the last embers of 2008

Bristol tonight - first shot is of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra leaving the stage after finishing on a stirring Radetsky March in this year's Strauss New Year's Eve concert.

The rest are from the walk back to the car through a frigid and consequently quiet Bristol.

Now for a bottle of 1990 Tokaji Aszu to see the new year in.

hellatrow - oh dear!

How not to run a business!

In our quest for intra-holiday entertainment we trudged to a place down the road that advertises itself as having the biggest stock of used books in the UK.

What a let down!

A few years ago, when I was trying to pay my way through my MA, I sold books on eBay. This meant visiting a huge number of charity shops looking for stock. But this was far, far worse. This is where the books that the charity shops can't even give away end up!

What is the point of displaying 1 million plus books if not one of them is less than 30 years old, where the filing system is appalling, where all the tatty things that end up in attics take up valuable shelf space and where many of the books are not even priced?

This is one business that I hope is an early victim of the credit crunch - it deserves to be!

death of the pound

It must be clear to even the most knuckle-dragging socialist that their government is now in the process of destroying the pound.

Both the Euro and the Swiss Franc are now at unprecentedly high levels against our dying currency. Even the fucking Zimbabwe dollar is RISING against the pound. That says everything about the total incompetence of the morons ruining our country.

At least gold is rising day on day!

We need to join the Euro - a Euro backed by gold - within two years.

let's kickstart the cull

A not often alluded to problem of our socialist government's attempts to make us all drivers is the fact that around 80% of people are NOT natural drivers. In fact they don't have a fucking clue.

I hate driving but it is something I do well, thanks to years of challenging myself to push the boundaries - alpine crossings, foul weather driving, off roading, lorry driving etc etc.

But take a close look next time you drive at the sheer uselessness of most drivers. If they were dogs they'd be put down.

Today in a space of less than a mile the following three socialist hippy twats presented themselves -

1. A twat driving one of those obsolete 4x4 jokes overtaking (without indicating) on cross hatches and nearly collidng with cars coming the other way.

2. An old git driving so badly that we assumed he was drunk or Alzheimered up to the nines. His road positioning was so bad that we fell back about 50 metres. He then did a right hand turn about 100 metres short of the turning, running along the cross hatches the whole distance.

3. Some kiddie in front of us for an unknown reason turning left with no indication at all.

If it were up to me all the above three drivers would lose their licences for ever. Or better still be executed.

The problem is the socialists and hippies are so stupid they've forced nearly everyone on to the roads. It's pretty obvious that as our rail networks were destroyed by the hippies the bar for passing the driving test was dropped.

What needs to happen now is simple.

a. HUGE investment in trains and trams, as well as a national network of cycleways, footpaths and greenways (country bridleways with space for walkers).

b. Stopping the issuing of new driving licences.

c. Life bans for all road offences, including speeding, using mobile phones or being wankers.

Let's cull the fuckers! Amateur drivers should be forced of the roads ...

a sussex yuletide

It always amazes me how different Sussex is. The dialect, the place names, everything really. Abby and Danielle were quite shocked when the shops down there sold the 'same as you get in a normal shop'.

Sussex nationalism is everywhere - don't ever call a Sussex person 'English'. They'll kill you!

The best thing about Sussex is that it was the last place in Britain to be christianized - it'll probably be the first place to re-Paganize too! The above sign is typically Sussex - thanks Dad!

What is it with christians and 'christmas'? All the crap they spout, even though everyone knows that Yule is a Pagan festival, and all the so-called 'christian' traditions are just perversions of Pagan ones? Birth of the son/sun - get it? The winter solstice. I HATE christians!!

sussex housing madness

I thought this was for 'Beadle's About' when I first saw it. This ONE bedroom starter home, in pit of the world Littlehampton, is seriously being advertised at £250,000!!!! This is with £49,950 off!!

This really does underline how mad the housing market had become and why the fall is going to be massive. Whilst most commentators are forecasting 30-50% falls I reckon this is very optimistic. I expect around 70%, at which point even I might buy somewhere - though there'll be no guarantee prices will ever rise again.


