litre engines being the most popular.

The cars varied depending upon the maker. Most British versions of the type were in the gentleman's sports tourer mode with lots of leather big seats and plenty of wood in the cabin, all this signified class and wealth to go with the comfort and speed supplied.

The most enduring of these models was the Jensen Interceptor with its distinctive curved wraparound back window and tailgate, originally with the Chrysler 6.3 ltr engine and later the 7.2 plus torqueflite auto gearbox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jensen_Interceptor

There was an earlier Interceptor using 4 litre Austin running gear but that was a small run car and did have not the success of the V8 model.

Another to some, a lookalike, was the  Gordon Keeble very similar in concept with the same luxury interior exuding a gentleman's club. This car used a Chevrolet V8 and the distiguishing feature was the slanting headlights. This car was never the commercial success the Jensen was and only just a hundred were produced, and for this reason alone they are much sought after.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon-Keeble

Bristol cars started as an amalgam of Fraser Nash and a new company producing the beautiful 400 series BMW powered cars and they could be rightly included in this listing, but it was the later Sixties Chrysler powered cars the 407 - 410 models being the ones in the Gran Touring category. The company had an interesting history and is worth a read for that alone. Personally the later big V8 engined Bristols never appealed - "barge-like" came to mind - but they were hand built and had a loyal clientele.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Cars

Facel Vega preceded Jensen with the 500k models coming into production in the fifties. The Facel II model is the contemporary of the above but the company went bust in ‘64 leaving this luxurious car as the most sought after of the group. Another Chrysler powered auto but using an upgraded version of the V8 with in manual form 390bhp from its 6,3 litres, it could outperform all but the most out and out sports cars of its time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facel_Vega_Facel_II

It was very much the car of choice for the stars with Ava Gardner and Dean Martin being just two who owned Facel Vegas.

Needless to say the Italians were in the mix with this class of automobile, though they always found it difficult not to be ‘sportier’ than those shown above. The nearest to the style of the British cars was from ISO: the Revolta, an unfortunate name, was the nearest in looks and purpose to the others, in fact it was easily mistaken for those other cars, it could be that they all had Italian coachbuilders and the style was almost generic. The ISOs used a small block V8 Chevrolet engine and transmission for the Sixties cars. An older firm started in the early Forties, they made motorcycles  at one time and were famous for two extremes of powered travel, the Isetta bubble car and the outrageous ISO Grifo sports car. The last models from ‘68 had the 7ltr Chevy engine and were capable of 186mph.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iso_(automobile)

De Tomaso shouldn’t be here as it is really a four door saloon. First produced in ‘70 it shares a chassis with the Maserati Quattroporte of the same period, but it was powered by a Ford V8 and had the same type of gentleman's interior so it just about squeezes in. Again the company was better known for its V8 powered sports cars such as the Pantera.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Tomaso_Deauville
https://www.classicdriver.com/en/article/cars/de-tomaso-deauville-better-maserati-quattroporte

Maserati produced their very own gentleman's sporting carriage with the 5000 GT from ‘59, with Maseratis own 5ltr V8. Only thirty three of these exclusive cars were ever made and many went to high profile names of the period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maserati_5000_GT

The Maserati Indy, first seen in ‘69 with an in house 4.2 ltr V8 and later with a 4.7 ltr and finally in ‘72 a 4.9 litre engine is one of a long line of Maseratis that fall into the Gran Turismo classification, the earlier 3500GT being the obvious classic, but the Indy had the V8 and therefore qualifies to sit alongside these other fast touring vehicles of the period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maserati_Indy

There is no doubt this was a golden age for this type of car. Pre war every major manufacturer made these Gran Turismos and that was the original golden era. Sadly once the Seventies came along bit by bit and not helped by the fuel crisis of the time they became almost extinct. They represent a time of open roads and cheap fuel, jaunts at speed down to the Cote d’Azure and beyond.

Happy days.

Fighting Talk: Brexit and civil disorder

“We should cut the heads off the politicians,” said the waiter in Corfu to us, as EU-imposed austerity crushed Greece in 2010. Before the week was out there were riots in Athens, buildings were set on fire and three bank employees burned to death.

