CoffeeHousers' Wall, 13 July - 19 July

abraham

This wall is pointless as it is not read by anyone except the ranting coffeehousers who post on it.

Discuss.

TrevorsDen

I would just draw your attention to the way Brillo demolished the labour armed forces minister. He pointed out that the USA with 8000 soldiers have 120 chinooks.
The AFM could only prevaricate on our numbers.

Brillo pointed out that we probably had max 20 like for like helicopters and in fact only 10 chinooks.

It was quite pathetic that he could not offer even a broad brush of the numbers and then justify them. Hiding behind 'security' was laughable. It shows how guilty the govt feel.

The anti war comments read out afterwards show the stark reality of how we are losing the war on the terms the Taliban want to fight it.

TrevorDen

Oh and another thing -- apart from one terrible hot week, has anyone seen any signs of the BBQ summer the Met Office promised us?

Next few days look pretty poor with some pretty wet weather due to come in. Its currently talking about hail ! And offering some severe weather warnings.

Note that in Florida right now - (well 11 July) its minus 25 degrees.
Well actually its not but thats how reliable the temp measures are that the global warmists rely on to scare us all.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/11/key-west-fl-sets-new-subzero-record-low-temperature/

The key quote here is ---
"Early in June, there was an incident in Honolulu International Airport where the ASOS station there malfunctioned and it set a string of new high temperature records for Honolulu.
Those records still stand for Honolulu despite protest even though it was clear that fixing the ASOS sensor dropped the temperature dramatically and immediately"

Meantime the Sun continues its 2 year sleep.

tomyoung

I'd like to see someone blogging on climate change. You guys rarely come near this issue despite it being ostensibly close to the core of the Cameron brand. Even if you don't believe in man-made global warming yourselves plenty of very intelligent people - including world leaders - do, and it deserves the intelligent attention applied to other issues on coffee house.

Jeremy

His Last Bow.

“What are you looking for in Elvis?”

In Elvis I am looking for the marriage of Chaos and Order. I am looking for the point of perfect harmony between the extremes. And there are certain points and pictures and songs and moments in his career when he attains it. I wish that all of his career could have been like that. But the odds were against him. The environment he was in. The person who managed him. The choices Elvis made, or that were made for him. The people who surrounded him and what they did both for and to him. And what he did to himself, and failed to do for himself. No matter that he fell away from them, given the context and the conditions it is perhaps amazing that those peaks in his career were attained at all.

Maybe Elvis, in his last televised concert, doesn’t look so very bad when compared to other ordinary, overweight, middle-aged men. But when compared to what he himself had been at the last peak of his physical and artistic perfection - let’s say 1969/71 - the transformation and the decline in him appear to be both shocking and profound.

One of the interesting things about watching Elvis at the end is that, in certain moments, it’s not like watching Elvis at all. It’s like watching a
completely different person. It’s like watching a ham actor playing Elvis. The closest analogy I can come up with is this: It’s like watching an overweight William Shatner playing the role of Elvis Presley. In other words, by the end of his career, even Elvis had become an Elvis impersonator.

Something else you can see in this final performance are all of the various stages of Elvis’ career flashing momentarily, like feelings, across his face. Sometimes he is the Elvis of “Aloha from Hawaii”, sometimes the Elvis of “That’s The Way It Is” or “Elvis on Tour”, and sometimes he is the Elvis of 1950s Hollywood. Every facet of his career - and of Elvis himself - flashes before the viewer like photographic slides on a screen.

In its way, this final televised performance from 1977 is one of the most significant and compelling of his career. Not least because Elvis is trying. He’s having to make the effort to connect both to himself - to what he has been - and to his audience, once more. He can no longer afford to take anything for granted. He can no longer afford to just perform on robotic autopilot as he seemed to do for most of the “Aloha from Hawaii” special just four years earlier. His eyes, in spite of the ravages around them, actually look more alert and alive here than they did in “Aloha”. Elvis knows that he has to convince us that in spite of the (then) recent revelations about the debauched state of his private life - that in spite of the obesity, the damaged feelings and wounded psyche; that in spite of what appears to be his failing physical form and health - that in spite of it all and through it all he has, somehow, to convince us that he is still Elvis.

And I think that he makes it. I think that he is still there, at the end. I think that you can still see Elvis in this performance. The fact that he is momentarily unsteady, uncertain, unsure of himself - the fact that he is teetering at the edge of the abyss - but still trying, desperately, to win us back makes his performance in this concert all the more fascinating and compelling. In fact I think that it is one of the most important performances of his entire career.

At the end, the sensitivity may have turned into paranoia, the beauty into grossness and even ugliness, but still - somehow - the greatness endures.

And at the end I want to say this to Elvis: Let’s be friends…?

“Take my hand…”

--------------------------------

Here are two of my favourite clips from this last televised concert of his. The date is June 1977:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr8VEcbSw48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSUJ0oAI8Vk

Tiberius

I wouldn't quite go that far, abraham, but this blog has become something of a ripository for UKIP types.

EC

tomyoung,

Verily I sayeth unto ye ....

