mockney piers

This one's had me cuhckling Peanuts by Charles M. Bukowski hmmm it eventually seems to attempt to tell you your computer is infested with stuff and tries to sell you DiskCleaner. Still, it's funny and probably worth the annoyance.

Surely you want different state intervention. With no regulation of the labour market things would be in a sorry state indeed; i'm picturing John Steinbeck here.

Oops, didn't really read point 3. Actually I find the whole global conspiracy thing of chains rather tiresome too. Witness poor old Fopp, an independent store providing what peoplpe want, was slagged off here with the dreaded 'chain' moniker. It was basically a bloke, who experienced success, tried to spread the formula nationwide and overstretched himself. Some businesses are genuinely into conspiracies and underhanded dealings. Notably the arms and oil industries. Pharmaceuticals have also been known to wander into, what can politely be described as amoral territory. But chains, yeah, they're small businesses that became big and at some point, as sean so eloquently says, reached a tipping point. They're not doing anything in principal* that a small independent retailer's doing, marking up goods and making money off the margins, just doing it impersonally. *although, yes in practice they're sometimes price-fixing, or bullying their producers etc, but you know...in principal.

Good points. Market forces work essentially through self interest. I want this, i want to pay the least for this. I want to provide this at max price that competition allows so that I may make the most money. Society really only functions well at pretty much the polar opposite. I personally love the idea of anarchism but am not stupid enough to think that it can actually function at any level up from the village frankly. It also depends on everyone 'buying in' (eek see how the market is even eating into our language) to an equable society where unselfish interest in the greater good reigns. This makes the market provision of social service a non-starter imho. Witness a previous thread about how people will only be interested in saving our grandchildrens' future if the market can, or even (laughs head off) government will ensure that energy efficient light bulbs are cheap enough to attract them. A market's interests and society's interests rarely coincide. I sure as hell don't want that for health, policing, defence or education.

did anyone read of the marmite correspondences in the Independent that went on for the best part of last year? Marvellous, I shall try and unearth some gems. FWIW spanish born and bred, but any culture beloved of anchovies, olives and salted cod is always going to embrace marmite...well I did anyway.

The first four are basically myths based on naive ideals of the 'small government' types (who curiously seem to have a penchant for big military and police, should we let the market sort them out too?). I can't say I agree with any of the questions apart from the control question 5. If I look to successful societies I tend to look toward Scandinavia where their state provision and personal liberty don't seem to be tied together on some inversely proportioned sliding scale.

Move to the Lounge.. Potentially very interest debate ahead, but not East Dulwich specific.

Klaus, my hero!! If you can unearth his version of Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head I'll be eternally grateful. In the meantime the quirky but joyful Lavender Diamond - Open Your Heart and here's her myspace if you liked it. http://www.myspace.com/lavenderdiamond

Aah the wonderful Hunter S. Usually have The Great Shark Hunt on the bedside locker, comfort reading you understand. If he'd topped himself a bit earlier I like to think he's have usurped Kurt's place on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns8YeNKPjAA

Doh!!!

Although, they weren't, difficult to believe as it is; but I bet you they had a gay following. I'm not sure they have much of anything now other than the odd posy left at the roadside.

Ooh, do you have to be married for the 50%, as I'm in a couple and it's flipping expensive!!

I do believe she's cropped up before on one of those 'celebrity' threads. Indeed I seem to recall I posted up a very camp youtube video of her in her heyday with the London Boys, just to help jog those memories better left to rest.

I mentioned you because I knew what a fearless warrior you were in stopping this scourge. Hmm, or was that weekend warrior? I thought p3 very funny (moral ill health?!?!) http://www.ep.tc/problems/eighteen/03.html and p18 particularly naive. http://www.ep.tc/problems/eighteen/10.html

Excellent, I have music from 18 of those Artists. It's practically like my own personal festival. Will have to try and persuade the Mocknelle.

