FREE MARKET FAIRY TALES

Wednesday's Really Big Stuff: the Hoover Dam & new Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge

In a slight change to normal programming, tonight chaps we are going to have a really blokie post & if its blokie, then it has to be big, 'cos blokes like big stuff just like this...

Creeping closer inch by inch, 900 feet above the mighty Colorado River, the two sides of a $160 million bridge at the Hoover Dam slowly take shape...

The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself.

When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona . In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be supported on the two massive concrete arches which jut out of the rock face.

The arches are made up of 53 individual sections each 24 feet long which have been cast on-site and are being lifted into place using an improvised high-wire crane strung between temporary steel pylons.

The arches will eventually measure more than 1,000 feet across. At the moment, the structure looks like a traditional suspension bridge. But once the arches are complete, the suspending cables on each side will be removed. Extra vertical columns will then be installed on the arches to carry the road.

The bridge has become known as the Hoover Dam bypass, although it is officially called the Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, after a former governor of Nevada and an American Football player from Arizona who joined the US Army and was killed in Afghanistan.
Work on the bridge started in 2005 and should finish next year. An estimated 17,000 cars and trucks will cross it every day.

The dam was started in 1931 and used enough concrete to build a road from New York to San Francisco . The stretch of water it created, Lake Mead , is 110 miles long and took six years to fill. The original road was opened at the same time as the famous dam in 1936.

An extra note: The top of the white band of rock in Lake Mead is the old waterline prior to the drought and development in the Las Vegas area. It is over 100 feet above the current water level.

Fridays are gundays 1

Scene - Its quarter past eleven on Thursday morning. Your humble correspondent & a colleague are in a meeting with a large number of consultants which has been running since eight o'clock...

Consultant #9: ... & this is going to cost you £125,000 a month

YHC: So what do I get for that?

Consultant #2: (Consultant #9's boss): You will have a report by mid February

YHC: & then what happens?

Consultant #5: Their consultants will comment upon your consultants work

YHC: Really?

Consultant #11(without irony): This is completely normal

Ever had that urge to simply kill absolutely everyone in the room?

Musical Monday - Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters

From The Song of the Gremlin (Part 1)

I focused the magnifying glass
That brought the downfall of Icarus.
I focused the magnifying glass
That brought the downfall of Icarus.
Balloons were easy; a simple pin;
Or a knife in the case of the zeppelin.

That blade was the cause of many a prang
In the early days of stick and string.
I am the gremlin. I was there.
Making mischief in the air
And always will be wherever man
Flies in the face of Creation's plan.

Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters was a 1974 satirical concept album by Robert Calvert, the former frontman of British space-rock band Hawkwind. It consists of a mixture of songs and comic spoken interludes.

The concept was based on the German Air Ministry's purchase of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, colloquially known as the Widowmaker. In German service these planes had a poor safety record, with 207 of almost 1,300 Luftwaffe Starfighters lost in accidents during the aircraft's time in service, which lasted from the early 1960s until the mid 1980s.

The Starfighters had inherently challenging flight characteristics, possibly made worse by a number of ill-considered modifications made by the manufacturers at the behest of the Germans in order to clinch the sale

Technology marches on

I was clearing out some boxes yesterday morning when I happened upon these...

It seems only yesterday that Psions were the cutting edge of PDA technology & yet today? Mind you, in 1996 I bought our first desktop computer which used to work, on a very dodgy dial up connection, from time to time. Today, the ambient level of technology in the house is simply mind boggling & we would in no way classify ourselves as techies

A gentle reminder

The October/November issue of The Chap is now out

Surely 5,779,243 people can't have been wrong ?

Happy sixth blog birthday to me

Whisky 3: In case you were wondering about what ever happened to that Du Toit chap...

... you can catch his new radio show on Saturday nights from now on.

The first show is this Saturday 3rd October & runs every Saturday & Sunday at 6pm (US)Central Time - which is about when I get home from the pub. So I shall be settling down with a bottle of whisky close by to listen to my chum & his Mrs - better still, according to their website, listeners will be able to phone in. Now there's an idea ... !

Whisky 1: How far?

A few years back, your humble correspondent was staying in Independence Virginia. Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t buy a bottle of whisky in the towns supermarket & had to make a 50 mile round trip to do so ! Similarly...

Stephen Von Worley has plotted the position of every McDonald's in the United States. All 13,000 odd of them. While it turns out that those Golden Arches can be seen from most street corners on the East Coast, French Fries fans in the West often have to go the distance. Still, it's not quite Little House on the Prairie levels of pioneering.

For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer. Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!

& yes, I know this shows my age but...

A little something to start the working week with

Pour yourself a fresh cup of coffee & spend 10 minutes reading the Civilian Gun Self Defence Blog. Monday morning already seems a little bit better doesn’t it

Of despots & strong coffee : How your humble correspondent had lunch with a doctor, Ben Johnson & two prostitutes

What with the Colonel being being in the news this morning unlike Nu Labour, I am not ashamed of my links to north African despots & feel that I should have declare my connections with the good Colonel’s family in the interests of openness & to pre-empt any FOI requests, Therefore I will relate a little tale from a few years ago now - not long after Gaddafi senior decided that it was Luxembourg that was the Great Satan & not America, & his soccer mad son, Al Saadi plus not inconsiderable entourage, flew into the UK in a brace of Lear Jets.

At Customs (& probably in the Nothing to Declare channel) the party were stopped & asked to hand over their firearms - reluctantly they did so, filling a waiting shopping trolley. They were then politely asked to surrender all of their guns. After vociferous complaint & considerable gnashing of teeth they were duly handed over. This resulted in another shopping trolley being half filled. Due disarmed (yes its true what you have read about the UK & firearms law gentlemen apart from when it comes to shooting police officers from your embassy), they piled into the waiting motorcade, resplendent in the blackest of sunglasses & sped off to the Dorchester Hotel

Now, while they were in residence in London, their British fixer had arranged a meeting with for his employer with 3 stout bulldogs. Presenting themselves, at the appointed time, the fixer informed said bulldogs that his employer had had been out on the toot the night before & was still in bed, so would they mind waiting. Said bulldogs slumped onto suitably comfortable sofas & started ordering rounds of coffee (in The Dorchester at that time, 1 double espresso & 2 large cappuccinos with biscuits came to £32, but then again the biscuits were expectionally nice!), charging them to the Colonel's tab.

It got to lunchtime & our soccer mad despot hadn't appeared but he sent down his physician & personal trainer to have lunch with his guests. The doctor was erudite, well educated & completely charming. If you are the sports mad son of a North African dictator, who do you have for a personal trainer ... ? Ben Johnson of course.

So, the 3 bulldogs, the charming doctor & Ben Johnson sat down to dim sum in the excellent Chinese restaurant at the rear of the hotel. After 20 minutes, Ben starts to look a bit shifty & disappeared only to come back 5 minutes later with probably the two tallest, blondest ladies available in London, excused himself, no doubt to spend the afternoon working out.

& in fact I spent another day waiting to see Junior & was it a complete anti-climax? Of course. The meeting when it finally happened went predicatably nowhere but I am sure that my MI6 file notes exactly how many expressos I can consume in a 24 hour period, espcially when they are on the Colonel's nickle

Mr FM isn't here this evening

Tonight there is a Politburo reshuffle going on – at times like this it is important to ensure that that it is you that is doling out the ‘buckwheat’ (short version: lots of pain & suffering before death) & not getting hosed yourself

A pretty desperate way to avoid paying your tailor

By Ruth Padel

He’s discovered the lack of Old Red Sandstone
in the Vale of Clwyd. The Professor’s pleased.
This geology he’s done, all his own hard work,
will mean revising the national map!

But no. “My idle son! Two universities wasted
in profitless pursuits: shooting, drinking, debts –
and collecting insects. Sailing ships are jails!
Filthy, full of disease. And brutal discipline.

What about shipwreck?”
It would unfit him to be a clergyman
on his return. He has no experience in seafaring
and no time to make preparation.
And he might not suit the Captain.

“I’d have to be deuced clever, to get into debt
on a boat.” “But they all say you are
very clever.” He’s going to be a sailor –
and there’s a girl to leave behind. A pretty desperate
way, says Fanny, to avoid paying your tailor.

“Food is life, life is food. If you don't like my approach you are welcome to go down to McDonalds"

Tonight dear readers we mourn the passing of stout bulldog Keith Floyd – a proper chap, who not only spoke the Queen’s English but was also definitely in the Premiership when it came to the conspicuous consumption of alcohol & finest Virginian products. If you don’t believe me simply pop his name into Goggle Images & take a quick shufti at the results. As I said at the top of this paragraph, a proper chap

A quick look at the news wires this evening revealed that the grief junkies had already started the latest celeb-braty sob in & were well on the way to canonizing that Swayze fellow as the latest late Peoples Prancer. However the loss of Floyd to cancer is an altogether more serious affair

His programmes were no so much marked but the excellence of his cookery, more so by the simply prodigious qualities of booze he would consume which normally lead in turn to the pan in question erupting into a blinding sheet of flame, followed swiftly by a tsunami of expletives

As if by coincidence, last night Channel 4 aired a programme on him & it was quite clear that at only 65 years of age, he was in a really bad way. I put it down to the fact that he had really lived a very very full life. Sadly I now read that it was because he was well on the way to losing his battle with cancer

In an age with celebrity chefs ponce across the media, Floyd would have none of it remarking that people that cook should be referred to as cooks & not spend their time worrying about their ingredients carbon footprint

He was equally robust in his opinion of our nearest continental neighbours: "I do like the French, indeed I lived there for a while; however one must never forget that they are cowards!"

As Marco Pierre White, cook who Floyd truly rated commented: "A little piece of Britain died yesterday which will never be replaced."

Keith Floyd, rest in peace

Given that our North American colonies may soon be in armed revolt (again)

Just following up from yesterdays post, this little list might well come in useful

The Ultimate Collection of Survival Resources

Ultimate porn - better still its both work & wife safe

We have touched upon the indecently wholesome Kate Humble before (oooo errrrr Mrs, if only!)

however it fell upon reader McHugh to point out that not only does she have a new series on BBC2

Intrepid presenter Kate Humble follows the ancient frankincense trade route of Arabia across the amazing modern world of the Middle East in this documentary series. Her journey along the 2,000-mile trail that first connected the Arab world with the West takes Kate on a quest that's steeped in history, searing with desert heat, and full of characters and adventure

but to forget all of that ancient trade routes load of old tosh, think of it more as Ms Humble out in the ooloo, with a rifle slung over her shoulder

Sorry I couldn’t manage a better screen grab but just the very thought of it has caused your humble correspondent to have to confine himself to a darkened room for some time. Nurse ... NURSE! Forget my usual medication; I think I’m in need of something just a little bit stronger

& England win The Ashes

Apologies for today’s lack of posting...

... but I am currently recuperating from a 10 hour lunch yesterday. If you will excuse me, I propose to retire to my redoubt for the rest of the day

I know its a bit early in the week for this...

... but I feel we already have a very strong contender for top commenter in the shape of Mr. P. O'Neil who clearly very much enjoyed yesterday's posting so much that he was moved to comment (& I republish his comment here without alternation):

13 gone but not forgotten, we got 18 and Mountbatten Gadaffi gace us the means to do it f*ck you you brit b*stard

All together now & to the music of this rather well known song

We shot one
We shot two
We shot thirteen more than you
With a nick nack Paddy whack
Give a Mick a bone
Paras thirteen Bogside nil

Cover Art

Just to conclude a very drunken after dinner post the best part of a bottle of Calvados conversation...

& for the record, when my time comes, I would very very much like it to be in a Laotian opium den, tummy full of beer, with handmaidens of the Orient in attendance

1-0 up: 3 to play

Andrew Flintoff has pledged to do everything possible to coax his aching body through a farewell Ashes series after his five-wicket haul helped to break England’s 75-year Australia hoodoo at Lord’s

There were shades of his inspirational 14-over burst at the Oval in 2005 as he claimed three of the last five Australia wickets in a ten-over spell before victory arrived

As Michael Holding summed up afterwards, to bowl that quick for five or six overs is tough but to sustain it for double that time is simply Herculean.

Misery memoirs

Frank McCourt, the author of Angela's Ashes, a prize-winning "epic of woe" about his childhood in Ireland, died in New York yesterday at the age of 78

So some Irish writer who banged on interminably about “we was so poor” has died – not to worry there are plenty more bog trotters - & I do mean plenty more – that have written exactly the same book.

England (435 & 252-9) draw with Australia (674-6)

Yet another whinging colonial...

As far as I'm concerned, it was pretty ordinary, really. But they can play whatever way they want to play. We came to play by the rules and the spirit of the game. It's up to them to do what they want to do - Ricky Pointing

I just wonder if that is the same spirit of the game that had Pointing ordering his strike bowlers to bowl short of a length at tail end batsmen? When it comes to gamesmanship, we can teach Australia nothing

Why our children play cricket

A cricket umpire has died after a ball thrown by a fielding player hit him on the head. Hundreds of fans watched in horror as Alcwyn Jenkins, 72, failed to see the ball hurtling towards the stumps from the boundary. The grandfather, a well known umpire in Welsh cricket, collapsed and players tried to resuscitate him. He was airlifted to hospital but never regained consciousness.

...so that their parents can live in hope. While they are waiting, Boys figures for yesterday were 3 for 17 off 5 overs

Brain wave?

Japanese car manufacturer Toyota has developed a way to steer wheelchairs using brain waves alone. The company says that the new technology enables users to move the chair without needing to move a muscle

So the Jap has come up with a way of steering wheelchairs using only brain waves & this is being heralded as some sort of breakthrough? 20 years ago I had a Land Rover that would drive itself back from the rugby club every Saturday night. Admittedly its internal guidance mechanism needed a spot of fine tuning because on more than one Sunday morning, I have had to prize off bits of vegetation/road furniture/dead animals etc

The Silly Season

Continuing a Friday evening pub feature, as regular readers will have gathered by now, its that rather strange time of year down in these yerrrrrr parrrrrrrts. By now the silly season has well & truely started - it was heralded by roads clogged with organically powered hippy vans, heading to Stonehenge for the summer solstice. Having conducted their 'rights' over the stones (pagan idolatry?) they will all now traipse off to Glastonbury for the pop festival this weekend. Therefore this evening we will feature one of our more outlandish local pubs

The easiest way to get to The Barge Inn is by UFO. Exit intergalactic space at the Milky Way, follow the signs to the solar system, hang a right at Mars, & over Wiltshire zero in on the cluster of crop circles. (If you are coming from Earth, follow the canal west of Pewsey & its the 9th bridge on the left.) You can't miss the pub. It's the one with the earthlings wearing Jesus sandals & Grateful Dead T-shirts.

It is also the unofficial headquarters for 'croppies', a group of anoraks who believe the complex corn circles are created by aliens. In the back of the scruffy 18th century stone tavern is a room dedicated to the phenomena. The ceiling is painted with a mural depicting Stonehenge , the Avebury stone circles & the Wiltshire white horses.

In fairness, there was no sign of any tattooed croppies in work boots. But then, nor were there any little green men tucking into half pints of Hobgoblin either.

P.S. To all those croppies that take their metal detectors into the crop circles & get a reading claiming it is the residual magnetic field from extra-terrestrial activity; iron filings sprinkled in the flattend corn produces the same result ... just don't ask us how we know this

Summer sport

We are now at that point in the summer when after a couple of weeks of hype, British competitors at Wimbledon get knocked out on the first day, its starts to rain & we can all go home complaining again . Indeed last night saw your humble correspondent recumbent on the sofa of sloth watching the ladies tennis from Wimbledon because .... errrrrrrr well just because & I have to say what an unedifying sight it was – young (ahem) ladies grunting away like a sty full of young porkers. Therefore as you plan your summer viewing of sporting endeavour, forgive me for drawing your attention to an altogether more gentile event: yes, the annual Chap Olympiad will now soon be upon us

Organised by those simply top hole chaps at The Chap magazine

for Saturday 11th July in Bedford Square Gardens, London, the day allows well-dressed competitors to descend upon this verdant garden in Bloomsbury to pit their wits, their trouser creases, their cocktail mixing abilities - but not their athleticism - against their peers in challenging events such as the Three-Trousered Limbo, Moustache Wrestling, Quill Throwing and Bounders.

The Olympiad seeks to celebrate specifically British qualities, such as the excessive drinking of dry martinis before luncheon, the wearing of monocles, the smoking of pipes and the maintenance of an immaculate crease in one’s trousers despite having tripped over a basset hound on the way to the pavilion.