The prescience of the All Goracle is settled. To gainsay is to speaketh heresy. So asketh not for blogging by those that demandeth inconvenient evidence and proof, yea even proof that denies faith! Yea, verily (etc.) the screenplay that was handeth down and out by the nobel Goracle ordains that unbelievers and deniers be cast out to burn ( * or freeze) in hell for Al eturdity.

(*) er... he'll have to get back to you on that one.

John

I recently asked a friend why she (and by implication the whole anti Iraq war movement) was so vocal in the condemnation of the war in Iraq, yet silent on Afghanistan. I explained that Iraq seemed to me to have clear attainable objectives whereas, in contrast, the objectives of war in Afghanistan seemed vague. The answer was that she did not like the Taliban! I could have added that neither did she like Bush, Halliburton, Israel and “American and British Imperialism” which probably informed her views and much of the anti Iraq war coalition too. I’m bemused at what appears to me to be a failure of imagination, failure to learn any lessons from history and failure to state the obvious. i.e Saddam could be, and was, toppled by the military (pity about the screwup afterwards!) But the same is not the case in Afghanistan. It can’t be settled by the military – particularly when there is an ever increasing supply of freedom fighters or whatever they call themselves, from Pakistan and other Islamic countries. I keep looking for a blog or comment from Mel or Frazer, James, Peter et al but nothing as far as I know. Why not guys??

Minnie Ovens

I would like to know when The Leaders of the three parties in the House of Commons will make a public apology to Elizabeth Filkin.

Minnie Ovens

It's Voting Day!

I want a floating duck house
I want to clear my moat
I need to mend my tennis court
That's why I need your vote.

I have to build a portico
My swimming pool needs mending
My lovely plants need horse manure
And the Aga needs much tending

A chandelier is vital
Mock Tudor boards are great
My hanging baskets won awards
And I've earned a tax rebate.

I need a glitter toilet seat.
My piano so needs tuning
Maltesers help me stay awake
And my orchard must need pruning

I could have said the rules were wrong
And often thought I should,
But somehow it was easier
To profit all I could

The public really have to see
That the rules are there to test
And by defrauding taxpayers
We only did our best

The Speaker of the House has gone,
Our sacrificial beast,
But the public are still braying
For our corpses at the feast

What do the public want from us,
Those vote-wielding ingrates?
They really should be grateful
To be financing our estates.

The message is so very clear,
(you're merely learning late)
That the MP’s way of living well
Is to screw the ruddy state.

Sir Graphus

Blair took to the air-waves again at the weekend; he was on 5-Live Sportsweek yesterday morning giving an interview about how great it is to have the Olympics.

He might merely be trying to defend some of the more idiotic parts of his legacy, but I don't think he give a monkey's what we think of him anymore; not if he didn't want something from us. Or he could just be missing the sense of importance one feels from being interviewed.

He's definitely on manoeuvres, to some end or other.

Verity

tom young - We have thrashed this subject to death - although there's not much to discuss as we all agree that it's a load of self-serving, anti-progress, communist rubbish. In every country, it's the anti-progress, one-worlder lefties who subscribe to it.

Also, in case you missed it, there is major article on it in this week's Speccie (not Coffee House). You must have missed the illustration at the top of the front page, on the left. It's the fellow with the smiling globe for a face. Do read it.

EC

Finally Clive Davis writes something I'd like to comment upon and there is no facility for this in his case.

Doesn't he like taking flak in public?

TrevorsDen

"... plenty of very intelligent people - including world leaders - do ..."

Err.... do you realise what you just said?

Al Gore (self styled inventor of the internet) launches a polemical campaign which just coincidently enriches both him and his friends and we are expected to lie down and be walked all over??

Brown Berlusconi Sarkozy Putin ... ?

David Ossitt

abraham

"This wall is pointless as it is not read by anyone except the ranting coffeehousers who post on it."

And therefor it is not pointless.

Andy Carpark

Jeremy Thorpe, former leader of the Liberal Party, is unveiling a bust of himself in Portcullis House this week.

Thorpe (80), was acquitted of conspiracy to murder at the Old Bailey in 1979, following an incident on Exmoor in which Andrew "Gino" Newton shot Rinka, Norman Scott's dog in the belief that he was being attacked by a man-eating donkey [source: Simon Freeman and Barrie Penrose, Rinkagate: The Rise and Fall of Jeremy Thorpe (Bloomsbury, 1996)].

Rhoda Klapp

Yes EC, I wonder what threshold of percentage Muslim population we should start worrying about. If 5% is OK, 10, 15, 20? How many countries reach those levels with stability?

But Clive doesn't like to bandy words with green-inkers, fascists and right-wing nutcaes. I wonder why he is here at all.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

Rhoda/EC

We're just so beneath Clive's boredom threshold.

One of the pet names for 'us' that I discovered on his pages was 'fucktards', which if I remember rightly, is a portmanteau word. Not his construction admittedly, but one to which he referred with an almost pubescent glee.

In fact, like Alex Massie, he has now attained the title of Doctor, his main duties being to assuage the ridiculous imaginings of those not capable of sophisticated reasoning: they only t h i n k they are being overwhelmed by muslims.

Perhaps these headscarves are holograms then?

David Ossitt

tomyoung.

Even if you don't believe in man-made global warming yourselves plenty of very intelligent people - including world leaders do.