Thankfully, we’re nowhere near that stage, but if you lift the lid off social media you’ll see the pot is bubbling ferociously. Britain is split in two, each half calling the other all sorts of names. Most of these ranters qualify for jury service and the franchise; one trembles at the thought of “direct democracy.” One in four of the population is said to suffer from a mental disorder and to judge by Facebook it’s plausible.

But in a way, hardly surprising. Far from seeking to reunite the country, professional politicians in the UK have been fomenting discontent among Remainers and have even advised EU leaders on how to subvert the Referendum result.[i] Is it a coincidence that the Daily Mail has been given a new editor who has U-turned the paper’s line and now characterises Brexiteers as “saboteurs” leading us to an “abyss”?[ii]

Even the Eurocrats are infected. Mr Van Rompuy, who looks as if he couldn’t decapitate a boiled egg, fantasises about holding a knife to our throat[iii]; Mr Tusk, even less loved in his native Poland than here[iv], smirks at a vision of “those who promoted Brexit” in Hell[v]. Their intemperate language is a clue to the fact that there is not one but two crises brewing.

The first is the European Union’s. Jean Monnet’s dream of a Europe that could never make war with itself again, has been caught in the trap of confusing aim with method. Full political unification has been pursued clandestinely and with an almost suicidal obsession, like Captain Ahab after his White Whale. As a prelude, the single currency was forced into being despite the unreadiness of participants like Greece and Italy, both of which fudged their economic data to qualify and have suffered for it since.

The EU’s appetite for centralised control and aggrandisement remains unslaked (would C P Snow have dubbed them “the labradors of power”?) Straight after the centenary of the Armistice, Frau Merkel returned to her theme of a European intervention force.[vi] Now she is after an aircraft carrier[vii] - just when it is rumoured that China plans to sell off her own to Pakistan.[viii] How does one justify the expense of such capital ships, with their increasing vulnerability?[ix]

And the interference in the Ukraine that has heightened tensions between the Western alliance and Russia – see the military build-up in the region on both sides[x] [xi] - hasn’t put the EU off its plan to foster supranational order elsewhere, too: “Africa is the future,” said Mr Juncker in his 2018 “State of the Union” address, urging more collective arrangements there of the kind that were the foundation stones of the EU.[xii]

In the midst of this, Brexit and the common man threaten to spoil the grand project of the philosopher-kings. Again and again, on shows like Question Time, ordinary people are bluntly challenging their elected representatives to do what was solemnly promised in 2016.

This brings us to the second, local crisis. By affirming (not only orally but in the official pamphlet[xiii]) that the Referendum would be held once only and that the result would be implemented whatever the outcome, our leaders effectively turned it into a binding plebiscite; and now they wish to resile.

That has raised and dashed expectations in the most emphatic way, and the implications are dangerous. If this vote is delegitimised, then so are all the ones passed in Parliament, many of them by a smaller margin than four per cent[xiv].

What would the consequences be? Former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said on last week’s Question Time that there will be a “day of reckoning” if Brexit is nullified[xv], and he may be thinking of deselections, Party membership cancellations and the shattering of the two-party system itself. But some think, or worse, wish, that it could go further – even Dr Richard North has said, perhaps only half-jokingly, “It is not only ideas that develop in the provinces – so do revolutions.”[xvi]

Fortunately, revolutions and civil wars don’t just happen, and a good thing too, as whatever the outcome the process is horrific; and often long-drawn-out, because unlike a war there’s nobody to make peace on behalf of the whole country. They need an evil constellation of factors, but that discussion is for another occasion.

Having said that, one of the possible triggers is major financial dislocation. Not just the vindictive awkwardness in trading arrangements that the EU appears to be preparing for us, cutting off its nose to spite its face, but the kind of long-cycle economic downturn that Irving Fisher[xvii], Nicolai Kondratiev[xviii] and others have theorised.