All the events are designed to test competitors’ levels of panache, elegance and savoir-faire, as a cheerful alternative to watching our nation’s hopeless attempts to compete on the world stage in sports such as soccer and cricket and includes

• Martini Knockout Relay – teams of four must complete a perfect dry martini over a ten-yard course, with the resulting cocktail being judged by a connoisseur

• Cucumber Sandwich Discus – individuals must hurl a cucumber sandwich on a china plate, with points deducted for getting earth in the sandwich

• Three-Trousered Limbo – pairs of contestants are strapped into huge pairs of trousers with three legs and stumble under a limbo pole, to the strains of calypso rendered by a Brass band

• Tug of Hair – Teams of ten tug at the tips of an enormous handlebar moustache, with the added handicap of slippery moustache wax

• The Pipeathlon – contestants must complete a gruelling course comprising a 10-yard saunter, ten yards on a bicycle, and ten yards without their feet touching the ground, while maintaining a fully lit pipe

• Hop, Skip and G&T – as simple as it sounds, and as difficult to perform with a brimming tumbler of gin and tonic. Spillages count against one’s overall score

• Quill Throwing – one for the poets: a quill is thrown at a target, marked with different styles of verse, in which one must recite a suitable stanza

• Bounders – a chap must say something so caddish to a lady that he receives a slap. The cad with the reddest face, but the wryest smile, is the winner

• Umbrella Jousting – in the medieval tradition, chaps on bicycles approach each other along a boundary and use their brollies to knock each other off, protected by Bowler hats and reinforced copies of the Daily Telegraph

• The Great Steeplechase – the nags are chaps in horse’s masks, the jockeys are ladies, and the hurdles are items repugnant to a chap: inflatable hamburgers, lager cans and "chav" mannequins

Frankly I'd have thought that this particular event is a lot more entertaining than sitting at home watching the British Lions getting beaten again but thats just my humble opinion

Just clearing up a point from yesterday

Whilst Pusser's rum is indeed the drink of choice on the lower decks, in the officers mess wardroom I believe that the default tipple is gin, normally gallons of the stuff quaffed to no discernible effect & out of choice preferably Plymouth Gin...

Soon after Coates & Co began in 1793, Plymouth Gin became a firm favourite in the numerous countries it was shipped to. The gin drinking of the Royal Navy considerably enhanced gin's prestige as it climbed the ladder of respectability in Victorian times. By 1850 Coates & Co were supplying over 1000 barrels of 'Navy strength' 57% abv gin a year to the Royal Navy who mixed it with angostura bitters or lime for 'medicinal' purposes

Admiral of the Rear Free Market, being a bit of a stickler for tradition, tends to start his day with 3 fingers of Plymouth’s finest, just to take the edge of the hangover & carry on pretty steadily from there. None of the “Staffie, where’s the sun?” nonsense, much more likely “steward where’s my refill, damn your eyes man”

As I haven't done one of these for a while

Apparently....
I am a right moderate social libertarian
Right: 4.92, Libertarian: 1.01

Political Spectrum Quiz

Why you should drink Bovril

& Mr FM's Top Tip: If your mug of hot Bovril needs a little perking up, a good slug of dry sherry does the trick nicely

but what with it being St George's Day

There is a forgotten, nay almost forbidden word, which means more to me than any other.
That word is England - Sir Winston Churchill

& maybe a little of this as well...

(An) Englishman is like a built-up gun barrel, all one temper though welded of many different materials, and he has strong powers of resistance. Roman, Dane, Norman, Papist, Cromwellian, Stuart, Hollander, Hanoverian, Upper Class, Middle Class, Democracy, each in turn through a thousand years experimented on him and tried to make him to their own liking. He met them each in turn with a large silent toleration, which each in turn mistook for native stupidity. He gave them each in turn a fair trial and, when he had finished with them, an equally fair dismissal. As an additional safeguard he devised for himself a social system in watertight compartments, so arranged that neither the waters of popular emotion nor the fires of private revenge could sweep his ship of State from end to end. If, in spite of this, the domestic situation became too much for him he could always take a ship and go to sea, and there seek or impose the peace which the Papal Legate, or the Mediaeval Trade Union, or a profligate Chancellor of the Exchequer denied to him at home. And thus, gentlemen—not in a fit of absence of mind—was the Empire born.

It was the outcome of the relaxations of persecuted specialists—men who for one cause or another were unfit for the rough and tumble of life at home. They did it for change and rest, exactly as we used to take our summer holidays, and, like ourselves, they took their national habits with them. For example, they did not often gather together with harps and rebecks to celebrate their national glories, or to hymn their national heroes. When they did not take them both for granted, they, like ourselves, generally denied the one and did their best to impeach the other. But, by some mysterious rule-of-thumb magic, they did establish and maintain reasonable security and peace among simple folk in very many parts of the world, and that, too, without overmuch murder, robbery, oppression, or torture.

Taken from England and the English by Rudyard Kipling, a speech to the Royal Society of St. George made April 1920. More is available here as well as over at The Englishmans & The English Project

Happy Easter to one & all

& sorry about the Easter Bunny

Victor Ludorum

Last night Bomber Harris who at some stage last night became the 10,000th person to leave a comment in this dark & dank little corner of the internet. Bomber, please call 0945-FREE-MARKET to get details of prize.

The cost of calls will not exceed...

Your start the week thought

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness - Emo Philips

Unfinished symphonies

I have just been clearing out the Draft Posts Folder of my publishing programme. Clearly this picture was going to form part of a ‘get back to shooting Germans’ article

& these were for a follow up to last weeks First Car post. My second car was a Renault 5 but after that, I had 2 Alfa Romeo Alfa Suds

& yes, they do rust!

Clearly this was going to be something along the lines of the need for Imperial resurgence

but goodness only knows what I was thinking that morning!

A swift look at the news reveals…

The Japanese emperor is likely to visit Pearl Harbor in July, the first time a member of the imperial family will have visited the site of the surprise attack that brought the United States into the Second World War.

Well what about...

Just a thought you understand

Artistic merit

Found by Reader Alan

& if that doesn't get the blood racing, there is more of the same under the fold & here

Chairman’s Statement: Calendar & Financial Year 2008

Notwithstanding the adverse trading conditions experienced during 2H 2008, Free Market Fairy Tales has delivered a robust trading performance for CY/FY 2008, in line with market expectations & interim statements

2008’s figures show no fall off from FY/CY 2007 which is testament to the executive management’s investment in well positioned defensive topics, combined with continued liberal use of 10 year old malts, finest Virginian tobacco products & a sod of a lot of ammunition.

Despite some press speculation to the contrary, your Executive Editor for Life in Chief, Generalissimo Supreme, King of the Wild Frontier, Lordy Lordy his Majestyness, doesn’t he look great in jodhpurs and a greatcoat, give him a gun someone, he’s so get down funky & sexy & Emperor of Everything & golly I bet he has a whopper, Chief Lord High Priest & Benevolent Dictator for All Eternity, Mr Free Market continues not to co-operate with any regulatory authorities including but not limited to;

HM Revenue & Customs
Financial Services Authority
Special Branch
Health & Safety Executive
Equal Opportunities Commission
Anyone that reads The Guardian

On a slightly more serious note: thank you to so many of you for dropping by here so often. I love you all to tiny little pieces. & finally … to everyone that has sent me an email & that I have never got back to. I am truly sorry but there are only so many hours in a day.

What's your rating?

Apparently if you are under 17, you need adult supervision to read this blog.

Much closer to the truth is that your humble correspondent could probably benefit from more adult supervision

Happy New Year

& now some really sorry news

P.J. O'Rourke has cancer

Why can't death -- if we must have it -- be always glorious, as in "The Iliad"? Of course death continues to be so, sometimes, with heroes in Fallouja and Kandahar. But nowadays, death more often comes drooling on the toilet seat in the nursing home, or bleeding under the crushed roof of a teen-driven SUV, or breathless in a deluxe hotel suite filled with empty drug bottles and a minor public figure whose celebrity expiration date has passed.

I have, of all the inglorious things, a malignant hemorrhoid. What color bracelet does one wear for that? And where does one wear it? And what slogan is apropos? Perhaps that slogan can be sewn in needlepoint around the ruffle on a cover for my embarrassing little doughnut buttocks pillow.

Late night posting

Yes, your humble correspondent is still is San Francisco - however he is currently in a state of advanced refreshment

Just a little reminder...

but today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Now while we are on this subject & in the light of the current uncertainly in the World's financial markets, its worth checking up on how Piratery Corp Inc has been trading recently...

Operator: Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Piratery Corp Inc third quarter update call. Please note that today’s conference is being recorded. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to Captain Bigdee Mofapalous.

Our outlook needs revisin’ n I’m ‘ere for this very same purpose, so hold onto your peglegs, as I make this ere forecast that will suit your tastes and sate your appetites at the same time!!? We now be guidin our revenue to 5000 dubloons n earnings per share in range of 1.3 dubloons as the crow flies!!! Our rapin guidance remains at 3000, while we still be full of hope that our comely wench fleet will finish the year end at 2500 with an average useful life of 3 years. Now, bring on these questions you blubberin’ backwater bastard b*ggerers!!!

Lots more from Long or Short Capital. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh !

911 seven years on - Part 2

The following letter appeared in the Financial Times yesterday penned by Tim Reilly, Chief Executive of C2G Energy. Although it contains a glaring error, its sentiment rings true today of all days

… I attended a lecture on US history at Cambridge years ago when the professor said something that I still think is profound and insightful about the differences between Europe and America. He said that the inscriptions on the headstones of fallen soldiers in Europe invariably appealed to the sacrifice of the individual for Queen/King, or country, or Mother/Fatherland. It was, in other words, about dying for something physically tangible: “Died defending French soil”; “Died for the Russian Motherland”; “Known only unto God” for the Brits*.

As a Brit, I respect that.

* The epitaph “Known only unto God” whilst is seen on many British servicemen’s headstones, is reserved for those whose bodies who could not be identified.

911 seven years on - Part 1

They have sown the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind

Winston Churchill (upon seeing the ruins of Coventry after its bombing in 1940 during The Blitz)

People like this are the reason we invented flamethrowers

Much assumement via Crusader Rabbit

http://view.break.com/565864 - Watch more free videos

Headers

By popular demand & with the help of The Englishman’s big black box of trickery, the header has been changed back to the old Great Britain/USA theme. However the old header, which was nearly 5 years old, did need a little updating so the typeface has been changed.

The actual font is apparently known in the trade as ‘distressed’. Maybe I picked it out because it the distressed them is indicative of the times that we now live in; uncertain capital markets, the burgeoning size of the state, coupled with the erosion of our long held freedoms … on the other hand may be I chose it because the font’s actual name is ‘Sniper’….

Hair of the dog

Today is one of these sorts of days...

Typhoon watch 2: A little bit of linkage

If you have a few minutes, you might want to look at Donald Hagen's A Humorous Political Party Quiz to Test if You're an Archconservative, Leftwing Wacko,
Antigovernment Libertine or a Commie Sympathizer:Political Satire & Humor for Everyone

Reader Gareth reminds us to sign the this petition on the No.10 website

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Create a dedicated Military & Veterans Hospital within the UK

& AJD Shootist would like you all to have a read of the Britain Needs Guns website.

Tory Talk wants some more traffic, as does Tory Club

More posting to follow ... yes I am that bored today!

Go green & run over blind people

Remember those Toyota’s that the overbearing state is determined that we drive when not being coerced on to the so-called public transport system…

Well it would appear that they pose a threat to blind people (oooophs sorry, I meant the visually disadvantaged)

However, because the vehicles use electric power when traveling at slow to moderate speeds, such as when leaving a red light or stop sign, or entering or exiting a parking lot or driveway, it is so quiet that it is virtually undetectable to the visually impaired who rely on sound cues to travel safely.

Debbie Stein, a leader of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois, did her own experiment with a Toyota Prius. When a family friend arrived at her home driving a Prius, Debbie asked him to take the car for a short drive while she remained outside to see if she could hear the car. She heard her friend slam the door, then nothing, until minutes later, the car door opened, and her friend,returning from a drive around the block, asked if she had heard it. She asked him why he didn't start the car. The hybrid is so quit that even a trained ear, awaiting the noise, was unable to detect it.

Well forget Debbie Stein, I just want to see the Top Gear lads do the same test. Ah, actually they have already plus they have also proved that the BMW M3 is a more economical car that the Prius.

& after all dear readers, if you are going to run over blind people, small pets & children, you should at least do it with a little panache … & not in something that Lear Jet Liberal Leo owns three of

Nothing whinges like an Australian

A swift review of the Olympics medals table at just after 4 (BST) this afternoon reveals for some inexplicable reason, the UK in 3rd place with 16 gold, 10 silver & 11 bronze medals.

In 5th place with a tally of 11 gold, 12 silver & 13 bronze medals is Australia & let the bleating commence…

As I said, let the bleating commence

Of Olympic openings & Fuwa phuquewittery

So the Chinese faked large portions of their much lauded Olympic opening ceremony. & the surprise is that any one is surprised by that: what do you expect from a nation that can not only fake watches but can fake Rolls Royces to boot? (See posts passim) In fact, if I were Michael Phelps, I’d be checking very carefully that they had given me real medals, especially when you consider that the locals aren’t very happy about his 8 golds story. Anything that interrupts live feeds of Chinese athletes winning medals is considered to be very ‘unpatriotic’ - & believe you me, thus far, the coverage of The Games has been very very ‘patriotic’. Mind you, as Family FM watched the last Olympics in the USA, American network coverage of such events is no less errrrrrrr patriotic.

For those of you that have never had the pleasure of watching a major international sporting event from the United States, here’s how it goes. The networks will cover no more than a 2 minute segment of the event possibly because of the average attention span of their viewing audience. They will only provide these 2 minute segments if a) an American is going to win the event, and b) there aren’t any live pictures from one of their domestic pastimes (e.g. their version of rounders) to show instead. In this respect, our American cousins are very like the Chinese which is probably just as well given that the USA is now owned by China…but I digress.

The TV coverage here has been appalling. Its unmitigated dreadfulness is only compounded by the large number of Australian commentators that our local station TVB Pearl uses. It’s not the fact that the TV producers in Beijing only seem to let us see (ahem) patriotic pictures, it’s the bl**dy Aussie commentary teams massacring the English language that really gets to me. Never has the language of Milton & Shakespeare sounded so nasal.

However, over the weekend in the letters column of the Peoples South China Morning Post was an even more risible concept, suggested by one Steve Loeb, who lives in Mid-Levels…

I like millions of others am watching TVB’s coverage of the Olympics. I cannot express enough how disappointed I am with the station’s commentary in English. I know that your commentators are doing the best that they can, but they are not up to this monumental task. I implore TVB, before it is too late to get the American network feed. The American commentators do the best job in the world.

Now that would really work because we all need to know how many home runs Michael Phelps has had.

Now, to stay on this topic but to change direction slightly, it is worth point out that currently, my halcyon expatie bachelor existence in smoking ruins: yes I have been invaded by the rest of Family FM, an event that has plunged the Filipina community into a financial malaise & caused several Wan Chai bars to issue profits warnings. However, unlike your humble correspondent who will watch rugby or cricket on the TV & only then if I don’t have anything better to do – the rest of ‘em a confirmed sports junkies. So, there was no way that they were going to miss out on the chance to go to some of Olympic events.

Now I have to report that they have been slightly under whelmed by events so far. Do you recall all of the speculation about who was going to actually light the Olympic flame. Well, my money was on Ming the Merciless but you can’t even begin to imagine the disappointment on 6 year old daughter’s face when Kung Fu Panda, clearly having overdone the corporate hospitality, didn’t show up to the opening event.

Oh yes, & then there are the Fuwas…

One of the toughest challenges at the Olympics will take place outside the sporting venues – in giant plastic-felt costumes. The hundreds of people who have volunteered to act as "fuwa ambassadors" – greeting visitors and posing for photographs – are lined up for some very hot and stuffy work. The suits are so oppressive that volunteers are limited to 15-minute shifts, after which they will climb out, dripping with sweat in Beijing's 35 degree Celsius heat, and hand over duties to the next eager soul.

As Mrs FM was moved to comment upon reading the above news

You’d think that they would have thought about the heat before they designed to bloody things

Mind you, despite the US$38 billon China has spent on The Games ( including a large budget for CGI) there have been some catastrophic lapses in logic …like putting the equestrian events in Hong Kong.

Now for those of you that have never had the pleasure, the Chinese as obsessive about their horses … just so long as they are racing on the flat & they can bet on the race. The whole concept of equestrian eventing has left the locals here both distinctly under whelmed & sitting a home watching the patriotic TV coverage instead. Indeed, here are just a couple of the comments that have appeared in the local press…

Wong Man-yee (on the topic of the dressage section of the team event):

deeply bored

The horses walked from one side of the arena to the & then back again. I thought that they were just going through the warm –up exercises, but the commentator said the [round] was over

To be honest, I don’t think equestrianism is an appealing sport visually. I really doubt Hong Kong people would be interested in it.