Tom the word 'intelligent' is not enhanced by being preceded by the adverb very, nor is being elected to high office any indication that the elected is in any way intelligent.

As to global warming; everything that Verity wrote.

the pro from dover

Well, here's one.
I think it is about bl**dy time there was a serious debate about the big-picture future.

It seems undeniable now that Western economic supremacy is at an end. The Eastern Empire rises -and good luck to them- whilst we aren't in any way whatsoever ready to deal with the repercussions to our way of life.
Our friends in the city are happy to sell off all our property, design and manufacturing assets, and take some commission here and there while they can. Meantime no thought as to what the people in the UK are supposed to do with themselves in the future and the prospect of a third world standard of living within a generation.

In the UK we have very little to offer the 21st Century world apart from creative brain-power and a little moral integrity (going fast I fear).
I suspect we are going to be badly left behind. Lets face it, we can't even compete with most of Europe in terms of hygiene, healthcare, construction, transport infrastructure, etc. etc.

We are short on natural resources; we are not self-sufficient in foodstuffs; we have a very hefty non-productive public sector; we have way too much red-tape suffocating every initiative;
and we currently have nothing much of value we can export to the world apart from Grand Prix cars it seems.

I don't see anyone in Westminster addressing this crisis, and I don't see much stomach in the media to force us to confront ourselves with the bad news.

I have 4 children to encourage; my advice to them is get as well-educated as the system lets them, use the common sense that their mother & I hopefully instilled in them......
and get the he** out of here as fast as they can.

Simon brock

Test from the iPhone App. Plz forward to me as shb@widearea.co.UK

Cloyingly sanctimonious

I'm gay, I'm gay, in a very important way....

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

the pro from dover.

I'm not knocking you mate, but please don't let your kids read your comment.
And where are they going to go with their qualifications? Somewhere in the ascendant East?

They'll probably just hang on here like the majority of us, in the hope that we might survive the civil war.

EC

Rhoda,

The percentage that 'we' should be concerned about is that percentage where "no go" areas can be established in our towns and cities. Where a spokesperson can feel confident enough to shout "How dare you come into a Muslim area .." to the Home Secretary -John 'bonecruncher' Reid no less! That percentage where the existence of Sharia Courts is not only tolerated but allowed to dispense Sharia judgements over English law with full official sanction.

Debbie Schlussel is the key - Clive is obviously bonkers.

Abraham

David Ossitt, providing a wall for people to write their own opinions is not the purpose of a blog's wall. It is supposed to shape the debate, but it doesn't. The affore mentioned coffeehousers just scan their fellow coffeehouser's posts, searching for replies to their own rants. But all they get is more rants. Occasionally two like minded ranters rant to each other, but that still doesn't shape the debate. They may as well write emails to themselves.

People like Verity feel the need to school the world on EVERY subject. But no one reads any of her rubbish.

But thanks for discussing, it is kind of fun wasting pixels sometimes I guess.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

Cloyingly sanctimonious.

Hell is it 1986 already?

Brian E.

I'm intrigued by this phone tapping affair, and the various people who claim they will sue the News of the World. I'd like to know how anyone can actually prove that their phone has been tapped unless they used it to impart some confidential information between themselves and the other party which is not known to anyone else, as was claimed to be the situation in the case of the Royal phone tapping.
The fact that a reporter might have a "wish list" of phones that he would like to listen to (I'd love to have a tap on Gordon's phone), doesn't make it a fait accompli. And I'm sure that even an NoW reporter wouldn't be so stupid as to use a mobile pone registered in his own name!
So, how's it done, and how can I tell if my phone is tapped?

Suki

tomyoung, Melanie Phillips has covered (non-existent) 'global warming' ever since she's blogged here and wrote a post on the book that is the subject of the James Delingpole cover piece this week that exposes the global warming scam for w
that it is.

I thought people might like this excellent piece from Mary Ellen Synon on Obama's Sotomayor debacle: 'Put this woman in the highest court and you back a new racism, Mr Obama'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1199319/Put-woman-highest-court-new-racism-Mr-Obama.html

Vulture

@ Tiberius
I don't consider myself a 'UKIP type', even though I vote for them at European elections. I don't for example wear a blazer with shiny buttons, nor a cravat, nor twill trousers. However, an under-reported event yesty in Strasbourg should give you and all other Coffee Housers pause. Soldiers from the EU's embryo army, the 'EuroCorps' unfurled a huge EU flag ( twice the size of member state flags) to the strains of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' the EU 'national anthem'. The occasion was the opening of the so-called European Parliament. To quote UKIP leader Nigel farage: "There is no pretence any more. The EU is to be a fully militarised state". In all honesy, Tiberius, can you or anyone else deny that Farage is right; that so long as we remain insde this sinister dictatorship we are being inexorably sucked into a federal state in which britain will become a mere province unable to pass our own laws, elect our own Govt or have any meaningful say about our own future. HOnestly?
Dave's recent withdrawal from the EPP was mere window-dressing. WE certainly need a new referendum : EUSSR in or out?

Rhoda Klapp

Vulture, the good news is that the German constitution may not allow their forces to be deployed on EU say-so.

