Samizdata

The Sunday Times carries the story that two men have been remanded to await trial on charges of blackmailing a member of the royal family. They are said to have demanded £50,000 not to publicise stories about sex and drugs.

Haven’t the perpetrators missed the point of blackmail? Surely if they had anything that would stick, they could get many times that amount from the world’s tabloids? The point of blackmail is to take advantage of the embarrassment of the person concerned for gain. They seem to have attempted to do it for loss.

I have considered over the last couple of days whether or not to write about an event. I feared, and still fear, that many people will either think I am making the whole thing up or that, at least, I am exaggerating to make a more ‘entertaining’ story. I am not making this event up, and I am not exaggerating – but I have no way to prove this.

Anyway here goes…

On Tuesday I went to an event ‘East Midlands Expo’ organized by the ‘East Midlands Region’ government. These ‘Regional’ governments are not desired by the public – but they are forced to pay for them anyway. The event was supposed to be about the ‘environment’. It was held in the buildings that form part of the Rockingham Speedway. This is sporting facility that is on the outskirts of the town of Corby in Northamptonshire.

Why this site was chosen I do not know. If the public were intended to attend this event it was a very bad choice of site – but if the event, and the cost of it, was meant to be hidden from the public it was a good choice of site. I overheard someone pointing to the helicopters that seemed to be flying round the site and saying “they are to keep the public out” – but I do not believe that to be true (it was just a coincidence).

There were some members of the public at the event. Some confused looking children, some in yellow helmets, were led around to various places. A few of these children were brought in to be photographed when a government person presented a cheque [pdf document] to two women dressed as ‘Eco-Pixies’.

However, nearly everyone at the event was either a councillor, a Local Government Officer, or a representative of a commercial enterprise trying to sell something – via various stalls. There was one stall that did not seem to be trying to sell anything – it was from the Romania government and its function at the event seemed to be to publicise Romania. This led a Local Government Officer I talked with, to describe the event as “Eco-Pixies meet Romania” – although, as far as I know, the Eco-Pixies did not visit the Romanian government stall. There were some stalls, outside, that were selling actual products (bread, cheese and so on) but the main stalls inside the event were from various large enterprises trying to interest politicians and officials in their services (to be paid by the taxpayers). The objective seemed to be to ‘network’.

Outside there was also part of a building made of straw. Not panels made of straw, just bales of straw. There were also various ‘workshops’ which were conducted in the English language – but a highly distorted form of it. As I went around talking to people and visiting stalls I found myself having difficulty in suppressing high pitched involuntary nervous laughter (what British people call “the giggles” – which is not as pleasant as it sounds) and I had to retreat to the toilet to recover – in order to avoid being rude.

After I recovered I took the special bus back to Kettering.

However, the events of the day had disturbed me and I went shopping, buying lots of ‘bad’ things. For example, bread and cheese, which I could have bought from the stalls outside the “Expo” – but I felt uncomfortable buying things there, I intend no disrespect to the people at the food stalls – perhaps the most honest people at the event.

Bread is denounced because of carbohydrate, and cheese is denounced because of fat – especially the high fat ‘Danish Blue’ cheese that I bought. I also bought alcohol for the first time in months, partly because alcohol had just been denounced on BBC Radio 4 that morning “there is no safe lower limit” (this did not concern driving – it was meant as general health warning). The alcohol I bought was Yorkshire ‘Old Peculiar’ beer – which I thought fitted the peculiar nature of the day. My shopping the local supermarket which might be considered environmentally unsound, but many of the organizations at the ‘Expo’ were rather big so I suppose the organizers are not totally against big business.

Anyway I then ate some bread and cheese and drank my beer in an effort to calm my mind – but I was not totally successful.