WHEN IT ALL GETS BIT TOO MUCH....

YOU NEED TO LEAVE IT BEHIND

Sometimes the news is so depressing, your Twitter feed so full of Neanderthals and Facebook has come a solid wall of hate.

At time like that you need to walk away from it.

And smile:

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Oh, and yesterday was Petula Clark's birthday. She was 83, and she's in the charts in Canada with a duet with Paul Daraiche "Laisse moi te dire ce soir". Way to not get old.

Happy birthday, Clarky, à bientôt j'espère. x

The aspirations of the Labour Party

Lovely hedge behind her

According to Margaret Curran "Here in Scotland only Scottish Labour has a clear answer".

So what is this clear answer… because I’m mystified?

You see only a few short weeks ago Mrs Curran, you were telling all of the world, and most particularly all the Labour constituencies that voted YES, that you were ditching Blairism and returning to socialism, just like in the good old days when you and your mate, Johann, joined the party. (How is Johann by the way? Seen much of her lately?).

And now it looks like you are about to elect as branch leader, Jim Murphy, a Blairite who’s never had a job outside politics, unless of course you count a 9-year educational career (sans diplôme universitaire), and who was one of Blair’s most staunch lieutenants, supporting all his right wing nonsense that so closely aped Thatcherism… and indeed took it further than even the rusty lady would have dared (Atos anyone?).

Furthermore it looks as if, for a year and a half, while the said Jim is in London, he will be represented in this country, by his doppelganger.

Kezia Dugdale is 33 a good deal younger than Jim (47) and she’s actually got a got a degree in something

Kezia, the thinking man's Jim Murphy

(law), but, like Jim, she’s never had a actual job in the real world.

After qualifying, she worked for the local student’s union and the National Union of Students, before obtaining employment with George (the noble) Foulkes. And when George went to spend more time in “the other place”, (where the booze is cheaper) she got his old seat. The most notable thing on her Wikipedia page, is that she complained about BBC Alba, the Scottish tv station dedicated to Gaelic speakers. She appears to be one of these Scots who believes that everyone should buckle down and speak English.  I wonder if she would use the proposed authority over road signs (should our masters in the Commons and our Lords in …erm, the Lords, approve the devolution of that stunning power to mere Scots) to remove the Gaelic from them.

I’m intrigued then, to discover what this potential new powerhouse, English based branch leadership team will come up with. In fact, looking at Maggie’s speech the policies are all to do with the UK so at least Jim will feel at home with them in the London apartment.

According to Mrs Curran, these are Labour's key policies:

*Freeze energy prices and save every Scottish household £120. 

A creditable aim, although I'm not sure where the £120 comes from.  Some people have so little to spend on energy that they would be getting their fuel free if that were applied across the board.

The privatised and mainly foreign-owned energy companies are at liberty to increase prices as and when they wish, pretty much regardless of energy prices, which, at the moment, are falling steeply.  In France, where the government has a controlling share in the power companies, the president can simply dictate how much rises in power prices will be. Not so here. A sovereign government, of course, can bring in whatever laws it wishes to, so no one is denying that it can be done. However, with what consequences, you have to ask. The English part of the grid is already heavily dependent on imported electricity and is in dire need of investment. I doubt that freezing the prices is the best way for the government to encourage that investment from the energy companies.

*Ensure the recovery is fair by introducing a 50p tax on people earning £150,000 or more and lift people out of tax with a new 10p starting rate. 

Well that is perfectly creditable, but in honesty the 50p won’t make that much difference.  Someone worked out that, in Scotland, as little as £8 million would be raised by this. A great deal more in England, I have no doubt, but hardly substantial.

The 10p tax band is not "new". It did exist until Gordon Brown doubled it. It was certainly helpful for some and I would applaud its reintroduction, but of course the really poor don’t benefit from it, because they earn so little that they already pay no tax. The aim must be to get wages up.

* Fix the economy by drawing a line under low-paid and insecure work by ending exploitative zero-hours contracts and raising the minimum wage to £8 an hour over the course of the Parliament. 

Well, that all sounds very fine and noble, except that aspiring to raise the minimum wage by 25p every year is hardly the great socialist dream, when, let’s be honest, the living wage, even now, is around £10 per hour, and even at that, it’s not much of a living…just enough to keep you from the food bank. Lord only knows what it will be in 2020.

If Labour’s policy is to draw a line under low paid work, it’s hardly a stunning start.

And it’s all very well to say that they will end zero hour contracts, but I would be interested to see how they are going to do this. Even some Labour councils use zero hour contracts… and for some people (students, mothers with young children for example) zero hours are sometimes quite useful. They must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

"That's a fair and funded plan from Labour” says the good Margaret.

“It is also lacking in real aspiration”, says Munguin, and of course, he’s right.

A socialist party would be a sight more radical. What are the policies over the post office? Can we expect to see the railways renationalised and made a service for both public and industry? How about power companies? What about the lamentable levels of social security and the appalling treatment of the sick and disabled? What about pensioners living on handouts on one of the worst pensions in the developed world?

What about the obscenities of nuclear weapons, which Mr Blair in his autobiography admitted were only kept as a status symbol? Is it defensible that while children are going to school hungry and pensioners shiver with their outdoor clothes on in front of a one bar fire, the country will spend well over one hundred billion pounds buying a status symbol?