It wouldn't hurt if their recent 147-page statement was analysed by the Spectator...

THX1138

Nixon doesn't like gays

http://tinyurl.com/msyrm5

Bitching about the "faggots" at Bohemian Grove, where the military industrial complex go every year to get naked and piss on trees.

Great Simpson's spoof on it the Billionaires club

http://tinyurl.com/l5cwcn

oldtimer

@Brian E

The phones were not tapped. What the snoopers did was gain entry to mobile voice mail boxes by the simple expedient of phoning the intended victim`s number and, if referred to their voicemail, tapping in the manufacturers` default pin number to gain entry to their voicemail messages. Mobile telephones have this back door just as computers have them. It is the standard means of entry for hackers. It is like leaving your front door unlocked when you leave the house. The solution is to change your pin number (password in computers).

The hackers were not the journalists but freelancers who got information this way and pedalled it to journalists at several newspapers. No doubt the hackers were also encouraged to go on fishing expeditions by some journalists.

It is impossible to know if someone has listened to your voicemail unless you can definitely link a unique message to another event of which the journalist was aware. This is how the case involving the Royal Family started and was resolved.

The Guardian report and the attempted follow up by Labour MPs and the BBC to give the story legs exhibited all the signs of a deliberate smear campaign. The Daily Mirror`s Mr Kevin McGuire was still at it on the BBC`s Sunday morning Breakfast Show when he was invited to review the Sunday newspapers. The BBC has much to answer for over this grubby episode.

James Strong

The BBC has reported that 'youths' rioted in France last night; burning cars was one of their activities.
Apparently the riots occurred in 'deprived areas'.
These quote marks are around phrases used in the BBC report.
Nowhere in the report was mention made of the youths' religious beliefs or ethnic origin.
If these were not relevant then there was no need to mention them in the report.
However I suspect that the religious beliefs and ethnic origin of the 'youths'is relevant.
But I can't check it through the BBC.
Were they muslim youths? Were they of North African origin or parentage?
If any of you know the facts, or can guide us to a report,please tell us.

Hysteria

Abraham - whilst we get the occaional ranter I think many would agree the CH is refreshingly clear of green ink.

Oh - and you assert re Verity " But no one reads any of her rubbish."

Either you work for GCHQ and have some very interesting software to monitor what we read - or erm - well - you are just ranting

euSSR GO HOME

Well, as you all know, I think we should withdraw from their horrible 'organization.'

Failing that, I say the armed forces should take over the government and reinstate the Queen as head, until we can have real elections.

Failing that, the I say we should blow up all the ammo and scupper all the ships, aircraft and other equipment - rather than give it to those ********. Furthermore, every soldier, sailor, and airman should leave the armed forces, and we should refuse to let our people serve the foreigners.

Kevyn Bodman

I read Verity's comments every time I come here.

100% forthright and 85% to 90%right (by which I mean, of course, that I agree with her about 85% to 90% of the time.)

Abraham, even from his desk at GCHQ or Menwith Hill, is wrong.

Pete Hoskin

Many thanks to Hysteria and THX1138 for the photos above.

Michael Booth

Have just been reading about Andy Burnham's proposal to levy a compulsory tax of £20,000 on every person retiring, in return for which they would receive 'free' care into old age. When you look further into it, the state would pay up to one third of care costs, the rest would be 'topped up' by each individual. Ministers are said to be considering 'allowing' people to defer payment until death, when it would come out of their estate. Bugger me! The bastards!!!!! You get screwed for tax and national insurance throughout your life, pay tax on everything from TV licence to petrol to God knows what else, and then this little wheeze. OK so there is a demographic timebomb and all that - has this completely taken the powers that be by surprise? What about the absolute f-----g waste that goes on at all levels of government, copuldn't it be directed towards helping the citizens of this sceptic isle when they are at their most vulnerable?

Verity

Little butterfly minds like Abraham's may flutter by any comment that he didn't write himself, but most of the posters on Coffee House are here because they are interested in the debate and meticulously read every post. Even dismissive ones.

Hysteria, thanks for the photo of the frog. Very sweet.

Augustus

@ James Strong

Yes, the rioting youths in France were Muslim, and yes, they are from North Africa, mainly Algeria. They live in ghetto suburbs of Paris, and also in places like Lille and Lyon. They seem to come out of the woodwork every year around Bastille Day, and according to the police this year they set 317 cars on fire, whereas last year it was 297. Amazingly, despite the escalation of violence, the French police appear to take the whole matter in their stride and spoke this year of 'a relatively calm night, despite the inevitable violence against the assistance workers.' It's certainly come to something when such events are treated as only to be expected and inevitable in European cities today.

Nicholas

One man's rant is another man's lament for lost liberty and for having to live under the oppressive grey pall of the lefto-fascists. If there are like-minded victims of oppression who can take comfort that others feel the same way then no harm in that. It is the virtual equivalent of painting the red "V" on the wall in Nazi-occupied France. Especially as the rotten nazis running this country are so determined to find even more ways to curb and control thought, behaviour and speech.

