Greetings from Samizdata HQ and best wishes to friends of liberty everywhere.

Tonight we feast on a roasted beast upon which Adriana has worked her sorcery, celebrating all the wonders that our modern technological society has wrought.

Wishing a year of champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends. Have a splendid Christmas, be it Godly or godless, as is your wont.

Right, nuts to the G20. Here is a fine appreciation of the late Dusty Springfield, one of the world's greatest singers, who would have been 70 today.

Quick Friday quiz: name your favourite singers (male and female, both contemporary and classical).

I am going to be in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau and thereabouts from Friday evening until October 26. If we have any readers there who feel like meeting up for a meal/drink, please let me know. I have been to these places on multiple occasions before and so do know my way round, but if anyone can think of anything particularly idiosyncratic (or even particularly new) that I may want to do or see, also please let me know.

It won't last, but while it does ...

An Australian pub offering free drinks to women who remove their underwear and display it to patrons and staff will be investigated by alcohol licencing regulators, authorities said on Thursday.

The Saint Hotel in Melbourne has promised a "No Undie Sundie" event over the coming weekend, where woman who remove their underwear and hang it above the bar will receive A$50 ($39) worth of free drinks.

I wouldn't like this. It's not the female anatomy qua female anatomy. It's more the other men who'd be there, yelling and drinking, and slapping me on my frail back. But me not liking something is not the same as me thinking something should be illegal. Sadly, it seems that "Liquor Licensing Victoria director Sue Maclellan" is not in the habit of making such subtle distinctions.

Good that Guido, to whom thanks, and who currently has this report in his Seen Elsewhere section, doesn't just babble on about party politics, but from time to time at least notices more fundamental issues.

Last night I attended a flat warming party, given by fellow Samizdatista and newly certified Brit, Michael Jennings, and very enjoyable it was. Just the right mixture of nice people I know well (such as Johnathan Pearce and his Missis, and I rather think I may have met the legend that is Thaddeus Tremayne), nice people I know a bit, and nice people I didn't know at all. And while there I found myself trying to think of good party questions, to replace the often excruciating "And what do you do?" that can cause such tedium and such embarrassment. And rather to my surprise, I overheard myself asking a rather good party question, namely: Have you ever been near to death? The good thing about this question is that brushes with the Angel of Death are fairly random, and that quiet little bod in the corner is almost as likely as the grand and confident ones stage centre to have a good yarn to tell. Granted, if you have a very grand job which involves clearing up minefields in war zones, you'll probably trump anyone who is merely talking about being missed by speeding bus by half an inch, but despite that tendency, this question, together with the answers it elicits, does take us all out of our everyday preoccupations and make us see the world, and the people in it (e.g. the strangers you meet at parties), a bit differently, just as nearly being dead itself does. Which is what parties are partly for, aren't they?

Someone asked, by way of clarification, whether I meant that thing where you feel you are moving towards a very bright light. No, not necessarily. That's a great story, of course, if you have one like that. But any terrifying or dramatic circumstance that could have killed you, and preferably which you knew at the time could have killed you, is a good answer. Having to tightrope-walk across a burning beam a hundred feet above the ground, being violently attacked or robbed, missing a plane flight when the plane you missed subsequently crashed, getting your toe stuck at the bottom of a swimming pool and thinking that this was about to be your last swim and your last anything, that kind of thing. Bright lights are strictly optional.

The best answer I heard last night was from a guy (one of the ones I'd never met before) who was doing some sketching or painting or whatever in Jordan, and was accused by some knife-wielding locals of being a spy. They held the knife to his throat. Luckily a third party convinced them that he was harmless, but for a few moments there ... you get the picture.

My best near death experience was when I was a very small boy and I fell out of a second story window at my grandmother's house. I landed on a small strip of lawn, right next to some very spikey railings. All I remember was waking up afterwards, so it missed that element of pure terror ("I really thought this was It" etc. etc.) that the best near death stories have, but like I say, that's my best shot. An A&E doctor recently started choking me, while looking down by throat with a small, flat little wooden poker like you used to get with icecream, and I briefly experienced what death by asphyxiation must feel like. But I howled at her to stop which she did, and I never really thought I would die, so that hardly counts at all. My point being that this is not an excuse to tell my own personal right-out-of-the-stadium story along these lines, because I have no such story.

