Over-spending and Debt at Christmas - please try and resist the temptation

I rarely touch on personal domestic matters, but at this time of year many people will become increasingly "excited" over the coming few weeks in the run-up to Christmas or the Festive Season or the Holiday Season or however you choose to describe it. I have little or no religious faith (I hover between Agnosticism and Atheism), but I have felt since I was becoming a teenager and then young adult that the idea that there was some "power" overseeing humanity was so much superstitious nonsense. I try to be "nice" in my personal dealings, so I hope that not too many are offended by my cavalier viewpoint, but ultimately if you are offended I'm afraid you will have to live with it, because in reality I don't much care. You have your views and I have mine.

In any case, however you view the coming few weeks, many people including me look upon the forthcoming Christmas holidays/festival/celebrations as an opportunity to get together with friends and family, eating and drinking rather more than is usual during the rest of the year, also offering hospitality and gifts to various family, friends and acquaintances and receiving similar in return. However, the simplest thing I can urge upon you is to not overdo it, and remember that if you are incurring debts, or your friends and family are, to fund this annual extravanganza, that booms generally are followed by busts. Debts incurred to fund this period will fairly soon have to be repaid, somehow or other. I realise that for younger families with young children that they will want to provide their children with a happy and exciting Christmas and certainly will not wish their own children to feel they are less fortunate than some of their classmate contemporaries, who receive the latest "must have" toys, games, clothes and gadgetry generally at this time of year. I understand the pressures that people face in a "consumer" society. Most of us have budgetary limits in what we can do; some of us have more "discretionary" income, beyond the absolute essentials, than others. Some amongst us have almost no such "discretionary" income at all and whatever "joy" (if any) they can look forward to over the coming weeks will be dependent on the help of others, which I hope will be as generous as others' means will allow.

But for everyone, I would like to urge some level of moderation, both in the desire to "give" and expectation of what you may wish or expect to "receive"; we all want to enjoy oursleves, but not at the expense (surely) of subsequent weeks or months of actual or near penury to pay for it. I volunteered for some years, quite some years ago now, with a charity organisation that sought to help people in various personal struggles and I always remember that another volunteer, when we were both "on duty" around this time of year, tried to explain to me the pressures she was under not to disappoint her own children in their expectations, which she was barely able (if at all) to satisfy. I am not "wealthy", but I suppose I am "comfortable" in comparison to many others, so it's possible that I don't always understand fully the pressures that face some others, I don't deny it, but I am very aware that not everyone is so fortunate as me.

In Nairn we have a weekly newspaper, published every Tuesday, as I have mentioned a few times before - The Nairnshire Telegraph does not have any online presence, so it is not possible to link to their articles, but one item they carry every week is a sort of 'moral homily' from some religious bloke signing himself 'Sandy Shaw - Nairn Christian Fellowship' and they are usually pretty trite, apart from being poorly written and full of logical non sequiturs. I read them, or at least glance at them, every week when I am in Nairn, and usually indulge in a little derisive chuckle and have at least once before written about something I read in the column - for example, in November/December 2011 when I wrote this. The article today (Tuesday, 6th December 2016) is the usual mix of religious mumbo-jumbo mixed in with practical advice, so whilst I find the former risible I am happy to acknowledge that that there is considerable "common sense" in the latter. The article this weeks is pithily entitled "Debt" and I reproduce it below:

The Nairnshire Telepgraph Tuesday, December 6, 2016 - page 8

Whatever your views on "religion" (and I have already expressed my own scepticism and indeed scorn for these "notions" and "beliefs" as they are what I regard as fiction), there is I think a good deal of common sense in the linked article. Do with my article what you will. In any case, enjoy yourselves over the coming weeks, but don't overdo it in any sense.

The pitfalls of "anonymous blogging"

(Please see UPDATE at end)

One of the things this blog is not, and never has been, is "anonymous" - there really is a person called "Bill Cameron" and I have been blogging here for in excess of nine years. Enough people in the "real world" (assuming you don't actually buy into the notion that we are all living in some kind of Matrix make-believe world) know both me and this blog for its genuineness to have been established long ago.