& Raymond Lam

I thought the event would be like a carnival. But it was so boring.

Now on one level I can certainly empathize – in any given year, I get dragged screaming to several such events at which I use my years of experience, low down animal cunning & guile, to spend as much of the day as possible in the beer tent.

However, I have no doubt however that if say the horses had been ridden by Fuwas then it might have generated a little more local interest. Maybe bookies could then have taken bets as to which Fuwas was going to pass out from heat exhaustion first. Trust me when I say that that event would certainly appeal to your average Hong Kong resident & indeed, might even get me out of the beer tent.

Whistle & flute

This morning its Friday & that means its dress down day in the office. Well let’s just say that the staff considers it to be dress down day. I however take a dim view of such modern practises & turn up to the office ready to do a full days work notwithstanding the obligatory end the week hangover, brought on by the consumption last night of a surfeit of excisable liquors in Mr. Dalaney’s most excellent Wan Chai establishment.

However, upon attending my place of work, I have availed myself of Messrs Alka & Seltzer’s all purpose restorative & am now ready to face the cut & rapier thrust of the market … until such time as we retire to a suitable hostelry for a few come back bracers.

Now in my book, you don’t just turn up at the office, you always turn up at the office properly attired to do a days work like you mean it - that entails wearing a decent suit, well starched shirt & a tie. As The Barrister pointed out a few days ago…

There was a time when a gent would no more leave his house without a tie than a lady would leave the house without a hat. I showed up at a tennis team outdoor dinner-dance event at my club on Saturday night with jacket and tie. Not wishing to make everybody else there feel grievously under-dressed, I quickly removed my tie and stuck it in my pocket. I am an old-fashioned believer in the idea that professionals should dress up a little bit. Even if it isn't entirely comfortable.

This doesn’t strike me as unreasonable

Todays thought for the day

via Gweilicus

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred
Macchiavelli

Reputation

Each of us should keep in mind the strong psychological effect of reputation. Pointing out a good record once does not have nearly the same effect of pointing out the same record four or five times

Sir John Templeton (1912 - 2008), founder of Templeton Asset Management

Monday morning medical happiness

brought to you by Dr Joy Bliss over at Maggies Farm

Everybody dies. Statistically, if you reach maturity and don't die in a car crash, the odds are that half die of cancer and half of heart/arterial disease. So, if you can postpone that arterial disease, you get to die from a cancer.That's today's cheery medical news.

& there was me thinking that Obama had invented the cure for cancer ... or did Al Bore try to take the credit for that one as well ?

Leather & willow

The English are very fond of a game they call cricket. For this purpose they go into a large open field & knock a ball about with a piece of wood. I will not attempt to describe the game to you, it is too complicated: but it requires agility & skill and everybody plays it, the common people & also men or rank

Cesar de Saussure. 1764

Maybe I am starting to sicken for home

More from Cricket Action Art

New header

Thanks to the sterling efforts of The Englishman, this morning dear readers, we have a new header. I hope you like it ... I'm back out to the fields now

We are definately not feeling like a Captain of Industry today

Happy St George's Day

Now order the ranks, and fling wide the banners,
for our souls are God's and our bodies the King's,
and our swords for Saint George and for England

from The White Company, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This is just a test to see if I can post from my BlackBerry

If you are reading this, then it is purely down to the wonders of modern science & some clever programmers

This is just a test to see if I can post from my BlackBerry

If you are reading this, then it is purely down to the wonders of modern science & some clever programmers

Lack of posting

Apologies for the lack of / rather thin level of posting over the last couple of days.
Sometime between turning my laptop off in Dallas & trying to turn it on again in London, the hard drive suffered a catastrophic failure of a similar size to Gordon Brown’s failure to manage the UK’s economy properly. Hopefully it will all be repaired by later on this morning – unlike our economy.

Happy Easter

London, yesterday morning

This picture was taken yesterday morning on my way to a meeting. From where I was standing, it I was no more than 150 yards from Buckingham Palace & was looking down along St James's Park to the back of Whitehall.

Given the amount of wildfowl about, I feel sure that I am not the first person to have stopped & thought that this would make an excellent spot for a duck blind.

Monday Morning Coffee

Coffee & nicoteen - its they only way to start a day. I am currently on my 5th cup this morning

In real terms, that means hyper active & incoherent until long after lunch

The nerd in me

It was the nerd in me
It was the nerd in me
Well it’s the nerd in me makes me do these things

(with apologies to John Wesley Harding)

I grew up seeing you in the hands of rich elite men of finance, men so powerful they could choose any model to calculate bond payments or whatever it is exactly people use financial calculators for these days. And yet they all chose you. Your gilded metallic head and your firm tightly constructed box conveyed elegance. You were refined yet sleek enough to look good in your leather case. I wanted to be a man so I could press your buttons and create binary reactions in your core logic.

Pictured above, for anyone that is still reading by this point, is my Hewlett Packard HP 12C – it’s a ‘financial’ calculator that I have had for years. I fact, I would go as far as to say that it is the only calculator I use.

Yes, it can do things all sorts of things, the overwhelming majority of which I cant even begin to comprehend, but notwithstanding this, the reason that I have had one for so long is because no one ever pinches it because of the way you enter data.

On your common or garden calculator, to add 2 & 2 you press 2 followed by a plus sign, followed by 2 & then the equals sign. If you are my broker this will give you the answer of 5 & you need to be buy now as apparently stocks are about to rise sharply.
To do a similar sum on an HP12C, the sequence is 2, enter, followed by 2 & then +. & that is why no one ever pinches them which is more than I can say for every other calculator that I have ever owned.

A Food Meme to start the week with

Where & what did you eat last night?
At home; beef in ale stew with new potatoes, carrots & cabbage

Are you a good cook?
I like to think yes - it’s possibly part of the reason that I am so fat

What’s currently in your fridge?

Marmite?
Its OK served on hot crumpets but I prefer Bovril

Do you have a comfort food?
White toast, lots of it -thickly cut from a fresh farmhouse loaf, with lots of real butter & even more of chunky peanut butter. Another reason I am a bit porky

What’s your favorite restaurant?
I don’t really have one - anywhere with decent service. Lots of places produce good food but very very few of them seem to be able to manage to serve it well

What was your memorable meal?
Christmas Day evening in Hua Hin (Thailand) – the seafood buffet to end all them all

Do you have a favorite food scene from the movies?
The Goodfellas 'prison dinner'

What’s your favorite cinema snack?

Raw fish?
Yep, I regularly have sushi for lunch

What would your last meal be?
No question … curry

Which TV cook irritates you the most?
This man

I tend to refer to him as ‘thrush’ - the old jokes are the best

Maintenance

Thanks to the sterling efforts of The Englishman who when not pondering the Ages of Man

there was a time when 3 in the morning was a reasonable time to go to bed, then there was a time when it was a reasonable time to be getting up to catch some business flight, now it is just a time where I might look out the window as I shuffle across the landing as old men do in the middle of the night

has been repairing the comments section of this blog. It should all be up & running this morning, rather like the great man himself

Blogroll Updates

This morning dear friends we welcome to the bloggieblogroll ... Double Trapper for stuff like this & in a more capitalist vein, Long or Short Capital. How could it have taken me so long to discover a blog that describes itself thus...

At Long or Short LLC, we leverage our superior intellect and extensive investing experience to recommend explicit Long or Short positions and related abstract trades, which may or may not be possible with real world financial derivatives. We use science to improve the lives of the rich.

Enjoy

Its grim up north

Today, Mr FM has been to Manchester & sadly, I dont mean this Manchester. He is pleased to report that he escaped (just) with both his life & wallet however has had to seek solace in G&Ts of ever increasing ferocity, in an attempt to expunge the whole ghastly experience.

Normal service resumes at midnight.

As one or two of you will have noticed

this mornings early posting has all been firearms related. May be I am more naffed off about the latest nonsensical piece of proposed anti-gun legislation than I thought I was.

The Tech Dept ( i.e. The Englishman ) has been making a few tweaks - so I will be buying him pints of finest foam this evening by way of thanks. Anyway, that is why when you now put your cursor over a link, it turns into a set of crosshairs. Neat, eh?

George MacDonald Fraser dies

George MacDonald Fraser died earlier today. What, no more Flashy?? It is truly a dark day.

Now just in case there is anybody out there who hasn't read of Flashman before, Harry Flashman was the bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays. George MacDonald Fraser thought that the character was so good that he should develop him further ...

"What kind of man grew out of the foul-mouthed, swaggering, cowardly toady who roasted fags for fun and howled when he was beaten himself?"

If you dont have all twelve books already, go buy them now. Never has such poltroonary been seen in print.

I recently re-read Flashman on the March which saw our (anti) hero in darkest Abyssinia about to go cavorting behind enemy lines dressed as Ali Baba. This chapter of Flashman's life had started in Mexico & in his own words

For me, the business began in the summer of '67, on the day when that almighty idiot, the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, strode out before a Juarista firing squad, unbuttoned his shirt cool as a trout, and cried

Which they did, with surprising accuracy for a platoon of dagoes, thereby depriving Mexico of its crowned head and Flashy of his employer and protector. I was an anxious spectator skulking in cover on a rooftop nearby, and when I saw Max take a header into the dust I knew that the time had come for me to slip my cable

Flashman, after being expelled from Rugby School in drunken disgrace, returns home to his father, who is less than overjoyed to see him. Harry, however, has a plan. he desires his father to buy him some colours, so that he may embark on a career in the Army. Has he learned his lesson? Is he about to turn over a new leaf? Not likely! This tale is related in Flashy's own words, from papers which were discovered in a midlands sale-room and which were later verified as authentic.

Even in this first instalment, he casts up with some famous and infamous characters from the Victorian age, meeting as he does, the aforementioned Lord Cardigan, Dr Arnold of Rugby School (at the risk of showing my ignorance, this one meant nothing to me), Elphy Bey (General Elphinstone) and even Wellington himself, not to mention his being presented to Queen Victoria. Flashman carries it off with all the finesse of the true cad, modestly accepting accolades to which he has no right.

Happy Christmas

The drawbridge is raised & the portcullis lowered. Logs are roaring happily in the woodburner & the overwhelming majority of this evenings entertainment will be provided by a bottle of Laphroaig Quarter Cask that I have just opened.

Please spare a thought for those that are in harms way during this season of peace.

Now, let the feasting commence. A Happy Christmas to you all.

Has it really been 10 years?

The word "weblog" celebrates the 10th anniversary of it being coined on 17 December 1997. The word was created by Jorn Barger to describe what he was doing with his pioneering Robot Wisdom web page.

& another one bites the dust??

Theo Spark is throwing in the towel (at least for now)

I will be taking a break until the New Year and for obvious reasons relocating. I would like to thank all my readers for their support over the last three and a half years. Without you there would be no Theo Spark. Special thanks also to my team of contributors who have made finding things to post so easy.

It isn't about the cars anymore

Down here at FM Towers, we are great fans of BBC2 increasingly politically incorrect Top Gear Programme – indeed Clarkson has practically achieved deity status in the Nipper’s eyes.
With every episode, the programme becomes less & less about cars & motoring and more & more about three rather grumpy blokes chatting about things that amuse them … like the piece on Kate Humble’s badger that reduced our three presenters of fits of schoolboy giggles. After all, Top Gear is probably the only programme where you could find Steve Coogan explaining how exactly he ended up in a Jacuzzi, in a Schwarzenegger-Chan sandwich…

Thanksgiving Day

To all you on the left hand side of the pond, a very Happy Thanksgiving Day

The mighty fallen

Last night I cleaned up the Blogroll – names sadly to be deleted including…
Bretters, Caught in the Crossfire, Henerd, Shots across the Bows, Something Fishy &
Vote Franco

Gone but not forgotten

Trick or treat

Happy halloween to those that do & to those that don't, when there is a knocking at the door this evening ... set the dogs of 'em! If you haven't got your pumpkin yet, try this - it amused me for a good couple of hours.

The one upside to all of the pagen nonsense is that by Friday, the supermarkets will be trying to get rid of that unsold stock - I feel a pumpkin shoot coming on this weekend

Loss of Service & Birthdays

Sorry to the 3 or 4 of you that tried to drop by here either & couldn't. After a brief exchange of emails with my webhost's tech support dept, it transpired that my domain had expired. Swift use of my already completely overloaded credit card & hey presto, all was suddenly better. Funny how money is usually the answer, but we knew that already didn't we dear readers.

So, if it was the annual expiry of my domain name, that must mean that today is my blog birthday ... & a swift review of my Awstats & yes I do know that they are not the most accurate measure but they seem to indicate that over the last 4 years, a little in excess 2.8 million of you have stumbled into this dark dank little corner of the internet at least once.

Golly! Finally proof that googlebombing really does work.

The pain of new laptops

So you replace your old coffee damaged laptop with an updated version of the same model ... but with the external disk drive connect ?? Will it ****! So I cant even upload my OEM version of Office. Looks like our IT Dept will be busy today getting my kit sorted out (again) !

Not having a working copy of Word makes posting a little difficult, so sorry about the re-posts

There wasn't must posting today, because of this ...

What the picture doesn't show is the cup of coffee that went on to the keyboard & from there, down into the gubbins ... chug chug chug ... fizzle ... whirrrrrrr ... & then nothing! I know that they say that IBM laptops are indestructable, well they are wrong

A Wednesday morning thought

'Reality' is the one word in the English language that should always be used in quotes - Anon

Luck

I suppose they'll say his last thoughts were of simple things,
Of April back at home, and the late sun on his wings;
Or that he murmured someone else's name
As earth reclaimed him sheathed in flame.
Oh God! Let's have no more of empty words,
Lip service ornamenting death!
The worms don't spare the hero;
Nor can children feed upon resounding praises of his deed.
'He died who loved to live,' they'll say,
'Unselfishly so we might have today!'
Like hell! He fought because he had to fight;
He died that's all. It was his unlucky night.

Dennis McHarrie

The Great Firewall of China

I have just checked The Great Firewall of China

looks like I'm banned. I can't for a moment think why, its not like I got up to very much when I was working in Shanghai

Colin McRae (1968 – 2007)

I don’t suppose that there can be anyone who isn’t saddened to hear the news of Colin McRae's untimely death. If motorsport can be characterised by a preponderance of towering egos, McRae always came across as decent, refreshingly normal & down to earth … aside from having balls the size of Jupiter. However he never let the fame or the sucess go to his head - an example that quite a few 'drivers' would do well to learn from.

Tiz a great shame.

Mr FM has been AWOL for the last 48 hrs ...

... & up to his whatsits in crocodiles (i.e. bottom feeding scum sucking spaw lawyers)

If he doesnt run out of ammo he might well be back a little later on

Just a collection of GIFs ...

... that have been kicking around in my pictures folder for far too long

& theres more

Escaped !

Mr FM is still battlin' the boche

You only live twice. Once when you are born and once when you look death in the face

More from Clarkson

I am not a jealous man. I do not sit around all day coveting my neighbour’s helicopter or your new hair system. Some people are fortunate and others are not, and anyone who fights that truism is on a path that leads to madness and communism.
That said, however, I fell to my knees and wept with envy and rage last week when I opened my morning newspaper to discover that Ian Fleming’s estate had asked Sebastian bloody Faulks to write the next James Bond book.

“Nooooo,” I wailed, in the manner of someone whose daughter has just fallen from a cliff, as I learnt that the manuscript has already been blessed by Bond movie producer Barbara Broccoli.
Getting Faulks to write a Bond book is like asking Polly Toynbee to write the next Die Hard film. It’s like casting Vinnie Jones as Mr Darcy. In the whole history of getting things wrong, this is right at the top of the list.

I know that we have done this before, but given the impossibly vast sums of money that they get paid, why can’t the film industry leave anything alone?

This chap had been there & done it ...

where as chap is an author ...

Yes, Faulks might well be a fine author, however aside from the fact that his surname shares the first letter with Fleming, that is where the similarity ends. Period. What ever next? A re-make of The Dam Busters?

P.S. I walked into the playroom earlier on this evening to find the nippers watching The Pink Panther – no not the original one, the Steve Martin remake. Now at times Steve Martin can be very very funny but sure as sh1ts brown, he’s no Peter Sellers

This is your life

Ever wanted to write it all down but you just dont have the time?? Well, why not out source your own biography to a professional. I will give you a little hint here, if there a chapters on shooting & hanging liberals, you might just get a deal on rates.