And we have to remember that your quarter of a million quid starter home is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and storm flooding on the Sussex coast - which makes it even less of a bargain!


This was the street where I grew up - Whitelea Road in Littlehampton. My sister still lives here, and the house between hers and the one I lived in is up for sale. She announced that it was up for sale for £135,000, we all laughed, assuming she was horrified at how unrealistic the price was. No, she thought it was CHEAP!! They have a lot of shocks coming down south.

Mum and Dad rented our place for £1.50 a week back in the 60s.

the end of woolworths

We've just had a long weekend down in Sussex (more to follow!) and made aquaintance with Woolies twice. The top two pics are of the store in Chichester - the empty shelves were more interesting than the ones with stuff on. Woolworths got it wrong right to the bitter end, with its fake 'sale'. They should have gone back to their roots and sold everything for 6d (2½p). That would have brought the crowds in and been a nice slap in the face of the administrators.

The last picture is from a lovely Italian restaurant in Littlehampton with another dying Woolworths forming the backdrop. Historic or what?

the quick death of the pound

It seems incredible that the pound is plunging so quickly - but it was forecast months ago by those in the know.

The fact is it's now about 95% certain that the UK will (at last!) join the Euro within 1 to 2 years - if the EU will let us.

Why a third world pisspot of a country like the UK needs its own currency is a mystery to me. Most of us travel, live or work in Europe these days, we've become Europeans over the last ten years, thanks to Easyjet, the better weather and Brits turning their backs on racism and other socialistic conceits.

The Mail/Guardian knuckledraggers have always whimpered that it's because we'll no longer have the queen on our coins. Sadly that's not true as the pattern coinage above proves. The other monarchies within the EU all show their monarchs heads on their coins, why wouldn't the UK? Or do the Mail/Guardian types really believe all the baa baa black sheep/English flags banned drivel?

Even the Euro is a currency of its time. As Peak Oil takes hold then the flight to gold will become unstoppable, as will the development of parallel local currencies, such as the Totnes and Lewes pounds. And I still fancy the Swiss Franc, the ultimate local currency!

socialist hell

(Geneva 5.12.2008)

Poor Manchester. I always thought it was a pretty cool place, providing us with The Smiths, The Passage, Inspiral Carpets, The Stone Roses and, above all others, Joy Division.

Now they've let us all down. The Guardian-denier-hippy-tory-lefty sheep have voted AGAINST (yes, AGAINST!!) the congestion charge!! Why would anyone vote FOR congestion??

So the loser sheep will have a few more years of ridiculous traffic jams until common sense and right wing ideas take root again and the charge is brought in and the profits used to build TRAMWAYS.

I shake my head sometimes. It looks like the whole world's gone red ...

porkie pies

'Irish pork is contaminated!' screams the headlines.

So?

As only hippies, socialists, chavs and losers eat dead animals surely this is a good thing?

Most normal people have been vegetarian or vegan for the last half century. This is a very chav headline, totally irrelevant to 99% of us. It merely underlines one of the main dangers of eating dead animals - poison.

If you eat meat you are as bad and stupid as any smoker or tory. You're not only destroying your health, making yourself look uncool and directly causing suffering to fellow creatures, but you know NOTHING of economics.

'Irish pork is contaminated!' Good!! Start stuffing yourself hippies!!!

heroes and villians

57 protestors broke into Stansted yesterday night and disrupted flights. Heroes and heroines all.

Whilst a bunch of Essex losers, BBC socialist scum and pathetic little emasculated Stansted spokes'men' whimper about the 'criminality' of it all, the rest of us non-lefty types are allowing ourselves huge grins.

What are Stansted and our moronic 'government' thinking of anyway? Why on earth would Stansted need a NEW runway??? They are going to have a job keeping the business they have in the teeth of global economic meltdown. In a few year's time they'll thank the protestors for saving them from wasting a fortune on extra facilities that will never be used.