Perjorative dismissals of ranting by the likes of abraham fall in line with all the other tactics of the left to diminish, undermine and discredit dissent. Those who dissent from their happy-clappy crappy narrative must be foaming at the mouth, window-licking, Daily Mail reading, Tory, Thatcherite Dinosaur Little Englanders, etc., - and like as not "old-type people" who are not enlightened enough to see the benefits of the progress and radicalism promoted by our glorious lefty leaders and their parasites.

The thing to "Discuss" abraham, is how the left has stifled debate and manipulated the truth to such a level of twisted unreality that ranting is one of the few freedoms remaining. The freedom to rant, point to oneself and declare "I am not taken in by the Left's bogus bullshit" may be of much more significance and importance than patronising, supercilious prigs like you realise. Discuss that.

Leo McKinstry

Inspired by the anger of Coffee Housers, I went to Clive Davis' blog for the first time in weeks, only to find the usual complacent, deceitful, politically correct drivel and the inevitable barrier on any comments. Davis cites a 2004 US report as if it had any contemporary relevance, this in a context where gross immigration to Britain alone is running at more than 500,000 arrivals a year, two-thirds of this influx from Asia and Africa. How can anyone who genuinely loves European civilisation not be alarmed at the mounting evidence of Islamification, whether it be the prevalence of the burka in south Yorkshire or criminal gangs in southern France. I send this from Carpentras, a pretty Provencal market town, where the Muslim population is now over 40 per cent and the atmosphere of the town has been completely transformed in recent years. And it is not just a question of numbers. Aggressive, militant Islam is filled with confidence, whereas traditional European culture is pathetically defeatist, its instinct for craven surrender dressed up as "tolerance". Those who might be misled by Davis' statistics should remember that it only took a few Bolsheviks to bring about the Soviet Revolution, while the Nazi Party had only a handful of supporters in Germany in the 1920s, but was still able to establish the Third Reich within a decade.

The Bellman

I heard The Rt Rev Mr James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, on Thought for the day. (I run this risk daily, as I keep the radio on throughout my early morning ablutions, hoping against hope that the pleasures of hearing Mr Evan Davis eviscerating a fatuous government or opposition finance minister will compensate for hearing the tired cockwaffle that T4tha'D vomits across our airwaves each morning. Alas.)

This morning, the go-ahead and wholly modern Mr Jones was talking about slavery and aid, and said that - having just been in Nigeria at a slavery museum - he was travelling soon to Kenya to an aid conference. Leaving aside the question of whether the Bishop of Liverpool's tithes are best spent on such things, he said the conference would take place in the context of President Obama's recent 'rebuke' to Africa. He sounded like a puppy struck by his master for no obvious reason. He knew he'd been told off by the object of his devotion, but apparently couldn't quite understand why.
This seems to me a point in the President's favour, following a series of foreign policy mis-steps, as well as his appalling historical myopia, exacerbated by the raging narcissism he so clearly suffers. It's a shame that it takes a slightly vacuous moral relativist with Masrxist instincts before the mainstream media will undertake a degree of critical examination of aid, the post-colonial mindset and its contribution to the routine enormities of Africa's despots.

And I wonder how the sumptuously bearded Mr Jones would have described such an observation had it come from the President's predecessor?

Sheila

Well said, Leo McKinstry.

Can I just share this piece on Obama from the wonderful Anne Bayefsky (July 14, 2009):

'Barack changes tune in Ghana'

'Why couldn't the US President talk tough in Cairo like he did to the Africans.'

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25777607-7583,00.html

Can you get her in The Spectator?

Andy Carpark

While suspending judgement on Leo McKinstry's social concerns, I fully agree (not for the first time) with his trenchant appraisal of the utility of Clive Davis's blog, or lack of it.

I am at a loss to understand why Mr Davis thinks he deserves a nanosecond of anyone's attention.

Perhaps if enough of us keep chipping away at this defiantly uninteresting monument to his equally uninteresting ego, someone influential will eventually take notice. Certainly they won't take any notice if we don't.

Frank P

Leo McK/Sheila

Yes indeed. Always enjoy Mr McK (in column or blog posts) and thanks, Sheila, for the link. Ann Bayefsky seems to be another journalist from Oz who get's it.

I wish more lady journalists over here 'got it' too. We can always relay on Melanie, of course, who 'get's it' in spades pardon my French).

I was particularly incensed by a piece by Gill Hornby in the D. Telegraph, who appears not only to have fallen for the Obamessiah hook line and sinker, but gratuitously offers up all Daily Telegraph readers as disciples:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/gill-hornby/5819345/Barack-Obama-shows-how-its-done.html

Extract: "....President Obama was dressed casually for his interview with Sky on Sunday morning, but that did not distract from the gravitas with which he expressed his empathy for the bereaved families. He reminded us of why we needed to be in Afghanistan, our objectives and our responsibilities. He told us what we needed to hear; he was respectful, measured and intelligent. It was the interview that the leader of this country needed to give at this stage in the campaign, and President Obama was the one who gave it. We are his people now."

And this was after she had blithely averred, a couple of paragraphs earlier, that: "...Plenty of us saw a whole new dawn back in 1997, but it was a matter of weeks before the saintly Blair was spluttering his way through the Ecclestone affair and we felt that first, dull sensation that we'd all been had."

Yes Ms Hornby, your credulity seems to have clinical resilience, despite past disillusionments.