No. Instead Mrs Curran contents herself by wishing to ensure that workers will, in five years time, be earning £8 an hour.

Bravo Labour. 

But I accept that they will never be able to do what they should do until they change the underlying fundamentals of the British economy, based on what is accepted British policy across the UK parties. And that will never happen while the city of London rules the roost.

As Derek Bateman so clearly points out on his blog, this is the situation in Britain. If they want votes then what is Labour going to do about it?

“The underlying truth is that Britain is bankrupt, living on sovereign debt and personal credit cards, buying imported goods instead of equipment for industry, creating low paid jobs which need benefits to eke them out, still borrowing massively because tax receipts are too low while opposing the immigration that can boost economic activity and dividing the country by stripping away the benefits that are the glue of British society.”

Incidentally, I have no earthly idea where Margaret got the impression that Nicola Sturgeon was advising people to vote Labour to keep the Tories out. It's like no message I've ever heard form the First Minister.  I can only assume Mags has been sitting to close to Gideon in the members' dining room. As the song goes "Things go better with Coke".

How's that again Mags?

RANDOM THOUGHTS...

In Missouri (where Danny, our man in America, lives) there is today, a state of emergency in anticipation of the decision of the grand jury about whether or not a white police officer, who shot dead an unarmed black youth, will face prosecution. 

A series of leaks has suggested that the officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted. He shot the victim, Michael Brown, after an altercation, which occurred when Wilson stopped Brown and a friend for jaywalking. 

Wilson pleads self defence. 

Our thoughts are with Danny and all Missourians tonight. Hope that there is no trouble, but if there is, that you are far from it.
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“There’s a lot of people who say there’s a lot of wealthy people in that room. If they all pay their taxes in the right way we wouldn't need these fundraisers singles – what would you say to that?” asked Steven Secker of Bob Geldof.

“I think they’re total b*****ks,” Geldof responded.

Of course, in a way it's true. If 'superstars' paid their taxes there would still be Ebola, and, because it is happening in Africa, and not in Europe, no one would have done that much more about it. Governments wouldn't pay anything more and we'd still need these fund raisers. 

But it doesn't detract from the fact that a lot of these so called stars don't pay their taxes....eh Gary?

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Scots wha hae wi Alex bled,

Scots wham Darling aft misled,

Welcome tae yir Tory bed,

Cuts an misery.

(By John Jappy, independence campaigner of note, who apparently suffered a heart attack on the day he tweeted that little ditty, but who fortunately was treated swiftly at Raigmore Hospital and is now back home.) Speedy recovery to full health to him!

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With the SNP conference this weekend and all the ensuing excitement, I neglected to pay tribute to my own personal superstar pal, Petula Clark, on the occasion of her 82nd birthday. As is pretty much usual for her, Petula was working, giving two concerts in Geneva, Switzerland, as part of a massive tour of France, Switzerland and Belgium. Her friends got her a cake, though...  and I see some of her family appearing stage right...

Joyeux anniversaire, Pétula, et merci encore mille fois pour toute la musique et l'amitié.

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So these are the shoes that everyone has been going on about. I have to say that I didn't notice... Honestly I was listening to what she was saying and I'm not the most observant of people when it comes to what people are wearing...

So what do you think...will they take off?

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Finally, for those who missed the comments on the last blog post...

We've noticed for a few days that Niko wasn't commenting, and John pointed out that his blog appeared to be for invited guests only.

Well, the reason was that Niko was in Belfast following the death of his brother.

Everyone at Munguin's Republic wishes Niko and his family well at this sad time in their lives.

We hope he'll soon be back with us.

IT'S A BRAND NEW DAY

I’m gutted, as I know most of you are.

But the people voted, the first minister has made a statement and we must accept the democratic process. There's an end to it and at the same time the beginning of something else. 

Scots voted in overwhelming numbers. They voted to be British. They voted for clout and nuclear weapons. They voted for being part of the 4^th most unequal nation in the developed world, and for the lowest pensions in that world apart from Mexico. That is what they wanted; that is what they will get.

They voted for neo-liberal governments of Conservative and Labour complexions for which money is the only god, and nothing else (most certainly not ordinary people) matters. They voted to be part of the least democratic country in the EU with an hereditary head of state holding and using real political power; a massive and expensive unelected house of parliament full of aristocrats, would-be aristocrat placemen, rich party donors, and the hierarchy of the Church of England, along with a corrupt house of parliament in which 66% of the seats are jobs for life because of the antiquated voting system used by Britain for ever, and that they just approved in a referendum. 

They voted for Iain Duncan Smith, Lord Fraud and Esther McVile. They voted for throwing the chronically ill off benefits and letting them die. They voted for the NHS to be privatised. I hope they never need it.

They voted for a country more or less permanently at war with countries to which is sells arms; a country where the troops sent to fight these wars (wars that increase rather than diminish the threat to our peoples) have substandard kit and rations, while the government boasts the 4^th largest military spend on unusable weapons of mass destruction. All so that the likes of David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair can strut the world stage while in power and then enrich themselves after by sharing anecdotes of their times with the real leaders of the world.