The role of debt has been overlooked by many economists and Professor Steve Keen has estimated that only some 20 out of 10,000 professionals foresaw the 2008/2009 Global Financial Crisis. For those who think the crisis is over because of Quantitative Easing and Modern Monetary Theory, it’s worth noting that global debt is now bigger than ever – some three times the size of the world’s GDP.[xix] Despite high levels of money-printing we are not yet seeing significant inflation, but that is because economic demand is dropping and debt servicing is a growing challenge; the turnover of cash is slowing and offsetting the effects of monetary inflation.[xx] Also, the US dollar, the world’s reserve currency, is being snapped up by foreign countries scared of local currency depreciation/default, so at present those dollars are not cascading back into the USA and boosting the price of everything, says analyst Martin Armstrong.[xxi]

Harder times are coming: goodbye cheap energy, a booming consumer economy and abundant public services; hello to cheating WASPI women of their promised State pensions, trimming the social benefits of the gilets jaunes and so on. Ordinary wage-earners now need additional financial support to make ends meet; real hourly wages have pretty much stalled over the last 40 years since the multinationals saw massive opportunities for capital in global workforce arbitrage. Sir James Goldsmith warned[xxii] about the socio-economic consequences at the time of GATT in 1994, and now it has all come to pass.

It will go on until it can’t, but who knows when or how that will happen?

When the times come that “try men’s souls”, the search is on for an ideological map to find our way out. Power relations come under scrutiny. In the eighteenth century, the American colonists adopted the Enlightenment analysis that rooted power in the consent of the people, so that when General Gage defended his lumping American rebel officers with their men by saying that he recognised only ranks derived from the King, George Washington replied that for his part he could not conceive any rank “more honorable that that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people - the purest source and original fountain of all power." Five months later came the publication of Tom Paine’s “Common Sense”, arguing on the same lines and setting the movement alight.

Ian Geering QC’s piece this week on the Bruges Group site (10 March) follows this tradition.[xxiii] It is a normative political philosophy – this is how we feel things ought to be, rather than how they have been for most of recorded history. Did the Americans complain of taxation without Parliamentary representation? Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester shared their plight, while Old Sarum had seven voters and two MPs.[xxiv] Up to the twentieth century, only a fraction of the adult British population could vote at all, and had to resort to other means to register their dissatisfaction: as Tony Benn observed at the time of the Maastricht capitulation, “Riot has historically played a much larger part in British politics than we are ever allowed to know […] Unless we can offer people a peaceful route to the resolution of injustices through the ballot box, they will not listen to a House that has blocked off that route.”[xxv]

And that, as of last night (12 March 2019), is where we are: watching a cloth-eared Parliament rejecting an "open prison" Withdrawal Agreement yet fighting against a clean break, either way negating what the people decided upon.

Yes, the people are divided – by their very nature, votes are divisive; the key to peace is to accept them as decisive. But those with access to power and the media have worked hard to jemmy the cracks wider. The process of re-radicalisation has started, and this time the State seems either unconscious of the peril, or (like George III) sure of its ability to patronise and repress.

Britain nearly had a conflagration in 1789. The philosopher Richard Price, a friend of Paine, gave a French Revolution-inspired speech: "A Discourse on the Love of Our Country", looking at the fundamentals of politics and, like Paine, rooting power in the people. The reception was enthusiastic (a term with distinct connotations of danger, in those days.)

The State was alive to the danger, and acted. Certain gentlemen came to advise Price on his future conduct. Burke began to compose a justification for the British Constitution in rebuttal. 1789 marked the last time a woman was burned at the stake (in London, for coining.) Radical groups such as the London Corresponding Society were infiltrated by government agents and ultimately suppressed; yet even with the brakes on, the vehicle of power was pushed inch by inch, over the next century, towards electoral reform and democratisation.

Answering the radicals who took revolutionary France as their model, Edmund Burke articulated a pragmatic scheme for the Parliamentary government we now have, a balance between the royal Executive and popular representation, and between constituency representation and mere delegation. This circumvented the bloody conflict of first principles that played itself out on the other side of the Channel.

