Only the first paragraph returns to today's hot topic, so feel free to skip that

[alexsarll]

And the Standard's idea that Harry should quit the Army - are they unaware of the Coldstream Guard's annual fancy dress ball, at which the regiment's role at Waterloo is commemorated and some of them dress as Napoleon or other historical adversaries? Anyone arguing that it's historical distance which excuses such things should bear in mind that this year one Guardman dressed as Osama bin Laden.

I love the idea of personal prosperity for all. In fact, I'd imagine that everybody does; it makes motherhood and apple pie look like controversial issues. Certainly I'm not going to come out against Blair's intent here. But might I ask how exactly Mr Blair proposes to deliver them, and why he hasn't managed to do so over the last eight years? Because cynic that I am, I suspect that he's just found another fun new buzzword like the Third Way or stakeholding.

David Thomson is famous for his Biographical Dictionary of Film. He also wrote Rosebud, a biography of Orson Welles which was not exactly fictionalised, but used such brilliant devices as another voice which offered, in italics, the thoughts a biographer tries to suppress, or can't quite put down but wishes he could, and which would sometimes converse with the main authorial voice. It's probably my favourite film book. He has now written a book which explains, from the absolute basics, how Hollywood works. I just grabbed a review copy from upstairs. This is going to be fun.

Comments

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

you dug it out, then?!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

No, had a look but the bloody thing's in storage. However, that was enough to set it running in my head (and given I have no music facilities at work, that's the source for Current Music on regular posts).

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

i love how you could hum bits of it, but i'd forgotten even the title!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The CD also has the track 'Saturday'; I forget the third.

The lyrics I recall best are "I'm half-cut and you're half-gorgeous" and "I only want to see you single for a while".

This is what's in my head.

Silver Service

[(Anonymous)]

The third track was something like 'I Want to See You Under Bright Lights'. Can't remember if that was the exact title but i can remember most of the words to the first verse.

meh!

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

stop making me think about school. i already did the adolescence thing once thanks.
http://www.grosvenorgrammarschool.com/

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I suspect the London square may have been a bigger inspiration...

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

don't care

Marvellous!

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

Soaring through the sky,
Gliding gracefully forward
Into the unknown

Growing in the ground,
It will soon be beautiful,
A king of the soil.

Re: Marvellous!

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

yes, the poems are rather special, aren't they.

Re: Marvellous!

[london-imp.livejournal.com]

I wish I was king of the soil.

Re: Marvellous!

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

i wish you were as well.
but you can't always get you want

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I can't be bothered, because I know the moment I type anything, the whingecore will be out, but as far as I'm concerned, a minimum wage rising faster than inflation every year, a doubling in the income of the worst off pensioners, the lowest unemployment since before I was born, stable inflation and interest rates, the longest continuous economic growth since the industrial revolution, and back in the top 20 in the world for GDP per capita, that is actually quite a long way towards personal prosperity for all.

The big problems which remain are making the very worst off better off without making the slightly better off but still pretty badly off feel like it's not worth making the effort, sustaining the affordability of pensions which nobody has actually got a handle on and we're secretly just hoping we'll learn something from all the EU countries which will go t1ts-up long before we do, and the gap between people who own houses and people who don't, in a climate of (broadly) rising house prices.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think the key point is that I, and many people I know, have what are thought of as reasonably good jobs. Yet in spite of not having particularly extravagant habits, we're all forever skint, and the idea of owning a house seems slightly more distant than the idea of walking on Mars.

It's anecdotal, sure. But it's our lives.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Yes but you live in Central London and spend a King's ransom on booze.

The only solution to London house prices is either to chuck a load of people out of London, or to build a load of cheap new houses. We're after doing that, but it takes a while, and you probably don't want to live in any of the houses we're building, ftb they're more or less in Thurrock.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes but I don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't eat out much, don't buy many CDs or DVDs, don't buy many gadgets, don't go to fancy bars, don't go to the theatre much, don't take cabs...I should not be this poor.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Or reduce the disposable income of people earning city-level salaries[1] by wacking up taxation on said salaries. This could be balanced by a proportional increase in the personal income tax allowance, thus providing a greater incentive for people at the bottom end of the scale. Everyone's a winner!

[1] Dividing the current average house price in london by three might provide an interesting marker point for the level of income at which a 50 or even 60% tax band should maybe kick in.

[darkmarcpi.livejournal.com]

The 'build more houses' argument is flawed. Yes we should do it in areas of deprivation etc, but if you increase the supply, all that will happen is that it will increase the demand too, as more people will move to London. It wouldn't happen in a small town, but it would in a capital city which is a magnet for people who want to live/work in a decent city/job.

Good on the BBC for relocating jobs to Manchester though (there's plenty of newly built loft apartments for all the staff there to buy too).

Big companies should be given incentives by the government or somebody to relocate non-essential staff out of London. Our firm has done it actually. It should be a no-brainer, as you don't have to pay staff London weighting.

Also, all the people who are desperate to get onto the property ladder at all costs are also part of the problem…if nearly all were mobilised under a common political cause - that of refraining from purchasing property until prices dropped to more realistic levels - it would probably have an influence too. Revolution now, comrades!

And the banks/lenders shouldn’t be allowed to lend people way over their means either. It's just wholly irresponsible.

Oh, and kick out all the squatters and force owners of derelict property to sell them or make use of them too.

And loads of other sh1t.

But it ain't gonna happen.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Also I don't think this is the key point. The key point is that you, and many people you know, have what are thought of as reasonably good jobs.

Stop at that point. Forget the yet, it's something I couldn't say when I was growing up, something that certainly wasn't true ten years ago, my father didn't have a job, and many of the people I knew certainly didn't have 'reasonably good' ones, unless you call £2.50 an hour to watch a warehouse overnight 'reasonably good'.

Call me a Monty Python Yorkshireman, but come on... alright so you're renting a shared place to live, it's a trade-off for the fact that you have access to many of the most interesting / important jobs, easy socialising with a vast number of people so even a specialist interest can have a group with a critical mass, the cutting edge of culture, music and art, and relatively good public transport to almost anywhere, including overnight.

I don't have those things, but I do own a flat, pay less for it a month than the equivalent flat would cost per week in London, and have easy car access to other parts of the country, and immediate access to peaceful countryside. It's a trade-off.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

By the accounts of my elders, back in the day, the dole was an amount of money on which one could feasibly live, and one didn't get forced into McJobs by draconian advisers.
That, lest we forget, under an evil capitalist Tory government.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

(and, obviously, the 99% of 'all' who aren't in this country, but never mind, we have to sort that out on the quiet, unfortunately).

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

The whingecore will be out, sure, but then so will the agreeenthusiasticallycore, like me!

Mind you if I like this country so much what am I doing preparing to leave it, tsk, I don't know.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Those electrodes to the brain may be a factor in your response. I suspect Alan Milburn's holding the switch.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

It's the magnet of even greater economic prosperity dragging you across the Atlantic. Though your timing may be poor.

[exmoor-cat.livejournal.com]

My mate's US Engineers Unit in Iraq saw a group of them go as Gitmo Guards and Prisoners.....