They voted for a country where the money goes straight to London and its environs, leaving Scotland with third rate roads and railways, while billions, possibly trillions is spent on upgrading infrastructure in the south some of which will actively harm the Scottish economy. 

They voted for no voice in the EU and the very real possibility that the UK will leave the union, and lose millions of jobs in the process

Everyone will have had their own reasons for having no confidence in their own nation.

For some it will have been that they believed the lies of the BBC and non-Scottish owned press about not getting pensions or border guards with barbed wire fences and sub machine guns and a hundred other fabrications that were later disproved, but only online.

Of course the press may print what it likes. We needn't buy it. As for the BBC and their lying corrupt second rate journalists, who refused to seek the truth? Well apparently Scots voted for them too, so get paying for their salary increases.

Some may truly believe that they are British to the core and that no matter the realities of British life and the consequences of staying, they will not leave their queen and country. 

Difficult though it will be to comprehend, some will have believed the pledges of more powers from the likes of the arch liars of Cameron, Brown and Miliband.  (Frankly I find it hard to believe that anyone would have been stupid enough to do anything but splutter with uncontrolled laughter at the compulsive pledge signer Clegg.)

Some were just greedy, self serving, selfish individuals who believe that hungry kids and cold pensioners in an oil rich nation is a price worth paying so that they could go on earning large amounts of money, paying reduced amounts of tax. Their consciences can always be salved with an occasional donation to a food bank.

Whatever the reason, we must accept that more people voted for Britain than voted for Scotland.

So what to do now.

Well according to Cameron, the work on devolving more powers starts today. Mind you, according to the rest of his party, it doesn’t. So I wish them luck trying to persuade English MPs, whom we know are the vast majority in the London parliament, to agree to better conditions for Scotland, at a time that they are trying to fend off the Ukip threat in the run up to their general election and hang on to their soon to be increased salaries, fabulous expenses and unbelievable pensions. 

I wonder how the Labour Party in Scotland feels having manage to lose the four poorest areas of Scotland. They may be feeling very smug about having won overall, but it must strike them that they are no longer trusted by the people they were supposed to represent; they are no longer the people’s party. I'm not entirely sure they will survive this intact.

Just before we try to get off to sleep here, it seems appropriate to say thank you to the people who worked so hard over such a long time on this referendum. No names, because I’d leave someone out and be embarrassed, but I mean… the politicians, current and retired, the “celebrities”, the bloggers, the Sunday Herald and the few journalists who took a balanced view of the campaign, and the tens of thousands of hard working volunteers who pounded the streets day after day and night after night.

It was a life changing experience to be part of it all.

What will Munguin do?

Well, I think, after discussions with the furry one, that we shall stick around and poke fun at the horrible mess that will result of the conflicts of interest between Scotland and UK. There will be a continued campaign here for decency in the treatment of the poorest: a campaign against the Iain Duncan Smiths and Gideon Osbornes of this world.

Mr Cameron has said the matter is settled for a generation. I doubt that very much, Eton boy.  We shall all be watching you carefully. We can expect no help for the BBC or the English press. We must do it online.

It's a brand New Day.

I'M HEADING DOWNTOWN TO SEE PETULA CLARK, BUT WITH THE TORIES THE COUNTRY IS JUST HEADING DOWN

No blogging for me today, as I am shortly off to Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall to see the awesome Petula Clark in concert.

Petula signing cd's after last night's concert

However, I was amused by this article from Facebook, and I thought you might enjoy the read.

I highlighter a couple of things towards the bottom, which, in all the fun, are the stinking reality of what our lives are like in the UK.

Maria Miller, government minister addressing the Tory faithful

So what did we learn from the Tory party conference this week that finally came to an end with a gushing speech from David Cameron that made you feel that a Roman orgy was going to break out any minute.

First of all we learned that George Osborne has changed his hairdresser when he rocked up to the conference with what looked like a decomposing raccoon perched on top of his brainless head.

Yes this was the news that George was going for Russell Crowes tough look in gladiator but managed to pull off a kind of ''carry on gladiator'' look, but he was not the only bizarre thing prancing around in Manchester !! Theresa May turned up as the last tribute act to the Bay City Rollers complete with tartan suit and shiny shoes with sparkly stones in the heels, She did get a large round of applause as she took to the stage though which turned to a sigh of disappointment when the audience realised it was not Billy Connolly but that mad old bird from the home office.

Iain Duncan Smith turned up looking like a national front skin head snarling at everyone while the conference security guards made sure there was no disabled people lurking around for fear that ''Gripper Smith'' would tip them from their wheel chairs and give them bloody scroungers a damned good kicking.

Defence secretary Philip Hammond was busy telling everybody how brilliant he was and how he had single handedly destroyed the British army with nothing more than his pen when two old soldiers stood up and made their last stand, surrounded by hostile natives and before they were overcome by sheer weight of numbers they were able to tell Hammond, who was already waving a white handkerchief while cowering behind the plinth and sobbing for them not to hurt him, just what a proper tool he was and how he had wiped out regiments that had bled young men's lives for hundreds of years to protect the people of the British Empire. It may not have been Zulu Dawn but at least these two old warriors made their last stand against the enemy within.

