Thinking of the recent death of Irving Kristol, the so-called godfather of neo-conservatism, on 18th September, whatever one’s political stripes one has to admit he was a formidable theorist. Starting out as a Trotskyite socialist, he ran the full gamut of the political spectrum, moving to a bellicose Democrat stance in the late 1940s and 50s (what might now be termed neo-liberal interventionism) - who would like nothing better than to see the entire Eastern bloc flattened by atomic obliteration – to finally hardline conservative on every issue imaginable. This view of his was coined by a socialist intellectual adversary as neo-conservative. Kristol himself would not be out of place were he to have taken the title role of Dr Strangelove.
The neo-cons found their voice in a Reagan administration that viewed ordinary conservatives as being limp-wristed in adopting Keynesian economic formulations. Irving Kristol was as much a standard-bearer for the policies of the former California governor as Milton Friedman and the latter’s monetarism. To pay for the slashing of taxes, welfare programmes were eviscerated, greatly accelerating the ghettoisation of inner cities (for which ‘ghetto music’ and ghetto blasters were scant cultural consolation). Lower taxes unleashed a flood of spending power that went overwhelmingly into imports, since domestic production was still in the doldrums after the 1970s, thus creating the greatest trade deficit in history. Public borrowing to ramp up pressure on the Soviet Union, most notably through the Self-Defense Initiative (SDI) AKA Star Wars, did contribute to the end of the Cold War, but led to monstrous government debts that would have induced ancien régime France to shed a tear in solidarity.
All this, while Kristol edited the magazine The Nation, whose circulation barely skimmed more than ten thousand copies sold. I once saw a copy of the journal on a newsstand in London Victoria train station earlier this year. It was focused on current affairs (as usual) but was radioactively right-wing. Centrism and moderation were for wimps and only the weak were interested in compromise. The main piece was by famed neo-con artist John ‘the dolt’ Bolton; Mr Pastryface took to berating Barack Obama for not being a bombastic sabre rattler (yeah, like that really stopped North Korea and Iran from developing their nuclear programmes or made Georgia’s borders inviolate from Russian depredations). And there are some for whom Time magazine leans too far from impartiality to the right.
Kristol once described those in his movement as ‘liberal mugged by reality’, deploying the same arrogant rhetoric as the foreign policy nodes who call themselves ‘realists’ when actually they’re just cynical hawks who are too narrow-minded to concede that others may have a valid viewpoint. Given the severe deprivation of some cities caused by Reagan, there was a rise in muggings of ordinary people in general, but that was out of the sight of Kristol in his papier-mâché Nation tower and so would not have troubled him greatly as the market would have the responsibility of correcting it.
Given Kristol’s youthful dalliance with the communism of ‘perpetual revolution’, the concept of the political spectrum as a circle, with supposedly polar opposites being indeed close enough to have a common extremist modus operandi and way of thinking, is lent credence. The neo-con artist acolytes in the previous US presidential administration believed in the perpetual democratic revolution (what is democracy?) of the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq was the key for them, as Afghanistan was too much of a backwater, to start the dominoes falling, which would have returned to have ever greater effect in Iraq. And what an impact! A high likelihood of between half a million and a million Iraqis dead as a consequence and at least four times that number displaced, internally and externally, while when Hamas was elected in Palestine democracy was suddenly off the menu when those in power were opposed to US interest. A classic case of ideology trumping expertise to produce chaos and misery.
But let’s analyse Kristol’s soundbite of himself being mugged by reality. ‘Mugged’? That’s a severe trauma, anguish that can lead to irrationality, through depression and paranoia, with likely outcomes of hatred, prickliness and aggression. Hardly something to exult in, that is, if you are of moderate persuasion. And if the robber ‘took’ Kristol’s liberalism, it was obviously regarded as something good both to the thief and to Kristol, for him to carry it on his person and to be dusted up for his pains. The mental distress lasts longer than the physical. A no less-esteemed right-wing organ than The Daily Telegraph covered a scientific study that was more likely to crop up in The New Statesman (though it was tucked away on page two). The conclusion of the authors of the clinical report, after not insignificant testing, was that right-wingers were inherently more fearful (of everything) than left-wingers tended to be. Criminality prevalent in the world was Kristol’s reality, ready to denigrate you at every turn.
Thomas Hobbes conceived of the natural world as being ‘nasty, brutish and short’; Kristol would certainly have gone along with those sentiments, whilst vehemently disagreeing with Hobbes’ solution of an overarching Leviathan, since that would be ‘big government’. Life as nasty and brutish in Kristol’s looking glass yes, but short (for a man who lived to 89)? Well, in his comparatively mature thirties he had been an advocate of World War Three in the Fifties. “Mr President, I have a plan.”