But maybe you do have such a story. This evening it occurred to me that this question would also be a good way of starting a Samizdata comment thread, and in a way that might take us away from our usual stamping grounds, of politics (appallingness of), space rockets and flashy airplanes and cars (splendidness of), and such like.

So, what near death experiences have you had?

I have eased up a bit on "serious" blogging the last few days - I almost felt I had reached the point of mid-summer blog burnout - and have been too busy with other stuff, not least work. But I cannot resist linking to these fine folk who have set up a blog dedicated to the ferociously competitive world of barbecue food. God, I feel hungry already. No doubt those citizens of Jefferson's Republic are gearing up for 4th of July. In a moment of transatlantic solidarity, may I ask commenters what sort of BBQ's they will be doing on that day to give me some ideas?

I'll be back to bashing Gordon Brown and the rest of them later, I promise.

...there is a party celebrating a half century (not out), at Samizdata HQ tonight.

Real ale and champagne will be in full flow next week on Wednesday 16 April when bloggers Guido Fawkes, Tim Worstall and Samizdata's Perry de Havilland give short speeches at an event on "Curbing the crap artists". Guido will be speaking - from a blogger's perspective - on "curbing the bad politicians", Tim on "curbing the crap journalists" (Polly?), and Perry on "curbing the crap businesses". Beg an invite from here.

My life has been fairly busy for the last couple of months, and as a consequence, I have not managed to report on this blog the results of my "Anyone in Singapore want to meet up?" request, from December. This is a shame, because thanks have been order to a Samizdata reader and commenter whose response ensured that things turned out very well. However, better late than never.

What happened was that long time Samizdata commenter The Wobbly Guy offered to take me out for crab at Mellben seafood restaurant in Ang Mo Kio, which, as he put it, "is noted for its crab". Australians such as myself are also fond of crab, but we tend to eat it more simply than the Singaporeans. Australians tend to eat crab boiled with relatively few embelishments. Singaporeans tend to eat it with more spices and chilis. However, when we talk about past visits to one another's countries, people of both nationalities will tend to say things like "Mmmmmm. Great seafood".

As it happened though, on my last day in Singapore I made something close to a terrible mistake. Wandering along Geylang road at about 2pm I discovered that I was hungry, and I therefore walked into one of many street restaurants in that area that offer an "unlimited Steamboat buffet" for about $S15. (About £5 or US$10). The restaurant was full of local people having long lunches, and in such a restaurant (in which you cook meat, seafood, vegetables, and goodness knows what else in a bowl of boiling soup in the middle of your table) it is possible to have a very long lunch.

When I walked through the door, the very kind lady running the restaurant thoughtfully enquired as to just how spicy I like my soup, got me a large bottle of Tiger beer, gave me one of those "Go for it" expressions and gestured towards the buffet. I got myself a modest selection of seafood and meats, and sat down to cook and eat it. It was good. Repeat until fade.

On about my third trip to the buffet, the kind lady saw me tentatively placing a modest portion of crab on my plate, and decided it was time to put me to rights. She gave me one of those "You poor, pathetic westerner. You truly have no idea, do you?" looks, and proceeded to pile my plate high with crab for me. Chastened by this, I took the seafood back to my table and my soup, and got myself another bottle of beer. I was slowly getting there, but the guys at the next table clearly were not having any such problems.

Thus, after intending to have a quick lunch, I stumbled back out onto the street two and a half hours later after engorging vast amounts of food.

So thus, when The Wobbly Guy very kindly picked me up from my hotel after I had rushed off to the centre of town topick up the custom suits I had ordered a couple of days earlier, I was perhaps not ideally prepared. It wasn't quite as bad as attempting a six star day in Donostia, but it was perhaps heading that way.

Somewhat to my relief I had a further opportunity to digest my lunch before moving onto dinner, as the combination of a public holiday and a very popular restaurant meant that we had to queue. Several restaurants nearby lacked such queues - presumably they cater to the "people who are willing to eat less good food but are in a hurry" crowd. In addition, this gave us a chance both to chat and to watch another of these kind but formidable Singaporean restaurant women removing the alive and active crabs from the large styrofoam boxes marked "Singapore Airlines" in which the crabs had apparently just been flown in from Sri Lanka.

As she did this, she watched by some cute as a button children, some of who were probably determined to grow up to be kind but formidable Singaporean restaurant women themselves.

As we waited, The Wobbly Guy and I were able to compare our national culinary cultures. I am still not sure if either the "sand crabs" and "mud crabs" we get in Australia are the same species to those eaten in Singapore. Clearly more research is in order.

