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Yesterday, I visited some friends in Cambridge. In the evening I was in no great hurry to go home, so I went for a stroll around the colleges and other attractions in the city centre.
The centre of Cambridge in August is a little strange, as most of the university students have gone home, but the town is none the less still bustling with tourists and language students. The many pubs and restaurants are full of people, but the feel of the town is entirely different to how it is at other times of year.
Wandering around the corner from Trumpington Street, I found myself passing The Eagle, described by the sign outside the door as “The most famous pub in Cambridge”. This is likely true, although these days it is not a pub frequented much by university people, as it trades on its fame, selling rather overpriced beer to visitors to the city.
This pub is famous for two things. One is that it was a favourite pub of RAF airmen based nearby during the Second World War. Much of the ceiling of the pub is covered with graffiti writen by airmen prior to dangerous missions. There are various other pictures, model aircraft and similar things in the pub commemorating this aspect of its history.
There are also pictures of assorted other famous Cambridge people (Newton, Byron, and others) on some of the walls, but there somewhat oddly there are no pictures relating to the other reason why the pub is famous. In 1954 two men had some lengthy conversations about a certain scientific matter in one of the bars. At the end of one such session they announced to the barman and fellow drinkers that “We have discovered the secret of life”.
These men were of course James Watson and Francis Crick. Oddly, the proprieters of the pub seem to lack a proper sense of the significance of all this, as the only mention of Watson and Crick anywhere in the pub is a small hand-written sign next to the bar noting that this was the bar where they made their announcement. (However, the significance is well known by others, and the role of the pub was mentioned in many of the obituaries of Francis Crick upon his death just a few weeks ago).
And it was this recent death I think that led me to walk into the pub, buy myself a beer, and raise my glass to the memory of the scientist. I was just considering the question as to whether the discovery that was announced just near where I was sitting was indeed the greatest scientific discovery of the twentieth century (on reflection quite possibly) when my mobile phone rang.
The phone did not show the number of the calling party. This usually means a business call, making it a slightly curious thing to receive at half past eight on a Saturday evening.
“This is <incomprehensible> pizza and kebabs. You ordered a ham and mushroom pizza”.
“No, I didn’t. You have a wrong number”.
“No. I am calling the number that came up on the phone when you called me.”
“In what city are you? I am in Cambridge. If you are not, it is unlikely that I ordered a pizza from you”.
“You ordered a pizza”.
“I am in Cambridge. Where are you?”
“You ordered a pizza from me”.
“No. You have a wrong number”.
“No. Your number came up on my phone. Don’t ever do this again.”
He was starting to get angry. At that point, my choices were to either get upset and start insulting him, to continue playing a game of “Where in the United Kingdom is Carmen Sandiego?” in the hope of convincing him that I could not have possibly ordered a pizza, or to just hang up, and I chose to hang up.
As it happens though, I now rather wish I had not done so, and that I had instead asked him some questions about his telephone. (At least if I could have got him to calm down). Either he manually transcribed the number that came up on his caller ID, and then made an error recording or dialing the number of his customer, in which case there was no mystery. Or, he had a system that automatically logged the number and then dialed me back without the number having to be entered manually. In this case, I do understand why he might not have believed me. This would have had to have meant that there was a bug or malfunction in his equipment or somewhere in the phone network. Which for simple things like forwarding numbers is not something we expect these days.
But as a disruption to the general karma of my day, this was a curious one. Not perhaps as curious as being stopped in the street by a teenage girl and asked if they had ice cream in Victorian times, but still curious. Somewhat sadly, it did completely destroy the solemnity of the drink I was having to the memory of a great scientist.
This is exactly the time one one should avoid writing: immediately after being poured out of a Belfast taxi on a Saturday night. But it is also the time when “In Vino Veritas” holds most true and one will say what comes to mind rather than considering details like flow and cute turns of phrase.