Speak for yourself, girl. "Some of us" didn't swallow Blair's bollocks from day one. It didn't need Bernie Ecclestone's grease applied to the NuLab wheels to alert us; the oily sheen on Blair and his Gramscian groupies prior to 1997 was sufficient. And simply because you are too lazy, or too stupid to research the pedigree of Obama and rationalise the empty rhetoric and duplicity squared, don't you dare offer the rest of us up as sacrificial lambs because you're on the boil for a smooth talking Chicagoan shyster shill of very dubious US 'citizenship' (who carries more baggage than a Jumbo jet).

I suppose some would forgive her as she was attempting belittle Gordon Brown by making invidious comparisons; but personally I don't see the difference: they are both usurpers of the office they hold and both are trying to lead their nation on a disastrous one way journey to a totalitarian socialist state. Brown seems to be ahead in the game in that regard. Let's hope that the US electorate wakes up to what is happening more quickly than the UK electorate, which seems to comprise far too many clones of Gill Hornby, with obtuse gullibility that has led to three terms of NuLab and a wave of adoration for the conman from the Onion Field. If your eyes deceive you, Gill, then trust your nose and stop making unwarranted assumptions about who's "people we are"!

David Ossitt

Leo McKinstry.

I agree; the time to act is now long past.

The loony liberal elite have much to answer for, bring on the revolution.

David Ossitt

Peter; when Greg Dyke joined the BBC he complained that it was disgustingly white, whilst I would argue against his choice of words, it would be churlish not to agree that he had a valid point.

However; his use of positive discrimination to bring about change, has swung the pendulum so far the other way that some of the BBC's output could now "if it were allowed" be called disgustingly black/asian/left wing and gay.

Many programs mock or ridicule those who are white, middle class, heterosexual and have Judeo-Christian values.

Verity

Frank P - Please! Enough of the delicately wrought nuances! Why not just tell us what you think?

Ha ha ha ha ha! Great post! (BTW, Obama's going to be a one-termer and the next president of the US is going to be Sarah Palin,and we will see the reemergence of stability and the values of the civilisation of the West.

And thanks to Leo McKinstry and The Bellman for two excellent, invigorating posts.

BTW, I've never read Clive Davis. One, I don't like his hair. Only a prig would have that hair cut. Two, it says in his write-up that he feels he has been blogging all his life because when he was a little boy, he used to keep scrap books. As though this were an unusual and precocious activity in a child.

Verity

Augustus, re the rioting "youths" in France, I note above that only around 300 cars have been burned. This is the time-honoured traditional Bastille Day car torching and is fairly light. The real torching is over the Christmas season, where they torch around 300 a night for days in a row. This is always under reported French TV. Now, the question is, why? They would respond: "so as not to stir up racial tensions", of course. But those doing the torching are the instigators, are they not? Do the French media really think they're going to keep a lid on it by not talking about it? It is all part of this Western conspiracy to pretend that Islam is just a later form of Christianity - in the Abrahamic tradition - whereas, it is not.

Aidan

I understand that Tony Blair is now confirmed as the UK's candidate for EU President - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8152099.stm.

I am sure this is richly deserved after his great success as Middle East envoy.

Will he be keeping his promise to nail his equipment to a speeding train?

Verity

Re Blair, it's interesting how far one can go in this world as a failure. Blair wanted to be a pop star along the lines of Mick Jagger, if you recall, but didn't have Jagger's talent. So then he wanted to be a barrister, and seems to have had a deeply undistinguished career. I don't know how to find out if anyone ever actually paid him out of their own pocket or whether he survived on legal aid cases. Certainly, his thespian qualities never got him far in real life, but then he discovered the surreal world of Westminster, where he began work on destroying out culture and our civil and legal structures. Surveying the wreckage around his ankles, there was only one place left that would accept a chap with the talent and vulpine charm of a Jaguar salesman in Beverly Hills.

Moira

Reports that Gordon Brown has endorsed Tony Blair's bid for EU candidacy have resulted in a massive influx of signatures to the Stop Blair Eu Petition. More people who evidently do not believe the spin that he will not be appointed!!
www.stopblair.eu

Rhoda Klapp

Any chance of somebody getting the champagne on the security issues post? It seems coffee housers are all in step, but not with the media or politiians.

Cogito Ergosum

Not a word in Coffee House about the hoo ha amongst Conservative MEPs.

Is this a subtle game by Cameron to let the Europhobes have their way so we can at an early stage see the absurd results that follow.

Bit of a risk, though. The E-phobes may yet succeed in getting people to vote for Gordo.

mac

Ah, joy.

This week's Wall is more like its old self. Trenchant stuff from the reliable heavy bomber force and no mini-bios of deceased American pop giants, Federico F's 862 finest films and no report on the latest gig THX's been too.

Oh, and Clive Davis. I never bother looking either. What's the point of his blogging on Coffee House given his evident distaste for its patrons?

Vulture

A few days ago Bliar was quoted on Coffee House saying he'd rather have his bollox nailed to a speeding train ( so would we!) than run for the Presidency of the EUSSR. Now, no surprise, we discover that he was, of course, lying, and that his campaign is in full swing with Bruin's support.
Is this shameless mendacity the result of a) mental impairment or b) sheer evil?