I did explain that the two culinary things in Australia that Singapore is known for are chili crab and "Singapore Noodles". The Wobbly Guy was slightly perplexed by the second of these dishes. Yellow Hokkien noodles known as "Singapore Noddles" are available in just every Chinese or Malaysian or Thai restaurant in Australia under this name, but nobody in Singapore has ever heard of them. In the midst of this, a butter crab was ordered and I took a peek at the kitchen. This was clearly a serious crab restaurant.

I really must try the chili crab next time.

The butter crab was a good choice, though. By the time we sat down I was just about able to eat again, and the crab was succulent, in a lovely soup, and delicately spiced. I did properly discover what "noted for its crab" meant. As we ate, The Wobbly Guy told me a few things about Singapore: about compulsory military service. (All adult males in Singapore are required to be reserve members of the armed forces. All members of the armed forces are required to be fighting fit. Hence, in Singapore it is an offence on pain of court-martial for an adult male to be unfit); about language (which dialects of Chinese are taught and spoken in Singapore, and how use of Chinese in Singapore compares with use of English); and such things as road pricing and properfy development. But good as the conversation was, it was overshadowed by the food, which was wonderful. Food in Singapore is just about invariably wonderful. But even by the standards of the country, this was good

After a while, I reached one of those states of holiday contentment that one gets too occasionally. It had been a good day. It was my last day in Singapore. The Wobbly Guy refused to let me pay for dinner, and then insisted on driving me to the airport for me to catch my flight to Sydney. The hospitality was most kind. Thanks JT. The chili crab is on me next time.

Tomorrow evening we are doing a blogger bash and one of the Samizdatistas, Michael Jennings in a bout of generosity is bringing a whole leg of Serrano ham to share. Another blogging groupie is kindly bringing a ham stand and a knife. So the video below is particularly relevant and wonderfully silly:

via dropsafe

cross-posted from Media Influencer

All the best from Samizdata HQ and wishing all of liberty's friends success and prosperity in the New Year! Champagne for our real friends, real pain for our sham friends.

In the networked world in which we live, right after New Years struck the ladies started a frenzy of sending greetings to all and sundry friends via...

The reason for light blogging tonight and probably tomorrow is...

Before...

During...

and after...

To all our readers, have a great Christmas... we certainly are!

... too busy with politically incorrect activities...

In case you are worried that all has been quiet on the party front, I am here to reassure you. The sad fact is that some of these parties require so much in the way of recovery - in the form of Sunday brunches, vast quantities of water, and time spent lying in a darkened room - that it can take a while to get to reporting on them.

Such was the case on a recent weekend, when our most fierce and lovely editor, Miss Adriana, celebrated her birthday with a few of her favorite 'freedom fighters'.

More photos are here.

Okay, that's quite enough seriousness. My question for the weekend is, if you were organising a dinner party and could invite six famous people around, alive or deceased, who would you pick? Mine are:
My wife, obviously (she will be famous, some day)
David Niven.
Joan Collins
PJ O'Rourke
Diana Rigg
Groucho Marx

Choices are not based on trivia such as looks - Mrs P being very good-looking, however - but on style, wit and elegance.

I'd naturally ask Stephen Fry to work as the butler for the evening.

...definitely the time to be in the USA, watching fireworks on a lake whilst drinking far too much Yuengling beer.

One of my lesser vices is that I take a certain childish delight in unexpectedly arriving at a party when all the other guests think I am on a different continent, or unexpectedly posting to Samizdata from Maputo. In truth, I am thinking that the "blogging from unexpected places" technique is getting a little tired. In addition, it often leads to my getting messages three days later from people who I might have wanted to meet, saying that if they had known I was in town they might have liked to have bought me a drink or shown me some interesting part of town I was not aware of. Therefore, let me do something a little different.

I will be in Paris from the 6th to the 10th of April - the Easter weekend from Friday morning to Monday evening. Does anybody want to get together for a Samizdata drinks session, or perhaps we could go out for dinner? The evening of Saturday April 7 might be good for it.

Secondly, does anybody know of a bar or pub in Paris that is showing the matches of the cricket World Cup live? In particular, I would like to watch at least some of the Australia v England game this is being played on April 8, Easter Sunday. Help on this matter would be appreciated.