Road Movies

This morning, in the lamentable absence of our common or garden Islamic terrorists dangling from a length of well oiled hemp rope, we take for our topic ‘road movies’
Now it is my humble assertion that you can forget Badlands, Easy Rider, Thelma & Louise & even Mad Max II, when it comes to this particular genre there is one film that stands head & shoulders above all others & that is Ice Cold in Alex … & errrrrr come to think of it, as road movies go, it doesn’t have many roads in it either. Minutiae my darlings, absolute minutiae.

Stout bulldogs, battling against the desert in a blood riddled ambulance (Katy), the Hun snapping at their heels with all the while, treachery afoot. Oh & I almost forgot, actors that could act. What more could you ever ask for?

Now the BFI might characterise it thus …

Although recently described on Channel 4 as the "the ultimate British war film", Ice Cold in Alex (d. J. Lee Thompson, 1958) was, in fact, attempting to break the mould of the genre in several ways. First, a German is sympathetically characterised: Van der Poel (Anthony Quayle) may be arrogant, but he is also very brave. Second, a female character, nurse Diana (Sylvia Syms), is given a prominent role, in sharp contrast to most other 1950s war films. Finally, John Mills' performance as Captain Anson is worlds apart (and deliberately so) from his usual star persona, defined by film historian Brian McFarlane as epitomising "reliability under stress".
In Ice Cold in Alex, Anson is anything but graceful under pressure. He is on the verge of cracking up due to exhaustion and incipient alcoholism and frequently lashes out at his fellow travellers. At times, he seems the least competent member of the group, and physically puny compared to big, robust men like Van der Poel and Tom Pugh (Harry Andrews). Add the fact that the film depicts one of the Allies' most difficult periods of the Second World War, as the Germans made apparently unstoppable advances in the North African desert, and it seems that the film is deliberately testing notions of English masculinity and heroism. Ice Cold in Alex shows the archetypal English hero at his lowest ebb, but it also shows his gradual recovery: not only does he succeed in his mission to get all four of them safely to 'Alex' (Alexandria), but he also wins the admiration of his enemy.

… however, I was watching an interview with Sir John Mills on Saturday, talking about ‘that scene’ in the bar.

Apparently it took 8 takes & hence Mills had had to down 8 beers in 1 & ended up being varied back to his bed to sleep it off. As Mills went on to comment, it was the best mornings work he even had! Sterling stuff.

4 July

To all you readers on the left hand side of the pond, a Happy Independence Day. In the words of Thomas Jefferson

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Just for the Record

Via Kim

Normal service has been resumed

Many apologies for the site crash earlier on … service provider issues don’tya know. It seems that this shabby little corner of the internet now occupies about 663.90 MB & so far this month, has burnt 53,893 MB of bandwidth (what ever that might be when its at home). Upgrade time!

Anyway, thanks to a quick call from Gremlin to advise of the problem, everything seems to be back & running as well as its ever likely to

She's back

On Friday, 5389 people visited this site. Why? Because back in 2004 your humble corrspondent started reading a blog written by a lady called Rachel Lucas. From there I followed a link to Kim du Toit & through a mist of booze, I thought that I would give it a go as well.

Anyway, back to the lady in question - like her? Hell, I've even got the mug ...

Anyway, now she is back. Go read & enjoy
(Asshat anyone?)

Spam-a-lot

Having just deleted a little over 1650 unpublished ‘spam’ comments leaving us free to enjoy little gems like this …

Most of you people have less then half a brain, must make you fell manly inside macking humurous comments about children trying to kill themselves?? (at the same time showing off your knowledge of war tactics, combat weaponry etc.) some of you should pay less attention to what is being said, rather than how it's beeing said. I hope a great deal of you wake up one day and find yourselves on the receiving end of their bullets, maybe if these were pictures of your 5 year old son you would ask him to reevaluate his serious attitude western nations have towards weapons and war, soldier man!!

... left over the last few days on the Liberian Infantry Tactics post of January 2006.

So with a little trickery & the help of The Englishman, all comments will now need a soooooupa secret password, which is cunningly hidden in the comments box. I am sure that you dear readers will work it out soon enough & join me in the giggle factor that every GFW tofu munching liberal has to type it to leave a snotogram

Happy St Georges Day

to all stout bulldogs. However as Mrs. Susannah Centlivre asks in Cruel Gift

Where are the rough brave Britons to be found
With Hearts of Oak,
So much of old renowned?

More commenty fun

Following on for Uni Student yesterday, Chey graced us with the following comment …

YOU FREAKIN PEOPLE NEED TO DIE. HAILEY I AM SOO WITH YOU I WILL HELP YOU STRANGLE PEOPLE LIKE THAT THEY SHOULD DIE AND I WILL BE THE ONE TO KILL THEM.

If you recall dear readers, Hailey was objecting to my historic posting of anti-hunting bill protests & the dead ‘orse in particular.

Not only do I simply love people that comment in ‘caps’ – the electronic equivalent of thick green crayon – but I always enjoy the thoughts of those who threaten humans in the name of errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr animal welfare! Simply no sense of humour, or irony come to that

The end of the week

We haven't done one of these for a while ...

... but a wave of the fat capitalist cigar to LtJ for the pic. As for this weeks lack of posting, sorry about that dear readers - sometime wealth creation just has to come first. I am not going to say too much about what the weekend involves at the moment other than gun & BBQ smoke. Pics, links & my usual rambling commentary on Monday

Lack of Posting

I would just like to take this opportunity to make a swift apology for the lack of posting over the last week – sometimes work / keeping “the Jews & moneylenders” as bay needs my undivided attention - & little indulgences like the blog have to take a back seat. Anyway – crisis seems to have been averted (for the time being), so normal service should just be resuming … just about!

The reason for the slow start to 2007

A very belated Happy New Year to you all. Family Free Market is back from its sojourn in the glens – tales of snow, whisky & deer will follow later, but just a little taster for now ...

Merry Christmas

I am currently filled with the Festive Spirit (well in this case, Compass Box Whisky's Peat Monster). All that is left for me to do is on behalf of Family Free Market, to wish you all a very very Happy Christmas

The Shortest Day

Today is the shortest day & it is also St. Lucy's Day. So for all of you lovers of the metaphysical poets, I thought a little bit of Dr. John Donne might be appropriate:

A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day

Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

There are a load more verses, but I thought I'd spare you.

IT Hell

If you can read this, as least some of the IT problems that I have been having have been solved not by me you understand, but by those that know about such things. However, I fear that all will not be well for some time to come. Your perseverance is appreciated.

Songbirds (or the lack of them)

There was a time meadow, grove & stream,
The earth & every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory & the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it has been of yore,
Turn wheresoe-er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I can see no more

From the Ode on Intimations of Immortality
William Wordsworth

There are approximately 32,000 breeding pairs of sparrow hawks in Great Britain plus approximately 11,000 single non-breeding birds scattered throughout the land. A breeding pair requires 55 kg of meat per year to live on. This breaks down to approximately 3,200 sparrow sized birds or 600 blackbird/thrush sized birds … or if you like … multiply these numbers by only the number of breeding pairs, sparrow hawks consume 44,600,000 sparrows or 25,800,000 blackbirds each year. & people wonder why songbirds numbers are plummeting. Its a shame that the RSPB wont face reality.

Bl**dy great bangs

The largest piece of flying debris produced in a blast will always hit the most expensive or irreplaceable bit of kit within range. With typical modesty, I call it the Remittance Law of Collateral Damage.

from the Remittance Man & well worth a quick read

& while you are about it Maggies Farm on The Growth of Wisdom has raised a chuckle this afternoon, as well

A Sunday evening booze related thought for you

When I was younger I made it a rule never to take strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast
Winston Spencer Churchill

Thanksgiving Day

To all of you on the left hand side of the pond, who will be starting to wake up shortly ... a very Happy Thanksgiving Day to you & yours from this little part of Blighty.

We hope that your harvest has been good & we wish you well in the months ahead. May your God go with you

& now for something really important...

Michael Vaughan believes England still have a "great chance" of retaining the Ashes in Australia despite the loss of opening batsman Marcus Trescothick.

Really? Looks like Vaughanie is tampering with reality rather than the ball, for a change. When one of your opening batsmen pulls out of the tour before the first ball is even bowled in the First Test because of "stress-related illnesses" ... for that read "has lost his bottle", the chances of retaining The Ashes are starting to look a little slim. The Aussies are definately not noted for a lack of self-confidence, are they?

This afternoons test ...

Via Fun Turns to Tragedy

You Are a "Don't Tread On Me" Libertarian

You distrust the government, are fiercely independent, and don't belong in either party. Religion and politics should never mix, in your opinion... and you feel opressed by both. You don't want the government to cramp your self made style. Or anyone else's for that matter. You're proud to say that you're pro-choice on absolutely everything!

Bored on a Sunday night

No surprise really, because I am here

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Happy birthday to me

I see that on Saturday this blog had its third birthday & The Englishman has been posting in similar vein (or is that vain). So in the last three years my awstats tell me that 1.1 million visitors have dropped by & I know for a fact that at least 7 of you aren’t spambots. Anyway, frankly who cares … happy third birthday to me

Monday evening thoughts

Posting has been slow today … mainly because after last weeks ‘week from hell’ today has seen your humble correspondent, not going to work, not reading his emails & instead spending a little bit of time here, before doing some gamekeepering duties around the farm in preparation for the commencement of pheasant hostilities in a little over two weeks.

As for various bits of comment over the last few days about the lack of American content (& especially American War of Independence content) in the On This Day section… I do try. The either section is normally cobbled together from various sources, normally late at night. If there is a similar American military source that I can use – please let me know.

There colonials, happy now?? & now please stop pouring tea into the harbour, you are upsetting the environmental lobby

Given that wild boar are are now to be found in ever increasing numbers in the UK, Tricky wonders if your humble corrspondent is properly tooled up?? Tsk tsk - I can assure you that I am

Sometimes you just have to trust the pilot (3)

Whilst our glorious leader tour the Österreich

As temporary Gruppenführer of this site I have turned off comments as they are 99% spam at the moment - when the Leader returns we will turn them back on again. Sorry.

The Englishman

Just in case you havent remembered...

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday etc etc etc

Just a thought

This rather amused me in this mornings Torygraph

We would all be a bit surprised were Fifa suddenly to award Lebanon the next football World Cup, yet the 2010 tournament will be in South Africa, where more people have been murdered since July 12 than have died in the Levant (this is based on the latest available figure of 54 murders a day, almost twice what Hizbollah and Israel combined have managed).

as did this ...

After nine years in power, the Prime Minister's view of himself as international statesman rather than party leader has become increasingly entrenched. This is perhaps not surprising - if you spend your time trying to negotiate a ceasefire with the Lebanese prime minister, discussing poverty in Africa with the lead singer of U2 and considering the future of globalisation with the founder of Google (as Mr Blair did at the weekend), do you really care what a few backbenchers in Westminster think?

Ho hum, back to work now

They're back

SECOND TEST, OLD TRAFFORD, DAY THREE:
England 461-9d beat Pakistan 119 & 222 by an innings and 120 runs

No posting today ...

... as The Englishman & your humble correspondent (plus a few other stout bulldogs) are off to the CLA Gamefair. See you all tomorrow with a full report

Basically, it's our right to be always right

Sunday Torygraph hack Oliver Pritchett, writing in todays edition, comes out in support of The Englishman

An Englishman's website is his castle.

His list of rights is well worth a butchers as it contains little gems such as ..

No person may be impeded in the pursuance of any course of action which may irritate the French.

A new arrival to the blogroll

We tend to do quite a lot of fieldsportie sort of stuff over here but I freely admit very little coverage of fishing. To redress this imbalance, I have just popped a new addition on to the old blogroll � so if this sort of thing jerks yer line

or your are a dry fly man, check out The Trout Also Rises

Climate Change� Embrace the Benefits

It is beyond doubt that there is currently a degree of climate change going on. However, as with many topics that are close to the collective heart of the self-appointed guardians of the planet, there is an awful lot of �bad science� being peddled. The tree huggers never miss an opportunity heap the blame for these changes upon Mrs. Free Market�s 4x4 � and let me assure you, she is getting jolly cross about it.

A few years ago, I read a letter in a well known motorcycling publication. In it, the author explained that because of global warming, the UK would have a Mediterranean climate in 20 years � the author went on to implore all reader of the magazine to use as may CFC�s as possible so as to expedite these changes- as any British biker knows, our current climate is bl**dy awful.

We all know for every action there is a reaction. Therefore if we apply the Laws of Physics to global warming, whilst there will be a few minor problems their will also be a legion of positive aspects. If I were to be charitable, I would put all of the negativity about climate change down to the greenies having their collective objectivity obscured by an excess of facial hair. Therefore, this weeks competition is to properly itemise the benefits of climate change. My first offering is that rising sea levels will mean that large areas of France will be submerged, which will be nice. Belgium & Holland will disappear completely � no loss there then. I�m sure dear readers, you all have many more.

PETA numpties

More nangers ...

However a lot of very rational people argue that the best place for PETA supporters is in their coffins & if it takes bird flu to put them there, so be it

Via reader NBC who found this at the Torygraph Online

Project Management

To answer last weeks unanswered questions about project management � first let us start with the Free Market Capital Corporations patented PM 3 stage process;

1. Work out what you have to do
2. Do it
3. Go to the pub

However, if you work for Halliburton, you can have a project management philosophy that says

Project management is about creating an environment within which a team can perform to its full potential

�.which is nice & their 13 point programme which has lots of fun things in it, such as Project Execution Plans � aka PEPs as well as other TLAs. Fun eh?

So without further ado dear readers I give you Halliburtons PM process

1. Understand the project & the clients business drivers
2. Identify stakeholders & success criteria
3. Develop strategy & key performance indicators (KPI)
4. Create organisation
5. Clarify roles & responsibilities
6. Establish controls & reporting procedures
7. Produce the project execution plan (PEP)
8. Develop & support the team
9. Protect & enhance the project environment
10. Monitor performance & status, including risks & payment
11. Adjust strategy & tactics updating the PEP as necessary
12. Feedback Lessons Learned (FLL)
13. Close Out Project

There now, I hope you can all sleep a little better now

A funny thing happened on my way to the Colosseum

An Italian & a Spaniard are discussing language & the Spaniard asks if the Italians have a word for ma�ana? The Italian replies that yes they do, however in Italian, it doesn�t convey the same sense of urgency.

Go to Rome they said. Take a couple of days & see if you can sort things out on our project out there, they said. Well, whats a chap to do? Turn down the offer & instead spend the middle part of the week in legal meetings with our Counsel General, a man who incidentally makes a wet Wednesday night in Droitwich seem positively exciting, by comparison � I think not. So with a cry of �Ciao ciao� & courtesy of Sleazy Jet, it was off to Roma to give Johnny Eyetie a proper bulldog rousting as a result of rather too many individuals partaking in too much of La dolce fa niente (the sweetness of doing nothing).

At this point dear readers modesty dictates that I should not take the credit for completely restructuring the front end of a major project finance agreement over a couple of bottles of nasty & half a pack of smokos ��well at least that was the way that things seemed to be going right up until the exact moment that the mayor demonstrated, with catastrophic results, his amazingly low alcohol tolerance. Approximately seven minutes after reaching his own � (cough cough) personal �tipping point�, he very graciously took a break from shouting into his mobile phone to goose the waitress � the ugly one. From around the table, the assembled local great & the good exchanged pained knowing looks � yep the boss must be completely Freddy Flintoffed if he�s trying to touch up that swamp donkey.

Many years ago now, I was involved in a project with a certain rather well known American oil services company. They assigned me the sort of project manager that you would expect from a company that ensures we can continue to burn enough fossil fuel to ruin Mr & Mrs Penguins Christmas plans by keeping the oil flowing from some of the worlds more hostile & inhospitable climes. To my unmitigated delight, the project manager in question was an ex-sapper Major & Ulsterman who just got stuff done. All I had to do was ask & without fuss or ceremony stuff just happened. I rest easy in asserting that he�d have got the entire Israelite nation across the Red Sea with a lot less fuss & bother.

During our happy times together (& there was a man that could do single handed structural damage to a bottle of Bushmills) he gave me a small card, outlining a 13 point process for the management of a project, in a vainglorious attempt to bring a little structure to his client�s yeast logic: I continue to carry that card in my briefcase to this day.

As the cries of �where�s this all going� die down, I thought for a little bit of pure devilment, there might be japery to be had in benchmarking our Italian consultants performance against these guide lines �. & my heart is filled to overflowing to be able to report to you dear readers that not for a second did they let the board & shareholders of the Free Market Animal Testing Company down.

