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There have been around 400 hits on the blog but of course this is no guide to the size of our readership. A dearth of comment and reaction continues. Readers e-mail:-
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‘love it’
‘addictive; I suppose I must now make time to read the bloody thing’.
To our muttons!
So farewell, then, the Manx Grand Prix. For the pleasure of a few petrol-heads we have 12 hours house arrest on a Bank Holiday (and on two more days during the week) so that they can spend 2 hours doing 200 m.p.h on public roads. The weather has been almost entirely perfect which has meant that at least we have not had to suffer weather-related postponements that mess-up the whole week. But two competitors were killed early in the first race of the second day, so the whole day’s events were cancelled, and an additional day of road closures was the result. A non-competing biker was also killed a day or so earlier after being hit by a Range Rover, the vehicle of choice for ambassadors of good taste like premier league soccer players, low-rent pop stars, and poseurs of every description.
The early opening of the roads as a result of the cancellation meant we could nip out for a quickie. In the pub was a nice young man missing his right arm and leg after hitting a hare at supersonic speed in last year’s races.
The whole damn thing is an anachronism; OK when the Island had a population of 5000 and very little on the roads. Now that it is a busy financial and commercial place the disruption to business must far outweigh any tourism revenues, not to mention the public cost of putting on the event. But if you criticise, the mantra is ‘There’s a boat in the morning’.
Crossing on the ferry to England during the TT earlier this year we were surprised to see large numbers of bikers returning to England before the event had even started. I was told that they only come across for the week-end previous to the opening of the TT so that they can ride the circuit on ‘Mad Sunday’. On this day anybody can roar around the circuit at high speed without the intervention of the Old Bill. Crazy, man! One of them killed himself 15 minutes after getting off the ferry.
We have just had the coldest August since – well, the last coldest – with temps closer to November. July was the wettest since Noah. We are already using central heating. The locals go around dressed for a tropical beach, and barely-covered boobs are a traffic hazard. Toughies, these Manxies. Or thick. On the brighter side, the latest economic figures show an unemployment rate of under 2% - a negative rate actually, because there are vastly more vacancies than jobs leading firms to recruit off-island. One of my drinking chums, who is a bit of a linguist, told me that during a short walk to his office he heard Spanish, French, Turkish, German and a Slavic lingo. No Manx, though. The second most widely spoken language is Afrikaans. We also have Thais in some numbers and Filipinas are the mainstay of the hospitals and care homes). The economic growth rate is a healthy 6%.
I am convinced that the main reason is that our politicians are inept and idle, and having no ideas they do no harm. The common view is that not one of them could sleep straight in bed.
The Great Cricket Scandal has had more front page coverage for Pakistan than the flood disaster. There was Heffer harrumphing away about the whole international game being run by imbeciles and controlled by racketeers. It is revealed that Pakistan has form going back twenty years or more – and I don’t mean ‘form’ in the sporting sense. Truly, ‘We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality’. Heff is dreaming of another England when cricket meant a system of values, sportsmanship and
THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close to-night --
Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
Not any more, maties. Now it’s big money, big crookery, cheating, gamesmanship, sledging, and the rest. Heretofore there was so little money in the game that the suits weren’t interested. With big TV contracts all this has changed. One England player gave a hint of today’s earnings when he bought a large country house in Cheshire, the epicentre of bad taste. He then pulled down this beautiful old pile to build a pad that would challenge the vulgarity of the rich footballers who favour the area. Unfortunately, he did this before getting planning permission, leaving him the proud owner of a £5 million pile of hardcore. Quelle fromage!
PC rools OK?
Here is Rod Liddle in the Speccie:
So farewell, then, the Manx Grand Prix. For the pleasure of a few petrol-heads we have 12 hours house arrest on a Bank Holiday (and on two more days during the week) so that they can spend 2 hours doing 200 m.p.h on public roads. The weather has been almost entirely perfect which has meant that at least we have not had to suffer weather-related postponements that mess-up the whole week. But two competitors were killed early in the first race of the second day, so the whole day’s events were cancelled, and an additional day of road closures was the result. A non-competing biker was also killed a day or so earlier after being hit by a Range Rover, the vehicle of choice for ambassadors of good taste like premier league soccer players, low-rent pop stars, and poseurs of every description.