So what about what they all had to say. Well they said very little. Yet again was no mention of these tough new tax avoidance laws to claw back the 70 odd billion that their donors and friends owe the tax payer. There was defiance that there would be no mansion tax and there would be more tax cuts for the big corporations of who's shareholders sit on their front benches and drink for free in the house of lords.

According to the over whelming theme to this conference, the only thing that matters is to take and punish the people who already have nothing, the key word was ''Hard working people'' which they creepily said as much as possible and in every TV interview as if to hypnotically burn it in to our subconscious that we would start to go about our day chanting ''we must work hard, we must work hard, we must kill those that don't, we must kill those that don't''

It was pretty pathetic and insulting to most people’s intelligence and we probably paid somebody a few million quid to come up with the idea of repeating this silly verse to us out of our TVs and radio and also reading it in the papers, in fact I heard it said so many times it was stupid but a tiny bit sinister and make no mistake it is intended to further isolate and stigmatise the unemployed and the disabled and silence the injustice of the punishments being continually heaped upon them under the flag that everyone is playing the system.

It is a disgrace and it is divisive and shameful and will damage the villages, towns and cities and their community spirit, which has seen this country prevail over hundreds of years and through its darkest hours and when everything seemed to be lost.

Make no mistake the Tories are now asking the working class to side with them, against the lower classes and all the while they are enjoying tax cuts and corporation tax cuts, huge privatising contracts and tax havens, in fact the very wealthy have seen their fortunes grow sharply under this governments protection and it is no coincidence that tax returns have fallen under the Tories and so public services are cut to make up the difference.

I am astounded that so many people have been so easily fooled and diverted their gaze from what this government is up to and are now just staring at the scapegoats as the Tories make hay in the sun.

A bedroom tax for the poor but no mansion tax for the wealthiest

A rise in VAT for us and a tax cut just for the wealthiest

A war on the welfare state and a blind eye for tax avoidance

A failing NHS for us and a money cow for the wealthy in its privatisation

A freeze or drop in wages for us and huge bonus payments for the banking wealthy

A freeze in tax credits for the WORKING poor and expenses and benefits now at an all time high for the political wealthy

So I ask you once more? Where should your gaze really be fixed because all the time your back is turned the sly old Tory fox is in the hen house.

Finally what about David Cameron's speech! Well it reminded me of that boy at school who would always enjoy reporting you to the teacher and smile as you were punished.

In Cameron's case he would be running to the teacher whining that Labour had done this or its all Labours fault, and I was only cleaning up Labours mess and Labour got me into trouble.....

You get the just, even after over three years, he still wants to blame Labour for the weak economy and the lack of housing and the failing NHS and the disaster that is universal credit.

This was not a conference it was a finger pointing exercise, no real fresh ideas, just fresh accusations and fresh punishments and more hints that we will be on the sharp end of more cuts and to get your vote in a years’ time, a few crumbs from the high table like 3 pound a week to get married or £2.70 per week extra for the lowest paid.

If this is all it takes to make you feel that you are a Tory at the next election then it may be that all hope is lost and the good honest caring folk of these green and pleasant lands will not prevail against a second term, under the likes of David Cameron, George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith.

BONNE ANNIVERSAIRE MA CHERE PÉTULA

It's that time of the year again, and so Happy 80th Birthday, and congratulations on 70 years in show business, Petula Clark... 

Here's to the Paris Olympia in March.

BAD NEWS AT HOME AND IN AFGHANISTAN...

OK, so I've been really busy today, and it's not that nothing has happened in the world...


These young guys killed in Afghanistan in this endless and stupid war, and on a day I heard that a mate of mine from the gym will be going out there. And Cameron can only say that it's a "desperately sad day for Britain". I'd say to Mr Cameron: Enough, no more. Do something. Get them out before there are any more.


And, of course, there was the almost unbelievable news that to save a few miserable pounds this bunch of heartless, thoughtless, ......hatchet wielders, are going to close Remploy factories all over these islands depriving disabled people of jobs. This, juxtapositioned with the way that they are pushing sick and disabled people off Incapacity Benefit, is almost unbelieveable in its absurdity. 


It can't have gone unnoticed that, by a strange co-incidence, these same  ...erm people have decided that around 5 million middle class people should be spared income tax on their state retirement pensions, because it's a bit complex.


So I suppose the money for this had to come from somewhere. And why not the disabled? Easy target. Never mind that they are supposed to be hosting the Paralympics in London this year. 


So, anyway, as I started to say, I've been so busy that I've not had time to write anything. But I did find this video on Youtube of my beloved Pet on French TV. 


She'd agreed to do the show well in advance, and then she got this humdinger of a cold, but she turned up anyway, and after the host had explained to the audience just how sick she was, she went on ....having forgotten her mouchoires en papier...and sang...well more or less sang.  What a trouper!


Au Secours... means HELP!


And for good measure 52 years later her new album includes this:

From Backstage... NYC. Petula continues, in her 70th year in show business, to sell out...

