A few words for Dave, which in reality shouldn't be necessary

Is WikiLeaks nothing more than a Field Day for the Press?

It all looks a bit vague when a former MPC member calls for Merve’s head to roll. Especially when the men behind the leaking are skulking around in the shadows. If  indeed they are the great Crusaders for Democracy, you could be excused for thinking they’d be out there puffing out their chests and taking the plaudits. Nevertheless, I can’t let it pass without a few lines to Dave.  Betting against the Markets is a Very Dangerous Game, Dave!

Dear Dave,
A lot of people still have reservations, as our resources are dispensed willy-nilly to prop up the lame ducks of Europe and re-assure the International Shylocks. Bring on a referendum I say and see how much credence the people place in this policy of dispensing largesse at our expense.

  It’s not on Dave; you have no mandate for this. What happens when the EU implodes, as most surely it will. Is all this dosh down the Swannee? Or are you betting on the implosion happening while the guarantees are calls rather than puts? Or should that be the other way round.

  We are constantly reminded that it’s not real money, just guarantees, which might never be called for.  Let’s hope so unless you’re standing ready to ramp up the deficit. Thankfully of late the:- ‘We’ll do what is necessary,’ soundbite has been absent from the Lexicon or should it be the Rubicon?

  We’re sure looking a bit top heavy wobbly these days, maybe you should take a bit more notice of Merve the Swerve. Besides which, who does this Danny Blanchflower think he is? Didn’t he used to play football? Maybe should take up with Tottingham Hotspur again.  It’s all very confusing,  but I reckon the Governor is giving Sterling Service.

Watch this space I’ll be back.

Tom.


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High-speed rail link: opinions divided

The Wimps are at again.

Some call the planned high-speed rail line an eye-sore while others claim the benefits will completely transform the UK’s transport network, wrote the Telegraph’s Jasmine Malone 11 Dec 2010.

  We spend a generation or thereabouts empowering the WIMPS and this is what we get, petty squabbling over things that need to be done to protect our premier trading status across th globe. What do all these plonkers who quibble at every attempt to project this nation into the 21^st century, think is going to provide us with the opportunity to enjoy a rewarding and fulfilling lifestyle in the years ahead, as the rest of the world tries to play catch up.

  Though as long as we continue to support this disastrous experiment in Europe and they persistently attempt  to drag us down to their level, assisted by the myopic quislings in our midst we’re going nowhere fast. There can be no doubt that a high speed rail link to our capital which connects seamlessly with the St Pancras Terminal to Continental European destinations, is the way forward.

  We gave the world railways and are we now such a pale imitation of our forefathers, that we cannot emancipate ourselves from the unelected, unaccountable Brussels fraudsters across the English Channel. For centuries we’ve haggled with the French and more often that not whupped ’em. The French have never really got over the Battle of Agincourt, to the point where they have sought to gang up with the Germans to try and second guess us.

  It’s been going their way for a few years, till they made the fundamental mistake that will be their downfall, by opting for a common currency without the necessary infrastructure to co-ordinate it. It’s an abject failure, for if you fail to carry the International Shylocks with you and depend on borrowing to balance your books, it will be your downfall and that’s where they’re at, in Brussels and Strasbourg, in Portugal and Spain, Ireland, Italy and Greece. Only facts and figures will convince the Shylocks and they remain unconvinced, baleouts included. For no amount of baleout funding is going to convince these people, that their juice is safe.

  The time has come to stand on our own feet again as we have done for a thousand years, till these people turned up using the excuse of preventing a third world war, as the vehicle for their federalist dreams of a super state. Maybe if the civilisation we have created lasts for a another thousand years there could be a case for some overriding international consensus on governance, but the time is not here and now.

  Too many conflicting national interests stand in the way of a Federal Europe, it was never going to be anything more than a bridge too far.

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom.

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A fistfull of Dollars, definitely not Euros.

 And we’re all in clover

It appears to have become necessary to speculate about what is really going on with regard to this unprecedented national deficit. Now and again such speculating strikes a chord. But I’ve been at a loss for a while, to figure out all the whys and wherefores of  this IoU stuff, being chucked about like confetti, at every lame Euroduck in sight.

  The real problem it appears is the EU itself. It  has allowed a myriad of minor players to punch above their weight, but as ever this is not a situation which can be taken seriously for any longer than it takes prudence to prevail. When EU subsidies tail off, as inevitably they must (unless the Eurocrats can hype up their own budget) it risks pulling all the major players down with them and this is when the Market steps in. These minor players got out of their depth on the back of subsidies and the International Shylocks began to fire warning shots across the bow of the major players to whip it all back into line. All at a time when a General Election; changed the balance of power in UK Plc.
   