In the "really long term planning" stakes, I will be in Singapore on Thursday December 20. If anyone wants to do an Asian Samizdata dinner that evening, that would also be a splendid thing.

And of course I shall be in many other places at various times in between.

The continuing story of Samizdata people meeting in the USA in order to conspire, drink, shoot and eat...

I am not a believer but if there is indeed a 'happy hunting ground' in the hereafter, I think it will look something going shooting with your close friends followed by a meal of epic quality.

Photoed outside Parliament this afternoon:

Another year starts... and we shall be there to blog the bits we find interesting (once we get over the effects of tonight)...

Champaign for our real friends, real pain for our sham friends. Good health to those who love liberty.

Although I am in a tryptophan (or more likely, just gluttony) induced haze, let me quickly file an after-action report from the front...

As Dale has already added his greetings from Ulster, Adriana and I would like to wish all our readers and contributing Samizdatistas a hearty Christmas, well provisioned with all the goodies capitalism doth provide.

Thirty one stalwart samizdatistas plus assorted friends and allies descended on Samizdata HQ last night/early this morning for our celebration of five years on the front line of the blogosphere.

On November 2nd, 2001, I rounded up a posse of disgruntled hyphenated libertarian types on three continents and an island, telling them they were henceforth 'samizdatistas' and offered them a way to get their 'gruntles' back that was far more effective than cursing at the television every time the news came on.

We started off initially on blogger.com along with many other so-called warblogs, before eventually migrating to Moveable Type.

We drew our initial inspiration from Glenn of Instapundit fame (and duly got Instapundited quite a few times) as we raged anti-idiotarian fury against the mainstream media's editorial absurdities.

We coined a few terms which seem to have gained wider currency, such as Moonbat and Tranzi. We learned the fine art of fisking, slew some trolls, stomped on a lot of blogroaches, fact-checked a few asses and we wrote more than a few blogapotamus postings.

Putting one in the eye of The Man yields many benefits and millions of page views, a couple crashed servers, 8,651 articles and 129,117 comments later, Samizdata.net once again proves that not only is blogging far more fun than gainful employment, it is a great excuse for throwing parties... and thus tonight at 7:00pm London time we hold our Five Year Blogger Bash, therefore expect light blogging from the UK contingent and possible heavy casualties by tomorrow morning.

Friday night saw yet another party at Samizdata HQ; it has indeed been a busy summer for such gatherings. This one was in honour of Tracy Sheridan, CEO of podcasting company Waxxi. I was fortunate to meet Tracy at the inaugural Techdirt Greenhouse event in Silicon Valley earlier this year, and since then have had the pleasure of her company twice more in the Bay Area. I promised her that if she came to town, we would throw her a party, and - what do you know? - she took me up on it. We are glad she did!

See more pictures of the festivities on Flickr.

When Silicon Valley's youngest dot-com dynamo (and all around delightful guy), Ben Casnocha, told me that he was coming to Europe for his gap year travels, I knew he could not leave London without the full Samizdata experience.

There are more photos at Flickr.

Yesterday, the skies over London were often dark and threatening torrential downpour. These were particularly ominous as I and fellow Samizdatistas Antoine Clarke, Perry, and Adriana had received our innoculations and taken our passports to suburbia for a barbecue at the home of our friend Scott Norvell, European bureau chief of Fox News.

It was a splendid evening with delicious food, lots of laughs, and the usual plans for world domination. (Don't worry - you are in safe hands!) More photos at Flickr.

Or, rather, Independence Evening, which brought a motley crew of celebrants to Chelsea for some of Adriana's salad, Nancy's pasta, and some rather scandalous conversation. What is said at Samizdata HQ stays at Samizdata HQ, but a few of the photos can - as ever - be shared...

Thanks to all who braved the heat to come along, and do not worry - your secrets are safe with Samizdata...

Last night in Chelsea, Samizdatistas from around the globe gathered at Samizdata HQ for some of Perry's famous chilli con Chelsea, his 'secret recipe' cheesecake, and plenty of wine from Stormhoek and other fine producers.

A fantastic time was had by all, and there are more photos from the party on Flickr.

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds has been out promoting his new book. In order to demonstrate how well connected to the world ordinary people now are, how much choice they have, and much information they have easy and inexpensive access to, he has repeatedly brought up the example of the bar he likes to work " with 27 kinds of beer on tap, a nice patio and... a free wireless Internet hookup,"

It sounds reasonably good.