I go out for music. If a woman happens to fall into my lap during the search, that is certainly a plus, but not a prerequisite. Tonight, I decided on the Shaftesbury Square/Botanic Avenue area rather than the usual good chat and trad music at my local. For a bit of a change I started at Madison’s. A couple pints, a bit of girl watching… but after three or four songs I simply could not take the music. Not that it sounded bad. Au contraire. It sounded marvellous. The problem was… it was a Milli Vanilli band: karaoke tracks with occasional backup from live guitar, bass guitar and maybe vocals. To most of the audience I am sure it was just two guys making a lot of music. Never mind there was no drummer or cowbell or keyboard player on stage; never mind that sometimes the guitarist was playing a D chord when the sound was lead guitar. The guys on stage were making their nut; the audience was happy… capitalism at work.
But I was not a happy camper… and despite the pulchritude surrounding me I decamped for a more classical low down rock bar.
I found what I was looking for. Not that it was much of a search. I knew where I was going. I would tell you except I do not wish to get them into trouble. They had the real thing. Five live musicians with driving Rock and Roll so loud a Brussell’s regulator would have pissed herself. “If it is too loud, you are too old”. I was, naturally, up close to the stage where I could feel the volume. That is the proper way to experience AC/DC and Judas Priest covers… up where your clothes are vibrating.
Now I may have an advantage over some. I probably blew out half my hearing long ago standing in front of a Fender amp in a Pittsburgh bar band; or perhaps from that time I half laid on the stage at a Patti Smith concert at the Leona Theater in the South Side, my head resting inside the lower Altec Lansing. That was a good few years and a lot of substance abuse ago.
One thing you need not worry about. The rockers will simply not obey the regulators. I have said it here before. ‘Turn it down’ is simply not in an electric lead guitarist’s vocabulary. “Fuck off”, on the other hand, is definitely there.
You can only be enslaved if you are actually willing to obey the law… or, as Robert Heinlein said: “You can never enslave a free man. The most that you can do is to kill him.”
Oh yeah… I went out for a cheeseburger with bacon afterwards. Dripping grease and ketchup… yummy. Screw the Health Nazi’s too…
I am sure David Carr would have approved.
Republicans and Democrats, Labour and Tory, Christian Democrat and Social Democrat, Gaullist and Socialist … they all have a vested interest in maximising perception of their differences: and so the illusion of choice and empowerment that underpins the whole democratic shell game is maintained.
This is hardly a new phenomenon as the fascists and communists in the 1930’s and 40’s did the same thing because like today’s parties, they appealed to largely the same constituencies and the crossover of leaders, members and supporters between them was considerable. Yet like the situation today, what is striking is not how they differed but how similar they really were. Fetishizing the differences is a way of hiding the truth: you are being asked to eat a shit sandwich and the only choice on offer is the type of bread.
A few days past but who is counting? In all the talk of the anniversaries noted by the media on August the 4th (90th anniversary of the British declaration of war on Germany and the 300 hundredth anniversary of the capture of Gibraltar) I hoped (although I did not expect) that there would be a brief mention of August the 4th 1789.
The French Revolution was mostly just a story of murder and plundering (at least ten times more government officials, paper money, vast numbers of killings all over France, endless new regulations…) but there were a few good things (things that people like me often overlook) and most of them happened on August the 4th 1789.
It was on this date that the National Assembly abolished many of the old taxes and regulations of the Ancient Regime.
Taxes to the Church – abolished. Feudal dues – abolished. Many of the Royal taxes (including, I believe, the salt tax) – abolished.
True the good things were being overwhelmed by bad things even by August the 4th 1789 – but, to be fair, we should still remember the good things.
It was also the date when (again if my memory serves me correctly) serfdom was abolished. True French courts had hardly been in the habit of enforcing serfdom – but the fact remains that about half a million people were formally serfs in the France of 1789.
Sadly my memory fails me when I try to remember when the guilds were abolished – was it also August the 4th? True the guilds should not have been abolished, it was their legal monopoly on the production of various products (granted by Henry IV – before his time towns in France had varied in terms of guild rights) that should have been abolished – but the revolutionaries were sort of right in this area. They (or at least some of them) sort of understood that the effects of the guild monopoly (in-so-far as the courts enforced it) were bad.