Petula Clark at Feinstein's at Loews Regency Reviewed by Erik Haagensen JANUARY 25, 2012 Photo by Stephen Sorokoff Back in the mid-1960s I had a brief but passionate boy crush on English pop singer and film actor Petula Clark. She knocked out a string of hit singles penned by composer Tony Hatch in a vibrantly distinctive belt voice, including "I Know a Place," "Don't Sleep in the Subway," "My Love," and, of course, the mother of them all, "Downtown," for which she won her first Grammy Award. But what really cemented my fandom were her marvelous performances in the film musicals "Finian's Rainbow" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips." Then the diminutive star segued to a long career as an international concert singer, with occasional stops in West End musicals. Well, she's back, appearing at Feinstein's at Loews Regency with just a four-piece band. It's a rare appearance in an intimate venue, and for anyone who cares about great singing, it is not to be missed. Clark turns 80 this year, but you'd never know it from the lithe and limber, boundlessly energetic, agelessly beautiful woman onstage. My eyes went from wide to wider to positively popping as she flung out hit after hit in its original key, with fully held top notes, burnished tone, and complete control of those wonderfully unique vocal stylings that are always enhancing and seem to emanate from the center of her soul. All the above-mentioned tunes get an airing, as well as a flirty, playful medley of "Who Am I?" and "Color My World" (both by Hatch and Jackie Trent), a liquid "This Is My Song" (Charlie Chaplin, which Clark introduced on the soundtrack of his final film, "A Countess From Hong Kong"), and a spot-on country reinvention of Hatch and Trent's "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love" that featured a dynamic drum solo from Dan Gross and an intense, whip-up-the-crowd finish from Clark. Representing her work in musicals, we get a meltingly simple "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" (Burton Lane–E.Y. Harburg) from "Finian's" and a glowing "You and I," the centerpiece of Leslie Bricusse's criminally undervalued score for "Chips." A haughty and flashing "With One Look" (Andrew Lloyd Webber—Don Black—Christopher Hampton), from "Sunset Boulevard," suggests that Clark was a Norma Desmond to be reckoned with (she played the show in the West End and on tour). In her sharp and witty patter, Clark confesses to a teenage desire to be cool and sophisticated that expressed itself in an affinity for Peggy Lee and Cole Porter. She shows off those predilections with a driving, percussive take on Porter's "I Concentrate on You," in an inventive arrangement flecked with electronic guitar, and a swinging, ballsy interpretation of the great songwriter's comic lament "Miss Otis Regrets." Both are utterly untraditional yet so compelling that I can't believe Porter wouldn't have loved them (and they are executed flawlessly by musical director Grant Sturiale and the tight band, which also includes Courtney Sappington on guitar and Jason Di Matteo on bass). Clark is also a writer herself, a talent she showcases in the pensive "Starting All Over Again" (music by David Hadzis) and in a tart, well-observed poem about life in the theater she recites that includes the interesting observation that when she gets too angry she sings, something that perhaps accounts for the intensity of emotion with which she can invest a song. And yet there's always a lightness and a sexy buoyancy to her work, no doubt springing from her impish sense of humor, which she deftly displays on a smart comic parody of "Downtown" written by Barry Kleinbort. More than anything, though, Clark is a skilled musician, something most apparent in two magical moments when she simply sits at the piano and accompanies herself while singing a soulful "Someone to Watch Over Me" (George and Ira Gershwin) and a shimmering, dramatically acute "La Vie en Rose" (Edith Piaf–Louis Guglielmi, English lyric by Mack David), which the multilingual chanteuse, who saw Piaf perform live, delivers in perfectly accented French. Clark, who was an English music hall star at age 9, distills 70 years worth of performing experience in her work while still in great physical and vocal shape. It's an unusual and unbeatable combination that makes for a highly memorable evening. Presented by and at Feinstein's at Loews Regency, 540 Park Ave., NYC. Jan. 24–Feb. 4.Tue.–Thu., 8 p.m.; Fri. and Sat., 8 and 10:30 p.m. (212) 339-4095 orwww.feinsteinsattheregency.com.

DOWNTOWN--WHERE ALL THE LIGHTS ARE BRIGHT

At Number 2 in the Irish Republic's charts, some 47 years after its first appearance there and  22 years after its last appearance there, it's back, proving that you can't keep a good song down. They filmed the video in Downtown Galway, she filmed it in Downtown Paris, but they met in Downtown London to record it.

JE SUIS DE RETOUR (OR TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY, I'M BACK)

I had a great break in Paris. It was warm, it was sunny, the people were polite, the streets clean (apart from round Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est), there were virtually no fat people and no incredibly thin ones, there were no drunks, no one was wearing "What Every Gadgy Wants" chic and the food was out of this world.

For just €30 I could buy a travel ticket which entitled me to use the Métro, Buses, RER, Trams (yes, they are splendid) and the funicular up to Sacre Cœur. What more could you want?

Oh yes, the concert.... well, it was all you would expect from Pet Clark...perfection. The French are more boisterous in their approval (or disapproval) of an artiste. (I think they are a bit like a good old fashioned Glasgow audience: if they like you, they like you a lot; if they don't like you.....God help you.) We were all along the front row, Jerseymen, English, Scots, Canadians, Norwegians, Germans, Australians, French, Belgians, and although I had, by this time a serious dose of la grippe, or flu, I was up dancing and shouting with the rest. 