As it happens though, Jonathan Pearce and I went to Porto in Portugal last weekend in order to get pissed have a stimulating weekend. On saturday night, we ended up in a bar with a choice of over 200 kinds of port. There was something work related that I had to get done reasonably promptly, so I got out of my laptop and joy of joys, the bar was providing free wireless there too. I was able to get my work done. It certainly beat spending time in the office. It beat a mere 27 kinds of beer too.

So what can I say? Samizdata 200 - Instapundit 27. We win.

For what it's worth, in front of me I have a dry white port, a fruitier white port, a reserve, an unfiltered L.B.V, two tawnies, and a 21 year old colheita. (The colheita in particular was just divine).

I am organising a NYC Geek Dinner on 23rd March as the last one was fun (at least for me!). The venue is the Sly Bar in SoHo.

This is what Gothamist has to say about it:

The blue lights above the outside door continue inside and flicker throughout the space - everyone looks good in this light, remember that. Our favorite part, though, might be the the back smoking patio, it's a lovely view that often gets neglected being so far from the subways and it proves that not everyone in New York hates smokers.

Also, the blogosphere-famous Stormhoek wine will supply wine for the evening as part of their US launch and the meme 100 dinners, 100 conversations...

The festivities start at 7.30pm - all bloggers, geeks and Samizdata.net groupies are welcome. You can sign up here or email me at samizdata at gmail dot com.

The Dissident Frogman has infiltrated Samizdata.net HQ, snuck into the wine cellar and photographed the target for tonight...

Some of the Samizdatistas have been in the USA for Thanksgiving, much to the consternation of the turkey population, given that we are all members of PETA (People for Eating Tasty Animals).

As for much of the time we have been in the wilds of Pennsylvania without an internet connection (the horror, the horror), we have been unable to post about our various jolly japes in the Land of the Free.

Good food, great people and things that go boom. Damn I love this place.

We will be back in London soon. Bugger.

Prior to my trip to New York a couple of weeks ago, I did not publicise my impending arrival. I had a (non blogging related) friend I wanted to catch up with, and my thoughts beyond that were to just largely potter around the city for a few days and enjoy myself, before perhaps driving up the Hudson valley to do some sightseeing and then across to Connecticut to catch up with my friend before spending a couple more days in New York at the end of the trip.

However, after a post from me, and information generally going along the grapevine, word got around that I was in town, and I suddenly found myself with invitations to catch up with a variety of interesting people. As I have reported already, it turned out that Samizdata co-editor Dale Amon was in town, and he immediately offered to show me around some of the indie music clubs and pubs on the lower east side.

Before that though, journalist Taylor Dinerman of The Space Review, often of the Wall Street Journal, and occasional Samizdata contributer, invited Dale and myself (and various other interesting acquantances of his) to join him for dinner at the North West Restaurant at 79th and Columbus, just opposite the Museum of Natural History on the West Side.

Of course, when I received this invitation I was up in Connecticut somewhere, and it was something of an effort to drive frantically down the Merritt Parkway in my rented SUV (which I received from the rental car agency upon ordering a "small car" - I love America) , but I made it. And it was a civilized occasion. Over some excellent seafood, conversation ranged from favourite countries (I shocked the people present by admitting that I prefer France to Italy) to what I should do in New York City to whether Pluto is a planet or not, to more discussion about space. And space some more. The question of whether the restaurant should be declared the official United States Samizdata Headquarters was discussed. (I am for it. After a hearty meal we can all go over to the Hayden Planetarium for a show. Great). And somre more space discussion after that. Plans to visit Florida in January to watch the launch of the New Horizons (ake Pluto Express aka Pluto Fast Flyby) probe were discussed. And then the conversation moved on to wine.

As it happens, Taylor enjoys a glass of good red almost as much as I do. He had brought a bottle of aged Bordeaux from his collection to the restaurant, which Taylor had asked the staff of the restaurant (who clearly knew Taylor well) to decant for him earlier in the evening. Taylor's timing was perfect. The wine had aged beautifully, and it gave me a wonderfully pleasant buzz. Hopefully Taylor can be lured to London sometime and I can serve him something interesting from my collection.

