Sunday
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(17)The Dissident Frogman has infiltrated Samizdata.net HQ, snuck into the wine cellar and photographed the target for tonight...
Sunday
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.
We were releaved to have made it out of the People's Republic to the relative safety of the Keystone State
I could hear the turkey's crying "The British are coming! The British are coming!"
An Armalite toaster? Is this country great or what!
The womenfolk in these here parts are made of stern stuff
Getting ready for Thanksgiving Dinner with twenty friends: the quintessential American experience
Celebrating dangerous (thankfully) right wing extremists
Vast mounts of turkey washed down with red wine: tryptophan overdose!
A local family tradition: eat the turkey and then take the young ones out and show them how the turkey ends up on the plate
One of the Samizdata editors goes looking for those turkeys who ratted us out earlier. The British are coming and this time they are armed and pissed off.
Good food, great people and things that go boom. Damn I love this place.
We will be back in London soon. Bugger.
Sunday
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.
Saturday
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.
Saturday
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!
Sunday
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...
The smokers lurked outback
Yankee bloggers invade London!
The conversations ranged from artificial intelligence to real stupidity
Epicurian Samizdata editor
Who the hell invited this guy?
Saturday
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'.
Saturday
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.
Saturday
...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...
Mickey Kaus demonstrated his improvised vampire repellent technique to a hushed audience
Many people stampeded into the bedroom when Amy suggested a game of 'spin the bottle'
Eugene Volokh gave Jackie some legal advice in return for the famous Chilli Con Chelsea recipe
Arianna was described as a 'once and future blogger' but she seemed pretty blog-savvy right now
Update: More reports and pictute of the latest LA Blogger Bash can be found here, here, here, here, here and here.
Monday
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?
Sunday
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.
Thursday
...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)..
Tuesday
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.
Sunday
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!
Saturday
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.
Friday
... 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.
Monday
Halloween... yes, many of the Samizdatistas duly did their duty on All Hallows Eve by going 'bump' in the night...
The girls were all spidery...
No, it was not tomato soup, it was the blood of virgins, honest
Paul was not used to women coming up and admiring his chopper
The host and hostess kill not kill all the trick or treaters to make the tasty stew
... but the true horror walks the earth tomorrow...
Friday
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!
Saturday
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.
Friday
... 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.
Saturday
...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
Nancy listens to a lecture on why she needs to drink more Pimms
Some of the guests were surprised to hear there was not going to be a Frisbee throwing contest
Antoine was astonished to see proof that there is indeed a martial art associated with barbeque tools
The Three Furies seems rather mellow after imbibing significant amounts of Pimms
We have no idea who these two people are but they just appeared out of the gathering gloom like apparitions and ate all the fish
Monday
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!
For once the London rain was conspicuous by its absence!
We have started a policy of recruiting Samizdata.net contributors as early as possible in their careers
Some familiar faces and some new ones from downunder
As usual there was a plague of digital cameras
Much booze was disposed of...
Thursday
There have been rumoured Dale Amon sightings in the Irish bars of Manhattan. Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid...
Friday
St. George's Day Party at the New Cavendish Club, ergo more drinking and less blogging 
Wednesday
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.
Sunday
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.
The belles are ringing for capitalism
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.
A couple of interns
A terrific French band playing American swing music in front of a
New York skyline backdrop! French anti-Americanism? Pah!
Tall, glamourous Texan woman with short, drunk, unglamourous British man
Gawain Towler (editor of The Sprout) and his wife Joslin
Stephen Pollard and friend.
Plenty of bright, young things in attendance
A very charming Phd student from California
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.
The Grand Platz of Brussels
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.
Thursday
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.
Sunday
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...
Thursday
Sunday
At a Samizdata social event in London last night, it was discovered that not one but two Samizdatistas were carrying around copies of Virginia Postrel's The Substance of Style, and circulating them around to other people present. We don't describe ourselves as overcaffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees for nothing. (Caffeine may not have quite been the drug of choice last night, however, although there was certainly some consumed). This is particularly impressive given that there is no British edition of the book and we had both separately sought out the American edition. British Amazon is excellent at stocking a wide range of American editions, shipping them quickly, and only charging local delivery charges in the UK though.