What has prompted this now? Well, it seems there has been for some months a blog purportedly written by a lesbian in Syria, a country currently enduring considerable social turmoil, which was revealed a few days ago to have been a completely fictitious creation of an American heterosexual male currently studying for a Masters Degree at, of all places, Edinburgh University. Another false blog profile was apparently created, a male US military person again writing as a lesbian, to 'authenticate' the original fraud.

Many people write 'anonymously' for one reason or another. Often-times, in my opinion, such blogs are written by Walter Mitty types who have no obvious real need to write anonymously, but seem to feel that it adds an air of 'mystery' or 'exoticism' to their scribblings. So far as I am concerned I find such 'coyness' merely tedious - and boring. I could cite dozens of blogs in the UK and US which fall into this cateogry (but won't, or at least not directly) - some do write interestingly, but most are really not worth the time and effort of anyone else to read them. Perhaps they do save some money on therapists for the writers.

The first I heard of the 'Syrian lesbian blog' in question was a couple of days ago in a gay news ['mainstream' in the online gay community] website, based in the UK although the first link I saw to it was in a blog article today, but unfortunately the blog in question has now been restricted only to invited viewers, so I am unable to comment directly on any of the actual articles in the 'offending' blog; I use the word 'offending' ironically. Equally ironically, the linked blog is itself written 'anonymously' - no doubt the person behind it is a person who exists in a physical reality, apparently in Dundee (a city in Scotland), but I have absolutely no means of evaluating this in any way that might be called 'evidence'; the email address provided in the linked blogger profile is decidedly obscure. I have no particular reason to doubt the claim within the blog that the writer is indeed a 'lady of a certain age' living in Dundee, but nor is there any credible 'evidence' to substantiate this, so I have always read 'her' blog with a certain degree of scepticism. There have been certain incidents in the past which have since made me wonder whether my classification of the writer as 'histrionic' (a sort of 'Winifred Mitty' if you like, a female version of the afore-linked 'Walter Mitty') is not so very far off the mark.

I make absolutely no apology for the scepticism with which I view all 'anonymous' blogs; the writers of such blogs may protest their genuineness as much as they want, but I reserve the right to continue to regard them with some suspicion. Even some of those where I have come to know the real identity of the writers seem to me to have suspect motives for continuing to write their blogs anonymously.

More pernicious undoubtedly are those blogs which set themselves up with a completley false 'persona' which purports to be that of a real person - such seems to be the case with this latest "Syrian lesbian" blog imposter; perhaps the original motive of Tom MacMaster for starting this blog was honourable, but it was at best naïve and at worst deeply destructive and dangerous for those within Syria who have apparently been duped into believing in the genuineness of his blog.

The only safe stance on the internet is to be on guard at all times. It has become all too common in recent years for 'phishers' to purport to send emails from genuine companies or oganisations in the hope of gleaning from innocent users of the genuine websites their usernames and passwords, later to be used by the 'phishers' for nefarious purposes. So although my little blog is completely genuine, as could be attested by various friends, acquaintances and family members in the 'real world', most readers of it do not know me personally, so the only completely safe policy for them is to maintain a healthy scepticism.

One of the other links that Subrosa provides is to a Guardian article written by someone called Kira Cochrane, a more contrived load of pseudo-feminist claptrap than which I have not read in a very long time, richly deserving a complete fisking, but I have neither the time nor the inclination to do a complete job as I have a life to live. However a couple of examples:

In the case of MacMaster and Graber, sexual gratification doesn't seem to have been the prime motive, although there are certainly signs that the two men may have got some erotic thrill from pretending to be lesbians – "Amina" apparently often flirted with "Paula".

- well, although as I mentioned above I have not been in a position to read the actual exchanges in question, it seems to me that it would be a prerequisite to 'carry off' the deception that the two purportedly lesbian protagonists would have possibly 'flirted' with each other, although frankly any semi-sentient human being might just have smelled a rat - just how 'genuine' and believable were these exchanges? Moreover, unless at least some of the articles in the blog were in Arabic I would have been extremely sceptical as to the blog's genuineness - it is perfectly true that a number of blogs written by Arabs (male and female, gay and straight) exist or have existed with most articles written in English, this was specially true in the run-up to and following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (there was indeed one very well-known blog written by a gay Iraqi man who subsequently became a columnist in the Guardian for a while), but most had at least some content in the Arabic language, either in the articles themselves or in the comments. If the whole thing was in completely perfect idiomatic English, and none of the comment I have read indicates otherwise, then that alone would have been a warning indicator to me.