The early opening of the roads as a result of the cancellation meant we could nip out for a quickie. In the pub was a nice young man missing his right arm and leg after hitting a hare at supersonic speed in last year’s races.
The whole damn thing is an anachronism; OK when the Island had a population of 5000 and very little on the roads. Now that it is a busy financial and commercial place the disruption to business must far outweigh any tourism revenues, not to mention the public cost of putting on the event. But if you criticise, the mantra is ‘There’s a boat in the morning’.
Crossing on the ferry to England during the TT earlier this year we were surprised to see large numbers of bikers returning to England before the event had even started. I was told that they only come across for the week-end previous to the opening of the TT so that they can ride the circuit on ‘Mad Sunday’. On this day anybody can roar around the circuit at high speed without the intervention of the Old Bill. Crazy, man! One of them killed himself 15 minutes after getting off the ferry.
We have just had the coldest August since – well, the last coldest – with temps closer to November. July was the wettest since Noah. We are already using central heating. The locals go around dressed for a tropical beach, and barely-covered boobs are a traffic hazard. Toughies, these Manxies. Or thick. On the brighter side, the latest economic figures show an unemployment rate of under 2% - a negative rate actually, because there are vastly more vacancies than jobs leading firms to recruit off-island. One of my drinking chums, who is a bit of a linguist, told me that during a short walk to his office he heard Spanish, French, Turkish, German and a Slavic lingo. No Manx, though. The second most widely spoken language is Afrikaans. We also have Thais in some numbers and Filipinas are the mainstay of the hospitals and care homes). The economic growth rate is a healthy 6%.
I am convinced that the main reason is that our politicians are inept and idle, and having no ideas they do no harm. The common view is that not one of them could sleep straight in bed.
The Great Cricket Scandal has had more front page coverage for Pakistan than the flood disaster. There was Heffer harrumphing away about the whole international game being run by imbeciles and controlled by racketeers. It is revealed that Pakistan has form going back twenty years or more – and I don’t mean ‘form’ in the sporting sense. Truly, ‘We know of no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality’. Heff is dreaming of another England when cricket meant a system of values, sportsmanship and
THERE'S a breathless hush in the Close to-night --
Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! Play up! And play the game!"
Not any more, maties. Now it’s big money, big crookery, cheating, gamesmanship, sledging, and the rest. Heretofore there was so little money in the game that the suits weren’t interested. With big TV contracts all this has changed. One England player gave a hint of today’s earnings when he bought a large country house in Cheshire, the epicentre of bad taste. He then pulled down this beautiful old pile to build a pad that would challenge the vulgarity of the rich footballers who favour the area. Unfortunately, he did this before getting planning permission, leaving him the proud owner of a £5 million pile of hardcore. Quelle fromage!
PC rools OK?
Here is Rod Liddle in the Speccie:
Terrific piece by Douglas Murray in the latest edition of the magazine. He explains how he was reported to the Press Complaints Commission for having repeated an Irish joke made by a councillor (who was forced to apologise for it) and called for readers to send in more Irish jokes by way of protest. One of the points which Douglas doesn’t make is that the joke in question doesn’t necessarily confer the intimation of stupidity upon the Irishman in question. It could just as well be the intimation of great wit or knowing perversity. The joke is this: man walks into a Dublin bar and sees his friend sitting with an empty glass. “Can I get you another, Paddy?” the man enquires. “Well now what would I be wanting with another empty glass,” Paddy replies. As Douglas says, it’s not a very good joke. But why the furore? The witless idiot of a union rep who heard this joke uttered by the aforementioned councillor instituted legal proceedings which eventually won him thousands of quid in compensation. This is a madness, isn’t it?