Brian Micklethwait and Michael Jennings have substance, but do they have style?
Wednesday
Tonight the intrepid Samizdatistas ventured into the heart of darkness (Westminster) to attend the Adam Smith Institute Christmas party at their rather splendid offices overlooking the Houses of Parliament. Vast quantities of champagne were consumed (well I certainly did).
The party was absolutely jam packed with free marketeers of all shapes and sizes.
The crowd was lively and, compared to pretty much any other UK think-tank, of a remarkably young average age.
Sunday
The Fourth British Blogger Bash in Chelsea was a chaotic and noisy affair...but then they always are, so no change there. Thirty-five worthy souls dived into the famous Chilli con Chelsea and only a few were slain by the lurking habanero demons therein...
Adriana, David and Luisa looked on as Perry ritually sacrified a civil servant to get the party swinging
Adriana and Philip amused themselves by hiding the bottles that were inexplicably protruding from Michael's back pockets
Hair? Ha! Hair is for weaklings!
For some reason the oxygen was getting sucked out of the room...
Brian rather unkindly ate Claire's Chilli whilst she was in a staring competition with Antoine
Briffa and Sherrif look on nonplused whilst Frank Sennsenbrenner does his Nixon impersonation
David and Claire do the 'La Dolce Vita' look rather well
Debbie, Jackie & Simon laugh, little knowing the camera is stealing their souls!
Andrew gets the message and does not tread on Linda
The Dissident Frogman morphs whilst talking to Andrew. Paul and Philip pretend not to notice
Even the hard core started to feel the strain after a while.... but he was just 'resting his eyes' really.
Yes... another highly successful blogger bash!
Update: And the Dissident Frogman has a scary Blogger Bash picture of his own.
Sunday
Thirty five bloggers, assorted members of the commentariat and sundry camp followers descended on Samizdata.net HQ with wild gleams in their eyes (and not just Andrew Dodge) last night and the final hard core did not slither out into the damp London daylight until about 9:00 am this morning!
I shall post more images of the proceedings but for now...
Update: More sinister tales of bashing bloggers can be found here.
Saturday
There may be rather sluggish posting from the London contingent of Samizdata.net contributors and commentariat tonight as we are about to have the Fourth British Blogger Bash in Chelsea
However if anyone disgraces themselves... 
...I will be sure to sneak away from the proceedings and post incriminating pictures
Sunday
Yesterday, a group of Australian (and other) bloggers and readers got together in the Three Wise Monkeys pub in central Sydney. Beer was consumed, impassioned conversation was had, a little rugby was watched, and although Tim Blair was not present due to being on his annual drive across America, a good time was had by all.
Jason Soon, Sasha Castel, and Craig Gaynor appear to be curiously inattentive to the Samizdatista present
Tim Lambert begs Scott Wickstein to let him know where he got the shirt
Scott and Tex get into the sort of bonding that was unfashionable amongst Australians until quite recently
James Russell and Michael Jennings smile about the fine Australian beverages
Ken Parish and Jason appear to somehow be having far too serious a conversation for the venue.
James Morrow looks somehow very American.
Ken, Scott, Mr ATM, James, and a Samizdata reader who it was great to talk to, but whose name was later deleted from my brain by the beer. (Sorry, although if you leave a comment, I will add to this caption. Update: Shaun Bourke)
Yes, it was that kind of evening.
Tuesday
As some of you may be aware, I am presently in Australia. A get together is being held in Sydney this Saturday evening to commemorate the fact, and to allow a whole lot of people who know each other electronically to actually meet one another. A wide assortment of Australian (and other) bloggers will be present. Any additional bloggers and/or readers who will be in the area and would like to come are more than welcome.
When: Saturday November 8 at 6:30 pm until probably quite late.
Where: The Three Wise Monkeys Hotel at 555 George St, Sydney.
Who: Everybody is welcome.