In fact, as the psychotherapist and feminist writer Susie Orbach says, they seem to have been using these lesbian personas as a "double inversion – exploiting the 'illegitimacy' of the person they were impersonating to give themselves legitimacy".

- am I the only one who thinks this is just so much iname 'gibberish'? It reads like invented pyschobabble to me!

Alomost the only part of this tendentious twaddle that seems to have any validity whasoever is the final paragraph which reads:

While there are worries that this will undermine the lesbian blogosphere – creating a question mark over all who write about gay issues online – Campbell suspects it won't do too much lasting damage. "Internet life is full of hoaxes," she says, "it's full of virtuality. Lesbian bloggers who are embedded and authentic will continue, and all these others will fall away."

- although the bit about internet life being 'full of virtuality' is the kind of trite, pseudo-profound insight that is in reality just the meaningless rubbish that typifies far too much mainstream media writing about the internet. The whole internet IS VIRTUAL - Doh!

There are/were bloggers writing in western countries who have perhaps been justified in maintaining anonymity, either because they were writing about sensitive matters that might have personal ramifications for them from those who know them in real life, or because of their employment if their blogs touched on matters relating to their place of work; indeed a number of such bloggers have been dismissed or forced out of their employment when their identities were revealed.

Finally, I don't pretend to know what it is to be lesbian or to be a lesbian writer from a country where repression and intimidation is the norm. On the other hand I am a gay man who has lived for many years in a number of extremely repressive societies in the Middle East and elswehere, so I think I do have an inkling of some of the pressures involved and certainly a lot more than some of the male and female bloggers and journalists who have been pontificating about this over the past few days, most of whom are neither lesbian nor gay, nor do they have the experience of living under a repressive reigime.

To whose who say "Don't believe all you read on the internet", I can only respond that I may enjoy reading many things on the internet, but I never, ever forget to be sceptical of all I read there - and for you, dear reader, that means this article, too (unless you happen to know me personally, that is).

UPDATE: (Thursday 16JUN2011 08.50 BST) Here's a more wide-ranging analyis and discussion in Slate on the phenomenon of people adopting false personas for their writing exploits - click here; the Google-cache link to the blatantly false apology from the operator of the LezGetReal bulletin board is well worth clicking on, too, from there.

If you believe in Liberty ...

... consider taking The John Galt Oath:



John Galt is the main and mysterious character in the novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, read more about it here or buy it here. Re-evaluate your life and what you want out of it; throw off the blinkered thinking that most of us have grown up with and consider what is really important in your life.

The music on the video-clip above is an excerpt from 'Liberatio' by the German group Krypteria (it is sung in Latin indicdentally); some of the proceeds from sales were dedicated to helping those who suffered following the Asian Tsunami in December 2004. Objectivism is not about ignoring the needs or interests of others, but it is about rethinking how one lives one's own life and how one interacts with others. You can listen to the whole track here, or buy it here - I purchased my copy from German seller SLC Music and found their service very rapid indeed and completely satisfactory.

New York and its Islamic Center ('mosque') controversy

Amidst all the nonsense I've been hearing from the US about whether a 'mosque' should be permitted at 'Ground Zero' or not, it is a profound relief to have someone like Keith Olbermann come out and say clearly (and as usual quite loudly - that man should watch his blood pressure!) that the US should be a defender of freedom, not its oppressor. Mind you, I've been railing for years about the US's recourse to what most civilised people consider to be 'torture' and 'extra-judicial incarceration' in its response to events since '9/11', a stain upon American deomocracy that will take many years and probably decades to erase. To be clear, the so-called 'mosque' is not a mosque at all, but a multi-purpose cultural centre and although it will have a prayer room it will also have sports facilities, nor is it 'at Ground Zero', but several city blocks away and will not be visible from the old World Trade Center site. Anyway, watch this subject being aired in Keith Olbermann's unique style; incidentally he points out that a small Islamic Center has been operating nearer to 'Ground Zero' without incident since 1970, before the World Trade Center was even built:



(thru Chicken Yoghurt)

LibDems - the clean political party? Yeah, right!