At any rate it behoves us all to throw our backing behind Frau Merkel's bid to stop him.

When I was living in Austria I used to go on long bike rides with one of the other candidates to be EU-Fuhrer, ex-Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel. Aside from looking like a superannuated Harry Potter, and having a penchant for wearing ridiculous bow ties ( he once sported one made of wood), Herr Schussel is OK
(at least for an Austrian). He, or anyone on earth, would be better than proven liar Blair.

THX1138

mac

Sorry to disappoint you with no gig reports. I went to Heaven to see White Denim a great three piece psychedelic grunge band from Austin Texas, brilliant gig, really loud and in your face.

Saw Cornell Dupree also from Texas and the leader of Aretha Franklin's rhythm section at Ronnie Scotts, not so great but always good to go to Ronnie's with friend who was having a bad hair day.

Did you know that more people in the world are interested in film, music and art than the latest boring twist in the downward spiral of Gordon Brown and the Republican party.

Actually I think most Spectator readers have a distaste for the boring bunch of UKIP'ers (apart from TGF), flat earther, anti immigration, anti EU boring backwoodsman coffin dodgers that post on the Coffee House.

mac

"Did you know that more people in the world are interested in film, music and art than the latest boring twist in the downward spiral of Gordon Brown and the Republican party."

Gee, er, well, er, heavens. Gosh. If I didn't before, I sure do now, THX.

Vulture

I have just returned from watching my local regional Army regiment - the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment - aka The Tigers - march through my home town, Lewes in East Sussex, in a homecoming parade after recent deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although Lewes is a traditional town (complete with castle and ruined priory) it has a strong radical and even anarchist tradition too. (It is currently celebrating its most famous son, the 18th century radical Tom Paine, and every year the streets are given over to fireworks, flaming torches and general mayhem on Bonfire Day).

Traditionally Tory, in 1997 it went Lib. Dem. in the admirable person of my friend Norman Baker - a fine local MP and an honest man. The leftie influence in the town has since been augmented by an influx of well-heeled Londeners - eg. Polly Toynbee - who have boosted what I call the 'Lewes lentils' - the anti-war, PC, right-on, tofu-munching Green types.

Nonetheless - and here comes my point - today the High Street was thronged with thousands of people of all ages, waving paper Union Flags ( £2 a pop) and cheering and clapping our troops for all they were worth. It was a sight to lift the heart : tough, strapping guys in desert fatigues, preceded by a red-coated marching band and followed by white-haired rheumy-eyed veterans of former wars.

It could have been England in 1914...0r 1940... but it was today, here and now.

The message this gave me was the optimistic one that despite
all the cynical dross we are fed by our masters, despite the doubts about the rights and wrongs of the wars, despite the despicable cheese-paring contempt shown to our services by the scum currently in power, the essence of the nation - its soul, if you like - is still secure in these men's hands. And they enjoy overwhelming public affection and support. I tell you it brought tears to my jaundiced eyes.

Verity

Those "more people in the world" who are interested in film, music and art do not read Coffee House. They tend to read show biz and arts mags and columns.

By contrast, the number of people who regard Number Plate's illiterate, faux trendy, pretentious posts as a one-man yawneroo run level pegging with the numer of people who think Tony Blair's private parts nailed to a speeding train would add much to the gaiety of the nation.

Vulture, interesting post, and that fellow who wore a wooden tie sounds like an independent thinker.

Verity

I think I have the honour of being the first to announce on these illustrious pages that Cherie Blair has swine flu.

Comment is superfluous.

Sheila

THX often complains on here about name calling but then calls people 'coffin dodgers'!

Clearly all that Lefty talk of being against prejudicial generalisations is just pure hypocrisy (quelle surprise).

Go Verity! You've got THX covered while Leo McKinstry deals with Clive Davis. Wonderful.

The Bellman

Vulture: Good post. Your 'local' regiment is considerably less local than it would have been even twenty years ago, of course, ad 'regional' is much more accurate. But otherwise your point is well made.

I mean no insult, but, as well as its radical heritage, Lewes is also a hotbed of anti-Catholic ... erm... 'sentiment'. I had always assumed that this was a bit of real ale, arts'n'crafts, morris dancing olde worlde folk mummery, but it seems there is a somewhat darker edge to it, a bit like in *The wicker man*. A priest friend of mine was burned in effigy on Guy Fawkes' night. Might seem like harmless fun to many, of course, but I've never been burned in effigy before, and I can imagine it is pretty unpleasant.

Kevyn Bodman

Vulture:
Thank you for that post.
Heartening.

mac

Vulture: So Toynbee has a place in Lewes as well as her fortified palace in Lambeth and her Tuscan retreat.
Quite the 'umble egalitarian paragon, ain't she? Socialism's certainly a comfortable wheeze for its pharisees and propagandists.

Vulture

@Bellman.

No insult taken, but you have got your Lewes facts seriously askew! Unless your are a friend of Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush or Tony Blair, your friend was not burned in effigy on Bonfire night. The effigies that get grilled are topical hate figures of the day - such as the above trio, - and Pope Paul V, who was Pontiff at the time of the burning of the Lewes Protestant martyrs in the 1540s - not humble citizens.