Any questions: Please contact me here
Thursday
I am attending a Halloween bash tomorrow evening, like many folks. Question - should I go as Ozzy Osborne, self-styled Prince of Darkness in the rock world, or probably new leader of the Tory Party and the man who was once dubbed as "having something of the night about him," Michael Howard MP?
Much hangs on which way I choose to jump. Comments please!
Friday
Adriana & I recently returned from a two week business/fun trip to the USA which took us to initially to New Jersey for a couple days...
Samizdatista Walter Uhlman demonstrates conclusively
that things are... bigger... in America
Adriana thought she should practice a little before venturing out
And thence to Los Angeles, where we lurked in the stygian cigar fog that is Brian Linse's rather nice home in the Hollywood Hills. We also ventured from there into the equally pungent Cigar Club The Grand Havana Room in Beverly Hills, as this proved to be the perpetual hang-out of our illustrious host. Therein amongst its Armani'ed and Prada'ed denizens, we encountered the splendid actor Robert Davi, who had some, interesting, things to say to us which I cannot repeat 
Welcome to Los Angeles!
Your papers, please
Your papers, please
Your papers, please
Your papers, please
Your papers, please
Your papers, please
your papers, please
It took a while to convince Adriana that this 'drive by' she had heard
about was not a sport much practiced in the Hollywood Hills
Hell, in Crimson Skies, I used to fly through the
second 'O' in the Hollywood sign... I dooooon't think so!
...then back to NJ/NY area for a blogger bash in the Big Apple organised by the mighty Jane Galt...
Time Square on a grey day really does look
like something straight out of Blade Runner
In the murky darkness that is the Shahel Lounge on 70th Street...
...we peered through the inky gloom...
...trying to make out who we were talking to
We then ventured into the wilds of rural Pennsylvania, a ways north of Scranton, a land known for its 'punkin pie'. The wildlife (a different sort than that which we encountered in Manhattan) looked apprehensive as we arrived at fellow Samizdatista Walter's stupendous property...
And I do mean stupendous!
Conditions were harsh and we had to eat typical hillbilly fare
Why does this thing have a honking great bottle opener on one end?
Adriana was looking forward to some sight-seeing
Perry shot a large number of leaves stone dead
It is nice to have enough land to shoot and not have
to worry overly much about where the bullets ended up
Glad to be back in London? Er, no, actually.
Thursday
A hastily convened Blogger Booze Up has been called by Gavin Sheridan and Dan Gillmor
When: Friday at 6:30 pm.
Where: Red Lion, Westminster, 48 Parliament St.
Who: Whoever wants to show up.
Why: You have to ask?
Monday
Last night until late, high up in the Hollywood Hills, a veritable multiplicity of LA Bloggers swarmed into Casa Bad Dude...
Bill Whittle & Rand Simberg... Jets and Rockets
Rand Simberg & Mickey Kaus
Kate Sullivan & Emmanuelle Richard
Martin Devon, Ann Salisbury, Kevin Drum & the pseudonymous Armed Liberal
I finally got to meet Rand Simberg face to face
Sara & Moxie, who contrary to some scurrilous rumours, is most certainly not deformed!
This being Casa Bad Dude, the air was thick with cigar smoke
Update: The morning after the night before...
Brian Linse recovers slowly from last night's festivities
Sunday
As usual, it starts with a scrum of bloggers descending on the beer and chili...
Glug, glug, munch, munch
Shockingly, many of the bloggers discussed... BLOGGING!
Patrick Crozier, Natalie Solent, Stephen Pollard
Eventually numbers and the need to smoke causes the proceedings to explode out into the garden. Many curses were uttered at the people responsible for the absence of Andrew Dodge and Sasha...
My... what big eyes you have!
Much beer was consumed...
I was only resting!
It is now 02:30 in the morning and strangely, people are starting to demand more chili!
Why aren't you people tired yet? Will it never end???
Update: Over a dozen of the hard core are still here...
The Transportblog Team: would you buy a train ticket from this lot?
Nearly 04:00 in the morning and at least one intrepid blogger has passed out in The Comfie Chair...
Don't you people have blogs to write for?
DissidentFrogman's face is censored to protect the guilty
Final update: The grizzled hardcore diehards finally staggered off into London's cold morning air at the first warning glow of daylight, a few minutes past 05:00 this morning...