A good thing about going to a restaurant with such people in such a place was that I remembered a mental note of mine. When the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History installed its new specially modified Zeiss Mark IX projector in 1999, I told myself that I must go and see a program when in New York. So on my last day in New York I did. The visualisation of the heavens is indeed wonderful, and the way the projector makes it possible to zoom in and out of the solar system, the galaxy, or even vast numbers of galaxies is stunning, although the show was much too short. (Do they think modern people have tiny attention spans, or is it just a matter of trying to fit as many shows as possible into the day?) I have visions of sitting in the control room and being able to use the system to fly around a model of the whole unvierse - sort of a much better version of Google Earth but with the whole universe - but I suspect it is not like this. The computer power is probably not there to calculate such a model in real time. Or is it? (Certainly it is not needed for the programs shown to the public, which are the same every time).

And the displays in the Rose Centre for Earth and Space outside seem to have made a decision about Pluto. It is not listed as a planet in any of the exhibits, although there is something of a disclaimer pretending that they are not taking a position. Although as far as I can see they are.

Which of the people in this photo is the Samizdata editor?

Ed: The woman is Tayla, a very fine heavy metal guitarist. She lives guitar. The band is The Pink Meat.

On Thursday a group of London-based individualists, libertarians, and other similar intellectual subversives will descend on the Great British Beer Festival in London Olympia. We will be celebrating the diversity of 450 British real ales - plus foreign beer, cider, and perry - which are able to thrive in the age of globalization because they give consumers what they want.

So come along from noon onwards, bring your digital camera if you are a blogger, and enjoy the cornucopia of delightful products the market provides!

Sorry about the lack of new bloggage but a great many Samizdatistas are nursing serious hangovers in the aftermath of Saturday's Close Encounter of the Third Kind with Vodkapundit, Jane Galt and twenty five other fine bloggy type folks...

As tonight Samizdata.net HQ will be playing host to the Anglosphere Blogger Bash, featuring such A-list bloggers from across the Atlantic as Jane Galt and Stephen Green, blogging may be a bit erratic and/or 'under the influance'.

We would like to invite our readership to speculate about who is who?

Update:

All you need to do is give Perry a nice cat and he immediately reveals himself to be a complete softie.

...no, not as in 'Hollywood sucks'. Far from it in fact.

Our favourite lefty in Los Angeles, film producer, cigar addict, gun-owning pinko, O.G. blogger and all around gentleman Brian Linse kindly made his severely cool house in the Hollywood Hills available to me and fellow Samizdatista Jackie so that we would throw yet another blogger party for many very interesting people connected to the blogosphere...

Update: More reports and pictute of the latest LA Blogger Bash can be found here, here, here, here, here and here.

I thought a few more images from the splendid Capitalist Ball last week in Brussels would not go amiss...

And whilst in the Heart of Darkness, there were some anti-Bush protesters in town (well, I know most of the people who work for the EU fall into that category but that is not what I mean... and as a result security was somewhat tighter than usual. Someone I always imagined Berlaymont, the HQ of the European Commission, as being a place that has a great deal of barbed wire in its future.

The interesting things about the protesters for me were...

... firstly their very small number and secondly, their fascinating choice of protest placards which decried US military action against a mass murdering fascist regime in Iraq, a mass murdering fascist regime in Yugoslavia, in support of a democratic regime in Bosnia, against a right wing dictator in Panama ...

Very revealing, would you not agree?

If Samizdata has been a bit quiet of late, you can blame it on the fact that so many of the contributors have been in Brussels for the Centre for the New Europe's 2005 Capitalist Ball. (Some of you may remember David Carr's eye-pleasing entry about last year's soiree.) Many of last year's attendees were present this year - including the tall, glamourous Texan from David's 2004 entry - and the whole event was nothing short of splendid. To be in a room with hundreds of people who broke into enthusiastic applause when one of the speakers quoted Father Juan de Mariana's assertion that any individual citizen can justly assassinate a king who imposes taxes without the consent of the people, seizes the property of individuals and squanders it, or prevents a meeting of a democratic parliament was, to put it mildly, very refreshing.

Brussels itself is a somewhat drab - if not totally miserable - town. Upon arrival, I was surprised to see a workman on a ladder in the train station, doing a bit of welding - without a properly fitted protective mask, and with sparks raining down mere inches from passersby. This total disregard for the cult of 'health and safety' was an oddly pleasing sight.

We took it as a good sign when the two flags flying right outside our hotel room window were the Union Jack and the American stars and stripes. Even more cheering was this sticker on a lampost near - I kid you not - Rue du Gouvernement Provisoire (Provisional Government Street):

It is the "as much as possible" that made us smile. Keep trying, scumbags.