My understanding of the law according to TB is that it is an offence to utter something that the listener considers to be discriminatory. Whether it is a fact, whether it is something that a reasonable person would regard as discriminatory is irrelevant. The offence is absolute; there is no burden of proof. Welcome to the world of George Orwell. In any case, Irish jokes are not about demonstrating that Paddy is stupid; they are all based on the Irish gift of stretching logic until it screams. For example ‘How do I get to Ballygorblimey?’; ‘If Oi were you, sorr, I wouldn’t start from here at all’. I rest my case.
Grubstreet news.
The meeja surely reached new depths this week with the sleazy stuff about Willie Hague’s personal life. Apparently he spent a night in a twin room at a hotel with his Special Advisor. Ooo, Mabel! Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; know wot I mean? Slimy innuendo, Chinese whispers, muck-raking – the stuff of life for the bottom-of-the sewer tabloids. Except that this one was run by the Daily Not-so-Torygraph, the broadsheet red-top. It once had a circulation of over 1 million; it’s now 687,000. Good show! And what is odd about the whole nonsense is that after 30 years of gay rights campaigning, statutory protection, and all the rest it is still regarded as pejorative to imply that someone is a homosexualist.There’s no evidence whatsoever to support the snide innuendos against Hague. He has been such a public figure since the age of 16, when he fired up the Tory Party conference, that it seems inconceivable that he has escaped being outed for nearly 40 years. One never knows, but so what? As Mrs Pat said ‘It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses’
And we hear that Piers Moron is to take over from Larry King Live on CNN, he who is best known for being fired as Editor of the Daily Mirror for publishing fake photos of British soldiers beating up Iraqis and being decked by Jeremy Clarkson. I bet that this will have the life of a mayfly.
Economics for dummies.
Stiglitz was on CNN yet again, pontificating about how everybody was wrong about the economic situation except him; we are all doomed! Then there was one of the Bank of England MPC members wittering on about double-dip recession. You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-winner like Professor S to understand that the basic driver of markets is confidence. You can talk it up and you talk it down. And if guys in your position continue to talk it down it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It must be true; I read it in the papers.
‘More than 50% of US troops deployed to Iraq receive disability pensions’. Less than 50% of troops are likely to be fighting men, so they must be a bit careless with the paperclips.
What’s in a name?
The boss of Delhi City administration is Mrs Dikshit.
Grubstreet news.
The meeja surely reached new depths this week with the sleazy stuff about Willie Hague’s personal life. Apparently he spent a night in a twin room at a hotel with his Special Advisor. Ooo, Mabel! Nudge, nudge; wink, wink; know wot I mean? Slimy innuendo, Chinese whispers, muck-raking – the stuff of life for the bottom-of-the sewer tabloids. Except that this one was run by the Daily Not-so-Torygraph, the broadsheet red-top. It once had a circulation of over 1 million; it’s now 687,000. Good show! And what is odd about the whole nonsense is that after 30 years of gay rights campaigning, statutory protection, and all the rest it is still regarded as pejorative to imply that someone is a homosexualist.There’s no evidence whatsoever to support the snide innuendos against Hague. He has been such a public figure since the age of 16, when he fired up the Tory Party conference, that it seems inconceivable that he has escaped being outed for nearly 40 years. One never knows, but so what? As Mrs Pat said ‘It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses’
And we hear that Piers Moron is to take over from Larry King Live on CNN, he who is best known for being fired as Editor of the Daily Mirror for publishing fake photos of British soldiers beating up Iraqis and being decked by Jeremy Clarkson. I bet that this will have the life of a mayfly.
Economics for dummies.
Stiglitz was on CNN yet again, pontificating about how everybody was wrong about the economic situation except him; we are all doomed! Then there was one of the Bank of England MPC members wittering on about double-dip recession. You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-winner like Professor S to understand that the basic driver of markets is confidence. You can talk it up and you talk it down. And if guys in your position continue to talk it down it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
It must be true; I read it in the papers.
‘More than 50% of US troops deployed to Iraq receive disability pensions’. Less than 50% of troops are likely to be fighting men, so they must be a bit careless with the paperclips.
What’s in a name?
The boss of Delhi City administration is Mrs Dikshit.
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