Although Bonfire originated as an anti-Catholic festival, commemorating the 18 ordinary Sussex Protestant people who were burned alive under Bloody Mary on the site of the present-day War memorial, it has long since lost such sectarian connotations and is, as you say, a popular festival of 'olde worlde folk mummery' - with a strong dash of anarchism thrown in. Its an English equivalent of the wild 'Palio' horse racing in Siena or the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Belfast in the marching season it is emphatically not!

The Marshal of one of the half-dozen Bonfire societies who compete with each other for the size of their parades and fires is not only a Catholic himself, but the illegitimate son of a Catholic priest!

If you want to see all this for yourself, do come down next November 5th - its a helluva party!

Sterence

Vulture - shurely Paul III?

The Bellman

Vulture: Hmm. He maintains that he was himself burned in effigy. It even had his name on a placard around its neck, as the model had been constructed in haste and the likeness was imperfect.

Having said that, he is an elderly gentleman and possibly confused on this point. I can only say in his defence that his resemblence to Paul III is not startling.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

BBC R4 news were this morning at their incisive best.

Reporting on the bombings in Indonesia, the BBC woman on the scene informed the nation that these were the work of 'militant extremists'.

How many layers of linguistic redundancy is a reporter allowed, in her efforts to throw a blanket over what has actually taken place?

Verity

Alf Tupper - Good catch!

Frank P

Delicious satire from Iowahawk on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotamayor for the US Supreme Court:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/07/a-wise-latina-will-add-spice-to-the-menudo-of-justice.html

To extract any part of it would not do it justice - read it all.
The man is a genius.

EC

Alf,

Those weren't militant extremists in BBCspeak they were merely 'members of the bombing fraternity.' And the foul murderers of the Beslan school children were only 'militant insurgent freedom fighters' going about their business. Surely must you understand this.

Once upon a time I had an exchange of emails with a R4 News editor about how they described events. I was told that "you have to descibe these people as how they see themselves."

The BBC obviously think that these 'activists' don't see themselves as 'Muslim' or 'Islamic.'

It was this that finally convinced me that the BBC was so rotten that there was absolutely nothing worth saving.

EC C.D.F.

Alf,

I must admit that I haven't been paying attention .... but what's with the "C.R.O.F." ?

I think I admire this but....
Is this one of those obscure campaigns that Pete Hoskin doesn't like us to mention?

On a bad morning sometimes it looks like "Alf CRopper O.F."

Now wearing Clive's epithet as a badge of honour.

EC

I was devastated to hear the news that Cherie had developed swine flu. I don't know if there is as much money in Porcine Rights as there is in Human Rights but Tony may be able to make up any loss of income by investing in a collar lead and taking her out truffle hunting.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

EC C.D.F.

Campaign for the Reinstatement of Opal Fruits.
Don't get me started on the Marathons/Snickers subversion of all that we hold dear.

C.D.F.? Is that the same shorthand we used to use in the jolly old Andrew to denote ...erm straight thinking?

EC C.D.O.F.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

Ah Opal Fruits! They kept me and also my kids quiet on many a long car journey. Do you remember Spangles? Opal Fruits were better though.

I used to wonder what was wrong with me until I embraced being an anachronism as a positive lifestyle choice. However after your informative post on Clive Davis earlier this week I realised that, amongst other things, I must be one of his "Old F***tards" or a C.D.O.F. in full. Mmm, I wonder if the T-Shirts would sell?

Right, must get off to photograph something for next week's wall.

Verity

Frank P - Yes, v good! Iowahawk's very clever. The description of the other Supreme Court justices was a hoot.

EC

Re: Swine Flu Pandemic.
Here's The DailyMash's take on the most dangerous development so far!

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/swine-flu-catches-cherie-blair-200907161911/

Matt Braddock and George Bourne

For those of us, like us two,
who were not in the Andrew could you explain C.D.F.?

Verity

It's after 8 pm over there, so this won't be read by many people - especially by the time it gets posted - but Janet Daley has a very good piece on Cameron in The Sunday Telegraph and I'm glad to see these thoughts set out in a national newspaper by a respected columnist.

When I read it, it had drawn 83 comments, and I would say 90% of them agreed with her premise. Cameron's only sincere conviction is that he wants to be prime minister.

Do read it. And read the heartening comments.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

Matt/George.

Hmmm really? Well, at the risk of being the recipient of a mild wind-up: the 'Andrew' was one of the nickname's for the Royal Navy.

C.D.F. was then - maybe still is? - a commonly used term, to denote a situation which required a no-nonsense, basic approach, understood instinctually by all, and for which, elevated reasoning was not a requirement: eg 'no need to work it out, it's just common dog fook'.

Andrew

Say what you will about Tony Blair, but don't say he has no talent. He is one of the most articulate people on this planet.

And climbing any greasy pole right to the top is not something done without considerable foresight, negotiating skills, and eye for detail.

Perhaps his critics should look at their own life and see how their personal achievements compare to his. Becoming a barrister is an acomplishment in its own right, a much greater acomplishment than 99% of people are capable of achieving. Ditto MP, ditto party leader, ditto PM.