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I have considered over the last couple of days whether or not to write about an event. I feared, and still fear, that many people will either think I am making the whole thing up or that, at least, I am exaggerating to make a more ‘entertaining’ story. I am not making this event up, and I am not exaggerating – but I have no way to prove this.
Anyway here goes…
On Tuesday I went to an event ‘East Midlands Expo’ organized by the ‘East Midlands Region’ government. These ‘Regional’ governments are not desired by the public – but they are forced to pay for them anyway. The event was supposed to be about the ‘environment’. It was held in the buildings that form part of the Rockingham Speedway. This is sporting facility that is on the outskirts of the town of Corby in Northamptonshire.
Why this site was chosen I do not know. If the public were intended to attend this event it was a very bad choice of site – but if the event, and the cost of it, was meant to be hidden from the public it was a good choice of site. I overheard someone pointing to the helicopters that seemed to be flying round the site and saying “they are to keep the public out” – but I do not believe that to be true (it was just a coincidence).
There were some members of the public at the event. Some confused looking children, some in yellow helmets, were led around to various places. A few of these children were brought in to be photographed when a government person presented a cheque [pdf document] to two women dressed as ‘Eco-Pixies’.
However, nearly everyone at the event was either a councillor, a Local Government Officer, or a representative of a commercial enterprise trying to sell something – via various stalls. There was one stall that did not seem to be trying to sell anything – it was from the Romania government and its function at the event seemed to be to publicise Romania. This led a Local Government Officer I talked with, to describe the event as “Eco-Pixies meet Romania” – although, as far as I know, the Eco-Pixies did not visit the Romanian government stall. There were some stalls, outside, that were selling actual products (bread, cheese and so on) but the main stalls inside the event were from various large enterprises trying to interest politicians and officials in their services (to be paid by the taxpayers). The objective seemed to be to ‘network’.
Outside there was also part of a building made of straw. Not panels made of straw, just bales of straw. There were also various ‘workshops’ which were conducted in the English language – but a highly distorted form of it. As I went around talking to people and visiting stalls I found myself having difficulty in suppressing high pitched involuntary nervous laughter (what British people call “the giggles” – which is not as pleasant as it sounds) and I had to retreat to the toilet to recover – in order to avoid being rude.
After I recovered I took the special bus back to Kettering.
However, the events of the day had disturbed me and I went shopping, buying lots of ‘bad’ things. For example, bread and cheese, which I could have bought from the stalls outside the “Expo” – but I felt uncomfortable buying things there, I intend no disrespect to the people at the food stalls – perhaps the most honest people at the event.
Bread is denounced because of carbohydrate, and cheese is denounced because of fat – especially the high fat ‘Danish Blue’ cheese that I bought. I also bought alcohol for the first time in months, partly because alcohol had just been denounced on BBC Radio 4 that morning “there is no safe lower limit” (this did not concern driving – it was meant as general health warning). The alcohol I bought was Yorkshire ‘Old Peculiar’ beer – which I thought fitted the peculiar nature of the day. My shopping the local supermarket which might be considered environmentally unsound, but many of the organizations at the ‘Expo’ were rather big so I suppose the organizers are not totally against big business.
Anyway I then ate some bread and cheese and drank my beer in an effort to calm my mind – but I was not totally successful.
For every rational cause you can guarantee there will be someone who tries to pursue it in a crazy and counter-productive manner. A Cambridge school caretaker has just been gaoled for sending letter bombs in protest against the surveillance state. Quite how he thought it might help is obscure; there is no Bakhuninite theory of precipitating revolution on offer, nor the intimidation/revenge motive of animal-rights terrorists. Perhaps he is a product of what the LM people identify as “therapeutic culture” and believes (compare Mr Blair) that strength of feeling is truth, and demonstrating the strength of one’s feelings by hurting others – a Big Howl – is persuasive.
All of which is by way of introduction to the strangest point in the whole affair: the post trial commentary from the officer in charge of the investigation. This is becoming a standard feature of any notorious case, one which I dislike intensely. I think the job of the police is to investigate crime disinterestedly, and they should not have a say in or comment on the process of the courts, any more than they should prejudice the position of suspects beforehand.
Detective Superintendent George Turner, from Thames Valley Police, said of the criminal,
“He utilised his interests in anarchy, terrorism and explosive devices in support of his political views.”
Uh?
Let us be clear. This is not a slip of the tongue. It is a pre-prepared statement, given out in a press release to be reproduced verbatim.
How could an interest in anarchy (which does not seem to have been made out in any account I have read, and I would be grateful to be pointed to the evidence) have utility in bombing people? It might, just, provide motivation, although there are lots of pacifist anarchists and few violent nihilists, but practical assistance?