Watch 'saint' Vince Cable wriggle and squirm, unconvincingly, when asked by Jon Sopel why the LibDems won't hand back the donation of GBP 2.4 million to they received from convicted fraudster Michael Brown:



- the true face of the LibDems. Keen to preach to others, but always unwilling to mend their own glaring deficiencies. Don't forget also about the recently-discovered 'anomalies' regarding donations to Nick Clegg - and incompetent with it; it is observed that another 'clean' politician, the Lord Mandelson, rushed to his defence. Is this a case of 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer'?.

(Refresh your memory about the background to this case and the poor moral judgement of the LibDems in accepting, and now insisting they 'have done nothing wrong' by keeping, this money. Are these the kind of politicians we want to have a hand in running the country?)

Stephen Byers 'sleaze-bucket' extraordinaire

[Ex-?]Labour and ex-Cabinet Minister Stephen Byers latest 'fall from grace', along with his [ex-?]Labour colleagues Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon is merely the latest sign that this Labour government stinks and has no place in our national politics.



Almost 5 years ago I wrote a couple of blog articles about Stephen Byers's last brush with the truth (a concept he seems to be bizarrely ambiguous about) - see here and here. This related to the collapse of Railtrack in the aftermath of which this former Transport Minister was forced to admit to lying in the High Court in London:

"It was not a truthful statement and I apologise for that. I can't remember the motivations behind it."

- and that last bit about not being able to remember the motivations behind it made me cringe for him then, just as it does now. All three of these crooks are saying they have 'done nothing wrong'. Serial liars, the lot of them!

PS/ I already signed Guido's petition to Her Majesty the Queen last night, seeking to have Stephen Byers stripped of his membership of the Privy Council - see article here. If you wish to sign the petition too, please click here.

It's been a great week for Gordon Brown ... not

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person, could it?



- most amusingly the hero of Nairn's own 'blogger-in-chief' and 'bottom-feeder', Charlie Whelan, features prominently toward the end of the video, with the 'contradictions' (surely not 'lies'?) of his commentary cruelly highlighted.

Gordon Brown - Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

I've known, everybody has known, for years that our illustrious Prime Minister is not well-acquainted with basic concepts such as 'honesty' and 'truth'. Today, at long last, he has been FORCED into admitting in Parliament that he is .... a LIAR! He did not do so willingly, nor did he do it with good grace. He is despicable!



Read some press comment about it:
Telegraph - Gordon Brown in 'humiliating climbdown' on defence spending
Guardian - Gordon Brown backtracks on claim of annual forces budget rise
Mail - Gordon Brown's apology had shades of a child drinking cod liver oil
BBC - Brown misled Iraq inquiry over defence budget - Cameron
FoxNews - British Prime Minister Brown Admits Misinformation on Defense Spending to War Inquiry
Reuters - Brown forced to change stance on army spending

You get the picture? This deplorable man has at long last been forced to acknowledge, however grudgingly, that he actually made a mistake. Deliberate or not? Well, I have my views on that subject. Basically he will say whatever he thinks is to his political advantage, true or not, if he thinks he can get away with it - and this time there is incontovertible evidence that he has been telling 'porkies'. Retired military personnel have been claiming for years that Brown was responsible for under-funding the military whilst he was Chancellor and he always rebutted their comments. Now we know they were correct and he was wrong. It is quite probable that people in our military have been killed as a result of his 'prudence'. Well, we know all about that - our economy is in ruins thanks to this odious man's twisted view of the world. Pah! Prudence? Don't make me laugh!

Remind me, why is this man still our Prime Minister? Surely to goodness there are a few decent, honourable people in the Labour Party with the guts to rid themselves and us of this liability! I do hope that the British people take it out of Labour's hands at the coming General Election and throw him out of Parliament and Labour out of power for a very long time!

What a blessing this deplorable, awful excuse for a human being is standing down from Parliament!

