Quotulatiousness

September 16, 2011

Last Night of the Proms

Filed under: Britain, History, Media — Tags: — Nicholas @ 11:10

Patrick West talks about the pro- and anti-Prom factions in British life:

When it comes to international politics, it is subconsciously understood that music can be used as a means of celebrating nationalist sentiment, or for trying to overcome it. While national anthems and folk music are employed to foment patriotism, songs such as the ‘Internationale’ and ‘The Red Flag’ represent an effort to transcend it. It’s a neat dichotomy — and it is also wrong, as last Saturday’s Last Night at the Proms demonstrated.

For those not in the know, the concert, held at London’s Royal Albert Hall, is the culmination of an annual eight-week festival of orchestral classical music, and the Last Night is its rapturous crescendo, traditionally featuring tunes that celebrate Britain/England — Edward Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance March No.1’ (which includes ‘Land of Hope and Glory’), Thomas Arne’s ‘Rule, Britannia!’, Hubert Parry’s ‘Jerusalem’ and the national anthem itself, ‘God Save The Queen’. The only place you will see Union flags on show in such vast numbers, and with such unashamed vainglory, will be on Belfast’s Shankhill Road or at a British National Party rally.

And there lies the problem for some on the liberal-left, who have traditionally sneered at this event. Many feel uneasy seeing the Union flag displayed so copiously in this musical, ersatz political rally, the ostensible message of which is that Britain is the best country in the world and all other countries are rubbish. Writing in the Guardian this week, Guy Dammann noted that the Last Night of the Proms provided ‘the opportunity to celebrate great little Britishness with no apparent irony’, as if to celebrate it with sincerity was a baffling and risible idea. The fact that the audience seems composed mostly of inebriated toffs compounds a sense of odium among the liberal-left.

September 15, 2011

Johann Hari, sockpuppet master

Filed under: Britain, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:39

An interesting post at Velvet Glove, Iron Fist details the many, many Wikipedia sockpuppets under the control of Independent journalist Johann Hari:

Johann Hari, the plagiarist and liar, has been allowed to keep working at the Independent despite being caught bang to rights as a fraudulent troll. I was barely aware of this fellow’s existence until his journalistic techniques were exposed a few months ago. They should have been enough to get him sacked. Instead, the Independent have let him off with a whining, self-serving apology.

More interesting than the shoddy journalism is the Wikipedia trolling. Rumours have abounded for some time that ‘David Rose’ — Hari’s number one fan on the internet — is Hari himself. This has now been confirmed by the bubonic plagiarist. He operated several sockpuppets on Wikipedia to make himself out to be, as Nick Cohen put it, “one of the essential writers of our time”. More seriously, he has also persistently edited the Wiki pages of people he dislikes, including Cohen, with libellous glee. This, too, is not a sackable offence at the Independent.

Nothing is deleted on Wikipedia and the entries of David Rose (or ‘David r from meth productions’) stand as a testimony to the extraordinary scale and range of Hari’s six year trolling campaign. Certain themes emerge. Much of his time was spent emphasising his own importance as a major cultural figure. He pushes to have his every award and nomination put centre stage. As a left-wing journalist, he is eager to downplay his privileged education. He consistently edits the pages of his heroes such as Polly Toynbee and George Monbiot to portray them in their best light. He repeatedly edits his enemies to make them look like racists, or thugs, or loonies.

H/T to James Delingpole for the link.

September 10, 2011

Opposing the EDL as a way of expressing class hatred?

Filed under: Britain, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:50

The English Defence League (EDL) has come in for a lot of criticism for its provocative approach to expressing their concerns about issues like immigration. The critics, however, are not all pure in their opposition, however:

This video, currently causing a stink on Twitter, rather confirms what draws many young middle-class liberals towards anti-English Defence League campaigning: it provides them with a semi-legit cover for expressing their fear and loathing of the white working classes.

In the video, two well-bred kids say things about working-class EDL supporters that could have been lifted straight from the pages of John Carey’s The Intellectuals and the Masses, that exposé of early twentieth-century snobs’ disdain for vulgar little people. The anti-EDL campaigners describe a female supporter of the EDL as “the most tattooed, horrible scrote of a woman” they have ever seen and then laugh as they talk about how she was “kicked up the arse” by a left-wing protester. It’s not normally okay to hit women, they admit, but you can make an exception when it comes to female EDL supporters because “they aren’t women — they’re dogs”.