And speaking of scumbags, it seems the local communists know they have a bit of a PR problem, to say the least:

Roughly translated, they are trying to sell the line that being against capitalism does not necessarily mean being in favour of the gulag. I suppose that may be true, in much the same way that being against breathing does not necessarily mean that one is in favour of a horrific death, but...Again, keep trying, scumbags. The pro-liberty contingent that gathered in Brussels this weekend are not the only people around who know you are full of crap. From the looks of the city's Grand Place, a European stronghold of capitalism since the 17th century, it would appear that the denizens of Brussels have had that one figured out for quite a while. With any luck, and exposure to the free market principles celebrated at the CNE's Capitalist Ball, the young communists of Belgium will get on the winning side of things any day now.

...as many of the Samizatistas are locked in deadly contests with several bottles of excellent Port at a party at Samizdata HQ tonight

Update: (from MJ)

David Carr was particularly cutting at the party in question. (Of course, he could get ten years for this)..

I do not know about you but I just hate those 'year in review' things that clog up the TV and the internet at this time of year. And now for something completely different.

1 Jan 2004: The year started with a party
2 Jan 2004: many people with hangovers...
8 Feb 2004: Party at Samizdata.net HQ
29 Feb 2004: Capitalist Ball in Brussels
14 April 2004: A bunch of Aussie bloggers miss the target date by 14 days
23 April 2004: St. George's Day
19 July 2005: another inexplicable party to celebrate the arrival of an Irish Samizdatista
31 July 2004: Yet another party to celebrate Hot American Babes at Samizdata.net HQ
13 August 2004: Lonely and disconsolate, we have a party...
11 September 2004: Death to the Wahhabbis!
22 October 2004: Some Texan blogger misses out on some really good chili...
1 November 2004: Halloween
3 November 2004: Samizdata.net exclusive: Michael Moore gets a nice letter from Dubya
5 November 2004: Fond fantasies about blowing up Parliament
5 December 2004: Samizdata.net Christmas party

Oh, and some good and bad things happened in Iraq, some guy got elected in the US and some other stuff happened in some other places.

Pfff... The Samizdata.net Christmas/Cthulhumas Party has wound down with the last inebriates staggering off at a mere 02:30 in the morning. Lightweights! We have had blogger bashes last until 9:00 am the next morning!

Seeing as Samizdata.net is having its Christmas party (or is it Cthuhulumas party?) today, I thought I would stick up some pictures from... the very congenial Adam Smith Institute party last Tuesday. Just for the hell of it.

... Gunpowder treason and plot!

I shall be going out tonight to give that Catholic boy Guy Fawkes a rousing send off on this most politically incorrect of nights.

Halloween... yes, many of the Samizdatistas duly did their duty on All Hallows Eve by going 'bump' in the night...

... but the true horror walks the earth tomorrow...

Blogging may be a bit light tonight (or not) as there is a Samizdata.net Blogger Bash at Samizdata HQ tonight...

We shall be trying to impress a certain Texan blogger with Chili Con Chelsea!

We are having a dinner party at Samizdata.net HQ and our recurring toast this evening (with excellent Polish flavoured vodka and apple juice) is:

Death to the Wahhabbis!

It just seemed the appropriate thing to say on September 11th.

... yet another blog party at Samizdata.net HQ...

There are so many new bloggers 'on the party circuit' now that we have to rotate our invitation lists. So if you did not get an invitation, we (probably) still love you... maybe next time.

...which explains the meagre output on the blog today. Not a 'blogger bash', just a party.

The excuse for this bash was the visit of American writer and journalist Nancy Rommelmann and her charming daughter Tafv

Yesterday we has a Samizdata.net Bash (rather than a general Blogger Bash) to greet fellow Samizdatista Frank McGahon on the occasion of his visit to London... and seeing as it was also Waterloo Day, we were delighted to have a guest at the party whose name is Wellington!

There have been rumoured Dale Amon sightings in the Irish bars of Manhattan. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid...

St. George's Day Party at the New Cavendish Club, ergo more drinking and less blogging  

A good many of the Australian bloggerati (including Scott Wickstein and myself) attended a fine blogger bash in Melbourne over the weekend. A splendid evening was had by all, and photos have been put up in various other places, but there was just one additional thing I have to share with the world.

This is Tim Blair.