Second week of strictly Come Dancing, but this time, the departure can't be said to be a travesty, even if Len continued to be an iconoclast. As Lilia Kopylova said, Richard Dunwoody has no natural rythym, so it's just as well he put in all those hours. He was hilariously bad. Brendan Cole and Jo Wood stayed out of the dance-off solely because of Brendan's star power I would say, but they won't go far. Dunwoody's dance was like a geriatric trying to boogy (which in essence it was).
Talking of an older generation, Sir Terry Wogan is stepping down from the Radio 2 Breakfast Show to be replaced by (former?) enfant terrible Chris Evans. On headline tried to stoke up another ageism row at the BBC with "Listeners angry as Wogan, 71, makes way for Evans, 43." If it left out the ages, it wouldn't be controversial, but given that Wogan started broadcasting this flagship show in 1972 when he was 34 (with a nine-year break between 1984 and 1993, when he pursued his television career), it's a misnomer to bring into the equation the question of age as a point why listeners are fuming over the new helmsman. You try to stir something that isn't there and it's not the BBC that ends up embarrassed. Sub-editors need to be kept on tighter leashes.

Thank you Newcastle United. This season could have been dire, but the team are united and the results in the league generally are more than enough to raise the spirits. Today, on the Beeb, they annihilated Ipswich Town at Portman Road four goals to nil and sent the club back to the top of the league. I felt sorry for the Ipswich fans because they were there, not just to support their team, but also to commemorate Sir Bobby Robson and his cancer charity. All the memories of the glory Bobby brought to them was in stark contrast to the present-day reality. They could be following their East Anglian rivals, Norwich, down the trap door. At least the menfolk could ogle the beautiful singer Laura Wright who, draped in the scarves of both NUFC and ITFC, belted out one of Sir Booby's favourite tunes - My Way. With his widow pitchside, being bravely stoical but you could tell the sadness in her eyes, it was most moving. Then Lady Elsie cut the ribbon opening the stand renamed in her husband's honour and the balloons - signifying the charity and the number of games Bobby was at the helm of Ipwich for (709) - were released. Then after half-time the rout continued, with Kevin Nolan claiming his first professional hat-trick and a clean sheet the icing on this black-and-white cake.

The fruits of consensus

President Barack Obama was barracked for ending plans to build a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, right-wingers viewing it as a loss of face in front of a belligerent Russia that only understands force (or so they would have it). Some even compared him to Neville Chamberlain in appeasing the Kremlin (talking of the 1930s, I learn today that the owners of Israel's second-largest drug business, NeoPharm, are the Fuhrer family. You couldn't make it up). Doom-mongers warned in sombre tones that this would only encourage Russia to throw its weight around and would even lead to conflict when the USa refused to shrink from confrontation anymore.
Well, these rabid right-wingers have been routed! Hurrah! Not having a government run by idiotic and arrogant tosspots does bring results. Finding common ground and compromise is, after all, what politics is all about. The Russians have leaked that they will not now pursue the increased militarisation of the Kalingrad enclave with Iskander missiles and long-range bomber planes; meanwhile Putin, far from ridiculing a 'weak' US administration, called the decision a 'bold' one. Now at the United Nations, Russia looks like it will follow America's lead in placing extra sanctions on Iran (Putin may now probably agree), if the Islamic Republic continues to thumb the nose at the international community over its nuclear programme. On the other hand, Russia's actions in shutting off the gas twice in two years that transits through Ukraine has forced a collection of European states to fund an alternative gas pipeline that avoids areas that Russia can affect, thereby weakening Russia's position. Getting tough should be used sparingly, not always as the first resort.