The fighting in Iraq has flared up again and most of the people getting killed appear to be Islamists, which is just fine by me. I cannot but wonder if the Islamists thought that if they just kept on slugging away, the Brits and US would just fold up and slink off, leaving them to impose an theocratic ‘paradise’ on Iraq. The fact that Moqtada al-Sadr is offering a return to a truce is both a good sign and an excellent reason to do nothing of the sort but rather escalate efforts to kill him and his supporters.
I suspect that is indeed what is going to happens and moreover I think that the US and UK governments will stay the course regardless of who wins the elections in the USA. Seeing Iraq ‘go Islamic’ would be too much even for the dismal Kerry to want to have happen on his watch. Likewise for the Tory party in Britain, should they somehow miraculously contrive to defeat Blair at some point in the future. Come to think of it, that is yet another reason not to bother voting next time: the hard decisions have already been made and the course is now set. The politics become even easier if another Al-Qaeda ‘leaker’ like September 11th gets through on either side of the North Atlantic.
The equally dismal Bush already did the heavy lifting in Afghanistan and Iraq and now it is just a case of taking on targets of opportunity. As for the Brits, I doubt any future Tory government would be any better or worse regarding the on-going hollowing out of Britain’s fading military capabilities, so no real choices are on offer there either.
The West, well the Anglosphere bits at least, will continue to oppose Islamists like Al-Qaeda for the foreseeable future regardless of the supine predilections of the Guardian, Independent and New York Times reading classes and it does not much matter whose face is on the portraits in the US and UK embassies.
The British passport service is demanding that folk no longer are allowed to smile sweetly for the camera when it comes to having a passport photo taken. Apparently, if you show your gleaming grin on a passport picture it messes up the face recognition systems being introduced into airports and other places.
So in other words, it is now official policy for British citizens to look miserable. Marvellous. So now the cliche about we Brits being a nation of gloomy folk is now to receive the official sanction of the State. Does this mean our grinning Prime Minister will be similarly affected? Is it now considered un-PC and unpatriotic to look cheerful and happy?
Of course, this reminds me of the old joke: If you resemble a passport picture, it is time you took a holiday. (Which reminds me – I am off to Malta and outa here in a week for some much-needed R&R!).
Can it be true that Lance Armstrong is to be stripped of his title by the French authorites? Say it ain’t so, Lance 
Some time in June I was contacted by the production company responsible for making a radio programme called ‘Straw Poll’ for BBC Radio 4. They asked me to join the panel for a forthcoming debate on the proposition that ‘We Should Not Legislate Against Obesity’.
I agreed.
The format of the show is a panel which consists of four speakers, two of whom are in favour of the proposition and two of whom are against. The debate is thrashed out for about 30 minutes or so before the studio audience is given a chance to put questions to the panellists. The studio audience then vote on the proposition.
The programme was recorded last July 19th at a Central London location. My opponents were two doctors representing Orwellian-sounding NGO’s whose names I have not forgotten because I never bothered committing them to memory in the first place. On my side was a very polished and very professional PR spokesman for the food industry. → Continue reading: Taking the fight to the enemy
Gibraltar remains a British colony to the overwhelming relief of its 27,833 inhabitants. Yet they are well aware that the reason Geoff Hoon, Britain’s dismal defence minister, yesterday attended the 300th anniversary of Britain’s capture of The Rock has little to do with any great enthusiasm for the people on The Rock or a deep commitment for retaining Gibraltar, but rather a disinclination to ‘make nice’ with Spain due to its policies regarding Islamic terrorism and Iraq.
In fact members of both the ‘tranzi left’ and ‘paleo right’ see Gibraltar as a weird anachronism and despite those groups fetishising their minor differences, both have a shared collectivist meta-context and think nothing of what the inhabitants of The Rock wish for themselves.