Another highly successful British Blogger Bash!
Saturday
Tonight the cream of the British and European blogerati is descending on Chelsea once more for one of our famous Blogger Bashes... and thus there may be rather less output than usual on this blog (and quite a few others) tonight.
but hopefully not too much... 
Wednesday
Cry "Blog for Harry! England and St George!".
(with apologies to William Shakespeare)
I hope to see many of the Samizdatistas at the St. George's Day party tonight on the Thames. If anyone spectacularly misbehaves, or turns up looking particularly hot in a little black dress (no, not you David), I will try to get incriminating photos posted as soon as possible.
Saturday
As the London based Samizdatistas are meeting for a booze up at the Black Widow Pub on Gloucester Road this evening, there may be a lack of new articles tonight.
Saturday
Or more accurately, the day after the night before. Two separate parties yesterday involving a large contingent of Samizdatistas has resulted in rather meagre output today.
Proper decorum was observed at all times
Brian Linse, our pet pinko from California crashed
the party yet again and chatted up everything female
Sober discourse was the byword at this gathering as usual
Normal output will resume tomorrow...
Wednesday
Through a family connection, my eldest brother Toby has got himself involved in the cake business. He used to be an accountant and a management consultancy hotshot, and the widow of his late wife's brother used to run a cake-baking operation. So when she also died, Toby was one of the people who rallied round to help. That was a few years ago, but the resulting enterprise, Columbine Cakes, is still very much in business. Everything depends on how the cakes are baked, and the cook, the human hinge of the whole enterprise, is still going strong.
Columbine gets most of its business from already satisfied customers who come back for more, and from those lucky people with whom those customers share their purchases, often on special occasions like weddings when only the best will do. Columbine also has a nice new website, which will supply you with all the details if you want to purchase any of their products or get onto their mailing list.
Toby gave me a Columbine fruit cake for Christmas. It wasn't quite as good as the cakes our mother used to make at Christmas time, but it was the nearest thing to such a miracle that I've ever tasted, that you can buy in a shop or through the post. If this fruit cake was anything to go by, then any Columbine product – and there are now quite a few – would be worth a try. None of them are cheap. These are not cakes for the penny-pincher, or, I imagine, for the calorie-phobic. But if you give any of them a go, I truly believe you won't regret it. Enjoy.
Thursday
Our favourite pinko blogger, Brian Linse is in London...
Little does he know the effect of drinking out of a Samizdata.net Coffee Mug will have on his fragile political sensibilities...muuuahhhhhh!
Sunday
Today I shall be leaving the wet and mouldy Albion for a snowy and frosty Mittel Europa. This means much lower temperatures but also fur coats, Christmas markets, hot mead, mulled wine, slivovica and lots of lovely, lovely traditional Christmas food. Provided I can heave myself away from all that feasting, I shall post about whatever catches my meta-contextual eye. Or may be I'll just write about anything that still makes sense after drinking the fierce regional spirits.
I shall return to celebrate the New Year in London with the rest of the Samizdatistas.
Sunday
The Samizdata.net One Year Gathering last night seemed the perfect chance to get the 'Global Conspiracy' moving forward again...
We had everything required for a conspiracy by sinster globalist illuminati:
Gothic setting, endless supply of Guinness & crazy camera angles
However it proved hard to keep the conspirators focused on the job at hand
Very hard, in fact
It did not help that there were many distractions
But we did achieve something... we proved that Andrew Dodge not only wears his leather kilt in 'true Scottish style', someone has autographed his posterior!
Saturday
A rare treat for me yesterday evening, albeit at the cost of an arduous three and a half hour drive down to the East Kent coast.
The treat was a dinner party at the home of fellow Libertarian Sean Gabb, his lovely wife Andrea and capitalist-buccaneer radical Rebecca Baty.
Sean and his wife live in the old garrison town of Deal, from where, on a sufficiently clear day, you can just see the coast of France; a fact which must have concentrated 18th Century English minds wonderfully.