The video has proved enormously embarrassing for Left-wing campaigners against the EDL, who are desperately trying to distance themselves from the naked class hatred expressed by these two twits. Yet the fact is that a great deal of anti-EDL protesting is driven by a barely disguised hatred for that apparently ugly, uncouth, un-PC blob of white flesh that inhabits inner-city council estates. The two guys in the video have only stated it in a more explicit fashion.

September 8, 2011

The bold gendarmes, redux

Filed under: Britain, Law, Liberty — Tags: — Nicholas @ 09:24

David Hughes has a list of recent events showing the modern British police attitude:

Last week, this newspaper carried a striking photograph of a passer-by at the Notting Hill Carnival trying to trip up a young knifeman who appeared to have just stabbed someone.

At the back of the picture, a man was clutching a bleeding stomach wound. On the left were two uniformed police officers, watching events unfold. They appear to have made no attempt to intercept the man: indeed, he seems to have run right past them. It was left to the sightseer — later identified as Valentine Simatchenko, a former Russian policeman — to try to intervene. Fortunately, the man with the knife was later arrested and charged.

[. . .]

The common theme in all these cases — and many more — is the institutional petulance displayed by some police officers. They throw their weight around because they can; they go for the easy, not the hard, arrests; they act as though they are the law, rather than its upholders. Such officers may be a small minority, but they have a disproportionately damaging impact on the image of the police. It has helped sour the force’s relationship with those who should be its natural allies.

As you can see, this isn’t new, although it seems much more prevalent than back in the day:

H/T to Chris Greaves for the original link.

September 7, 2011

Brendan O’Neill – The Riots: A Mob Made By The Welfare State?

Filed under: Britain, Government, Liberty, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:14

How much more will “green” renewable power cost?

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Environment, Government, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:37

In short, lots more than ordinary power generation:

The Telegraph has obtained a policy document, dated July, that seems to suggest that the government is considering a walk away from the most expensive renewables — and now we can see the full copy online. Two No 10 advisers challenge the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s utopian cost predictions, and say energy bills will be much bigger than we’ve been told.

What isn’t in contention is that energy itself will be much more expensive. DECC’s argument is that we’ll all start insulating our homes more — so our utility bills won’t reflect the higher per-unit energy costs. No 10’s energy expert thinks this is nonsense.

The Cameron advisors also suggest that government policy should be “open” to ditching some of the most expensive renewables — such as offshore wind power.

What’s the real cost of wind and solar?

     The former power director of the National Grid, Colin Gibson, now estimates that the lifetime per unit cost of onshore wind is £178 per megawatt hour (MWh), and offshore wind at £254/MWh. Nuclear is £60/MWh. The figures DECC provides don’t account for the huge additional transmission costs of wind.

     Note how much more expensive reality is than the clean, green vision. Government figures reckoned onshore wind cost £55/MWh and offshore wind £84/Mwh [. . .] compared to gas at £44/Mwh. Politicians seeking to dump the renewables policy could argue that green-minded civil servants sold them a pup. They’d be right.

September 5, 2011

How the wreck of a ship-of-the-line led to the Mary Rose

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:41

The bottom of the Solent must be carpeted with shipwrecks:

According to naval historian Dr John Bevan, the largely forgotten flagship, which sank in the Solent at Spithead in August 1782, helped divers to locate the wreckage of the Mary Rose in the 1830s — a full 150 years before the stricken vessel was raised from the seabed.

More than 900 people died when the Royal George sank, including 300 women and 60 children who were visiting the ship which was due to head for Gibraltar with HMS Victory.

It was the biggest loss of life in British waters.

The 100-gun battleship had been heeled on to its side for repairs to be carried out on its sea cock — a valve on the hull — when it began to take in water though its open gun ports. It capsized and sank.

“For weeks after the tragedy, bodies washed ashore at Southsea, Gosport and Ryde and were buried in mass graves along the seafront,” said Royal Marines Museum historian Stuart Haven.

The Royal George remained in shallow water just beyond the entrance to Portsmouth harbour for many years, “her masts standing above the water a macabre reminder of the tragedy,” Mr Haven said.

Some 50 years later the pioneering divers Charles and John Deane tried to recover the battleship, which had become a hazard to other vessels.

Between 1834-36 the brothers undertook a series of dives.

September 4, 2011

James Delingpole forced to offer an apology

Filed under: Britain, Environment — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 11:45

Yes, it’s true. Delingpole made an error in a recent column and has to make a full apology for the error:

It has been brought to my attention that this blog owes Sir Reginald Sheffield, Bt. an apology. In a recent column entitled Green Jobs? Wot Green Jobs? (Pt 242), I carelessly suggested that Sir Reg — beloved dad of the famous environmentalist “Sam Cam”; distinguished father-in-law of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no less — is making nearly £1000 a week from the wind turbines on his estates.