And “in support of his political views”? No, quite back-to-front. His crimes were in (mistaken) pursuit of his political views. There is a worrying muddling of means and ends there. What Cooper did was wrong; it does not support his views in the slightest. The criminality is founded in his intent to damage property and injure people. But we are left with the impression that the views are the mens rea.
Except I do not think he should be making it at all, I would have no quarrel with D-Supt Turner’s prepared statement had it said:
“He utilised his interests in terrorism and explosive devices in support of a politically motivated criminal plan.”
What he actually said is a disturbing glimpse of an official mind-set in which non-conformity and violence, dissent and criminality, are confounded.
This is both an historical and an historiographical puzzle.
It might well be true. It would be interesting if it were.
I do not think it is of any consequence for current affairs or community relations whether it is true or not (and I could not give a damn what anyone thinks on that point either way). But I thought my naval history was pretty good, and I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
The BBC reports Trevor Philips speaking at an event today:
“When we talk about the Armada it’s only now that we are beginning to realise that part of it is Muslims,” Mr Phillips told the meeting. “It was the Turks who saved us, because they held up Armada at the request of Elizabeth I.”
Now what is he going on about? How would one arrange that with 16th century communications? Elizabeth certainly chartered a Levant Company, and had diplomatic relations with the Ottomans. But where is the evidence? Did the Turks hold up the Armada at all? And if so did they do it by arrangement? If so, what’s the new research that “only now” gives us this information? If not, where does Mr Phillips get the idea from?
Being the free marketeer that I am, I accept the point that an item is worth what people are prepared to pay for it, not more, not less. But some sort of gremlin in me shouts “that’s bonkers!” when I see what people are prepared to shell out for a so-called work of art. The skull, encrusted in diamonds, sold for £50m by Damian Hirst had that little gremlin shouting again in my head.
To think that some folk working deep under the earth’s crust dug out all those sparklers for this, when there are so many beautiful women out there who should be wearing things like these.
Ok, rant over.
No, not that Evil Empire – the other one!
Thanks to Nick M for providing the link; it was too good to leave languishing in this comments thread.
UPDATE: have I been had? I think it likely! Read comments for more details…
I am not a musician, but if I were a guitarist, I might fancy one of these. I like the one with the teeth.
(Via Gizmondo).
Earlier this evening I was reading the on-line Telegraph and clicked on a link about a Taliban leader being killed in a NATO air strike in what I assumed was going to be Afghanistan… and to my surprise I ended up at an article about the interminable queues at British airports! So this NATO air strike against the Taliban was where exactly?
I looked again a bit later and the links were appropriately sorted out but as someone who has just passed through the nightmare that is Heathrow, for one glorious moment I thought some public spirited member of the armed forces stuck in one of what Adriana calls “the security theatre queues” had snapped and called in a long over due air strike on Terminal 2.
Whilst it is fun to laugh at the French, in the interest of fair and balanced commentary I should add that this civil servant would find numerous employment opportunities in any of the world’s government sectors.
Ecogeek reports:
In the next 12 months, McDonald’s plans on creating enough fuel to power its 155 delivery vehicles while having enough fuel left over to sell into the public market. The fuel will be composed of 85% waste vegetable oil and 15% virgin rapeseed oil. So, while it will be 100% carbon neutral, it won’t be entirely waste oil.
It is all very well training executives in communication with the media. Somehow I have a feeling that if the guy was allow to talk normally instead of using the pseudo-technical press-release talk, this might have been avoided.
However, Matthew Howe, Senior VP of McDonald’s UK was quoted saying:”As we get better at the refinement we will be able to remove virgin rape from the process”, a line which we sincerely hope never gets taken out of context. [emphasis mine]
Now please excuse me whilst I clean the tea from out of my keyboard.
We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area
– UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer.
 Not often you see a remark quite like that.
(via Alec Muffet)
Via Reason magazine’s Hit & Run blog, here is this rather amusing item about how French motorists with clean driving licences sell their speeding points online for a fee to drivers who are in danger of using up all their points and then getting banned. Yes, yes, I can see the usual Dudley Do-Rights out there bleating that this is all terribly naughty, a sign of decadence, blah, but in fact what this demonstrates, in a slightly naughty French way, is how if you oppress people enough with laws and taxes over a period of time, it breeds such disregard for the law that even laws that have sense – and driving very fast can be bloody dangerous – get spurned. (It appears the French are smarter at getting around certain rules – look at what happened to former Spurs, Manchester United and England player Teddy Sheringham for allegedly trying to pull the same speeding-point move).
I have driven a few times along France’s magnificent, sweeping autoroutes, and am occasionally reminded that France invented Formula 1 motor racing. Maybe there’s plenty of life left in Gaul yet. If only they could do capitalism in a slightly more routine way.
Talking of such alternative markets, here is an old article about the market in air miles.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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