It's always good to get home to Scotland, no matter how good the holiday, but the journey this time involved a hold up of around an hour in England because some poor sod had jumped in front of a train. Life in Yorkshire had presumably become too much for them. So we had to wait, and then, because we were a diesel train and could go round the 'accident' area, we were obliged to pick up, on our already "standing room only" train, the passengers of two other expresses, so that we became dangerously overloaded.


I couldn't wait to get to Edinburgh... to let the train disgorge what seemed like several hundred thousand people... and to get to a toilet, which had hitherto been impossible. If there is an alternative, my advice would be never travel by East Coast Trains. This is the line owned and run by the English Department of Transport. 'Nuff said.


Anyway, the journey was probably the only bad part of the whole break...


And so I got back to read figures on unemployment which, without wishing to seem to be a smart ass, the only thing I can say about is...I told them so. The idea that the private sector would take up the slack of the public sector as the country headed for a double dip recession was just risible. When is Gideon going to come up with a real plan for the economy?


He is, of course far too busy continuing his long time assault on the SNP and the independence referendum. He seems as idiotically blind to the futility of this campaign as he is to the stupidity of the Plan A nonsense he came up with to return the country to boom.


The Eton, Westminster, Winchester, Cambridge, Oxford, Bullingdon millionaires lecturing Scots on how poor, wee and stupid we are, and how we need England's munificence to keep us upright is music to my ears and I hereby invite the entire cabinet to lecture us non-stop on the subject in their plummy tones for the next 3 years. 


They should really realise that its all counter-productive. But no. They think that their words will stir the true Brit that they imagine to be at the heart of all of us. They might as well be Vietnamese, they are so foreign to the average Scot. Still I wish them a hearty cheer. They are wasting their time, but as least while they are doing that they are keeping away from other dangerous business.


I read in French papers about Cameron ranting about lack of patriotism and respect for soldiers in Remembrance Week. I'll bet he was not best pleased to find that there had been a leak that the government was reducing the subsidy for a couple of military charities, and that they would now be making more forces personnel redundant than they had  previously announced. Denied of course, by Pip Ham-mond... but then, who would believe anything he says?


So, all in all, am I glad to be back? 


No.


*****


Craig Murray has asked us all to make sure that this article gets the biggest amount of publicity possible. He apparently sent it to the Main Stream Media for which he regularly writes, and which has never rejected his work before. Despite checking its veracity, they have, to a man (if that's the word), refused to publish it. 


It makes grim reading. Fox and Werrity were up to more dangerous business than enough. War is almost certainly planned by the MoD and no one will answer questions about Werritty's and Gould's part in it. Even to MPs in the House.


Makes you wonder where the pay off is.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS BEFORE A WINTER BREAK

I was interested to read in the Daily Telegraph that Prince Michael has revealed that members of the royal family were not obliged to take part in the lottery of tickets for the Olympics. They were simply asked what event they wanted tickets for, and they got them. What it is to have connections, huh?


Staying with the Royals and the Olympics, I expect that when Blair put so much effort into securing them for London, it never occurred to him that they would be taking place at the same time as the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Apparently, when the Olympics are on, they will be the only show in town. No one will have time or energy for anything else, and so the Queen has been forced to concentrate all the celebrations of her jubilee in the first 6 months of the year. I guess that means that come August in Scotland we can expect to have wall to wall Olympics rammed down our throats. Yippee, I can hardly wait.

Apparently the jubilee celebrations will include a horse pageant in London, with 500 horses from all over the world. Alan Titchmarch described it as "the most wonderful and appropriate celebration". So, I suppose it must be then, seeing as Alan Titchmarsh said so.

Talking about royalty, David Cameron has chartered a Virgin plane for a tour of the Middle East. What his staff neglected to take into consideration was that he will be flying into Saudi Arabia, and that Virgin planes have a model of a scantily dressed redhead as their motif. The arrival in Saudi of a British Prime minister on a plane with a half nude female isn't thought to be a great idea, especially when the trip almost undoubtedly a 'begging bowl, please buy our stuff', kind of visit. I wonder how much we pay these people.


Harriet Harman's husband, Jack Dromey is in a spot of bother over the small matter of forgetting to declare his salary from Unite in the Commons register of interests. £27,867 may be chicken feed to him, but for a lot of his constituents it's two or three or even four years' income. Socialists...pffff?

According to the Daily Mail, Foxy was seen yesterday skulking outside the Carlton Club where his young friend,Adam Werritty, was taking luncheon, dressed, apparently, in an expensive hand-made suit. Maybe they only had enough money left for one of them to eat, and the other one just hung about outside? And maybe not.

Well that's it...I'm heading off to Paris for a few days to indulge in some of my favourite occupations: speaking French, enjoying decent coffee, meeting up with mates from all over the world, and going to a big Petula Clark concert. So these few random observations comprise the last post for a week or so. I'll see you quand je serai de retour. Au revoir pour le  présent!

NOWHERE TO RUN TO BABY; NOWHERE TO HIDE

Poor old Iain Gray. He might have anticipated that the nice people from Citizens United Against Public Sector Cuts, who had hijacked Annabel and Tavish, would also want to ask how Labour were going to deal with London's Tory cuts.