The correct figure is, of course, nearly £1000 a day.

In other words, Sir Reginald is making the equivalent of roughly 1000 looted widescreen plasma TV screens every year from the eight 400 foot wind turbines now enhancing the view for miles around on his 3,000 acre Normanby Hall estate, near Scunthorpe.

There will be those who suggest that my mistake is a resigning matter. I do share their concern. However it is my view that if a journalist is going to resign on a point of principle these days, it has to be over something immeasurably trivial, rather than over something merely quite trivial. What I do nevertheless agree is that I owe Sir Reginald Sheffield, Bt, an apology.

A big apology.

Scottish Conservative party too tainted to survive, claims leadership candidate

Filed under: Britain, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 11:10

Scotland has not been kind to the Conservative party for the last few decades, and a candidate for the leadership thinks the solution is to destroy the party in order to save it:

The Scottish Tory party could be scrapped and replaced by a new centre-right party, under radical reform proposals drafted by the favourite to become its next leader.

Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, will launch his campaign to head the party on Monday by claiming that its only hope to attract greater popular support would be to split off from the UK party led by David Cameron.

Fraser, a former chairman of the Scottish Young Conservatives, will argue that creating a new Scottish centre-right, tax-cutting party would allow it to build up a fresh political mandate and attract voters disenchanted by the current party, which has failed to recover significantly from 25 years of decline.

After losing every Scottish seat at the 1997 Westminster election, the party now has only one MP at Westminster, David Mundell, the Scotland Office minister. It won just 15 out of 129 seats for the Scottish parliament at the last Holyrood elections and has failed to benefit from the collapse in Liberal Democrat support in Scotland.

UK “will lose 2 to 3 per cent GDP a year for around 20 years” on renewable energy subsidies

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Environment, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:01

A report in The Register says that the subsidies for green renewable energy will be a big net drain on the national economy:

The UK’s headlong rush into renewable energy — one ignored by the rest of the world — will hit British jobs and then general incomes, an economic study finds.

The report, The Myth of Green Jobs by economist Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University, examines the long-term impacts of subsidising expensive “green” renewable energy projects. It says that if the UK continues to do so, it will lose 2 to 3 per cent GDP a year for around 20 years. If reducing CO2 emissions is your goal, says Hughes, your economy really can’t afford renewable energy.

[. . .]

“All forms of green energy tend to be substantially more expensive than conventional energy, so there is a trade-off between higher costs and lower emissions,” writes Hughes. “This trade-off is not specific to green energy, since there are many ways of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Hence, the starting point of any assessment of such programmes should be the total cost per tonne of carbon dioxide saved — or its equivalent — which will be incurred by relying upon different measures or policies to reduce emissions.”

September 2, 2011

Doubts about Britain’s next proposed high speed rail line

Filed under: Britain, Economics, Environment, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:12

The Economist is usually pretty gung-ho about high speed rail development in general, so this article expressing some serious doubts is noteworthy:

Earlier this year the coalition government announced details of a £32 billion ($52 billion) super-fast railway line from London to Manchester and Leeds via Birmingham (see map). Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, claims it will be a “fast track” to prosperity. If the project goes ahead—and there is still, just, time to reconsider—the final route, and Stoke’s transport fate, will not be decided until 2012 at the earliest. The first trains won’t reach Birmingham until 2026, and Leeds and Manchester until 2032-3.

There are practical reasons to favour a new north-south line. Good infrastructure lasts a long time: Britain is still enjoying the fruits of Victorian railway investment. At some point in the next 20 years the existing west-coast main line will face a capacity crunch. Upgrading lines is disruptive and expensive, so constructing a new one appears sensible. The vision of a futuristic train scything across Britain at 250mph (400kph) is appealing.

But although the plan has cross-party support, the British public is not entirely convinced. Objections have so far focused on two concerns. First, the environmental damage, particularly to the Chilterns, an area of “outstanding natural beauty” and home to many well-off voters. Second, the business case for the line: the projected doubling of long-distance rail use by 2043 seems ambitious.

August 31, 2011

Far north transportation solution: heavy-lift dirigibles?

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:11

It’s like the airborne equivalent of the monorail: the wonderful solution to various air transportation problems. Unfortunately, they usually fail to live up to expectations. A joint British-Canadian effort to introduce heavy-lift airships for transportation in Canada’s far north hit the news today:

Last week, Yellowknife-based Discovery Air signed a preliminary agreement with British aviation startup Hybrid Air Vehicles to buy a fleet of futuristic dirigibles to haul cargo and supplies across the Canadian North

Costing $40-million each, the massive vehicles will be able to haul 50 tonnes of cargo, stay in the air for several weeks at a time and use a fraction of the fuel consumed by standard fixed-wing airliners.