  The boy Gordie it was who neutered the BoE when he handed supervision of the banks to his own creation, the FSA back in ‘97. He needed to do this, in order to be able to do what he did, in attempting to redistribute the wealth of the nation. In effect, all this was in keeping with his Fabian Socialist instincts and the two hundred odd practising Fabians in the new Labour ranks an organisation of which Tone was once the President (let’s hope it’s the only president he ever gets to be).

  So what is really going on now, you may well ask? Well I figure there’s like a kind of golden stockade, for want of better description, which now surrounds Dave ‘n’ the Kid Gid. A coterie of special advisors who are calling the shots for them. They I reckon, are the real power brokers when it cones to making fiscal sense of the present situation. The Dave ‘n’ Gid show is just a front, a giddy whirl of presentation, which is little more than a smokescreen.

  The BoE is now re-instated as controller of the banks. Mr King has vast experience and if Dave ‘n’ Gid have lessons to learn, they need a mentor of Merve’s calibre. So if indeed Merve played both ends against the middle since he took over the reins at the BoE, it was probably out of frustration at what the boy Gordie was doing and the fact that he had been sidelined.

  As far as the present situation goes, I’m beginning to think the Tories can’t believe their luck at the Pandora’s box bequeathed to them. They could never in their wildest dreams have countenanced creating a pile of debt like this. But now, having satisfied the International Shylocks that their interest payments are secure, they’re rolling in clover and it’s nothing more than a matter of good Treasury management till the cows come home.

  All they have to do now is ensure all the approbation for what they have to do, to keep things on an even keel, is heaped on new Labour and they’re laughing all the way to the BoE. So, despite what they may have said or thought about each other in the run up to new Labour’s demise, they’re all on a roll and for the moment it looks unstoppable. Long live Perfidious Albion.

Watch this space I’ll be back!

Tom.
P.S. If you’re at a loose end  looking for a bit of inspiration download a Tom Stack ebook at   http://amzn.to/f2Cbqx
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The Milibandido a hostage to Fortune

Union Lackey

Besmirched is an adjective which immediately leaps to mind for he would not have been there but for the leftwing union bosses and to see his appointees trying to make a fist of it is so sad.

 

  What is this country of ours coming to when we need to bend over backwards for unelected, unaccountable, faceless Eurocrats who want merely to drag us down to their levels. Though I’ve heard it said in response to my much trumpeted mutterings on this matter that our continental cousins live far more fulfilling and enjoyable lives than we in England do.

  Nevertheless after spending several years of my life working and living abroad in Germany France and Switzerland, the Near East, the Far East and the Gulf. I have extensive experience of the way others live out their lives. Indeed I have over the years been offered many opportunities too re-locate but in the end I just can’t wait to get back to Perfidious Albion.

   I’m left to suppose though that with the governments we have if you can’t take rejection and be humble, all you can do is to come out throwing wild punches in the hope that one might eventually land. There can be no doubt that in view of the world wide situation where banks had to be baled out wholesale and you are in a situation where it is likely to rumble on for a good while yet, options are limited.

  But then in opposition you can do or say anything for it’s highly unlikely you will ever be called on to carry it through. But no matter how horrifying the situation when you get to see the small print in the notes to the accounts. There are always going to be steps to be taken, which you cannot avoid.

  In the main you have to satisfy the people you borrow money from (on the massive scale we are now obliged to carry) can be satisfied their capital will be repaid and their juice is safe. For it depends entirely on the level of perceived risk. While risk it has to be said, is based on the extent to which any guarantees you make are credible and therein lies the dilemma for an aspiring power broker.

  The books need to be balanced at some predetermined date in the not too distant, future if you are to cover the repayment schedules and make available the funds required for the economy to be successful. i.e. Where income matches out goings and in some small way produces a profit to pay down the gross national debt to levels the economy can sustain.

 In a way opposition is like an ageing lothario who spots an attractive piece of hot totty and whose mind begins to make promises beyond the pale of the body politic and therein lies the rub.

Watch this space, I’ll be back!

Tom          

Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison is 'best in 25 years'

Come off it or should I say, pull the other one!

A masked musician who plays gravity defying solos has beaten stars such as Phil Collins and Dave Grohl, to be named the greatest drummer of the past 25 years.

