Spurious Opposition

Spurious Opposition The cloth cap and the working class, As images are dated. For we are Labour's avant-garde, And we were educated. By tax adjustments we have planned, To institute the promised land. And just to show we're still sincere, We sing 'The Red Flag' once a year. Leon Rosselson - website And here's the man in action: With a massive hat-tip to Walker for blogging this.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Sweet Dreams (Single)

Since Vince Cable's conversion to Marxism and the public sector pay figures being released have put banks and stupid salaries under the spotlight (again), this BBC Magazine story is worth a read.

Here's an extract:

One of those who knows, and found the experience wanting, is Geraint Anderson, 38, who was earning a base salary of £120,000 and a bonus of £500,000 by the time he left investment banking after 12 years in the City.

Anderson, who documented how he became disillusioned with his lifestyle in an anonymous newspaper column and his book Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile, indulged in many of the cliches for which the sector has become notorious.

But he says earning such figures skews one's expectations of what is a normal lifestyle, and ultimately robs high earners of the freedom they believe money will bring.

"It's like a gilded cage," he says.

"They earn huge amounts but they have the massive mortgage, they have the high-maintenance trophy wife, they have the kids at Harrow - then they wake up on their 50th birthday and think, 'What a waste of a life.'

"They get into this culture where their worth is valued by how much they earn, so they work ridiculous hours. I'd rather earn £25,000, have the kids at a local school and not owe anyone anything."

...

Given that in 2009 median gross annual earnings for full-time employees was £21,320, few Britons will have much sympathy for those earning almost five times as much.

...

The average person in the UK spends around £32,000 a year. This is made up of £25,000 on basic expenses (transport, food, clothing etc) and £7,000 on mortgage repayments.

The upshot is that the average household needs a gross salary of about £45,000 just to break even.

- David Kuo, of investment advice website Motley Fool


And the conclusive proof that Vince is now a Marxist, an extract from his speech:

"I make no apology for attacking spivs and gamblers who did more harm to the British economy than Bob Crow could achieve in his wildest Trotskyite fantasies, while paying themselves outrageous bonuses underwritten by the taxpayer. There is much public anger about banks and it is well deserved."

You see. He hates Trotsky.

Hang on.

Or was that Lenin that hated Trotsky? So, is Vince a Leninist?

No. It was Stalin who didn't like Trotsky. Vince is a Stalinist.

But Stalin never subscribed to 'Stalinism'. He always said he was Marxist-Leninist.

Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism. Everybody talk about POP MUSIC.

I wonder what the guys, and I bet it is predominantly guys, who earn over £100k are?


Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Sweet Dreams (Single) (FBeat XX19 1981) 320kbps

1. Sweet Dreams
2. Psycho (Live)

Vince is ConDemd - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Déjà vu

"By July 1975, England was in recession. The unemployment figures for that month were the worst since the Second World War: school-leavers were among the most vulnerable. Not only had output shrunk, but public spending had risen to 45 per cent of the national income, and was threatening to unbalance the whole economy. In November 1975, Chancellor Denis Healey presented a package of public expenditure cuts totalling three billion pounds."

- 'England's Dreaming' by Jon Savage

Elvis Costello & The Attractions - I'm Your Toy (Single)

Indeed I am.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - I'm Your Toy (Single) (FBeat XX21 1982) 320kbps I'm Your Toy (Live) Cry Cry Cry Wondering That's The Back Cover - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Grim Humour No.1 - Screaming Dead & Abbo

Elvis Costello And The Attractions - I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down (Single)

"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."

-Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials

Of course, if you can then underfund the rehabilitation, treatment or care of the soldiers, airmen or sailors that are sent to do the leaders bidding such that they need the charity of the common people just to exist, then all the better.

How many times over can you be made to pay for war? Tax, charity, lives...


Elvis Costello & The Attractions - I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down (Single) (FBeat XX1 1980) 320kbps

1. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
2. Girl's Talk

What Is It Good For? - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Elvis Costello And The Attractions - Clubland (Single)

My own vinyl collection is now reduced to two LPs - The Wolfhounds and Jimi Hendrix - and one 12" - Lil Louis - which will shortly be ripped and sold.

I daresay Louis and the Wolfhounds will be posted along with one or two CD's that I have yet to share.

But on the plus side...

Mrs H was a big fan of Elvis Costello back in the day so you can expect more than a few from Declan MacManus over the coming weeks/months with one or two rarities on offer.

(Shame she didn't look after her vinyl quite as well as she might)

It's all good.


Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Clubland (Single) (FBeat XX12 1980) 320kbps

1. Clubland
2. Clean Money
3. Hoover Factory

A Handful Of Backhanders - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Sad Steps

Sad Steps

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There's something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate -
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

Philip Larkin

Zig Zag May 1980 - The Raincoats, Tiswas & The Distractions

Once A Goth, Always A Goth...

...as Mrs H said to me when I told her of my plans to get some photos in the church yard opposite my house.

Is It A New Game Show?

Trafford Council Spending Challenge.

It sounds like it should be a new game show. You know. With questions, contestants, prizes and stuff.

"Question number 1 to contestant number 1. A 25% cut in government funding means services have to go - where would you start?"

"Well, we could ask the government to scrap Trident and pull the troops out of our business-based, imperialist escapades abroad and use the money we save from that to fund the councils."

"Very good contestant number 1 but completely wrong. Too many people are making money out of oil based conflicts to stop now. Same question to number 2."

"Er, we could introduce a new system of taxation that is actually proportionate to incomes both business and personal. We could also restrict non-dom status or companies who operate in the UK but base their headquarters abroad for tax reasons. The money we raise from that would cover the 25%."

"Another good, but completely incorrect, answer. You seem to think that MPs business cronies are going to accept that kind of wacky thinking. Proportionate taxation indeed. Finally, number 3 - what do you think?"

"I think the whole thing is not only like turkeys voting for an early Christmas but those same turkeys then going on to harvest the cranberries for the sauce they will be eaten with."