One for Jah Lush. You'll love this. "if you don't turn on, you won't have to turn off" I imagine about as effective as Nick-o-teen was. http://www.ep.tc/problems/eighteen/

"Land Reform - everyone gets a bit." China did a limited experiment with this, as currently chinese farmers are leased the land every five years. THe authorities listened to a lot of arguments from the west about how private ownership engendered long term investment and ultimately greater productivity. So in one town the authorities enacted land reform and made all the farmers private landowners on their small holdings. The farmers then all went to the local party boss, sold him their land and nicked off to the nearest city to spend their profits on cheap booze and heroin. By the time the authorities realised what a disaster it all was and tried to round up the farmers to get them back on to the land, half of them were dead. (apologies to huguenot if some of the details were wrong, his story). The moral being that people are generally their own worst enemy, and the road to hell is paved....etc) "Make the heads of corporations personally liable" Totally with you on this one, profoundly shocked by the chap trying to get to the bottom of why his kid died in the clapham rail crash how was told by an insider that the rail operator considered installing the new signal system, but a cost benefit analysis showed that in the long term, accident and death compensation payments would be considerably cheaper than the safer signalling system. Whoever made a decision based on that should go to prison full stop, that's manslaughter!!

Ooh, whole bunuch of my faves..very tempting.

"mainstream history, is the history of the victor" Well, perhaps the lazy stuff that's trotted out in secondary school humanities lessons, or GCSEs. Academic history (as opposed to the weird nonsense put out by neocon think-tanks) has very much leant towards revisionism for a good half century now. Whether that's reassessing colonialism or reassessing the view of the ancient world bequeathed to us by the Romans; your statement should be consigned to the same historical paper basket that that view of history currently resides in.

From what I can see (and of course given the limits of the primary evidence) this is a topic that's hugely open to historical, social and socio-geographic interpretation. I'd be loathe to present anything from history as fact in a law court. I've seen tudor historians (not literally, my beard may be going grey, but I'm not THAT old) practically come to blows over whether Elizabethan foreign policy was a work of genius by a canny strategist or merely reactive expediency in a desperate bid to hold on to a shaky thrown. This topic is vast by comparison.

I shall have a read. I can't for the life of me remember my sources. I was even terrible at that in my degree!! Brendan, yes and no. The cold war was essentially a dangerous framework/backdrop for a struggle for control of resources, so you're spot on and not quite there at the same time. Mind you absolutely right for poor old Angola.

CWALD I hate to go off topic, but paragraph 5 was somewhat inaccurate, and I'm a terribly annoying pedant, especially when it comes to history. Research has shown (though obviously much is based on extrapolation as there were hardly censuses taken) that the population of Africa during the 200+ years of slavery remained more or less static during this period. There were certainly some localised examples of depopulation in some parts of west Africa, but by and large slavery didn't have a dramatic effect on the overall demographics of the continent. Europe's population exploded during the same period, but mostly post enlightenment and particularly with industrialisation, neither of which were a facet of the African experience. This isn't to belittle the desperately immoral slave trade, it's effects on individuals, families and tribes, but it is not the root of Africa's problems. These aren't even necessarily the consequences of colonialism, which could in many ways be as constructive as it was rapacious. Your first two paragraphs are much closer to the money. It's about the west ensuring that the ruling classes maintain a complete open door policy through any means possible. For the most part endemic corruption fostered by bribes and slush funds from western corporations and governments, and when this fails encouraging instability in order to install a more pliable regime. Of course the leaders don't *have* to do this (we just make it oh so easy for them), so they [the leaders] really have to take some of the responsibility themselves. Direct intervention has occurred in S. America and Asia, but there's not been a whole lot of it in Africa; I think the euphemism for what we (mainly Britain and France, particularly France) does there is gunboat diplomacy.

Is that your scary fellow corkster? Good stuff, love your chuckles over the top! OK, apologies for this chaps home video, but the song is one of the best: Yo La Tengo - Blue Line Swinger

Very good point macroban and pretty much my first thought when I saw them being built. Where can you find photos as I'd be quite interested to see them?

It must have got blocked a couple of years back as there was a big flood (about 3-4 ft deep under the railway bridge) about 3 years ago, but a drop in the ocean (ho ho ho) compared to the floods in Riley, Sheffield, Tewkesbury et al.