The place reeks of history. Aside from the smattering of satellite dishes, the winding alleyways (too narrow to drive a car down) and huddled regency houses impress one that neither the topography nor fabric of the place has much changed since Napoleon glowered malevolently across the Channel.
It was a splendid and rousing evening. Stimulated for the most part by the sheer clarity of Sean's thought processes, I drove home with a mind wrought giddy with ideas, the fresh blood of which has now begun to coagulate into something like A Manifesto for a Pragmatic British Libertarian. Presumptuous I know, but that won't stop me working on it. Though a snappier title would not come amiss.
Friday
But what is the name of a group of jack-o'-lanterns? I think two names might be needed: On a crisp, cold and clear Halloween, they are perhaps a cackle... or maybe a coven, or a leering or even a haunting of jack-o'-lanterns.
But the day after the night before, in rainy grey London, they are just a sorry sight to behold: they are jack-o'-lanterns no more, misshapen and decaying ...alas, nothing more than a woefulness of pumpkins.
Thursday
Greetings from London on this All Hallows Eve. I have always thought this festival was wasted on the very young... it is not a time for 'friendly ghosts or good witches', it is a time to get in touch with your inner werewolf
Wishing everyone a suitably ghastly Halloween. Just remember what happens if you have too much fun!
Wednesday
Hallow'een is bigger in Paris than London. To prove the point, I'm off to Paris for this year's event. To save money on a hotel and because of my extra late booking, I'm taking the overnight coach.
Whilst buying my make-up, (yes I do need some make-up to look like Uncle Fester) I realised why the party is more popular in Frace than the Uk and it illustrates perfectly the law of unintended consequences.
France is notionally a Catholic country, so All Saints' Day (All Hallows) is a public holiday. The night before is Hallow'een, a celebration of the night when all the fiends of hell rise up.
The UK is not a Catholic country, so All Saints' Day is not a day off work, so partying late on Hallow'een doesn't work as well. So if the Christian supremacists hadn't got the day off and forced it on everyone else, hedonistic party-goers wouldn't have the opportunity to dance naked around sacrificial chickens.
Oh dear! How tragic.
Thursday
The intrepid Samizdata Team sent a significant expedition to darkest Shoreditch, in London's East End, to attend the The Illustrated Ape Party at the Electricity Showrooms.
There was much drinking...
And extremely loud music...
And many many people...
Who watched acts of 'Art Terrorism'...
All of which might, or might not, make today's Samizdata posts a bit... strange.
Tuesday
We had 25 people show up to the Second British Blogger Bash and the party has been hailed as a great success.
Below can be seen (L to R) Ben Sheriff of Layman's Logic, Mike Solent (back turned), Steve Chapman of Stephen Chapman (formerly 'Daddy Warblogs), Tom Burroughes of Samizdata.net (back turned), Andrew Dodge of Dodgeblog, Brian Micklethwait of Samizdata.net, Alex Singleton (barely visible) of St. Andrews Liberty Log, Peter Briffa of Public Interest UK and Natalie Solent of Natalie Solent.
Steve Chapman and Peter Briffa were disappointed when
they discovered what 'having a little pot for desert' actually meant
Below are Nikki Brandt, Luisa Gutierrez and Adriana Cronin of Samizdata.net.
The ladies discuss the aerodynamics of a
Frisbie with and without salad dressing
Below are Perry de Havilland of Samizdata.net and Patrick Crozier of CrozierVision and UK Transport.
Perry shamelessly advertises Samizdata.net tee-shirts
Below are David Carr of Samizdata.net and Adriana Cronin of Samizdata.net.
David and Adriana make jokes about why they had
to drink Brendan O'Neill's share of the booze
Below are Patrick Crozier of UK Transport and Dale Amon of Samizdata.net, uncharacteristically shown wielding a beer.
Dale demonstrates the correct stance for
accurately hurling a beer can at a passing politico
Below are Natalie Solent, Alice Bachini of A Libertarian Parent in the Countryside and Perry de Havilland.
Alice, having eaten the collar of Perry's shirt (with some
fava beans), washes it down with some nice Chianti
Brendan O'Neill was unable to attend due to prior obligations... you missed a good one, O'Neill.