Socialists - SHUT THE FUCK UP! The world you tried to build has gone forever. Get used to it losers ...

swiss stuff

The lake and town this morning.


Rhatische Bahn train at St Moritz.


Returning from Davos through a Yuletide landscape.


Ending the evening at the World's largest whisky bar - actually in our hotel.

Who knows what travel in 30 years time will be like? The only things we can be sure of is that there'll be no appreciable civilian air transport and the roads will be all but empty.

Today we woke up to half the lake frozen overnight. We decided to take a shortish train trip up to Davos. The RhB do a magnificent job of providing modern transport in this underpopulated corner of Switzerland.

This evening we walked up to the Xmas market with the temperature 10 degrees below. Layers is the secret! The market was fun, really something for the locals as the season doesn't start until tomorrow. I don't think we've heard an English voice since we arrived.

I like this cosmopolitan lifestyle, the mix of nationalities and languages. We tend to slip in and out of 4 or 5 at random here, everyone seems to know what you're saying. I'll miss this when Peak Oil hits which is why I'm making the most of it now.

to St Moritz

Metre gauge train at Landquart.


The view from our hotel window.


Cold horses playing with a branch.





Hartcliffe pair spotted in St Moritz horror.

I'm doing all this from our hotel in St Moritz!

We travelled over from Bristol yesterday. The trains weren't as good as usual with delays and cancellations, including the line to St Moritz being closed due to the avalanche risk. This meant some diversions, over a railway that only opened in 1999 - not sure what would have happened if this had been twenty years ago!

We finally made it here at about six in the evening. the whole town is under a metre of snow.

The hotel is superb with fantastic views across the lake and town. We had a superb raclette in the hotel restaurant, then had trouble sleeping because of the altitude!

This morning we've walked along the town side of the lake. This morning's snow has given way to bright sunshine.

As always Switzerland impresses with its post Peak Oil credentials. Superb and cheap public transport (even if, like us, you go first class!) and most power being hydro. Solar panels everywhere of course and cars and lorries being frowned on.

throwing money away

What on earth is wrong with the US and UK? Both countries are planning to throw state (our) money at ailing car companies.

THIS IS NOT CAPITALISM.

This is 70s style socialism (remember British Leyland?)

Sometimes you need to remind Bush and Brown how capitalism works. Companies that start to fail - no matter for what reason - should be allowed to do just that. Tinkering with the market to avoid closure does no good at all, in fact it does harm. The most essential part of successful capitalism is creative destruction - as a crap company fails good ones step in to take their place. Otherwise we get frozen into a moment of time where nothing changes or develops.

Let GM go to the wall. Let them all go to the wall.

Nobody will be buying cars - or certainly not the lumbering fuel-inefficient monsters Detroit seems to favour - in 20 years time. We expect our car to last us at least another 10 to 15 years (if diesel's still available of course), hopefully after that we'll be sussed enough to no longer need one. Kids today will never drive, they'll walk, cycle and use public transport - and be happier and healthier for it.

Why on earth waste a single moment on bailing out companies that will no longer have any role in a modern world? What are the socialists Bush and Brown thinking of?

musing

Woolworths and MFI go bust on the same day. Mad allahs go on the rampage in Mumbai deliberately targeting UK and US citizens. What's going on?

Gold and silver look like they are starting their staggering climb as money floods out of equities and into real cash.

Suddenly in the US and Europe the suburbs are beginning to die, their shops dying, their businesses collapsing and the social fabric, once held together by the glue of rising house prices, easy credit, conspicuous consumption and cultural marxism, falling apart quicker than one can document it.

And this is only the beginning. But is it the REAL beginning? Has the 'economic' crisis cloaked the real crisis that we all know is coming. We expected the end of consumerism and easy living (socialism) to be heralded by oil shortages and/or terrible climatic disasters. But the economy, in all its subtlety and cold-bloodedness, is calling the first shots, the 'externalities' ignored by your middle class shits manifesting themselves like this (looming depression) rather than through the glamour of fist fights on the forecourts or hurricanes in the home counties. They are coming, it's just we'll be more shabbily dressed than I was expecting ...

horseshit politics

Oh dear. All day the telly pundits have been going on about 'a momentous day for the UK economy' 'cos prize tosspot Darling was presenting a pre-budget thing.