I can safely say that my local professional team�s meeting preparation consists of ensuring that they are using enough hair gel & other miscellaneous �male grooming� products. Forget the implementation of a clear process with boring stuff easily identifiable verifiable milestones & audit trail � much more important that you spend the entire meeting sporting killer sunglasses. In the eleven years since I was last in Italy, so very little has changed.

The morning after the night before

I don�t, you might be surprised to know have a huge amount to say this morning as last night saw your humble correspondent quaffing finest Spitfire Ale, at the Adam Smith Institute bloggers bash, or as they entitled the evening "Dead trees & pyjama kids". Needless to say, this morning I am feeling very very shabby � so, if you don�t mind, I am going to have a little snooze under my desk. In the meantime, please go read the Adam Smith Institute blog �.its all about free markets & they serve great beer. What more could you ask for other than aspirin.

Oh & before any of you ask this delightful young lady was also at the do .....

hummmm - whilst standing in front of her was most pleasurable, I wouldnt want to do it when she had a AK in her hands, mag on with the working parts forward. That doesnt seem very bright to me!

Fancy something a little different?

Bored of reading the same old stuff? Fancy brushing up on your middle English? Well, here's the answer

Forsoothe the winterye windes do falle adown into the softe springe - or some shizzle like that.

No, I am not drunk for a change ..... its (cue drum roll)
Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog Better still, he has a Rotulus bloggorum - what more could you ask for?

Into the belly of the Beast

Your humble correspondent has never visited either of the Houses of Commons or Lords, which is probably for the best. The very mention of the Palace of Westminster trigger the voices from behind the food blender to reiterate their suggestion of driving a lorry load of Paddy�s fertiliser based home brew into the damn place & create Central London�s largest urban renewal opportunity. Politicians it seems have reproductive cycle of a little under three minutes but despite their unsettling capacity to replicate themselves at an expediential rate, the cull has to start somewhere.

Thus with somewhat mixed emotions that I accepted an invitation to dine as a guest at the House of Lords & no, it didn�t even cost me a million pound bung to Nu Labour as part of their money for old robe fundraising programme. In the full knowledge that there is no such thing as a free lunch, my pathetic attempts to justify acceptance of the invitation included a plea of mitigation on the grounds that I, as a taxpayer, had already footed more than my fair share of the tab & this lunch constituted nothing more than a spot of liquid clawback. Besides there was the tantalising prospect of the gluttonous consumption of post luncheon port & brandy whilst burning holes in the ozone layer with emission level busting cigars that loomed large in my mind. The potentates seemed good: our host had impeccable credentials, having only having been elevated after a lifetimes proper public service, not as a result of handing over a large suitcase stuffed full of crispy new fifties & a brief survey of the guest list revealed that it contained the some of the stoutest bulldogs I know.

& that is the reason that your humble correspondent found himself yesterday, suited & booted striding purposefully through the throngs of tourists & Save the Potted Shrimp protesters (get a job!), towards �Black Rod�s Garden Entrance� (bwhahahahaha!) & the queue waiting in front of the airport style security area. Yes, to get into the House of Lords these days everyone & everything goes through metal detectors / x-ray machines � even if you are sporting your regimental braces.

As is usual in these instances security is probably too strong a word for the motley collection of manmade fibre attired �operatives� � whose concept of personal checks seemed to consist of shuffling from one foot to the other until such time as they had generated enough static to cause a spark to leap to one of their colleagues: possibly in an attempt to be able to file a work related injury claim against the taxpayer. Certainly one of the x-ray machine operators had his finger inserted so far up his nose that it was going to require invasive surgery to actually remove the offending digit � not that there was any indication that this yoof was going to want it to be extracted for some time. With technique like that, he could fulfil his destiny to strip mining most of Siberia�s surface coal, quite literally single handed.

Still, once clear of security � across the hall � turn right � turn left � across the court yard, past an (empty) security portacabin & then only another 100 feet or so to go before we got to our first glass of white wine & jolly good it was too. Compliments to the tax payer for selecting such decent plonk. Now before those of you that take an interest in such matters start asking what it was, trust me when I say that I don�t have a b*stard clue � it could have been strained through an Albanian lorry drivers jock strap for all I care � we were way way too busy embracing the concept of conspicuous consumption to care � much to the chagrin of the most mincing of the poncy waiters. That sadly was the high point of the lunch because the red wine that followed is definitely worthy of indictment by the International War Crimes Commission. Whilst I am not certain if it possessed a robust & well rounded body, but I am sure that it constituted a crime against humanity. If I had known that the redders was going to be that bad, I�d have brought a couple of magnums of my own & paid the corkage!

In an attempt to divert criticism of this abomination, someone decided to make a poor apology for a speech at this particular moment. Now, maybe speech making has fashions & trends these days. On the (thankfully) very few occasions that I have been asked to speak in public, I have always been ever mindful of the Rule of Ps*. Clearly these days, what is deemed an acceptable address has changed but adlibbing your way for over twenty five minutes doesn�t constitute a speech in my book nor judging by the look of disgust on our host�s face, did it in his. In fact after about ten minutes we chose the lesser of two evils & despite health warnings & our previous misgivings, we hit the red wine � hard.

As for the food � certainly a couple of notches above the institution norm, although the service left a little to be desired. Slightly less mincing waiter didn�t seem to have a clue which side to serve from & which side to clear plates from � clearly he had been at the Mental Illness & Discrimination Act workshop the day they were shown how to that � as Exhibit (A). Sadly, worse was to come.

Post pudding we awaited strong spirits, Cuba�s finest & ashtrays the size of aircraft carriers only to be informed that we were in a no smoking area & at lunch, post scoff snifters aren�t served! It is no wonder that we lost an Empire if you cant give decent bottle of Madeira a proper caning � after all, this is the House of Lords damn your eyes man. There being simply no other options open to us & a group decision was taken to pop smoke & retire by sections: seizing the initiative a small group of us having made our excuses & retired to the Army & Navy Club via Horseguards & a couple of pubs. OK, so it was nearly tea time, but at long last, lunch really got going �.

*Rule of Ps: (aka Rule of 6 Ps) �Planning & preparation prevents p*ss poor performance�

Band-aid for the blogger

After a brief interruption to the comments function, normal service as been resumed thanks to the skill & techie skills of The Englishman (again). Apparently my service provider had automatically shut down the comments section because I was under attack from that most loathsome of creatures � scumbag spammers. Still equanimity is now restored & all is well with the Empire. Huzzah � trebles all round.

That Road to Damascus Moment

It came to me in the small wee hours of this morning, leaving me sitting bolt upright in my fetid pit but more awake than I have ever been & with complete clarity of thought. In place of the Chaos Theory that normally constitutes my higher cerebral function was not today�s post but The Post. A post of such epoch marking importance that other milestones in the evolution of Western philosophy would forever languish in its shade & it was mine for the taking. With laptop swiftly booted & the heavenly muse pumping richly through my veins, I prepared to immerse myself prose that would change the direction of millions of peoples lives � when something else suddenly stuck me with lightening like force

The universe is expanding at an exponential rate in all 9.291 dimensions. It has since Big Bang & will continue until such time as it has reached its tipping point when it will start to slow & stop rotating. Then, due to the gravitational pull of all matter, the universe will start to contract at an exactly opposite rate until such time as it finally collapses inwardly upon itself, according to the Laws of Atrophy, destroying everything & leaving no residue. As this renders all human activity ultimately pointless I decided to go back to sleep, vowing to spend tomorrow in the pub, pondering the unmitigated futility of the space-time continuum as well trying to rationalise the temporary nature of our own fragile mortality & tedious inevitability of our ultimate demise.

Whisky, water & the great debate

I can not even begin to count the number of times that I have ended up arguing late into the night over the merits of putting a little water into a glass of Scotland�s single greatest contribution to the World - & lets we honest here as anyone who has endured the climate north of the boarder for any period of time can testify to, its no wonder they invented whisky. Whether your preference is for the lighter hues of the Speyside varieties or like your humble correspondent you opt for the more dusky charms of the islands distilleries you can always find someone that will ruin decent booze by drinking it neat.

Ross Anderson, writing in The Times attempted to finally lay the great whisky fallacy to rest �

Where I come from in Glasgow, the only thing you put in your whiskey is more whisky. Anyone who so much as entertains the notion of water risks being condemned as, at best, a wimp or, at worst, that most contemptible of creatures, a Big Southern Jessie

As whisky drinking chaps know, you never ever drink whisky neat � you might as well put coca-cola in it. As for ice, if you want something really cold, go at get yourself a bucket of penguin sh1t. Decent whisky, of which I consume considerably more the health fascists at the British Medical Association recommends is good for me, should always be taken with a little water, as Anderson goes on to discover under the tutelage of Ian Millar, Chief Brand Ambassador for Glenfiddich.

Millar categorically states & who are we to argue �

The water releases the flavour compounds held within the spirit, & it takes time. Idealy you should buy your dram, add the water, then leave it on the bar for 20-30 minutes before drinking it. Of course, that�s hardly going to work in the pub. But you can do it at home.

By all the saints, that wont work at home � there is no way that a well charged glass of Scotland�s finest is going to be left for half an hour before consumption, round at Free Market Towers. The thought is there however.

As we now have definitive guidance on this topic, maybe we can tip the water in whisky argument into the grave? This will leave time & space to ponder how to get hired by Glenfiddich as a Brand Ambassador. Apparently it is a job that carries a high risk of work-o-holism but then again, who cares?

Mustard worldwide

Comments made earlier this week about Colmans mustard seem to have struck a cord with one of two of you, which is hardly surprising with proper advertising like this ....

Clearly for those who quite wisely have quit the sinking ship miss this little bit of the old country & now suffer from an incomplete sausage expirence. Thankfully, help is at hand here - log on, order up your favorite breakfast condiments & they are delivered to you where ever you might be.

Go on, admit it - your fry ups have just got a little better .....

Cutting the mustard

As stout bulldogs know, when it comes to meat, only this will do ....

Now, those chaps at Colemans have come up with a cunning plan that is sure to bring joy to all of us proud carnivores. We can join the �first ever virtual (meateating) march across the net�.
It is quite literally, meatastic. Sign up here & chops away....

A thundering good read

As previously reported, your humble correspondent is currently ensconced in Flashman on the March. I am about a quarter of the way through with our (anti) hero in darkest Abyssinia about to go cavorting behind enemy lines dressed as Ali Baba.

This story starts in Mexico in �

For me, the business began in the summer of �67, on the day when that almighty idiot, the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, strode out before a Juarista firing squad, unbuttoned his shirt cool as a trout, and cried
�Viva Mejico! Viva la independence! Shoot, soldiers, through the heart!�
Which they did, with surprising accuracy for a platoon of dagoes, thereby depriving Mexico of its crowned head and Flashy of his employer and protector. I was an anxious spectator skulking in cover on a rooftop nearby, and when I saw Max take a header into the dust I knew that the time had come for me to slip my cable

Classic stuff from Flashman � if you haven�t already got it, go buy it

Thoughts for the day

�Lord, give me the strength to accept the things I can not change� or a vintage Browning Automatic Rifle, and 5000 rounds of ammo.�

From Curmudgeonly & Skeptical & this from Geek with a 45

Flashy's back

What more could your humble correspondent ask for? Battles with the Free Markettes concluded for the day & FM Towers in silence, save for the gentle snoring emanating from the Labrador of Libertarianism & logs crackling in the wood burner. Fourth glass of dark peaty scotch on the go & me, once again grafted onto the sofa of sloth with a decent book � surely Brigadier General Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE would have approved of such idleness, especially as he is the subject of my current reading, in GMFs latest book in the Flashman series �

Celebrated Victorian bounder, cad, and lecher, Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., returns to play his (reluctant) part in the Abyssinian War of 1868 in the long-awaited twelfth installment of the critically acclaimed Flashman Papers. Many have marvelled at General Napier's daring 1868 expedition through the treacherous peaks and bottomless chasms of Abyssinia to rescue a small group of British citizens held captive by the mad tyrant Emperor Theodore. But the vital role of Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., in the success of this campaign has hitherto gone unrecorded. Flashman's undeserved reputation for heroism renders him the British Army's candidate of choice when it comes to skulking behind enemy lines in Ali Baba attire.

Now just in case there is anybody out there who hasn't read of Old Fashy before, Harry Flashman was the bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays. George MacDonald Fraser thought that the character was so good that he should develop the character further.

"What kind of man grew out of the foul-mouthed, swaggering, cowardly toady who roasted fags for fun and howled when he was beaten himself?"

If you dont have all twelve books already, go buy them now. Never has such poltroonary been seen in print.

Flashman, after being expelled from Rugby School in drunken disgrace, returns home to his father, who is less than overjoyed to see him. Harry, however, has a plan. he desires his father to buy him some colours, so that he may embark on a career in the Army. Has he learned his lesson? Is he about to turn over a new leaf? Not likely! This tale is related in Flashy�s own words, from
�papers which were discovered in a midlands sale-room and which were later verified as authentic�.

Even in this first instalment, he casts up with some famous and infamous characters from the Victorian age, meeting as he does, the aforementioned Lord Cardigan, Dr Arnold of Rugby School (at the risk of showing my ignorance, this one meant nothing to me), Elphy Bey (General Elphinstone) and even Wellington himself, not to mention his being presented to Queen Victoria. Flashman carries it off with all the finesse of the true cad, modestly accepting accolades to which he has no right.

IT hell ... on a Monday

As if Mondays arent bad enough as there are, your humble correspondent skips into the office this morning, only to find that the network seems to have been nuked over the weekend .... a thousand curses!!!!! So this mornings posts have been sent from the (Sl)eazy internet cafe on Oxford Street, which if I might add, is a dump of dumps! I swear that this keyboard has pubic hair stuck to it.

So on that less than happy note, I'm off to the pub for a few pints of finest foaming - because as everybody knows, when you work for yourself, that's the way to get your IT repaired. PAH !

Header Picture

With of course the help of The Englishman & in the finest traditions of a government contract i.e. 2 years late, my header now has a pic. This is just a temporary measure until I get a proper header done in ooooooo let me see, about another 2 years. No change there then!

The greatest cop show of all time

Have spent last night in the rubber dub dub in the company of a lot of reassuringly large policemen, quaffing endless pints of finest foaming, thoughts this morning have turned to cop shows & how they differ from the reality. However, without wishing to disappear down the cul de sac of so-called autistic licence, we will leave that particular sub-topic for a morning that isn�t sponsored by the makers Alka-Seltzer � may my blessings be showered upon them.

Lets be honest though, we all love cop shows. Out of choice would you really want to watch Gardeners World - Monty Don endlessly banging on about dead heading petunias, give me a break. In the absence of Rachel de Thame sinking her hands into my John Inness No.1 / loam mix, there is little in the garden that cant be sorted out with a petrol driven strimmer, large drum of roundup & a sturdy spraying rig. If it dies it dies, that�s Ma Nature for you, deal with it.

Nope, for really high quality entertainment you only need three essential items: copious quantities of your beer of your choice, a phuque-it bucket from KFC & your preferred police drama. Let�s face it, sort of a �left & right� of Labour politicians, its as close to heaven as you can get on your average evening.

Whilst William Petersens brooding misogynist might clear up with crime with nothing more that a test tube & a pair of marigolds - lets be honest, CSI is hardly representative of the genre � I want car chases, violence & villains that talk like proper villains �. �Blah blah blah � this is the most evil bit of business that I�ve ever done Mr Knuckles� etc etc

When is comes to proper cop shows there is only one � dear readers I have the audacity of state here & now that the greatest cop show of all time ever, is �wait for it � from a time when the entire world was beige � The Sweeney. Yes, ladies & gentlemen I give you DI Regan & DS Carter

Not only did they wear brown, better still they drove a brown car as well � see, I told you. In the 70�s the world really was beige & we all know that unmarked brown police cars were quicker. Just the thing for chasing �blaggers� in their MK2 Jag getaway cars.

Come on, admit it, we all have our favourite lines � probably the most famous is Regan (John Thaw) has he bursts into a room & just before the inevitable ruckus kicks off, announcing that

"We're The Sweeney, son, and we haven't had our dinner yet"

Now that is sure to strike the fear of the almighty into the heart of the criminal fraternity as is the immortal

"Get your trousers on - you're nicked"

Well, what do you expect from officers whose guvnor was Chief Inspector �round the back� Haskins ( so named after he ducked out of kicking in the front door of a house full of armed robbery suspects, choosing instead to �go round the back� ) & whose respective interests comprised;

Regan - birds, booze & violence
Carter - birds, violence & booze

So raise a toast of cheap scotch, preferably served in a Styrofoam cup to the Flying Squad�s �ardest & finest. To those of you whose lives are currently incomplete because you have lamentably never seen this series, go buy it now � I promise you that you will not be disappointed.