Monday
Is it just me? Apparently yes. And of course it must be very clear to all our readers what is causing this. All the others Samizdatistas are still recovering from the blogger bash. Lots of photos of people doing embarrassing things. Two bits from Perry and David before they succumbed to unconsciousness. Then silence for 48 hours from almost all of them apart from me. It's obvious.
No doubt in the hours and days that follow, the others will slowly emerge in ones and twos from their sickbeds and from behind the sofas and out of the various closets and small rooms in Chateau Perry behind which and within which they still now groan and toss and roll about in a purgatorial state between sleep and wakefulness, pain and nightmare, and others besides me will eventually again be telling you things. But for now, mine are the only hands at the blogpump, and if you don't like me, well, I don't really know, being too polite, what to suggest about that.
But I know what you're thinking. Why am I the only conscious and functioning Samizdatista? Did I not drink any alcohol? Did I drink lots of alcohol but am I unaffected by alcohol, immune from dizziness, vomiting, violent headaches, and so forth?
Strangely, it's the opposite. I am no better at resisting pleasure than anyone else, or even postponing it, and my constitution is made not of iron but of balsa wood. And that, ladies and gentlemen of the sober world, is what gives me my competitive advantage when it comes to blogging only a few hours after participating in a blogger bash. Alcohol affects me immediately. I get my hangovers straight away, within minutes. Thus I immediately switch to girlie drinks like Pepsi and Orange Juice. I am not teetotal. But I genuinely drink only in moderation, even at parties where everyone else is chucking it down like there's no tomorrow. With the result that when tomorrow does come, they all wish there really was no tomorrow, but I'm still operating at my usual steady if indolent rate.
My late father was just the same. He too would refrain from excessive drinking, not because of any great strength of character – although unlike me he was quite a strong character – but because of the same genetically inborn instant aversion therapy that curbs any inclination I ever have towards alcoholic excess. I've only ever been properly drunk once in my entire life.
I just thought you might like to know.
Monday
I'm appalled. Yesterday morning (and my excuse is that it must have been very early in the morning) I read a posting on Freedom and Whisky and then later that morning I here accused David Farrer of responding to the whole griefometer thing very tastefully and seriously, to make some portentous point about, you know, how terrible communism was. But in the paragraph just before the ones I re-posted here, he did do all the cuteness, Dando, Diana calculations that I accused him of neglecting, just as if he were a Samizdata writer.
Nobody told me this. There were comments on what I put, but none that noted this elementary blunder. I found it out when I looked at F&W again just now. That's when huge cock-ups are really humiliating. When no-one notices them.
As soon as you have read the above either burn or eat it and speak of it to no one. Perry: kill the comments.
One thing I have learned from this horror: that when those big bad mainstream media get things totally rectum over mammary, as they do, a lot, I am now even readier than I was to believe that it's incompetence rather than malevolence. (This paragraph reflects the American influence on us Samizdatista. What we in the UK call a cock-up is called in America a "learning experience".)
The party last night was excellent. I did lots of pleasure and also some major blog-related business, which I'll tell you about when it's ready to tell about which it isn't yet.
Sunday
When glamourous, leggy women in figure-hugging clothes are being wooed with statistics about the European Central Bank and it works; when people are toasting the imminent demise of the House of Saud; when the urgent intensity of gin-soaked geo-politics is interrupted only by the furious munching of habanero-flavoured nachos; when the sound of polite laughter at a really good joke about Tony Blair fills the air; when a man lurches up to you and says something that sounds like:
"Aarg ftmch nt'elly 'ckin gbment shh blettin narg like fuff, cos ee dregs ding tchil oil vusso (burp) shlyinng gug nuvern else"
...and expects you to answer him, you know you've probably been invited to a British Blogger Bash. One could scarcely believe that these bold, shining, fearless Warriors of the Great Western Way could be transformed into a semi-amorphous mass of gibbering, leering primates merely by the application of sufficient quantities of alcohol but that is the stark truth of the matter.
But the truth, as well as setting you free, can also be a lot of fun.