But Burke was addressing the problem of how we govern ourselves, not whether we should be able to govern ourselves at all; even pragmatism has its limits. And on this latter issue, the people - firmly assured by their representatives that this vote would be decisive - made their determination. The task of their representatives was then to carry it through, while closing the divisions among the people as they went forward. They have failed on both counts. The issue has now turned from UK versus EU, to people - a confused, disunited, squabbling people - versus Parliament itself.

All our democratic progress is in danger of being thrown away.

For if the solution to the threat of revolution in Britain as France burned was to fashion its own sustainable form of democracy, then to discard democracy is to wind the clock back to pre-revolutionary days. And then the clock will start forward again, towards fresh crisis – and solutions that have already failed.

---

[i] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/03/10/tony-blair-secretly-advising-emmanuel-macron-brexit-former-pm/

[ii] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6305601/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Saboteurs-endangering-nation.html

[iii] https://twitter.com/zacgoldsmith/status/1100441759669198848?lang=en

[iv] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/03/polands-foreign-minister-calls-eus-donald-tusk-icon-evil-stupidity/

[v] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47143135

[vi] https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-emmanuel-macron-eu-army-to-complement-nato/

[vii] https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/germany-proposes-european-aircraft-carrier/

[viii] https://nation.com.pk/10-Feb-2019/china-to-sell-aircraft-carrier-to-pakistan

[ix] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/navy-aircraft-carriers-too-vulnerable-survive-34917

[x] https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nato-priorities/2018/06/25/poking-the-bear-us-air-force-builds-in-russias-backyard/

[xi] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/world/europe/ukraine-russia-military-buildup.html

[xii] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/02/21/the-uk-will-remain-an-integral-part-of-an-ever-closer-europe/

[xiii] “The EU referendum is a once in a generation decision… This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.” https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk

[xiv] E.g. the Callaghan government fell in 1979 when the vote of no confidence was carried by a single vote.

[xv] https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1097284/Brexit-news-dominic-raab-BBC-question-time-brexit-secretary

[xvi] “Brexit – too late for panic” (6 March 2019) http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87167

[xvii] https://seekingalpha.com/article/104135-irving-fisher-on-debt-deflation-and-depression

[xviii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave

[xix] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/global-debt-of-244-trillion-nears-record-despite-faster-growth

[xx] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2014/september/what-does-money-velocity-tell-us-about-low-inflation-in-the-us

[xxi] https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/economics/the-fallacy-of-mmt/

[xxii] Part 1 of 5 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI

[xxiii] https://www.brugesgroup.com/blog/who-governs-and-by-what-right

[xxiv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs#Rotten_boroughs

[xxv] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199192/cmhansrd/1991-11-20/Debate-6.html

Gas Is A Gas

Most of the time, it has an envelope Sellotaped over it, the vent that British Gas made us ram through our living room wall to the gusty, freezing air outside.

I point out to the engineers that we already had two holes in the room, one the chimney into which the fire and back boiler are fitted, and the other its disused partner in what was the front parlour before the through lounge was created. But these and the carbon monoxide detector aren't deemed enough.

I could believe this windy requirement is to maximise fuel consumption.

And at every annual service, we fear that there will be some excuse to condemn the old boiler and press us to get a new system, because BG doesn't stock parts for the existing one ("obsolete") even though they are easily obtainable via the Internet.

Hardly worth it: the Government plans to end domestic gas usage by 2050. Maybe the idea is for us to burn what's left as quickly as possible, to boost profits and fund R&D for energy alternatives.

I'm sticking with Old Faithful. And a C5 envelope.

The Ideal Customer For Gas Central Heating

FRIDAY MUSIC: Pop's Golden Age, Part 2 - by JD

This is part two of music from that 'golden age' of the late fifties to early sixties which came across the ether from Radio Luxembourg and AFN. Gradually the joy faded after Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran died, Elvis joined the army, the Everly Brothers enlisted in the marines, Chuck Berry was in prison, Little Richard found religion and Jerry Lee Lewis fell from grace when the British press found out that he had married his 14 year old cousin.