I've been a bit slow as other things have cropped and there have been days I just can't be bothered to update the blog, since it is primarily for my records when I look back years hence, but time to recount the events of two weekends ago.
On Saturday 12th September, I went up to see Mel for her birthday party. Being first at her Bethnal Green flat, then at the pub where a space upstairs was reserved, almost everyone there was from uni - a lovely reminder of those times - the gang reunited as the saying goes. Tom and I swapped reminisces about famous cases in both our lines of work (chance does play a big part in police procedure) and then Tom courted controversy by talking about 'touching your own wood' if no wood was around to touch to assuage the superstition. He had crossed swords with Lynsey about this already, but first he asked me and I said I'd never heard about 'touching you own wood' i.e. your head in the context he meant. Foiled, he through it open to the whole table, whereupon everyone proceeded to disagree with him. Viki tried to put an end to it, as its rudeness had been alluded to, by saying "Touching your own wood is touching your erect cock." Still, Tom wasn't satisfied and when Alex Goff arrived later, Tom anointed him as an oracle, asked him the question and was again frustrated when Mr Goff went with the consensus. Altaa and I caught the last train back.
On Sunday, I went to Rochester Cathedral in the evening for Mo's recommissioning as an evangelist. We had a good selection of hymns, the Bishop of Tonbridge gave the address and there was a little role-play for the new evangelists where they were given 'P'-plates, like some motorists wear when newly qualified from driving lessons. Richard Hoare drove me back (he lives a couple of minutes from my apartment), but his car had a fuel injection problem. Huge clouds of smoke spouted from the exhaust like a Wacky Races car. I said, this would be perfect, if we were being pursued by enemy agents a la Goldfinger. Richard replied "Well, we don't want to be pursued by enemy agents." Well, his car didn't have oil slicks. Going up Chatham hill, the car struggled, getting down to 10mph with Richard's foot to the floor and a huge backlog of cars building up, he drove into a bus lane, to let everyone else get past. Thanksfully, for Richard, his fuel injection has now been fixed.

With the new school term begun, as I make my way to work I now come across travelling in the opposite direction, two or three mums, driving their pushchairs as if they are lashed together, with a gaggle of uniformed little kids bustling around the central blockwith scant consideration for the world that is around them. With no pavement space to manouevre around, I feel like I'm in a real-life version of the Donkey Kong arcade game, with these approaching flotillas needing to be leaped over as they barrel along. Usually, this occurs once or twice as I walk up Napier and then Nelson Road. I've taken to trying to leave earlier to avoid them. Those easy summer months...

Trident - the toothpaste you can't trust

Take Trident and you'll leave your teeth with a luminous glow (of light green). Fills all the cavities in the defence budget with macho pride. Remember to ask permission from your American parent first because it isn't really yours to use. And with the reduction from four subs to three, now even more useless! Can blast away insurgent plaque or trounce Taliban tartar in one sweep (caution: may cause incalculable damage to civilian gums).

Chas and Dave have split up!!! When it all goes down the apples and pears for 'Arry Redknapp, who's going to step in to manage Tottenham 'Otspur? They were the dream duo for Seven Sisters Lane.