Obviously, however, that didn't occur to the Labour Party machine. So poor old Gray turned up without a crib sheet.

With no answers to offer them, he took flight and hid in a Subway... the restaurant, not the metro. But they followed him. (If I'd been eating in that restaurant I'd have asked for my money back. The cabaret was bouffing [Scottish word for awful]).

Someone managed to get a black cab and get them out and away...

Later, despite having been described by witnesses of the run-in as looking shaken, Gray laughed it off. On no, said he, it didn't bother him. He'd worked in Mozambique during a civil war, walked the killing fields of Cambodia, arrived in Chile just after Pinochet 'demitted' office (he likes posh words does our Iain), and he'd been in Rwanda just after the genocide.

Maybe upon reflection he will consider that comparing, in any way, the Rwandan genocide with facing nine protesters, who potentially were on his side, in Glasgow, with minders and police present, a little on the insensitive side.

Here we have it a potential First Minister whose plan of action is to fold his tent and run for the cover of a sandwich shop.

Don't sleep in the Subway Iain, as Petula might be persuaded to sing!

SOS MOZART

At long last Petula was honoured by an invitation to be the subject of "Vivement Dimanche", a sort of French version of "This is Your Life", but expanded to 90 minutes, shown at prime time, and including performances from anyone associated with the star, and in this case, the star herself.

This is her new French recording, written by Gilbert Bécaud and Pierre Delanoë, and produced by David Hadzis at Arthanor Studios in Geneva. I think she looks and sounds awesome for 78 years old.

Given that the links will attract a certain number of French readers, I've translated that brief text into French. Excuse the errors, please.

Enfin Petula a été honoré par une invitation d'être le sujet de « Vivement Dimanche », une sorte de version française de « This is Your Life », mais augmenté à 90 minutes, montré au temps principal, c'est-à-dire le Dimanche après midi. Ceci est son nouvel enregistrement français ecrit par Gilbert Bécaud et Pierre Delanoë, et produit par David Hadzis à Arthanor Studios, Genève. Je pense qu'elle reste toujours belle, très bien préservée et de belle voix pour une femme de 78 années.

(Je vous prie de m’excuser des fautes de langage…)

CHRISTMAS COMES BUT ONCE A YEAR... BUT AT LEAST IT DOES LAST FOR 3 1/2 MONTHS

Goodness is it Christmas already? It just crept up on me since I first saw Christmas tat in the shops back in September... and then you blink and, well there's my old singing partner giving “Silent Night” her own soulful interpretation, from Reykjavík, Iceland, a couple of years ago at the Frost Roses festival.

So, anyways, Happy Christmas to all the gang.... And take it easy on the sherry Sophia!

JOYEAUX ANNIVERSAIRE Mme PÉTULA CLARK

As I did last year, I’d like to take the opportunity of wishing a happy birthday to my idol Pétula Clark.

This has been a busy year for Pet during which she has toured Australia and New Zealand, America and ended up on Saturday with a massive bilingual concert in Montreal at the Théàtre St Denis. She is heading off now for France where she is to be the special guest of “Vivement Dimanche”, a sort of French “This is your Life”, then off to Megève for a well earned rest with her family.

She has also recorded several new songs in French and English and has proudly become President of the Hastings Music Festival in her native England.

She is currently considering offers to recreate Norma Desmond (a part she played for longer than any other actress), on stage in Paris, and an another offer from Broadway...

And all this at 78 years young. I’ll have a pint of whatever you’re on Pet.

I hope you had a great day Petula.

SOME PEOPLE LOOK BEHIND THE SKIRTING BOARD FOR SOMETHING TO COMPAIN ABOUT

Flicking through some of the comics the other day, I came upon this hilarious story in the Mail, which I’m sure you will all enjoy.

It relates to a scene in the soap opera “Emmerdale”, a programme about which I know nothing, except that its opening music was written by Tony Hatch, a really great bloke whom I’ve met on several occasions, and who, of course, is the composer of so many international pop music successes for, amongst others, Petula Clark.

It appears that one of the families in the soap, shall we say, lacks any measure of sophistication, and on their shopping list, written on a blackboard in the kitchen, they have included along with rice, eggs and biscuits, the fact that they need to buy “pile cream” and a commonly used alternative name for ladies’ sanitary wear.

It’s interesting that the people who ‘stage’ the show, in characterising the working class characters have chosen this particular way to emphasise their background, and I'm torn about whether it was or was not necessary. I honestly don’t know if the average modern working class family would write that kind of thing on their shopping list. I’m not good with shopping lists myslef, and on the board in my kitchen I forget to write what I want, and I forget to look before I go out, rendering it a great big ‘white elephant’ rather than a ‘white board’.

What’s funny is the reaction to this particular piece of characterization. People are up in arms, because they might have to explain to their children the meaning of the said articles....

This is a programme where, as I understand it, there is bed hopping, incest, sexual impropriety, homosexuality, murder, theft, murky business dealings, etc, etc, etc.... and they let their kids watch it and worry that they have to explain pile (sic) cream.

Some people must spend their lives looking for something to complain about.