By comparison, the largest aircraft in the current Discovery fleet can only carry 7,000 pounds and stay aloft for a matter of hours before refuelling.

The new vehicles, which are still in the early testing phase, may look like little more than sleek reboots of Depression-era dirigibles, but actually are a unique marriage of four different aviation technologies, say designers.

“It actually works more like an airplane than an airship,” said Gordon Taylor, marketing officer for Hybrid Air Vehicles.

The aircraft fly using a combination of aerodynamic lift and helium buoyancy, manoeuver by using a helicopter-style thrusters and they land on a curtain of air like a hovercraft.

It’ll be great if they can work as designed, and also survive the extreme weather conditions of Canada’s far north, but the smart money isn’t likely to bet that way.

August 30, 2011

Britons up in arms: Twinings to “change” Earl Grey tea

Filed under: Britain, Food, Randomness — Nicholas @ 07:42

Chris Greaves sent me this link, along with a hint that things could get dicey in English tea rooms:

Charles Grey, the second Earl Grey, gave the world many things, notable among them the Reform Act of 1832, but most of us remember him as the man they named a kind of tea after. Earl Grey is a brilliant tea; even its name conjures up both class and softness (most teas taste like they should be called Baron Harsh), and its taste — bergamot, by and large — is unique yet not too disturbing for the British palate.

I love it, and was once even mocked by John Cleese for ordering it at a writers’ meeting. (“Earl Grey?! Ooo! Ai’m going to have some AIRL GRAY!!” he yelled in a Monty Python shriek. He had himself ordered some sort of Californian fruit tea, so was not, I felt, in much of a position to criticise.)

Twinings’ bizarre plan to change the flavour of Earl Grey seems a misguided one. It has added more lemon and more bergamot to make it even more “wonderful”. Leaving aside the fact that only in the world of tea-producing have the words “more bergamot” and “wonderful” ever been combined, you do feel that they have, how can I put it, gone barmy. Earl Grey is Earl Grey. Variants like the apparently popular “Lady Grey” — it’s got orange in it — and this new Earl Grey Bergamot City, or whatever it’s called, are not really needed. (The Earl Grey-flavoured Kit-Kat was, if Wikipedia is to be believed, fortunately confined to the Japanese market.)

August 29, 2011

Site of Royal Navy’s WW1 submarine disaster to be used for wind farm

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

In 1918, the Royal Navy suffered the loss of two submarines, with another three damaged along with a light cruiser. And you’ve probably never heard of it. It’s okay, I hadn’t heard of it either, and the British government went to great lengths to conceal the incident, because no enemy vessels were involved:

An underwater war grave containing the victims of one of the worst British naval disasters of the first world war has been surveyed for the first time so it can be preserved in the middle of a windfarm.

The two K Class submarines were destroyed on 31 January 1918 during the so-called battle of the Isle of May, in which 270 lives were lost. The two submarines were sunk and three more damaged along with a surface cruiser.

But no enemy ships were involved in the sinkings, 20 miles off Fife Ness on Scotland’s east coast. The deaths were all caused by a series of night-time collisions within the British fleet.

So embarrassing was the incident that even though one officer was court-martialed, the facts were not generally admitted for more than 60 years, until after the death of the last survivor.

A longer account of the accident is on the Wikipedia page. It’s pretty grim reading.

August 28, 2011

Britain’s next military target?

Filed under: Britain, Humour, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:29

James Delingpole tries to draw up a list of the next most likely place for David Cameron’s military adventure:

China

Pros: on the verge of taking over the world and enslaving us all; mines evil rare earth minerals in environmentally unfriendly fashion which Sam Cam, like, totally, like hates, even though it’s OK really because they go towards the wind farms which make Daddy nearly £1000 a day on his estates; a big, juicy target that would impress David Cameron’s Notting Hill friends way more than poxy Libya.

Cons: We’d lose

[. . .]

France

Pros: Would be hugely popular with the home crowd and guarantee re-election in 2015

Cons: Victory would depend, crucially, on whose turn it is to use the aircraft carrier.

[. . .]

The USA

Pros: Would send a clear signal to Guardianistas that Britain is not going to be “America’s poodle”; might well result in a sexy-sexy congratulatory tete a tete with Christine Lagarde; would make the Lib Dem element of the Coalition feel more at home than ever.

Cons: Our record of beating America in wars is not good. Then again, with a President as lame-duck as Obama in charge this could yet be our best hope.

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