Media

The latest Harry Potter film's run is drawing to a close. As with all the films, there is a re-arranging of the furniture of teachers (much so in the case of the new addition Prof Slughorn) and, as a result of the ending, there will be more of the same in the seventh movie too. Overall, it has smart gags and engaging characterisation - it didn't feel like 2 and a half hours, unlike some of the predecessors. Hogwarts - the only secondary co-ed in the country that doesn't suffer from teenage pregnancies - looked as gorgeous as ever. Curiously for a film about magical spells and potions, at the very end, we see quite visibly a crucifix on top of one of the towers. I'm not disapproving of such motifs, but is it a sop to the American market? With Dumbledore's last living appearance, we have a bit of a blooper. At the beginning we have his left hand burned, but later on it is his right hand. Maybe he was just resting his left hand as he destroyed bad objects. I was a little disappointed by the end. In The Empire Strikes Back, the rebels have endured a serious setback, but there is determined optimism. Here, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the tone is muted as if reverential for Dumbledore's death, but comes across as 'meh'. But it is a good viewing, well worth a second sight.
On other media, Strictly Come Dancing is welcomed back and it has less strictly dancing than before. Why make amatuers learn two dances from the outset instead of at the "quarter-final" (which isn't) stage, other than to watch some horror shows of footwork. Rav Wilding thought the game was up after the dance-off, even when we got one vote from Bruno, the expression on his face was 'it's a consolation, but it's no consolation'. But it was a shock, than Len, with the casting vote agreed with Bruno. Bye-bye Martina Hingis. But then she shoudln't have been in the dance-off in the first place. If one was being charitable, it could be said that she has no natural constituency; further, those who know her from her abilities with a racket are alsow awareb of her petulance, while the well-publicised reports of her cocaine taking - that has led to a ban from tennis tournaments - has destroyed any girl-next-door allure that she had. But sometimes your first reaction is the correct one and both Altaa and I both thought she finished bottom of the popular vote (since she was in the middle of the judges' leaderboard) becaise she was foreign and that people ignored her as a consequence.
And here were Tom Chambers and Camilla Dallerup on Saturday as a reminder of the vagaries of the public vote. As sparkling and entertaining as their dancing was and still is, Rachel Stevens and Vincent Simone should have won (that was claer on Len's face last series). Could Arlene Phillips have paid the price of being dropped when she gave a 9, when all the other judges gave 10 to Brendan and Lisa, which meant that Tom and Camilla could not escape the dance-off, prompting the "semi-final" public voting kerfuffle of last series.
Kristina Rihannoff with Joe Calzaghe - who could have been replaced by a tree blowing in the wind with no discernible difference - finished bottom of the judges' scoring, despite her nymph-like prancing round his wooden trunk. But after last series, she must have got used to that.
As a final flourish, the former ballplayers all agreed that Thomas Vermaelen encapsulated the Total Football philosophy of his home country. Pity then he's Belgian and not Dutch. What was that about footballers and intelligence?

Further miscellany

A few things of interest have caught mine over the previous few days. On Wednesday, the BBC Newsroom Southeast programme had a mistaken byline for the news presenter. Now this is a fairly common technical problem, but on this occasion it libelled the female anchor by calling her "Trevor" and describing her as a drug addict, accidentally prefacing the first item of the agenda that she was pronouncing on from behind the studio desk.
Talking of msitakes, I caught a snatch of a repeat of the sci-fi ITV series Primeval on ITV2. It reminded me how the final episode of the last series of Primeval had as a climax the destruction of the theory of evolutionary biology, by placing a Velociraptor dinosaur, a modern homo sapien and proto-homo sapiens all dead and all within a few metres of each other at the same time (hence the same geological period). And now the show has been cancelled. Intra-series cliffhangers seems to have been another feature of Primeval, something that does irritate me not just because of the time lag but for situations when the series gets cancelled. So now we'll never know what brilliant idea one of them had for finding the solution to the troubles that had occurred.
Troubles are what are in line for insects that trespass on cobwebs. Yesterday, in my granny's garden, while doing a bit of tidying up, I noticed a massive web spun across the path between bushes and a tree. The spider looked mean as it drank the blood of one of the garden's even meaner denizens - a wasp. I wondered if the venom of the wasp would affect the spider - either way it was over for the wasp. Flies ad even, if my memory serves me corrcetly, grasshoppers have been ensnared in webs, but I've never seen a wasp fall victim to that fate.
Mentioning being entangled the Obama presidency has become caught up in much of the chaos left behind by the previous administration, which thought nothing of breaking treaties signed some of which went back fifty years (Geneva Convention anyone?), but then chided states (or invaded them) when these 'rogue nations' did the same over legal agreements going back barely fifteen years. Now, Barack Obama has decided against a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic (which was overwhelmingly opposed by the populations of those countries, but whose right-wing governments rode roughshod over those concerns, basing their support on economic 'competencies'). It was supposed to be protection against long-range missiles from Iran, but Moscow took umbrage given that Iran is a long way from developing such projectiles but Russia has an ample, if ageing, stock. Moreover, the installation broke a 1999 agreement when NATO expanded to include Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary (when the Atlantic Alliance briefy had a member in the Magyars who had no sea lane or land border with another signatory). This expansion agreement, to mollify the Russians at seeing former Warsaw Pact territories, stipulated that no American or other western troops would be stationed in these three countries. Since then, NATO has massively expanded to cover most of east-central Europe, including former Soviet land, regardless of what the Kremlin thought. But the interceptor missile base in Poland and radar installation in the Czech Republic were to be manned by soley American soldiers. Barack Obama has done right by honouring the pact signed in the Clinton era. It may reap rewards in other areas.

