Zig Zag Jun 1984 - Tones On Tail, Furyo, Turkey Bones And The Wild Dogs & Del Amitri

Whatever You May Think....

....tonight's BBC2 scheduling had absolutely nothing to do with me.

The Chancellor Makes A Statement

"The snow? Yes, I am enjoying the snow immensely, thank you."

As If To Prove A Point

21 British Prime Ministers Since 1901...


Arthur Balfour
1902-1905
Trinity College, Cambridge

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
1905-1908
Trinity College, Cambridge

Herbert Henry Asquith
1908-1916
Balliol College, Oxford

David Lloyd George
1916-1922

Andrew Bonar Law
1922-1923

Stanley Baldwin
1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937
Trinity College, Cambridge

Ramsey MacDonald
1924-1924, 1929-1935

Neville Chamberlain
1937-1940

Sir Winston Churchill
1940-1945, 1951-1955

Clement Attlee
1945-1951
University College, Oxford

Sir Anthony Eden
1955-1957
Christ Church, Oxford

Harold Macmillan
1957-1963
Balliol College, Oxford

Sir Alec Douglas-Home
1963-1964
Christ Church, Oxford

Harold Wilson
1964-1970, 1974-1976
Jesus College, Oxford

Edward Heath
1970-1974
Balliol College, Oxford

James Callaghan
1976-1979

Margaret Thatcher
1979-1990
Somerville College, Oxford

John Major
1990-1997

Tony Blair
1997-2007
St Johns College, Oxford

Gordon Brown
2007-2010

David Cameron
2010-Date
Brasenose College, Oxford


...of whom 13 went to either Oxford or Cambridge.

And that doesn't even begin to try to include Cabinet members, Shadow Cabinet members or other MPs.

Zig Zag Jun 1984 - Siouxsie And The Banshees

Who Are The Biggest Pirates?

Surprise, surprise! It's the music industry major labels themselves.

Warner Music, Sony BMG Music, EMI Music and Universal Music have, since the 1980s, been releasing tracks from musicians who were not signed to their labels. The companies put them on a 'pending list'. That is, the payments to the artists concerned are 'pending'.

So, for the last 30 years, the majors have been profiting from tracks they had no legal right to release or distribute.

Here's the full story.

Zig Zag Jun 1984 - New Order

John Hegarty's Cap

John Hegarty's Cap

one day I came home from school
and my Mum said that cap's not yours
and sure enough it was not
it was John Hegarty's
a boy with a name like mine
and a cap like mine
you don't know where it's been she said
throwing it onto the fire

John Hegley - website

Elvis Costello - New Amsterdam (Single)

Now I have absolutely no expectation that Georgie Osborne and Ordinary Dave are going to do anything to reduce bankers bonuses this year. After all, why would they? It's not like they are answerable to the angry mob is it? They will make noises about how nothing is "off the table" unless the banks heed the government. They will talk about encouraging lending once again, especially to small businesses ( they're the OK ones. It's the BIG businesses that are bad apparently.) Oh, and lots of fairness. They're big on fairness are Dave and Georgie.

Oh ye, nearly forgot, same goes for Clegg.

But to have to listen to Labour's Alan Johnson ya-boo-ing about how the ConDems "bow to the rich and powerful" is just farce. Labour bailed the banks out in the first place! They will say they had to for the sake of the economy and a whole load of other guff but isn't that really just doing the same thing: bowing to the rich and powerful?

Especially when you consider that Johnson had to admit that Labour had signed a deal, at the time of the bailouts, that ensured that part State-owned banks could pay bonuses at the market rate because "we cannot disadvantage those banks which the public has a share in".

Well that's just fucking brilliant.

The banks always trot out the same reason: they have to pay ridiculous money to attract the best staff. If they didn't then all this talent would flee to competitors. Is that the same talent that created all these insane debt products and then sold them to each other like debt junkies? The same talent that feeds on hype bubbles in the financial markets until they burst over somebody else's face? 'Cause if it is then Labour really have reached dizzying new heights in the exposure of our sham democracy.

Johnson and Osborne shout at each other across the floor but you really just have two men pretending that they have differing views while looking after Number One. Johnson is part of a party that gave the banks shitloads of tax payers money while agreeing they could go on doing what they liked. Osborne is part of a government that would like to let the banks go on doing what they like while blaming Labour for giving the banks shitloads of tax payers money. (It could just as easily have been the other way around). Both men know the deal exists and both have to sound outraged about bonuses while really doing fuck-all about any of it. Easy money.


Elvis Costello - New Amsterdam (Single) (F-Beat XX5P 1980) 320kbps

1. New Amsterdam
2. Dr Luther's Assistant
3. Ghost Train
4. Just A Memory

New Amsterdam - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Elvis Costello & The Attractions - You Little Fool (Single)

Elvis Costello & The Attractions - You Little Fool (Single) (F-Beat XX26 1982) 320kbps You Little Fool Big Sister The Emotional Toothpaste - Stamping Ground You Little Fool - pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Zig Zag Jun 1984 - New Model Army, Alan Moore, Sedition, 400 Blows & Militia

Read A Book

"To attract investment, Argentina took out a thirty-one page advertising supplement in BusinessWeek, produced by the PR giant Burson-Marsteller, declaring that "few governments in history have been as encouraging to private investment... We are in a true social revolution, and we seek partners. We are unburdening ourselves of statism, and believe firmly in the all-important role of the private sector." Once again, the human impact was unmistakeable: within a year, wages lost 40 per cent of their value, factories closed, poverty spiraled. Before the junta took power, Argentina had fewer people living in poverty than France or the U.S. - just 9 per cent - and an unemployment rate of only 4.2 per cent. Now the country began to display signs of the underdevelopment thought to have been left behind." The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein Naomi Klein talks about The Shock Doctrine - YouTube