The top 10:

01. Joey Jordison (Slipknot, Rob Zombie)

02. Mike Portnoy (Dream Theatre)

03. Gavin Harrison (Porcupine Tree)

04. Neil Peart (Rush)

05. Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Them Crooked Vultures)

06. Travis Barker (Blink-182, Transplants)

07. Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden)

08. Vinnie Colaiuta (Frank Zappa, Sting, Jeff Beck)

09. Phil Collins (Genesis)

10. Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chickenfoot)

Is there no one around today who heard of Gene Krupa? He was one of the most influential drummers of the 20th century, when it came to developing the drum kit and he made history in 1920s as the first kit drummer ever to record using a bass drum pedal. The methodology for which, was published in 1938 and immediately became the standard. He also invented the rim shot on the snare drum.

Gene Krupa by the 1930s was using Slingerland drums and at his urging, tom-toms were developed with tuneable heads. These immediately assumed importance in virtually every drummer’s kit. He developed cymbal techniques too, which were standardised and in collaboration with Zildjian standardized the use of various cymbals, crash cymbals, splash cymbals, pang cymbals, ride cymbals and the swish.

In a Warner Brothers cartoon, a version of Krupa’s drumming was used in an impromptu jam session. While in  1937 recording of Louis Prima's ‘Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)’ by Benny Goodman and his Orchestra featured Krupa on drums and entered the Grammy Hall of Fame.

By the 1970s, Krupa had become  the first drummer in the Modern, Hall of Fame. That’s just a taster of the influence Gene Krupa had on modern day drumming and he had no need of silly gimmicks like tilting stages and lighting affects or silly masks.

Gene Krupa was a giant of the drumming world and his influence lingers, as people today try to be outrageous, just for the hell of it. Probably to cover up for a lack of the talent that drove Gene Krupa to the pinnacle.

On a personal note:

Back in the 1960s wandering around near Times Square, I stood on  the sidewalk and watched barnstorming performance by Gene Krupa on a raised dais, through the open frontage of a bar, which is as vivid to me today as it was that July evening fifty odd years ago. 

Where would all these modern day drumming fanatics be today, were it not for this giant of a man?

Watch this space, I'll be back! 

Tom. 

A Tell theTelegraph Moderator wanted to know what I thought about his Post:-

 This is what he posted

(Prominent Liberal Democrat councillors have today criticised the scale and pace of government cuts at local council level. In particular, they claim that because councils are facing the bulk of budget cuts in the coming financial year, they have little time "to spread the cost of reorganisation and downsizing". As a result, they claim, front-line services such libraries, youth groups and public toilets will be hit harder than they would if cuts were more spread out.

Do the Lib Dems have a point? Or are they just looking for ways of stalling what is necessary?)

This is my response

I'm surprised Mr Moderator, at you falling for this guff about cuts. There are no cuts I cannot repeat this often enough. The Coalition is spending more than Chancellor Darling planned to do. What is happening is a redistribution of the deficit, to promote growth. We need to make up the difference between income and outgoings.

Labour and the Lib-Dems in my experience always scream cuts at the drop of a hat. The Lib-Dems in particular because they are so used to being in opposition where you can promise the world, because you know you'll never have to deliver on it.

Labour controlled local councils were always going to feel the worst effects of this redistribution, because they jumped on the bandwagon when the new Labour government decided to use Local Councils as a job creation scheme back in '97.

We edged up towards having around seven million pen pushers on the books. A fair proportion of them will have to go for the sake of the prudence Gordon Brown forgot how to spell.

Watch this space, I’ll be Back!

Tom.

Pub landlady takes on Sky Sports and looks like a winner

Don't shoot the messenger 

After being fined over £8000 for showing Premier League games via a Greek Satellite Channel in her Pub she appealed to the European Court of Justice as opposed to the ECHR the other tinpot dictator in Brussels and obtained an Advocate’s opinion that Sky’s block breached EU Law.

 What baffles me is the reach of Sky in using the law to hammer pubs for showing satellite channels in their own property. This surely has to be a Bridge Too Far. Did we really make laws like this that forbid a pub owner from tuning in to a satellite broadcast in their own Pub?

I know there’s such a thing as performing rights and all that, but £700 a month for a Sky Sports has to be on the cusp of extortion, when it used to be seventeen shillings and sixpence in the Normanton End at the Baseball Ground when Brian Clough reigned supreme and Derby County were top of the shop.

None of these obscene weekly amounts to so called superstars, in those days, but now  it’s all got out of hand and needs to be reined in. So maybe this European Court of Justice is not such a bad thing. Let’s hope they stick to their guns and curb the Digger’s power over the game we gave to the world.

Watch this space I'll be back!
Tom.