FOR BROWNLIE....AS PROMISED

Poor old Brownlie has sat through endless videos of Petula Clark desperately hoping that she is going to be singing "Fever".

Well, to the best of my knowledge, although Petula is a huge fan of Peggy Lee's work and in the '70s got the chance to work with her and record her classic “Black Coffee”, she has never recorded, or even sung "Fever".

But of course Peggy did... and how she did. There are many different versions of her singing this song. This one is a bit faster than the recording, and so less sultry.... but it’s good for all that.

So Brownlie... this one is for you. I hope you enjoy it.

Put A Chrysler Sunbeam in Your Life for 30p a Gallon: Never Again, says AA.

According to the AA, petrol prices are unlikely ever to go below £1.10 a litre in Scotland again, even though costs are on their way down and we are an oil rich nation. The reason is a combination of increasing fuel duty from London, and Opec’s measures to keep oil prices reasonable high, usually by restricting its supply. The organisation argues that we will never see prices fall below £1.

History shows that petrol in this country has, allowing for inflation, kept normally within a fairly narrow band price wise. But today, at an average price of around £1.20 a litre, the cost is about 40% higher than the long-term trend.

There have been two periods in the past 108 years when prices have been so high. In the mid to late 50s, shortly after a post-war period of petrol rationing ended, they were as high as today. And during the First War they were the equivalent of about £1.90 litre. Of course as only the aristocracy could afford cars at that time, it wasn’t a huge issue for the likes of you and me.

Since the end of the 90s, crude oil has doubled in price, making this the main cause for fuel increases for the past decade. However, ten years ago, a government report found that, between 1990 and 1999, the price of North Sea oil fell 30%, yet fuel prices rose about 30%, and this was partly attributed to taxation. Today, 75p of the £1.20 that we pay for unleaded goes to the London exchequer.

So it's a combination of both plus greed of the oil producers that has caused our rapidly growing prices. This year we've had all of these. On 1 January 1 VAT went back up to 17.5%, which added a couple of pence to the cost of petrol. An increase to fuel duty and a scrapped subsidy has added about 2p extra from the beginning of April (with more due to come later in the year). Plus, according to the AA, wholesale prices went up 17% this year so far, which has put another 5p on top.

Petrol here is probably the most expensive in the world. I wonder if anyone reading this has noticed any country where it costs more...

As we couldn’t let a whole week go by without a wee bit of Petula, I thought that it might be an idea to look at how much petrol cost back in the late 70s.... well in this ad for a Chrysler Sunbeam, it’s 30p a gallon... about 7p a litre......

Oh happy days....


...........

PS: Pic for Brownlie (nice legs, huh?). Promise I'll do Peggy Lee soon!

A bit of light relief

Here is a rather amusing video that I found on you tube. It features a rather Scottish looking ghost telling Petula Clark to return to England in French.

THIS IS CHRISTMAS

No point in having a blog if you can’t go off topic every so often and do a little bit of advertising for a friend. So the lovely and beautiful Petula Clark, pictured recently after a performance in Canada, and looking about half as old as she should be, has her first ever Christmas album out in the USA. It’s a mixture of traditional Christmas songs, carols and new stuff, some of which she wrote herself.

I’m not much of a Christmas person. I’ve seen how the commercialisation of the festival has changed it from being a warm, bright and cheery time in the middle of the winter, when families and friends got together, exchanged gifts and spent a day together, into a mad frenzy of money spending, gluttony and drunkenness. We now all know far more about how disastrous it will be for the “High Street”, if we don’t all dig deep, or rather put it all on our credit cards, and fill up their tills, than we do about why we are celebrating in the first place. And, although I’m not a Christian, I think that’s a bit sad. I can’t imagine any other religion that would allow itself to be so hijacked.

Working in some of the poorer parts of the city here, I’ve often seen people in real misery, having not yet paid off last Christmas’s excesses, and still taking on more debt to ensure that their kids aren’t left out... and at the same time, I’ve listened to colleagues boast about how much money they have spent on their children, the lucky ones whose parents have a job. So, you’ll not find me raving much about the joys of Christmas. I’ve seen too many of the miseries.

But, back to our Pet. I’ve been a fan ever since I was a little lad, and I think I have every single thing that she has ever recorded in a multitude of languages and formats from 78 rpm records to laser discs.

The album is of course just plain magic, what else would you expect? My favourite tracks are a soulful version of “Silent Night” as sung at the Icelandic Frost Roses Gala a couple of years ago in Reykjavík. A beautiful recording of “Il est ne, le devin enfant”, a fabulous new song written by Petula “Butterfly in the Snow” and an amazing “Away in a Manger”, where she first sings the version that is sung here in the Europe, then the one that is sung in the States, then joins them together, hands across the sea.... and finally both French and English versions of the “Little Drummer Boy”

Well, of course if it’s not your cup of tea then you won’t want it, but if you are looking for some Christmas music, you could do a lot worse than "This is Christmas". Unfortunately it is not released in Scotland, so it has to be bought online. You can find it on http://www.petulaclark.net/ .... where you'll hear a bit of “Butterfly in the Snow” as a wee bonus.

.....and no, she’s not paying me for this. I wish!...:¬)