On Bank Holiday Monday, the last day of August, Altaa and I went to London Zoo, just at the northern peak of Regent's Park, which was an enjoyable stroll through on a day when it seemed many people had headed for the beach, leaving London pleasantly under-populated in the parts we went.
The trip to this Zoo was my first one in maybe 15 years and Altaa's second ever visit to any zoo. Highlights were an azure peafowl from the Congo choosing to race Altaa up and down the length of its cage. She ran one way and it scampered through the undergrowth of its confinement and then she dashed the other. Back and forth it shadowed her, fascinated at keeping track of her and her alone. Also, towards sunset, the incredibly elongated shadow of a giraffe that ran to almost a quarter the length of its quadrangle. When the sun sinks below the horizon, the stretching of human forms on the pavement is interesting, but a giraffe's is, as you would expect, amazing. Sadly, from a visitor's point of view, the elephants had been moved - to be replaced with camels - to London Zoo's sister at Whipsnade where they would have more space. This was better for the elephants undoubtedly (so a good thing in general) since I had read that elephants in captivity die younger than their counterparts in the wild through depression at being unable to indulge their desire to roam. Overall, it was a Bank Holiday well spent.

Reggie Kray do you know my name?

In today's news, is the case of a millionaire British playboy who murdered a caretaker who got in the way, when he refused to move out of a warehouse Thanos Papalexis, the killer, wanted to sell for £2 million to clear mounting debts accrued as his buisness crumbled. Way back in 2000, Papalexis killed Bambi for this was what Charalambos Christodoulides, the caretaker, was known as. A gentle, solitary man, he was tied to a chair, beaten, tortured and strangled. His body was then dumped down a pit in a disused factory. Papalexis shortly after left for Florida, reinventing himself as one of the 'Palm Beach Elite', alternating between fund-raising parties for the Clintons, orgies with prostitutes (wonder if Bill got a free pass) and buying breast implants for four different girlfriends.
But when he confessed to a prostitute, he was undone (in more ways than one). Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said that despite being born with all the advantages of wealth, Papalexis "led a life based not only on deceit, false promises and failure, but at times on complete fantasy." That last part alluding to telling the prostitute, Rebecca DeFalco, that he had worked for both the British and American secret services.
Now, extradited and convicted, while he waits for sentencing, I wonder if Morrissey comes to mind, singing in that Mancunian drawl "I am the last of the famous international playboys."

Now that Ben and Jerry have released an ice-cream called Hubby Hubby to celebrate gay marriage, it seems a bit of a piss-take to make the flavour fudge (in honour of fudge-packing, presumably). According to Jamie Oliver, in his latest series - in the USA - chilli and chocolate is brilliant. Maybe he should pop into Ben and Jerry's while he's over there and suggest it. We all know that after some chilli nights, there are painful colonic consequences. With regard to Hubba Hubba, chilli and chocolate flavour should be called the Ring of Fire - it's all of a piece, where Ben and Jerry can be social activists and social conservatives at the same time (cos selling out to Unilever, is hardly peace and love).

At last, the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)get the boot. In this country, elections held every 4-5 years could result in a change of government. In Japan, this was the case every 45 years, until 1993 and that was only for about 9 months before they came back, after the opposition found that composed on LDP defectors and untried tyros, their natural calling was opposition since with the LDP down, they had nothing to really unite against. This time could be different, even though LDP defectors and untried tyros are prominent in the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), since they have such a large majority. The LDP itself is a multi-faceted being, made up of five factions, who alternate leaders to avoid electoral defeat, but none of the factions had a coherent plan for dealing with the huge recession sweeping over Japan. This meant that Japan effectively had a one-party state for most of its post-war history. Let's hope true plurality can now flourish.
On another note, it's ominous that Disney has now taken over Marvel because Disney release films on DVD and video every ten years to preserve their 'classic' status. Not that I buy DVDs often, but should I want to buy Spiderman 4, but am rather tardy in doing so, I don't want to have to wait ten years to do so again. Also, what does this deal mean for Marvel's big back catalogue of movies?