Sunday
04:30am The Second British Blogger Bash has finally run out of steam as its participants have started dropping like flies...
...I suspect there may be somewhat less blogging on Sunday from the London Samizdata HQ.
Sunday
02:15 am The Second British Blogger Bash continues and the tone of discourse has become more 'interactive' with the arrival of Andrew Dodge...
Saturday
10:45 pm: The Second British Blogger Bash in London is in full swing and as the picture below indicates, things are sober and sedate.
Claire Berlinski and Alex Singleton
Saturday
...was that a large proportion of the Samizdata Team were distracted by Antoine Clarke's birthday party in London!
Antoine blows his cork!
Adriana and Brian look on as David Carr
does his mushroom cloud impersonation
Sunday
The Samizdata Team based in and around London was delighted to be able to meet famed blogger Joanne Jacobs and her daughter for lunch in Central London yesterday.
Joanne and her daughter looked on impassively whilst the Guardian journalists were burnt in effigy for their amusement.
Natalie Solent regaled the room with her 'The time I went shopping and forgot to leave the Chieftain Tank's hand brake on' story.
Monday
Dave Tepper suggests ideas for a blogger drinking game. I'm not sure we need a game at Samizdata HQ. We take our drinking as dead seriously as 1930's Hollywood newspapermen.
I'm sure Perry can atest to the similarity between the state of his bar after the Samizdatistas went home and an African field after the locusts have gone.
Wednesday
Stephanie DuPont has suggested that the female guests at the British Blogger Bash were 'paid escorts'. Two were computer programers at the top end of their professions, one was a manager with the English National Opera, one was a TV producer and one runs a hotel and a small data services operation.
Stephanie is obviously just jealous she was not invited to the bash, or maybe she is looking for a spanking to relieve the tedium of being Brian Linse's gopher. Yes, she strikes me as the kinky type, that must be it.
At the Brit Blogger Bash: elegant, articulate and easy on the eyes
Sunday
Tentative greetings from Hangover Headquarters.
The 1st Blogger Bash in London was a definite success with four blogs represented, and a host of would-be bloggers and blog readers also in attendance, eighteen people in all.
Blogs represented were Samizdata (obviously), Aint No Bad Dude, Dodgeblog and Layman's Logic.
Unfortunately Adil Farooq of Muslimpundit sent regrets earlier and was unable to attend and the evil Busheyspon was a no-show.
Proceedings started at 7:00 pm and continued until 6:30 am today (I kid thee not) when the last diehards staggered off to an uncertain fate into the cold Chelsea night.
It looks like at least two new blogs will probably emerge as a result of the contacts between existing bloggers and interested attendees. Samizdata will also gain two more contributors to the bristling libertarian phalange in the form of Adriana Cronin and Patrick Crozier.
Samizdata Team reminds Brian Linse of Aint No Bad Dude that we have not forgotten the 'Interblog Gun Wars'
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We can confirm that contrary to rumours, Andrew Dodge is not in fact possessed by demons
Ben Sheriff of Layman's Logic was envious of Brian Micklethwait's finely tuned social antennae
The party was characterised by sober discourse and probity
All the attendees were bleary guys with beer bellies
Dale was very impressed when Tom Burroughes demonstrated the famous Reuters Break Dance technique
Sunday
Proper after-action reports will have to wait until tomorrow but here is the hard core who are still partying at 3:55 in the morning...
L to R: Walter Uhlman Pat Crozier Dave Shaw David Carr (seated) Brian Linse Andrew Dodge Dale Amon Perry de Havilland
Friday
Due to the seriousness of the threat against the Samizdata London Citadel, the craic Samizdata Belfast Drinking Brigade is rushing a reinforcement to London. An airdropped supply of deadly verbiage is expected by 21:00 Zulu time this evening at the latest.
Rumour has it that Samizdatistas are converging on the area from all corners of London.
Friday
One of the reasons for the low volume of bloggage here has been the distracting influence of our pet pinko, Brian Linse, who has somehow managed to weasel his way into Samizdata HQ. He has barricaded himself into the downstairs guest room and we cannot get him out. The horror. The horror.