If the Gibraltarians were wise, they would let it be known that they are prepared to go all the way and exercise a ‘dooms day’ option of Unilateral Declaration of Independence if the political class in Britain ever decide to ‘give’ Gibraltar away: the battalion sized Gibraltar Regiment should simply take up arms with whoever will rally to the red and white flag, and man their border with bayonets fixed. Of course it is unlikely a militia army in Gibraltar could hold off a serious military move by Spain, though success against the odds is not without precedent, but would Spain actually be prepared to fight for 27,833 people who simply do not want to be Spanish?
I realise that is indeed what the Spanish state is doing in the Basque parts of Spain but this is a rather different proposition and unlike in the Basque country, there is no friendly constituency in Gibraltar who sees Spanish sovereignty as in any way tolerable. A Spanish takeover would be nothing less that a colonial occupation of an unwilling population.
People have to be prepared to literally fight for the things they value and if the people of Gibraltar made it clear that in the final analysis they would be willing to do exactly that, perhaps the chattering classes in both Spain and Islington Britain would stop thinking those people’s fate is something that can be lightly signed away by people in a ministry building in London or Madrid.
One German start-up has created an alternative to RFID that is likely to get under consumers’ skin.
Ident Technologies has dreamt up Skinplex – which could be used in all the same ways as RFID and Bluetooth – but uses a different transmitter: human skin.
Like RFID, Skinplex works by reading a unique identifier remotely using an electromagnetic signal, normally between a microchip and a reader. Unlike RFID, however, Skinplex uses the skin to transmit the signal and an identifier carried on a person. The signal is transmitted when the carrier touches the receiver.
Yeah, right. So much better than RFID then.
Well, slap me on the arse and call me Betty!! You spend half a century deliberately fostering and ruthlessly enforcing a culture of civil passivity in the face of crime and malevolence and guess what happens?
[Note: link to UK Times article may not work for readers outside of UK]
NEIGHBOURS have been urged to band together to fight back against yobs making life a misery for many communities in Britain.
Louise Casey, head of the Government’s antisocial behaviour unit, said yesterday that she feared people were becoming too tolerant and afraid to intervene because of traditional British reserve.
Let me take a wild leap into the dark here. Could this ‘tolerance’ and ‘reserve’ have anything to do with the fact that private citizens are forbidden to possess so much as a toothpick and even raising their eyebrows in defence of their homes, families or communities will result in their being dragged off to prison by the very people that are supposed to be protecting them?
“Leave it to the professionals” said the professionals. And so everyone did. And look at where it has got them.
Critics will seize on her call as an admission of government failure to stem a rising tide of social disorder. But Ms Casey said that the answer to the yobs was not more legislation, but greater community spirit and co-operation.
Meaning what, Ms Casy, meaning what? The swapping of tales of woe? Bouts of collective cowering? Group hugs? Yes, I am sure that will turn the tide.
Anyone who follows defense issues closely is aware of the global air tanker problem. A) There ain’t enough of ’em, and B) What one’s there is are a gettin’ a mite long in the tooth.
Modern air warfare is highly dependant on tankers. Whether for long distance ferry operations, maximum range missions or extending battlefield loiter time, the tanker aircraft is a crucial element of modern warfare.
Many countries face the same problem. The UK finds itself with insufficient capacity to handle any sort of operational surge. For America it is an aging fleet of Boeing 707’s. Yes, you heard me. That classic 1957 jetliner that started it all. There were plans to upgrade via a leaseback arrangement for new Boeing aircraft, but congressional support collapsed amidst a scandal.
So, what does one call a situation like this? Why, a market opportunity of course!
Dublin-based Omega Air has teamed up with US company Evergreen International in a joint venture to launch the Global Airtanker Service (GAS) KDC-10.
GAS is pitching the KDC-10 airliner conversion as an interim solution for the faltering UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) programme as well as targeting other potential customers such as the USAF and US Navy.
They will not be supplying green Jet fuel for Saint Paddy’s day.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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