Notice the glass of the pale coloured yellowy stuff in his hand. Tim spent the whole evening drinking chardonnay. He made some feeble excuse about how is is trying to reclaim chardonnay for capitalism, but I was not entirely convinced about his protestations. He did, after all drink a lot of chardonnay. In fact he couldn't stop.

Could the whole Right Wing Death Beast thing be an act, when Tim has such an extreme characteristic of the enemy? I am fearful.

I have been to a marvelous party and now I am back.

The marvelous party was the CNE Capitalist Ball, held at the Belgian Stock Exchange in central Brussels.

Now before I go any further here, I have a confession to make. Two confessions, in fact. Last Thursday, I referred to Brussels as the 'Heart of Darkness'. Well, I was wrong about that. I also suspected that I was going to find myself in Brussels amid a room full of musty, fusty academics plus a few corporate types and policy wonks. I was wrong about that too.

In fact, my travelling companion and fellow Samizdatista Antoine Clarke and I found ourselves in sumptuous surroundings with hundreds of European, British and American glitterati and illuminati from the worlds of business, finance, politics, journalism and academia. In other words, lots of clever, interesting men and lots of clever, interesting and head-turningly lovely women. They were smart, young, chic, funny and sexy.

Imagine how much fun you could have with those kind of people mixed with lashings of the finest food, alcohol and tobacco that money can buy and a sixteen-piece swing band? Well, it was even more fun than that. If you don't believe me then see the pictures below.

But the pictures can only convey a part of the whole. What they cannot really convey is the atmosphere. Yes, it was sexy but it was something more than sexy too. It was mingled with that kind of giddy excitement that comes from being in the company of winners.

That is the impression I am left with. These clever, dynamic people are in the process of straightening out an entire continent and I cannot imagine any obstacle being enough to deter them or get in their way for long enough to even slow them down. If history possesses even a modicum of common sense then it will get on their side. Quickly.

I want to go again. In fact, I want to go again right now. Sadly, I am going to have to wait another year.

I will let you go to the photo-fest now but, before you rush off, I just want to say a few words about my hosts, the Centre for New Europe. Not only did they organise this weekends event (and for that alone they would deserve global plaudits) but it is the CNE that is networking all these brilliant free-market campaigners, writers, doers and thinkers and bringing into together so that they get to know each other and trade their ideas and strategies. That is real progress. Bloggers like me may talk a lot about changing things but the crew at the CNE are out there actually changing things.

No-one, least of all me, is going to even try to pretend that Europe does not have its serious and structural problems but if that continent is going to be saved at all from terminal and ruinous decline, then it is the CNE that is most likely to save it.

And now for a few words about Brussels. I was unjustified in referring to it as the 'Heart of Darkness' but not entirely off the mark. Anywhere that hosts the European Commission and a clutch of similar toxic bureaucratic monoliths deserves a bit of a battering. But there is more to Brussels than that.

Away from the soulless, modernist horror blocks are towering and inspirational monuments to the old Flemish mercantile traditions upon which the city was built. It is still a very prosperous place. Walking around the city centre, I lost count of the number and choice of high-quality retail outlets, restaurants, cafes and bars. There is also a bustling, commercial quality to the atmosphere that gives Brussels quite a buzz.

Of course, two days is nowhere near long enough to get an accurate impression of what it would be like to live in a place. But it is long enough to dispel this caricature notion of Europe being a socialist hell-hole as compared to the English-speaking world. If only thing were that cut and dried. They are not. Certainly we do some things better in Britain but there are also very many areas in which I think the Belgians are doing things better than we are. I hope we can learn the good things from each other and I hope to be taking another trip to Brussels quite soon.

Very early tomorrow morning, as the first shimmering rays of a fire-red sun cast shadows on the ground, (creepy background music starts up) I shall set forth of my journey.

Seeking my date with destiny (music rumbles menacingly) I will travel by Eurostar (spine-chilling crescendo) along the mysterious, winding, unchartered route (screechy violin climax) into the 'Heart of Darkness': Brussels! [Effects: huge peal of thunder, gigantic lightning fork]

Actually I am rather looking forward to it. The occasion is the CNE Capitalist Ball where free-market luminaries from all over Britain and Europe will be gathering to drink, waltz and carouse the night away right under the very noses of the enemy.

I shall be back on Sunday. With photographs.

The reason that there has been relatively little output this evening is that many of the Samizdatistas were at Samizdata HQ rather than at their keyboards, celebrating the start of new business ventures by two of our number...