And what a load of crap it is. Gordon Brown softened us up this morning with a rambling speech about the new order (more borrowing, globalization etc etc), then his sidekick wooed us all with the staggering offer of a 2½% reduction in VAT to 15% (I remember when it was 5%!) - to be financed by an increase in NI in 2011 (as if Labour will still be in power then!!).

But the real crime (a capital one to my mind) is the total stupidity of this 'government' thinking it can BORROW itself out of this recession! Er - wasn't it borrowing that caused all this trouble in the first place?

In a way the pundits were right. Today has been a momentous one - the death of New Labour. We'll get a tory government by default even without an apology for Thatcher.

In reality the death of the globalized economy and the debt economy is now intricately intertwined with the two real crises - Peak Oil and Climate Change. But these buggers haven't figured that out yet ...

feral kids

Barnardos have just come out with a report that claims 50% of adults think kids are 'like animals'.

Fucking morons.

Did they ask anyone that actually HAS kids? Did they ask anyone that actually lives on the rough estates where these so-called feral kids live? Highly unlikely. We have the odd nutter here, but most of the kids are great - far more civilized and well-behaved than we were back in the 60s and 70s.

I reckon they only asked Mail and Guardian readers! Talk about biased.

And as for adults being 'scared' of kids - what a pile of drivel! Why would any burly and street-wise adult be frightened of some beanpole borderline divvy in a twat hat?

portishead railway - about time!!

As you may have seen in the local media FOSBR is running a postcard campaign to reopen the rail line to Portishead and the line between Avonmouth and Bristol Parkway via Henbury. Funding will become available from the government for transport priorities in the South West region in the new year. We want the West of England Partnership (ex-Avon authorities) to include them in the bid. Only items high up the regional list will receive funding. Previous funding bids have been exclusively road-based. Since the government have refused to allow Network Rail to fund these schemes, this is the only way. We think that we have a good chance, but need your support.
The postcard is now available on the FOSBR website here.

Please print it from the website, fold it in half and tape it together before you send it to the West of England Partnership. Sorry, but you'll need to provide a stamp!

Besides getting people out of their cars and into quick and efficient public transport, there are several good reasons to support the campaign

These rail links would provide a cross-city service and a new link between the Severn Beach line and Bristol Parkway.

There has been much talk about Rapid Transit. This is the original rapid transit: Filton Abbeywood to Temple Meads in 8 minutes & Parson St to Stapleton Rd in 12 minutes!

Greater Bristol rail stations have seen passenger numbers double in the ten years to 2004/5. There have been further significant increases since then. Since Bristol City Council put money into the Severn Beach line to increase the service in May, numbers increased by 30% in three months. The demand is there.

Portishead's traffic and that into Bristol along the A370 is notorious. The Henbury line runs close to major employers including Rolls Royce, Airbus and Royal Mail at Filton and would provide a public transport alternative where none may exist at present.
Road accidents!

The West of England Partnership (representing ex-Avon authorities) estimate that congestion costs local businesses £350 million a year.

Government funding will be allocated for new transport schemes in the new year but our local decision-makers must submit a bid for it prioritising the schemes they want. This gives local councillors the chance to show that they are interested in schemes other than roads and buses.

For those who see such things as important, at roughly £20 million this proposal compares very well with road schemes.

What you can do:

Please send the postcard to the West of England Partnership.

If you want physical (rather than electronic) cards to send or to give to other people please let me know and I will arrange to get them to you. The more people who are involved the better.

Please foward this email to your friends and anyone who may be interested.

If you are involved with trade unions or other organisations please would you ask your colleagues to send cards and if the organisation will issue a statement of support as that would be wonderful!

For those interested, there is a Facebook group about the Portishead Railway campaign which can be found here. There is a copy of the postcard available here too.

Originally posted on somerset and dorset