& the blog goes on

Earlier this week, The Times carried a couple of letters on the subject of blogs which caused your humble correspondent a wry but every so slightly tipsy smirk. Firstly...

Sir
Joss Bolton suggests that writing blogs that no one reads is the equivalent to talking to oneself.
Could the same be said of writing letters to The Times that are never published?
James Goldman
London NW4

Now, I fully fess up to formally being an inveterate writer of �letters to the editor� which for some completely inexplicable reason never got published � hence one of the reasons that dark & dank little corner of the blogosphere evolved from the primordial soup of the internet.

In a second published letter on this subject, Samuel Blanning of Southampton is slightly more confrontational

Sir,
The main problem with the blogosphere letters, Feb 9 and 11) � apart from its penchant for nauseating neologisms, such as �blogosphere� � is that, rather like academia, it is an incestuous community consisting mainly of people reading each other�s work, with success judged on how many links you can get to your site from people who are just as boring as you.
The �source� for the average blog post is another blog post, and finding the original source by clicking from one blog to the next is rather like that blonde joke where someone hands you a piece of paper with �turn over� written on both sides. Eventually you end up either at a real news story by the vilified and obsolete �MSM�, or back where you started.
The thing about incest is that while it lets the species continue to survive, its contribution to the quality of the gene pool is less than nothing.

Not being part of a tower edifice of a publically funded news network your humble correspondent doesn�t have direct access to our man in the Congo. However the strength of the blogosphere is that if you want to find out about a story in just about any location in the world, there is a blogger there who has first hand exposure to the story & is reporting it, often without the institutional bias of a news corporation.

Iraq is the classic example. Rather than having to sit through the usual anti-war homilies of say the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation, readers are only a few clicks away from finding out what is really happening from the soldiers that are actually in country � not what John I wish that cluster bomb had got him Simpson thinks about things. Surely the irony can�t be lost upon a Murdoch owned newspaper with News Corp�s long track record of appeasement of the Chinese Communist Party

St Georges Day

From Hugh ...

There is a chance the public can make St Georges Day a public holiday (after this year). Click on the link below to vote, the site needs at There is a chance the public can make St Georges Day a public holiday
Click on this link to vote, the site needs at least 500,000 votes for the government to take it seriously and give us another holiday!

You know it makes sense

Computer issues & other such stuff

I am sorry to have to report this, but yesterday & this morning have been IT days from hell. On the face of it, the week had started reasonably sensibly & was trundling along in a happy enough sort of fashion, right up until the moment BT decided to wipe out our half of Mayfair�s broadband access, plunging the global headquarters of the Free Market Uranium Enrichment Corporation into a should we just throw the towel in & go home now type conundrum. Of course there was a desk load of junk mail to be cleared & the corpses of transactions past to be buried in dead filing, but hardly the most inspiring way to spend a day when weighed up against the prospect of spend the rest of the day quaffing pints of finest foaming in a suitable hostelry. Corning the market in filling out expenses forms is hardly destined to make you a captain in industry, after all.

Eschewing the decadent pleasures of VAT returns & FSA compliance forms as well as having exhausted the wide range filing related activities open to your humble correspondent, with still no big bandwidth action, decisive action was required. Thus it fell to your humble correspondent & against the judgement of keener minds than mind, to make a momentous decision � to finally try to get my mobile phone to �sync� with my notebook & task that rapidly assumed biblical proportions as within thirty minutes the entire office was covered with leads, instruction manuals, bits of plastic, hens teeth & tear stained handkerchiefs as what little remained of my will to live, ebbed down the stairs.

After about an hour, six cups of coffee & three teenager temper tantrums, the blood splatters on the walls were starting to become noticeable as every time I thought of something new to try, the instruction book would refer me to a web page for further help � which I couldn�t phuquing well access. With the point of no return a dim & distant memory it was time to throw in the towel & go to the phone shop to vent my wrath at O2, Sony Ericsson, my bourgeoning waist line, our perfidious tax system & the sheer iniquity of the shabby state of affairs that constitutes my existence.

Having waited the obligatory 45 minutes trying to avoid slaughtering the latest �new sales consultant� offering both nirvana & today�s must have manager�s special I was pointed in the direction of scrofulous yoff Tom who on the face of it seemed sensible enough � despite having serious dress sense issues & oral hygiene to being high on his list of personal priorities . He said all the right words like ..errrrrr � wirelessLANcomportlinkcacheformatstuff & had one of those circuit testing screwdrivers in his top pocket � a sure sign of a complete absence of social life.

& so it was that it appeared that the road to technology salvation was there right in front of me. After all, things were started, SIM card readers produced & stuff that buzzes intermittently, plugged into the National Grid � well it might as well have been for all I know.

After about an hour & a LOT of little boxes with flashing LEDs (very pretty) Tom announced that I didn�t have the right �driver�. In fact it wasn�t just that I didn�t have the right driver but in fact, I needed four of them. By all that is good & righteous in the World, what the hell is a driver & why exactly do I need four of them? Whilst I have long been an advocate of conspicuous consumption, having more than one chauffeur at any given time is slightly gauche. Rest assured dear readers, none of that stopped me making a very poor joke about my driver was parking the Rolls outside Claridges � a comment that elicited a completely blank stare from Tom, who incidentally, needs to get out a lot more.

Cue more flashing whirry little boxes non-specific, two bottles of lukewarm water & what felt like another lifetime the job was declared as complete. All that remained to be done was to hit the synchronisation key � which with trembling finger, I was just about to do at the precise moment my laptop ran out of � yep you guessed it, power.

In IT hell, everyone can hear you scream.

Car Park Pics

Although I haven�t checked my lottery tickets recently, there is this little voice that tells me that for some inexplicable reason, your humble correspondent wont have copped the loot. Consequently, sadly this isn�t my new Bentley Continental �

Techo Overload

You are not going to believe this but this shabby little corner of the internet has now got a Forum ! I know I know, wonders with never cease. Well if the truth be known, The Englishman, bless his woollen underwear, built it for me for he is truly anointed & all seeing � but as part of a plan, hatched in the pub last night we thought that we would give it a whirl as part of our never ending quest for complete reader satisfaction.

Well, lets give it a go � if its fun we will run with it bit � if it isn�t, it will be taken out & shot in pretty short order. You have been warned.

So here it is ... Mr FMs very own FORUM

Time to up date the blogroll

Right, here we go with todays additions:

Caught in the Crossfire
Devils Kitchen
Religion of Peace
Cabarfeidh Pages
Infinitives Unsplit
Primary Source
Resurrect the Sport (which has an embryonic forum)

They are all there on the left hand side of the page, go read. They are all worthy & righteous.

Today, I am mainly listening to ...

... the last album from the original Man in Black

America IV: The Man Comes Around

Now I freely admit to being rather partial to a bit of humming & strumming but track 2, 'Hurt' is totally & utterly incredible.They dont make them like that anymore. As a little taster, the lyrics are in the extended entry.

Hurt - Johnny Cash

I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that's real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything

what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away
in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear my crown of thorns
on my liar's chair
full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
beneath the stain of time
the feeling disappears
you are someone else
I am still right here

what have I become?
my sweetest friend
everyone I know
goes away in the end
you could have it all
my empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again a million miles away
I would keep myself I would find a way

And the rest is silence

All is quiet on Free Market Towers & as ever your humble correspondent is in disgrace after a little hiccup in church earlier this afternoon � as the church wardens handed round the plate, I was nabbed passing round a hip flask. My only defence � its contents (�04 vintage damson gin declared a triumph by many pundits) were a damn sight better than the communion wine.

Its probably best that I sign off now & try to rebuild my bridges with not only Mrs FM & the Anglican church � so to the few of you that are still talking to me �

A very very Happy Christmas to you & your loved ones

Toodle pip

& on to the blogroll they go ...

One Hand Clapping - Slugger O'Toole - Law West of Ealing - New American Revolution - Expat Yank - Blognor Regis - Flying Space Monkey Chronicles - Alphecca - Watton Family - Fun Turns to Tragedy - Silent Running - Geek with a 45 - Barry Beelzebub

You can tell its been a slow morning cant you!

The Turner Prize '05

It always worries me when a Glaswegian wins something like the Turner Art prize � after all Glasgow�s chief claim to fame is that it is the �Home of the Heartattack�. However Simon Starling has won this oh so prestigious prize for his Shedboatshed � an old boat shed that he turned into a boat, floated down the Rhine & then turned back into a shed � which is, I admit ingenious but darrrrrrrrrrrrlings, is it art?

According to curators at the Tate Gallery, the particular shed in question is a

�a buttress against the pressures of modernity, mass production & global capitalism�

which is nice � & there was me thinking that it was just a shed that fourth rate art school drop out had tinkered with. Clearly, The Times Art Critic Rachel Campbell-Johnson thinks that Starling�s work is multilayered �

�At his most ambitious, he entwines complex ideas with a sharp political point. But on a simple level, who does not understand what it means to sit in the creosoted peace of the shed & dream of sailing away on a boat�

Aardvark!

& a few more for the blogroll

Have just snatched a few minutes peace to do a little bit of work on the blogroll ... todays addtions, in no particular order, are...

Mudville Gazette - Ravenwoods Universe - Flit - Shots Across The Bows - Daily Ablution - Argghhh!

Hopefully the link to Alpha Patriot is now repaired & finally, Kim du Toit (yes, the great man himself) has broken cover, staying low & moving fast, is back blogging under his own name now at The Other Side of Kim

Tomorrow, if the dam dont burst & the creek dont rise, I might even get the chance to catch up on some reading - something that has been woefully missing due to what I pass off as work, over the last two weeks.

Nick Robinson, BBC corrspondent & blogger?

A few months ago The Englishman & your humble correspondent trolled along to the Adam Smith Institute to hear about whether bloggers were starting to take over from main stream media outlets � well that�s what the talk was about � I just went along for the free drinkie poos afterwards.

Present were some of the UKs most visible bloggers all of whom � disappeared into a happy warm fuzzy haze once the fizzy white wine started flowing. As I have long maintained, champers is the finest lager money can buy � even better if someone else bought it in the first place.

Anyway, to get back on topic even if only for a moment � I see that Nick Robinson has now got himself a weblog. Nothing particularly special in that, other than he is the BBC�s chief political correspondent or something like that. Feeling the pressure are we Nick? Or is the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation looking for another medium through which to disgorge its liberal left sputum? Whatever � I would chalk it up as another victory for the little guys.

The hidden plus is that every time we are forced to listen to his latest piece of liberal propaganda on the evening news - we will be able to let vent our feeling to him directly� or at least give his army of publicly funded researchers something to consider.

What are you posting about?

Just as a little exercise, I thought that I would see what my five latest commenters that blog are talking about this morning - if you like, a sort of snap shot of my readership. It might not be interesting (to some of you) but it is something to do while I munch mylunchtime ham sandwich. Here we are ...

Mark from Gun Culture congratulates fellow bulldog shooter Ian for starting to get some press coverage

Nice to see that the shooting media have noticed Ian�s site Resurrect the Sport. The site featured in this month�s Target Sports, the one with the nice blonde shooter on the front cover.
Well done Ian mate.

whereas The Chief Ba*tard from Ba*tards Inc informs us about Moebius Loops

Meanwhile ....

The Trout Also Rises posts his Kern River Report

Two Saturdays ago found us at the Kern River, flogging the water. We landed eleven fish, none over 12". That's just not right...

Bag Rants has been buying his nipper an air rifle

Went out yesterday and bought myself and my son some new toys....

Whille Misty has had a bout of Monday syndrome & is pondering what to post -

My brain appears to have turned to peanut butter this morning. So, instead of waffling on for possibly hours or just posting any old carp, I'm going to nick (Mr) Scaryduck's(sir's) idea and hold a vote-o for tomorrow's post instead, in the hope that I can sort something out in time for then.

What this proves I am not too sure - maybe just that my commenters are a bunch of confused hunting fishing types that like the concept of the hangmans rope - sounds awfully like your humble corrspondent. TIme for coffee methinks.

To all of you on the left hand side of the pond...

... a Happy Thanksgiving Day to you & your families

"Give me land, lots of land & a starry sky above ... "

A few years ago now, your humble correspondent worked with a very smart sort of a chap whose father farmed the small matter of 30,000 acres of a popular county. We were all pretty impressed. However, if real man sized quantities of land are what you want � then you need to look to the West �

For a paltry US$47m, you can have 312,000 acres that comprise the Overland Trail Cattle Company Ranch � that�s about 500 square miles in real money � or if you like, a quarter of the size of Wiltshire.
Enough room to breath?

Eskimos & Coffee

I have just finished watching the al-Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation�s ten o�clock news. It carried an item on how the how climate change & melting ice sheets are impacting upon the lives of Canadian Eskimos. It was the usual boring finger in the ear�ole eco-dirge with one particular Eskimo complaining that changes in the climate were impacting on his traditional way of life. As he spoke, he had a cup of cappuccino in front him. Laugh? I nearly shat myself � I haven�t laughed so much since Grandma died � or Aunty Mabel caught her left tit in the mangle!

More site improvements

One or two of you might of noticed that on the left hand side of this page, just below the calendar & courtesy of The Englishmans not inconsiderable IT skills, there is now a link to my email. Henceforth, the bunny huggers & other associated animal anthropomorphists will be able email their vitriolic monologues (& there have been quite a few recently) straight to my trash folder � what joy!

Blogroll updates

This week we welcome the following to the blogroll ...

Pave France
House of Dumb
Citizen Stuart
The Trainer
The Ten Ring

They are all there, on the left hand side of the page (somewhere). Go read if you dont already - it will be worth it, promise!

Wonders will never cease

As one or two of the more eagle eyed of might have already spotted, lurking on the left hand side of this page is an embryonic blogroll which with the usual technical assistance from The Englishman, was installed sometime yesterday afternoon. Whilst to the more technically minded of you, such a task might represent a mere five minute diversion, to an IT spastic like your humble correspondent its implementation was more akin to a piece of government procurement � delivered some eighteen months after it was due.

Over the next few weeks will be added the eclectic mix of blogs that I, on a regular basis, read / refer to / plagiarise. All I have to do now is to try & work out how to categorise the roll � that should only take another year or so

Who�s your daddy?

If you want to see real confusion, go to Liverpool on fathers day. However, while on the subject of paternity, who is your blogfather / blogmother? Do you have any blogchildren?

For me, it started in October 2003 when I happened across the late great Rachel Lucas � she of �asshat� fame. About 24 hours later, having discovered the also late great Kim du Toit, I was hooked & after a little guidance from The Englishman & a bit of tech support from Dean Esmay, its been downhill ever since.

To the best of my knowledge, to date I have only had one blogchild � but there might be a few bastard siblings / paternity suits out there.

The Politburo Diktat is currently trying to put together a family tree of the blogosphere. Sign up, fess up � who was your blogparent?

Via Tim Worstall

Just a thought �.

but your humble correspondent is currently seven & a half hours into a financial model & has spent best part of the last hour languishing in circular formulae hell. Trust me when I say that I would much rather be walking the Slobrador of Libertarianism.

She doesn�t give a monkey�s about attempting to back solve IRRs against hurdle rates � a topic that it is becoming abundantly clear to me, I know little about. Chasing rabbits, after all, is a much more worthy pursuit.

Happy Birthday

Happy 80th birthday Mrs T

You were great, you are great - a true believer in free market economics. Today, drink a drink to happier times.

Footnote - who the hell at Time magazine ruined this wonderful front cover by sneaking Fat Ted on to the corner?

Away from the Office

Today were are burying The Good Colonel - funeral with full military honours followed by a proper drink up down at the pub. Its how he would have wanted it.

I will catch up with you all tomorrow & apologies now, for the hangover.

Rain stopped play

& I am off home.

As for the cricket,the Aussies have their noses in front & thus we are thankful for the intervention of a good dose of English summer weather i.e. London currently looks like November. If only the biggest & blackest cloud ever can park itself over the Oval for the next few days. So all you stout bulldogs out there... outside now & crack on with your rain dances.

A ton of pheasant related duties over the weekend & I might just sneak into the gunshop on Saturday morning. Please, whatever any of you do, dont tell Mrs FM that they currently have in stock a Remington 700 BDL in .243 - which of course is no surprise - but but but, its got a left handed action on it - yippeeeeee!
I must not take my credit cards, I must not take my credit cards etc etc etc

Now, on that particular topic, I see that The Devil's Kitchen has appointed your intemperate commentator to his ' Home Office' (with special remit for firearms & vermin eradication). Ah, the weighty duties of office which have been very sadly neglected this week. But to make up for that, tonight it is time for big beers a go go with The Englishman & commenter, NBC - so must dash - pip pip

All to play for

Shortly the firth & final Test in this Ashes series will get underway. Just in case any of you need reminding, here are the scores on the doors, thus far.