Sunday
Any British Isles bloggers within range of London who are interested in getting together with the cream of the bloggerati on Saturday, 23rd February, should e-mail us at admin at samizdata.net" as soon as possible for information. We can probably handle a few more.
A veritable verisimilitude of Bloggers from Blighty Samuel Johnson
Saturday
Seeing as Will Vehrs of Blog Watch II is moaning about the lack of Valentine party reports, here I go.
It all started off rather badly as I had a huge argument with my 'significant other'. But that was probably just as well so this way I did not have him moping around later at the party like death's head at the feast.
I was joint hostess of this party with two excellent lady friends of mine at a pleasingly nefarious and very out-of-the-way venue that for certain reasons will remain nameless. We expected 30-35 people but eventually got more than 80 I would guess, which proved interesting. I have no idea where they all came from and how they found our semi-private party. The guys running the bar (huge kiss to Marko, DJ Klaus and Dobroslav) had to go out twice and restock, the last time the underside of Marko's old Trabi was scrapping the ground and making sparks because there was so much in the back and on the seats.
The title of the party was 'Love and Massacres on Valentine's Day' and due to the preferences of one of my co-hostesses, the theme was 'Goths in Love': so I did radical things with my hair and had a rather fetching 'tattoo' painted on for the night. 
The party took place in a large concrete basement that was quite recently used as a bomb shelter, with two dance rooms, a chill room and a very unusual and, um, 'sociable' toilet room. Music in one room was things like Prodigy, Alice DJ, Jaxx, Chemical Brothers, Stromkern, Apollo 440 and Orbital and the other room stuck to the goth theme with things like local boys Gone, Laibach, Weeping Willow, Phantasmagoria and Drinking Skull, plus the inevitable Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees.
The place had a ventilation system which seemed to be running backwards and so it got hotter and hotter as more and more people arrived to engage in crazed dancing and innovative drinking games. After a while there was an interesting layer of cigarette and who-knows-what smoke sort of hanging just below the ceiling which did look rather cool. A bit later I had a very surreal conversation when four of us got trapped in the toilet room for about half an hour. I got talking with a very beautiful Hungarian boy wearing a bullet earring, who told me he "knew the people whose party this was and they were all smugglers from Russia". I would have liked to hear more of this fascinating story but then Marko managed to take the big steel door off its hinges with a huge screwdriver and freed us all. All the waiting people who wanted to go pee pee rushed in and threw us out and I never saw the strange Hungarian boy again.
Many interesting things happened later but my memory gets hazy now...at least that is my story and I am sticking to it. It was a terrific party but I am really glad I didn't have to clean up afterwards. Are you satisfied now Will? I demand *** for this revelation on Blog Watch II!
Thursday
You know who you are. I will miss you at my party tonight and I will miss your party on the 23rd. Story of our lives. 
Monday
A veritable verisimilitude of Bloggers from Blighty Samuel Johnson
Only a very few spaces left. E-mail for details if you are a blogger in the British Isles.
Sunday
Double bugger! If Ken Layne is to be believed (and of course he should), it sounds like we missed one hell of a party in Los Angeles, hosted by our pet pinko and true gentleman, Brian Linse.
Perhaps we need to organize a London (and environs) Blogger Bash along similar lines. Sounds like a damn fine idea to me!
Monday
As the valiant members of the Samizdata Air Service deploy across the globe, spreading the good news about liberty and confounding it's enemies, expect the rate at which articles get posted to slow significently as, one by one, we end up passed out under tables, asleep in strange beds or the centre of large steaming alcohol induced craters somewhere, mumbling incoherently about several property, Ludwig von Mises and some chick with short blonde hair and long sheer stockinged legs.
New Years greetings from this most global blog. Wassail and Cheers from:
Britain (Perry de Havilland, David Carr and Tom Burroughes in London; Natalie Solent in the Home Counties)
Northern Ireland (Dale Amon in Belfast)
Austria (Natalija Radic in Vienna)
United States (Walter Uhlman in New Jersey and Christopher Pellerito in Michigan)
Rlyeh ('Samizdata Illuminatus', somewhere under the South Pacific, we think)