I was fortunate enough to see Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent on that famous tour of 1960 which ended so tragically. Finally seeing them after hearing them on radio and record so often was wonderful and they did not disappoint us. Cochran in particular was every bit as good on stage as he was on his records, what a great loss he was.

But the music didn't die. There was a 'pause for breath' as it was absorbed by and had a major influence on the future stars of the British 'beat boom' who then exported it back to its homeland! I remember all of these records and more and bought a lot of them at the time from a small second hand shop which sold cameras among other things. They had old 45s from juke boxes and the discs were usually less than one year old, slightly battered and scratchy from use and they were played and played over and over again at home and at parties.

Most of those featured here are well known but a bit of background on three who you may not know-
The Coasters - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coasters
Jackie Wilson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Wilson
Clyde McPhatter - https://www.allmusic.com/artist/clyde-mcphatter-mn0000154101/biography

Reading the comments beneath the YouTube videos there is a recurring theme; so many people being transported back in time with a smile on their faces and feeling sorry for the youngsters of today who are ill served with the plastic factory pap that passes for 'entertainment' now.

The final video below is Carl Perkins backed by many of those who idolised him in his prime including Dave Edmunds, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton. Are they enjoying themselves or are they having a ball! (I used to dance like that in my younger days and occasionally in my middle age!) Ah yes, happy daze indeed.

What has happened to the Skripals? What will happen to Julian Assange?

Blogmire author Rob Slane re-examines the incoherent story of the 2018 "Salisbury poisonings" and challenges Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu of the Metropolitan Police to answer some questions:

https://www.theblogmire.com/the-salisbury-poisoning-one-year-on-an-open-letter-to-the-metropolitan-police/

Yesterday marked a twelvemonth since the incident. Mr Skripal has not been in contact with his mother in Russia since. His daughter (allegedly) had some communication with her cousin, at first angry that the incident had been made public, and later saying that she now had access to the Internet and understood everything; then incommunicado since last July.

Where are the Skripals now? Held securely to prevent another attack? Relocated and given new identities, under a sort of witness protection program? Held incommunicado against their will? "Six feet under"?

UPDATE (10 A.M.):

Russian Embassy website response to Skripal affair (link provided by commenter "JuliaJ" on the Off-Guardian): https://rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/6762

Alternative narrative provided by Michael Antony, suggesting that Mr Skripal was supposed to be the thrid passenger on a flight back to Moscow but was prevented by British intelligence (original post via Russophile site The Saker): https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/05/the-skripal-case-an-alternative-narrative/

* * *

In Julian Assange's case, we know where he is: in a CCTV-infested, permanently curtained and ill-ventilated room in the Ecuadorian Embassy behind Harrod's in London, monitored by a man in a glazed cubicle in the corner. Even a prisoner of HMG held in solitary confinement would have periodic access to exercise and fresh air. He's been there for nearly eight years. Is he to die there?

The distinguished investigative journalist John Pilger wrote yesterday of his visit to Assange. Pilger says Assange is the victim of a game of cat-and-mouse because via Wikileaks, Assange exposed Hillary Clinton's indirect involvement with Islamic terrorism funded and armed by Saudia Arabia and Qatar.

http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-prisoner-says-no-to-big-brother

* * *

What kind of State are we in?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Radio Luxembourg Luxuries, by JD

Take me back to the days when life made more sense!

Perhaps life made no more sense then than it does now but it was a more innocent time, less cynical and I was younger then (obviously).

I can remember when all of these records were first issued, listening to them on Radio Luxembourg https://radiosoundsfamiliar.com/radio-luxembourg.php or on AFN broadcasting from Germany (radio reception was a bit hit and miss depending on weather/atmospherics etc)  http://www.afneurope.net

Some of those featured here are still performing and it look as though this music could be the fountain of youth!

The Tornados - http://www.thetornados.net
The Chantays - https://thechantays.com
Johnny and the Hurricanes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_and_the_Hurricanes
Santo and Johnny - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santo_&_Johnny
The Shadows - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadows
The Ventures - http://theventures.com
Duane Eddy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Eddy
The Surfaris - https://thesurfaris.com