1. England v Australia, 1st Test, Lord's, Jul 2005
Result: Australia won by 239 runs

2. England v Australia, 2nd Test, Edgbaston, Aug 2005
Result: England won by 2 runs

3. England v Australia, 3rd Test, Old Trafford, Aug 2005
Result: Match drawn

4. England v Australia, 4th Test, Trent Bridge, Aug 2005
Result: England won by three wickets

Sadly, the weather seems set fair for the next five days & England just need a draw to take the series. The Aussies are a full strength but the bulldogs are short of Jones - ho hum. The only thing that I can predict is that could well be a lot of cricket-blogging going on here over the next few days. As the Channel 4 'WG Grace' ads have been imploring all summer ....
"Bring it on!"

Flabbergasted

I have just sneaked a look at my stats & with the benefit of the �hard sums machine� that sits on my desk worked out that some time over the weekend one discerning individual made the 500,000th visit here� which for a shabby individual such as me is not bad going, especially give that this dark dank little corner of the internet will celebrate its second birthday towards the end of next month.

Ok ok, this isn�t world beating stuff, but for badly argued & spelt hobby, it just goes to prove that there might just be more than just a handful of like minded individuals out there that seem to be able to cope with the vagaries of my punctuation.

I suppose that now (aside from getting a better layout & blogroll), I should waffle on with a long list of thank yous but in the chaotic manner that is the hallmark of my life punctuated only by regular bursts of crisis management, I have nothing prepared. Thus I shall confine myself to saying a BIG thank you to The Englishman without whose regular & continuing IT support, absolutely none of this would be possible.

Enough enough I hear you cry - well OK then. Time to get on with the next post �. on Nu Labours latest education policy initiative that wait for it �. I agree with (& no, I am currently sober). Watch this space.

Forget Louisiana �.

�. there is even worse news from Texas: The Great Man from the Lone Star State is having to cut down a bit

I�m quitting this blog, too, at least on a day-to-day basis. Maybe I�ll post over weekends, if I have a spare moment, but don�t hold your breath

Mourning has begun

Just one of those days

So much to post & once more, I demonstrate to myself (as if I need to) what an IT spastic I am. Nothing worked. Home laptop � kaput! Work laptop � still on holiday. BlackBerry � suffering from a bout of PMS. Thankfully, this humble blogs IT support was on hand to rectify my unmitigated incompetence & thus tonight, once again I am buying The Englishman pints of finest foaming

Lo-carbs � nah, I�ll have another pint, thank you

So Atkins Nutritionals has been shedding money quicker that the slaves to that diet have shed weight & has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York � tipping the scales at about US$ 24m into the naughty zone.
I suppose that Dr Robert Atkins cant have been all that bad, especially as he managed to incur reduce muesli munching nutritionists to paroxysms of tofu flinging fury by advocating eating lots & lots of yummy things like � bacon, which as we all know when properly fried, not grilled no no no no - is clear proof of the Holy Trinity.

But while we are on the subject of scoff, this week is the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia. The stats make very very happy reading:
Length of show: 5 days
No. of visitors: 45,000
Amount of beer sold: 200,000 pints
Rate of beer sales: 1.56 pints a second
When I read figures like this, I think for just a second that all is not lost in blighty � but then I sober up.

Big big apologies

Over the last four days nearly 800 bits of scumbag spam slipped through my filters. Now, when it came to deleting them, I inadvertently wiped out a lot of comments, being the utter IT spastic that I am. Sorry, nothing personal, it is all my fault!

Also, sorry if I have inadvertently banned anyone � but of course, if you are banned, it is somewhat unlikely that you will be reading this � doh!

London at midday

Bombs all over London, very little movement other than the sound of the emergency services rushing to the 7 confirmed blast sites.
And you wonder why we fight?
We fought you in the fields of Flanders
We fought you through the fields of France and in the fields and streets of Northern Ireland.
We will fight you on the streets of Basra and if you decide to come to London, we will fight you there.
All of Hitlers bombers and V weapons couldn't daunt us, neither will you.

Ironic that when the G8 leaders are trying to do something about some of the worlds problems, the barbarians are hammering at the gate. Well, open the gate says I and bring it on...we have seen this all before.We have defeated this all before.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to try and get home to my family.
God bless

So London wins (updated)

Call me a miserable swine, but I frankly care not if London has won the competition to host the 2012 Olympics � a long way before then, your humble correspondent will have quit the country. It will of course be am unmitigated disaster & cost the taxpayer billions of pounds because since the demise of the �stovepipe� top hat, this country has been unable to complete heavy civil infrastructure on time, or to budget�

� but at least we whooped the perfidious French. Maybe the members of the IOC prefer honest bulldog cookery to that over fussy nonsense that frogs knock out?

Update: This took under 4 hours to come through - market forces in France, anyone?

1,000th post

Looking at my control panel, it is telling me that this is my 1,000th post since this very damp & dark corner of the internet got up & running in Oct 2003. Furthermore, in that time, there have been a little over 382,000 visits here & at least 6 of you weren�t spambots because there are currently a little over 2,500 comments that aren�t spam.

So, I would just like to take a moment or two to apologise to everyone in a fine Blairite manner, for everything. Yes, it is all my fault & if you have been offended by anything I have written or for any of the views that I hold� I am sorry that you are so wrong.

If you don�t like the concept of free trade, go & knit yoghurt on an iceberg. I, unlike liberal leftie politicians have never �robbed� a bank. OK, I might have spotted a couple of mis-priced option trades or gone a little long in commodities & currencies that are less than stable � but the positions were fully hedged � honest.

To those of you that don�t embrace my intemperate lifestyle - yes I was ripped to the tits on Friday night but it was only the tattered remnants of my liver & kidneys that really suffered. In fact, a lot of publicans & shareholders should be thankful of the personal contribution to their annual dividends that my predisposition provides.

To the Mothers Against Reality, your arguments are flawed & the statistics contradict everything you campaign for. It is & will remain my personal mission to amass as many weapons as I cant legally under the UK pernicious gun laws. As soon as the Free Markettes are old enough, I will arm them as well. Furthermore, I see it my duty to convert as many on my currently unarmed friends as possible, into gun owners.

I suspect that other than my crimes against the English language, the worst thing that I have done in the shabby forty years that comprise my life, is to have poured the milk in before the tea. However, if I could find a way of personally decimating seal breeding grounds from the drivers seat of an ozone layer destroying 4x4, believe you me I would.

And finally, I would like to apologise to eldest Free Markette, who was 8 over the weekend. I am sorry that I bought you a new bicycle when what you really wanted was that flamethrower you are hankering after � or the dive bomber. It is not me, I promise. It was your mother that said �NO� � sorry

P.S. Please remember, the next time some long haired weirdo sporting way too much facial hair starts carping on about the Amazonian rain forest, try & think �logging scheme� � you know it makes sense.

Today is ... hangover day

�And must I wholly banish hence these red and golden juices, and pay my vows to Abstinence, that pallidest of Muses?�
Sir William Watson

Sod the abstinence thingy � yesterday saw your humble correspondent partaking in that most gentlemanly of activities � the 14 � hour lunch. The not unsurprising thing about that is that as a direct consequence, today, I am as rough as a badgers a*se - & I should know, living in the West Country.

Therefore, rather that ramble on, in an increasingly incoherent manner, I shall attend to a little house keeping arising from comments & links over the weekend:

CB � (re: killing foxes) I tend to shoot centre of body mass. As you can imagine, when we inspected the carcass, a fair amount of time was spent trying to properly identify the entry & exit wounds!!

John East � (re: Mr B) you feel free to comment away sir !! I take your points entirely. Just about the only thing that The Englishman & I disagree on is that he feels poor Blighty can still be saved; I fear that it is sliding irrevocably round the u-bend

Kim du Toit - (re: killing foxes) sadly the new gun fund is looking a little the worse for wear. As soon as I can find the nippers piggy banks to raid, current thinking is a plastic Remy thingy in 22-250

Laban � (re: Mr B) no Barry Beelzebub isn�t me. My I humbly direct you sir, to the original introduction that I gave him. I hope this clears up any misunderstanding on this point.

Kevin Baker - (re: killing foxes) thank you for your kind words sir.

Now if you will all excuse me, I am off for a little nap

More tests

Overall, I am 5% liberal ... WHAT! Dear readers, I hang my head in shame.

This test was brought to you via Kirk whose choice of rifle stock is well shall we just say, a little different?

The land of my fathers

Off to Wales for a meeting today; cue a sheep joke ...

A man walks into the bedroom with a sheep under his arm, to the surprise of his wife.

The man says, �This is the pig I have sex with when you have a headache�

The woman says, �I think that you will find that is a sheep�

The man replies, �I think that you will find that I was talking to the sheep�

St Georges Day - Part 2

This royal throne of kings , this sceptered isle ,
This earth of majesty , this seat of Mars ,
This other Eden , demi paradise ;
This fortress built by nature for herself ,
Against infection and the hand of war ,
This happy breed of men , this little world ,
This precious stone set in the silver sea ,
Which serves it in the office of a wall ,
Or as a moat defensive to a house ,
Against the envy of less happier lands ,
This blessed plot , this earth , this realm , this England .

( from Richard II by William Shakespeare )

... its such a shame that the country has gone to the dogs!

St Georges Day

Tomorrow is St Georges Day & we will be drinking ...

... but this time, we are drinking for England (or at least whats left of it) !!

The best abuse in a long time

It will come as no surprise to many for you the have had the fortitude to stick with me for any period of time, that I get a fair amount on abuse. A lot of comes from Mrs FM & runs along the lines of �you drunken indolent bum� � which is in all honesty, fair comment.

From time to time the GFWs & animal rights weirdos drop by � but ironically that only spurs your humble narrator on to acquire more personal firepower & use it to shoot increasing numbers of our indigenous species in what can only be described as a completely wanton orgy. Believe you me, once the barrels of my Beretta are up to cruising temperature, those Canadian seal culls are not a patch on what I am personally capable of.

However tonight, as I sit here, half way through a bottle of Justerini & Brooks No. 61 Reserve Claret ( its really jolly good) we should all take our collective hats off to �UMM NO� of IP address 80.4.224.5 for the most erudite piece of critical writing it has been my unworthy privilege to receive in ages.

It all steams from a piece I wrote entitled �Quitter Radcliffe� dealing with her tardy performance at the Olympics. Given that during last Sunday�s London Marathon our Paula did more slashing than Freddie Kruger, quite a few people have been stumbling across this old post � hence, the fresh abuse.

Anyway, with no further ado, I shall turn you over to UMM NO & don�t worry, it has been edited, so is work safe �..

�Oh dear, another cynical, dull and unpatriotic clown! Unfortunately Mr Intelligience, not everyone is blessed with the intellect to "PASS" exams particularly 'A' Levels which clearly vary according to the subject being taken! But Mr high and mighty I don't suppose if you were to actually take such ..... actually i can't be F**KED M8 U R A D*CK!!!! I HOPE U enjoy this little world u have created around u that u r far superior to any 1 else and yes i am using abbreviations and ..... i can't even b bothered U R A D*CK HEAD WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING U KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT AS U CLEARLY DON'T HAVE A CLUE!! PAULA Radcliffe is not only one of the finest British athletes we have ever seen, but holds ten WORLD records NOW FOR ALL OF THOSE ATHLETES WHO ARE GOING OUT THERE 2 TRY AND FULFILL THEIR DREAMS GOOD ON THEM!! WHY BE STUCK IN A SEDENTARY JOB, BEING CYNICAL AND COMPLAINING ABOUT LIFE BECAUSE YOU ACHIEVED F**K ALL IN YOUR LIFE U CAN HATE ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE SURPASSED YOUR DREAMS AND EXPECTATIONS SUCH AS PAULA RADCLIFFE AT LEAST SHE WILL BE REMEMBERED WHEN SHE DIES MR ANTI-TONY BLAIR, I AM A P**CK.COM SUCK MY D*CK!!!!!!!!!�

Such eloquence as I can only aspire to dear readers. But as UMM NO seems to equate sporting prowess with the right to comment on our �superstars� performances, he might just like to consider this:

Get Mrs FM on the subject of Paula Radcliffe & I guarantee you a 30 minute soliloquy of bile, vitriol & invective. My wife�s credentials to be allowed to have the temerity to make such comments? Well, she admittedly only won four England caps (lacrosse) but in her number one obsession, sailing, she has been national champion in six classes. I think that probably qualifies her to comment on what it takes to win things & stuff ... but that is just my on very humble opinion.

Time to open another bottle methinks.

Mobile blogging?

If this gets posted, it will be the 1st time that l have been able to post from my phone...not bad for an IT cripple like me! It can only mean trouble...blogging from the pub?? oh no!

Mobile blogging?

If this gets posted, it will be the 1st time that l have been able to post from my phone...not bad for an IT cripple like me! It can only mean trouble...blogging from the pub?? oh no!

Cheap advertising

It is said, that every man has his price & please trust me when I say that mine is disgustingly low. Whilst those if us that believe in free pricing mechanisms know you get what you pay for in life & just think how much more errrrr interesting your next marketing meeting will be when you report that your product has been featured on this blog. At the very least it might precipitate that career change that you have been hankering after � but oh the potential upside � it might just cause your Marketing Director (Torquil : red rim glasses, ponytail - you know the sort) to suffer a debilitating brain aneurism & you get his recently vacated post � but I digress.

Quite why any company would really want my endorsement of their product still completely baffles me � but then again, these days, so much confuses your humble narrator. For the price of a bottle of booze & the Royal Mail�s extortionate rates, I will prostitute may myself quicker & for less money than your average Nu Labour MP, declaring to my entire global readership � all five of whom seem to live in East Cheam � that this is the finest booze that I have ever tasted�

I promise that I wont use hackneyed old phrases likening the contents of the above bottle to an angel weeping on your tongue; nor will I state that after drinking half bottle in a single sitting, the mysteries of the universe will be revealed to you. However, if you do consume it in gentleman�s quantities, that girl from accounts will suddenly find you absolutely fascinating � right up to the point when you fall out of your chair as you try to escape the giant spiders that are coming out of the walls. Perfect.

It goes without saying, that I am available for a wide range of product endorsements, although, firearms, booze, 4 x 4s, curry shops, lap dancing clubs are definitely preferred. Better still, if such a promotion can be syndicated, I will do them all at once � naked.

Nick, thank you for the bottle, you are a man for all seasons & your fellow directors are princes among men. However, you only sent one bottle � for half a case my agent advises me that I might have had to say something along the lines of Mr Free Market drinks Cock of the North! Anyway, here is the link, go buy � if you drink enough; it might just bring world peace.

more knife stuff

"Over the last decade the name Ray Mears has become recognised as being an authority on the subject Bushcraft and Survival. Ray Mears considers the knife to be the most important tool needed for outdoor survival and with this in mind, he has invested much time in designing the Woodlore Knife. Manufactured by Wilkinson Sword the Woodlore Knife is one of the most important items to have when venturing into the wilderness."

OK, I admit it, I happen to be a fan of Fatty Mears - anyone that can spend as long as he does out in the deep green bundu & yet maintain his not inconsiderable waist line, deserves respect. Come on Ray, admit it, exactly how many calories are there in that bamboo plant you are eating?

Anyway, I have been casting round for a decent knife for a little while - so, I have put my name down for one of above.

An African challenge, anyone?

Now us fat 40-year-old fathers are definitely precluded from doing this, but � some of the more adventurous among you that fancy being eaten by crocs, contracting Ebola, or being kidnapped at gun point & sold into slavery might want to consider this ...

"In an effort to bring a little excitement into our lives I am in the process of organising a challenge for May 2006 and am trying to gauge what response there would be to it and how many people would be interested in taking part.

� Prize giving and a cocktail party in Casablanca in Morocco

The cocktail party sounds ok ... where did I put my fez?

The aim of the challenge is to complete it in as short a time as possible and I anticipate it will take around two weeks from lift off at Heathrow to landing there again.

Nick Holme
The Cock o' the North Liqueur Company

Tel: +44 (0)1339 887778

Fax: +44 (0)1339 886100

Email: nick at cockothenorth.com

Breakfast fit for a stout bulldog

�I don�t know what I want, but I want it now�

�Bring me meat, burnt like St.Joan, Calvin�s horseradish & mustards to pierce the tongue like Cardigan�s lances!�

Sir Henry Rawlinson ...

or if you like, Mr du Toit, of the subject of a proper British breakfast

The old school in the news

It always amuses me when I read about my old school in the tabloid press

"11 boys have been suspended from a top public school for sparking a drunken riot AGAINST allowing girls to join. The Head Boy and four prefects were among those disciplined at �19,000-a-year Downside School."

Always good to see that is an ever changing world, some things havent changed!

Newspapers & blogs

Writing in todays edition of The Times, Simon Jenkins (a reasonably sensible sort of a chap) on the subject of blogging

Dogs

�The average dog in Britain costs �20,000 to look after over the course of its lifetime, more than a luxury car or round the world cruise.�

Cheap at twice the price says I � not even a Rolls Royce can retrieve a pricked partridge. In any case & let us be completely candid here � if you stagger into the kitchen in a state of advanced refreshment, having only narrowly failed to drink your age in pints, how many of the women in your life will be pleased to see you?

�In its annual Cost of a Dog report published on Sunday, pet insurer Churchill said the Great Dane was the most expensive dog, costing �31,840 over its average 10-year life, followed by the Rottweiler at �24,340. Mongrels cost �20,998, while Jack Russells were a relative bargain at �17,476.�

Weather

I have just walked up (London�s) Bond Street as flakes of snow were falling. According to the Met Office, today is the twelfth day in succession that snow has fallen in London � so greenies, where�s your global warming now?

Tales from the pub car park

Last night comprised rifles, beer & pork scratchlings. I know, I know, it is difficult to top that � but thrown in for good measure it also included a complete lack of charge in the battery of a certain well known English blogger�s 4x4.

�Should have bought a Landrover� anyone?

Retail rage?

Well we have road rage ... why not retail rage?

LONDON Reuters "One man has been stabbed and several injured after 4,000 people flocked to the midnight opening of a new Ikea furniture superstore in north London, emergency services say.

The Swedish furniture giant was forced to close the store in Edmonton after 30 minutes when it was overwhelmed by shoppers seeking to buy heavily discounted items."

Hasn't this all gone a little too far? I mean Ikea furniture is hardly Swedens best export??

Royal Weddings

So Charlie-boy is going to marry old horseface �. Good on yer, says I! You might be mad a fish, but that�s hardly surprising given that your half German & half Greek.

Anyway, we all know what�s going to happen, don�t we dear readers? There is nothing, absolutely nothing that annoys the socialists & liberals more than a Royal Wedding.

Now, I am just waiting for my invite!!

Its nearly 4 o'clock

Large pot of tea slowly brewing on the Aga: toasted crumpets with lots of butter & a thick layer of Gentlemans Relish

Fancy a cup anyone????

Farwell to 2004 & any vestige of tolerance

So, the old year dies & we welcome the new. If you are anything like me, that welcome will be something of an alcoholic haze. As for resolutions, I can do no better than refer you to the ever eloquent Mr Beelzebub (see this mornings post) who is vowing to be �less tolerant� in 2005 � diabolically wise words indeed, sir!

To the 20,000 of you that drop by each month � I am both equally flabbergasted & honoured at your continuing fortitude. To all of you that have preserved with my inconsistent grammar & punctuation, at times inovative spelling; unreserved apologies. To anyone that expected to find rational argument in this dark & damp little corner of the internet � I grovel in the face of your monumental forbearance; as you will have gathered by now, my train of thought plunged head long down the embankment of rational process some years ago. To those that have deemed my unworthy rambling merits comment and/or (completely justified) abuse, thank for making the last year such jolly good fun.

Assuming that my much abused liver & kidneys continue some semblance of function after tonight�s onslaught of toxins � the only promise that I can make for the forthcoming twelve months is that the twisted bile & vitriol will continue.

A Happy New Year to you & your families � avast ye mackerels, you are gentlefolk all. I leave you today with happy heart & the time-honoured battle cry of Sergeant Major Bewley,

�More beer & bigger women!�

Christmas...

...to you all. Tomorrow as you sit down with family & friends, spare a thought for our servicemen & women who cannot be with their families & friends the Christmas because they are taking the fight to the enemy & in doing so are bringing freedom to those that have never known it.

A Happy Christmas to you all. Be safe & if you can't be safe, stay low, move fast & watch your 6.

Under the knife

Later on today, your humble correspondent goes under the surgeons knife � some maybe disappointed to hear that it is only a minor procedure to patch up a leg; certainly I am sure that there are those out there might wish it were for something that has lower survivability rates.

As is oft the case these days, the operation will be undertaken under a local aesthetic - & it is this that is currently causing me the most concern. Given my views on a lot of our health care services, the fact that I shall be capable of articulating these views to the operating theatre staff might mean that I leave the hospital with my testicles stitched on to my forehead � oh dear!

Spam, lovely spam

Just having logged on for the first time in a couple of days, I see from my admin screen that while I have been in the backwoods, very nice people have left 358 pieces of spam. Thank you all so much ... you bastards. Just have to wait until I get home to kick start the ole spamkiller!

Behind Enemy Lines

So yesterday Mr FM got his comeuppance � a business trip to Paris; oh darkest of rages. Now I do tend to agree with of PJ O�Rourke on matters Parisian �

�True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whisky I don't know.�

Also, remaining ever mindful of his advice on Third World Travel �
Rule 1 � Never run out of whisky
Rule 2 - Never run out of whisky

I tried my hardest not to!

A medley of fever induced rambling

When it comes to the common cold, everyone knows that blokes suffer more than girls � in fact, recent studies published in The Lancet indicate that there are few instances of members of the male gender actually contracting colds. Current medical thinking now indicates that men only get flu & it is from deaths door I type, bombed off my tits on a heady combination of Vick, aspirin & brandy � yes, tonight I am more virulent than an Indonesian lap dancer �

Anyway, with regard to Animal Aid the �animal rights� organisation brought to our attention by The Englishman ��

eldest Free Markette was sent out with a local gamekeeper over the weekend to help fill the game feeders. With much glee, he reported that the birds are in good order, notwithstanding the fact that in the process of discharging his duties, the little chap fell in a river. Still all good stuff, it builds moral fibre, or at least that is what they used to tell us at school! Good shooting & equally good eating is just around the corner.

While on the subject of pheasants�.

in answer to Blognor Regis's query of Friday, it is little early to be getting stuck into the pheasants just yet. They aren�t quite full grown & they don�t really start to fly well until the leaves are off the trees - most shoots don�t get stuck into them until early � mid November. Rest assured sir, the killing fields of the West Country are being readied.

As for foxes �

the Tedworth Hunt had a successful morning on Saturday (with Mrs FM in tow) � killing 4 foxes. It still strikes me as a lot of trouble to go to just to kill a �red boys� when a handful of .22-250 �persuaders� will suffice. Still the red mist seems to have descended on the memsahib & she is off to butcher more cute & cuddly wildlife on Thursday

& while on foxes �

I love this proposal of �Big Brother� Blunkett�s about putting up cameras in the countryside in keep an eye on us all � love it � an ounce & a 1/16 of one of Eley�s very fine VIP No.6�s should suffice � �Sorry about your camera officer, I swear I was aiming at a rabbit�.

(Incidentally the BBB Blog is well worth a read � just don�t be too shocked when you read what �Shagger� Blunkett is really up to).

But can you imagine, in the not too distant future, some Centrica van will turn up in Farmer Palmers yard & announce that under Diktate No.7234/B/22 they are going to enter on to private land to fit surveillance cameras against the wishes of the owner. That�s going to be a short conversation if the mood of farmers in our part of the world is anything to go by!

If hunting is a lost cause, what about the Tory party �

as a former Young Conservative & member of the Federation of Conservative Students (an organisation that even Mrs T had to disband for being too libertarian) �I just cannot being it in myself to vote for Michael Howard. Despite being a �traditional� sort of chap / Tory voter, I can never forgive him for when he was Home Secretary, for taking my pistol away. Howard, when to start of talk about giving us back real freedoms, then & only then, will I listen.

While touching upon Gun Culture �

In response to the question about the Michael Moron is the fattest / stupidest man in the World book � frankly I was a little disappointed; good but it didn�t stoop to the shabby level of personal insults that discerning readers like me so enjoy � buy it second hand on Amazon.

That�s it dear readers, enough enough (as the bishop said to the actress) one more little snifter & then I�m going to wend a wearisome path to my fetid pit

Killer Comments

Yesterday was one of those days that seemed would never end. The principle problem was that Wednesday night concluded at about two on Thursday morning � your humble correspondent ending up horizontal on the kitchen floor, in a state of transcendental crapulence singing along to Dire Straits at the top of my (off key) voice.

Judging by the way I looked the next day, at some stage I must have drunk a couple of pints of ugly water � still, with aching kidneys, I limped into the office where the clouds parted & the sun shone down, leaving me bathed in the warm glow of unmitigated happiness. Opening up the Free Market�s editing screen to put up the mornings ramblings, it was with deep & unmitigated joy that I read Nicole�s (Email address: youassholes@yahoo.com) comment on my post about the Outdoor Channel �

�I think you all are pigs and assholes these animals should be respected not used like trash I think I'll use you dead grandmother's skull as a door stop!�

Fantastic, I absolutely love it � well done Nicole (IP address: 24.171.145.157) you made me completely forget my hangover for at least half an hour, as well as keeping me chuckling until lunchtime when a restorative fry up heralded the return of my usual equanimity.

I fear that Nicole & I are never destined to get on, nor for that matter would she like Mrs Free Market much either. Tomorrow the War Office is off cubbing with the Tedworth Hunt � which is jolly good fun for her but even I have to admit, is a bit of a bummer if you are a young fox. Still, as us country folk know, the food chain twas ever thus.

Just been down to the bookshop ...

& this evenings reading is ...

Mr O'Rourke, a large glass of Scotland's finest; me - grafted onto the sofa of sloth - forget the bird of paradise, this will be a bloke in paradise!

What I'm Reading

Fatty Moron...don't ya just hate him? Me, currently I'm reading this.....

...what a numpty!! Anyway, tottling around today I found this via Gun Culture.

Is black the new black?

�The scene is laid in the park on Sorin's estate. A broad avenue of trees leads away from the audience toward a lake which lies lost in the depths of the park. The avenue is obstructed by a rough stage, temporarily erected for the performance of amateur theatricals, and which screens the lake from view. There is a dense growth of bushes to the left & right of the stage. A few chairs and a little table are placed in front of the stage. The sun has just set. Jacob & some other workmen are heard hammering and coughing on the stage behind the lowered curtain.

Masha & Medviedenko come in from the left, returning from a walk.
Medviedenko - Why do you always wear mourning?
Masha - I dress in black to match my life. I am unhappy.�

The Sea Gull � Anton Chekhov, Act 1, Scene1

Yesterday was my first day back in London & one of the things that struck your humble correspondent was that everyone was wearing black � I mean, what is it that compels pretty girls, on a beautiful early autumn day to dress like a bunch of camel jockeys?

Now some people I can understand being thus attired �. motorcycle couriers for example; black being the international colour of all motorcyclists. However it strikes a simple soul such as me as quite extraordinary that so many people want to wander the streets of our fair capital, looking like they have just emerged from a Stranglers concert � either that or maybe a new wave of Puritanism is sweeping the country � forget Atkins, it�s the Diet of Worms all over again.

I mean normally, if an woman spies another sporting a garment within 10 pantone shades of what she is wearing, she will burst into tears & hot foot it down to some boutique called �Ludicrous� & spank 150 sheets on something in another colour: but not when it comes to black � oh no, the fair sex seem to be quite happy to be seen in the latest bar, (probably named �Absurd�) all looking like escapees from an undertakers convention.

Now those poor souls that have the misfortunate of actually knowing me will be able to testify to my complete lack of qualification to comment on matters of fashion � however I am not going to stop, buoyed as I am with a few fingers of overproof. As far as your humble correspondent is concerned, moleskin trousers only reach that level of transcendental comfort on the tenth anniversary of purchase, regardless of errrrr thickening waists. Oh yes, for those of us that have just turned 40, what was once a six pack (twenty years ago) is these days more of a keg.

But to return to the black thing � what precisely is that all about? If girls were all compelled to wear Chairman Mao suits their would be howls of indignation unless they were from Shanghai Tang. Yet they collectively seem to want to look like extras from a Transvision Vamp video. Maybe I am missing the point entirely & should scour the Sunday supplements for articles entitled �Black is the new black�. However all of this colour hegemony strikes me as slightly amusing � now exactly which old tweed jacket shall I wear tomorrow?

of Cookery

Opening shot � two large women looking out at the Cathedral Close, Salisbury�speaking in the clipped, cut glass tones of the British upper class �

CDW �Just look at those beautiful buildings�
JP �Yes & it is such a shame that vicars today don�t need those lovely large parsonages�
CDW �Why not?�
JP �Well they don�t have large families anymore, they are all homosexuals�

Welcome to the Two Fat Ladies � the most politically incorrect TV cooks ever? None of this preachy �first wash your hands� nonsense � want to drink & smoke while you cook on camera � crack on!

Download file

"If you're from the States or Australia, the chances are you will have heard of them too, as their un-PC, no nonsense, down to earth but incredibly posh and British approach to cookery has taken those particular nations by storm too.

Mmmmm hot buttered scones with cream and jam! "

Musical Musings

Among my many sins, for they are myriad, is my taste in music � Mrs FM would cheerfully hurl just about every LP & CD that I possess into the skip if she had her way �which by now dear readers, you know she usually gets. This bigotry has its deep seated roots in her complete her inability to grasp the more esoteric points of Napalm Death�s second album, fuelled further by her own nicey nicey middle of the road tastes. I mean, precisely what is wrong with four grebes belting hell out of their axes in front of 50,000 headbanging Hun�s in Magdeburg?

Musically I never got much further than The Clash � which is a real bummer when you are young & all you want to be is a glue sniffing punk living on a council estate in White City � but hey, we were middle class & angry. I suppose that the ultimate irony about punk rock is that it is still listened to today by middle aged men, wearing suits, driving BMWs! Joe Strummer must be turning in his grave.

So, imagine if you will, Mrs FMs unmitigated delight when I got home last night, informed her that I had been to the HMV sale & had purchased an eclectic mix of CDs, ranging from Johnny Cash to The Stranglers (the link being men in black). Unimpressed or what? At least this weekend I will be able to console myself that the morning after the inevitable curry, I will be able to listen to Cash�s �Ring of Fire���

More Bandwidth Required

Clearly one or two of you have been enjoying todays 'video' as I have had to buy two lots to additional bandwidth over the course of the last few hours.

Still, its a small price to buy to enable all you good folks out there to watch, no matter how short, a film with a happy ending.....!!

Happy Birthday to..

..HRH The Duke of Edinburgh a.k.a. Phil the Greek. Anyone that can go through life upsetting that many people is fine by me. A short list of HRH's gaffes include such timeless classics as;

During a state visit to China in 1986, he told a group of British students,
"If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed".

Speaking to a driving instructor in Oban, Scotland, he asked,
"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?".

My two favourites,
(in 1996, amid calls to ban firearms after the Dunblane shooting).

"If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?"

"There's no evidence that people who use weapons for sport are any more dangerous than people who use golf clubs or tennis rackets or cricket bats."

Other classic pronouncements have included;

During a visit to Canada,
"We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves."

Question put to an Australian Aborigine during a visit in March 2002
Still throwing spears?

"British women can't cook." (1966)

During the recession in the early 80's
"Everybody was saying we must have more leisure. Now they are complaining they are unemployed."

With regard to stress counselling for servicemen
"We didn't have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun, asking 'Are you all right? Are you sure you don't have a ghastly problem?' You just got on with it."

To the Cambridge University car park attendant who failed to recognise him
"Bloody silly fool!"

Referring to an old-fashioned fuse box in a factory near Edinburgh
"It looks as if it was put in by an Indian."

In 1982, in the Solomon Islands, after being told that the annual population growth was 5%
"They must be out of their minds."

In 1984, in Kenya, to a native woman who had presented him with a small gift
"You are a woman, aren't you?"

In 1992 while in Australia, when asked to stroke a Koala bear
"Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease."

& while in Budapest a year later talking to a Briton
"You can't have been here that long - you haven't got a pot belly."

Then there was the Cayman Islands
"Aren't most of you descended from pirates?"

Who can forget in 1998 the comment to a student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea
"You managed not to get eaten, then?"

& finally, while undertaking his duties as President of the World Wildlife Fund
"If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it."

Your Royal Highness, we salute you. Keep up the good work.

Bank Holiday Weekend

Family Free Market has spent the bank holiday weekend at the beach � buckets & spades seeing a fair amount of action. Unfortunately, the family remains on holiday, while I return to work. Sometimes I wonder if I am missing the Free Markette's childhoods - still there are bills to be paid.