I've never particularly cared for Ann Widdecombe, nor indeed for the object of her 'affection', Michael Howard, but I was shocked at the vile nature of this revealing insight into this despicable woman's character. And she calls herself a 'Christian'?! And she seems pleased with herself, too. Words fail me. Awful, awful awful! What a dreadful, spiteful creature she reveals herself to be. And in my opinion a pretty blatant anti-Semite, too (mind you I came to that conclusion about her use of the phrase 'something of the night' a LONG time ago - she knew precisely what she was about then, as her recent admission about her tactics shows quite clearly).

I rarely get angry about the behaviour of others supposedly a part of normal respectable society (I'm not entirely pure in thought or deed myself, after all), but I do feel depressed when I learn that I must share the same country, or even the same planet [frankly] as such disgusting creatures as this person. Mr Howard is, I think, basically a decent person, even if I certainly don't share all of his views. A lot of people don't care for Margaret Thatcher either (I think she is one of our greatest 20th century politicians, 'warts and all'), but I'd stake my life that her ethics, indeed those of most British politicians of whichever political persuasion, are a whole lot more palatable than those of the soon-to-be ex-MP, Miss Ann Widdecombe.

Labour, Libya and Oil - 'for the greater good'

The sordid truth about Gordon Brown and Labour's role in promoting trade with 'former' terrorist-state Libya at the expense of victims of IRA bomb outrages; the Semtex used by the bombers was, naturally enough, funded by Libya.

Maybe later stories will provide further clarification about what has been going on with our illustrious 'Great Leader'. Maybe. For the moment my reaction is one of simple disgust. But not surprise.

Remind me - why is this awful man still our Prime Minister? A Labour-putsch is urgently required! And a General Election.

Bill's not popular in some quarters locally it seems

My recent article on the release of Abdel Basset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi from his incarceration in Scotland, as a result of his terminal illness, so that he could return to Libya to be with his family has provoked a certain amount of comment. I expressed a view about that which some people share, whereas others do not. Fair enough, it's what debate is about. A number of people have commented here on both sides of the argument, that's as it should be. I do not pre-moderate current comments in my blog and provided they do not violate the Terms of Use here (see the top of the right-hand column for the permanent link) I never delete comments, but I do enforce the Terms of Use rigorously; further down the page from the same link you can see my 'Links Policy'.

Another blogger in Nairn was kind enough to alert his readers to my article with a short article in his own blog and I left a brief comment there to thank him in the comments for that article (scroll down from the last link to see all the comments).

As you will see from the final comment there, Graisg (who runs the A Gurn from Nurn blog) has closed the comments, presumably because of the tone of some of the comments, many of which refer to me in, ahem, 'uncomplimentary' terms. What follows in the box below is the text of a comment I was going to leave there, plus provide myself with a lazy route to another blog article here by re-cycling that comment into this blog. In the event, because Graisg has now closed off the comments, this is the only place where what would have been my comment will now appear, so here it is 'for the record', as they say:

Hi all Thanks for all the frank comments about me - it's interesting to read them. Blogs are personal journals. Every blogger makes his own rules - mine have evolved over the years as a result of some quite unpleasant incidents, a few of which have spilled over into real life (and which I will not discuss here) and I make no apology for them. I have always been pretty open in my blog about who and what I am; sometimes that carries a cost. Many blogs operate by different rules and good luck to them. I do not allow 'anonymous' comments and have no intention of modifying that; it is possible to set up a GoogleID or OpenID without divulging any significant information; that provides a basic minimum of identification. I have an OpenID myself which is necessary to comment on certain blogs I like to visit from time to time. Similarly my policies for linking to other blogs are clearly laid out in my 'terms of use' file; this relates to the remarks that iRight made about me. I don't believe that if I had 'de-linked' The Gurn (as I did indeed inform Graisg by email [* -see below] I would do because of an article iRight had posted [t]here whilst Graisg was away if it was not removed) that it would have caused Graisg much loss of link-visits, but I can only assume, and be grateful, that after reviewing the post in question himself he decided it was preferable to take it down; it had not the remotest connection with me personally or anyone I know, I might add. I do not necessarily reciprocate links to my blog, nor do I ever request a reciprocal link if I happen to link to another blog. I do not regard the number of people who link to me as some kind of competition. As Graisg has stated a number of times in his blog, it is easy to set up a blog - anyone who has a PC can do it, even the homeless can have a blog through a local refuge centre. One of my oldest blog links (which I am proud to say is reciprocal) is with a person who lives in north Florida and has been battling with depression and drug addiction for many years - he was, I understand, formerly an IT specialist who lost his job, wife and home and for several years lived on the streets along the north Gulf coast of Florida and for most of that time he managed to continue to blog and a few grateful folks like me tried to offer him some support, moral and material. Luckily he now has a home and a partner (a lady who escaped from a wife-beating husband), but they battle with debt and the constant risk of eviction. Why do I write all this? Because everyone has his own story and I do too. I like to learn about other people's life experiences - that is why I blog. I've been blogging since April 2002 and in the early period there were very few bloggers in the north of Scotland, or for that matter in the rest of Scotland or the rest of the UK; many have fallen by the wayside over the years, unfortunately, but they are personal journals and no one is obliged to maintain one, or to read them. I am so glad that in recent years there is a growing number of local blogs in and around Nairn so that all tastes may be catered for. Graisg does an excellent job here catering for the particular niche he has created for himself. I would not dream of trying to emulate him :) Brian's is a more recent blog and it is excellent too, in a different way. There are now several other local or fairly local blogs which I visit regularly and enjoy. My blog has never pretended to be solely about Nairn, sorry if that upsets some people, but perhaps someone else can set up another blog to write about it, just as Graisg and a few others do so well already. Now that I've written such a lengthy comment [t]here (and I should, in my defence – lol – point out that I do not pre-moderate comments on current posts as Graisg chooses to do) I now have the material for an article in my own blog - so thanks for that. Being a lazy sort, I'm not too proud to recycle comments I make elsewhere into posts in my little blog. Have a great Sunday!

- as is mentioned above, this comment will not now appear in Graisg's blog, because he has barred further comment in that post. For the record, as Graisg himself points out in the comments, Graisg and I differ in some aspects of our personal 'ideologies' about a number of things, but on other matters we tend to think pretty much along similar lines; I like and respect him. Indeed he and I and another local blogger, Brian at My Nairn, had the only recorded Nairn 'blog meet' (so far as I am aware) some months ago and I think it's true to say we all enjoyed the experience. A few other local bloggers (and regular commenters in Graisg's blog) were invited to participate, but preferred to maintain their strict anonymity apparently; as I mentioned in the box above, all bloggers are different. Wouldn't it be a boring world if we were not?

* - for the record, here is the text of the email I sent to Graisg and which is referred to in the box above:

Hi [Graisg's real name is redacted] I noticed an article entitled "[redacted]" on your blog last night and when I first read it I thought it a rather unpleasant piece of 'gossip' with a nasty tone of 'innuendo' lurking in it; reading the by-line of the author brought no surprises. What I find particuarly unpleasant with this article is the cowardice of the author who permits him/herself to make thinly-veiled allegations, but is of course careful to 'name no names' - probably because he/she knows the [redacted] concerned and might find it embarrassing if he/she encountered the [redacted] in the High Street or at church. It is basically no better than a scurrilous poison-pen type effort. Last evening and still today there have been no comments on this article. I know nothing about the facts of this [redacted] and on reading my copy of this week's Nairnshire [this is the local newspaper in Nairn] am none the wiser. However, if this is the type of article you are going to permit to appear in your blog, then the sooner I get myself out of this nasty, incestuous, inward-looking place the better! Your blog seems to be developing into a sort of village ducking-stool for people with grievances to air their petty prejudices 'anonymously'. Is this really the direction you want to take it in? You were kind enough to take down an article [again, not an article written by Graisg himself and which of course was not remotely connected to me personally either, or to anyone I know] I wrote to you about a couple of weeks ago; what you do, if anything, in this instance is your business entirely, but I have to tell you frankly that if there are more articles of this nature appearing in your blog I shall be removing it from my blogroll as it is verging very close on contravening my personal 'terms of use' for links in my own blog. I apologise for my temerity in writing to you as I do, but rather than simply removing the link to your blog in my blogroll without notice, I felt it only fair to let you know the direction my thoughts are taking. With best personal regards Bill

I'll finish off here, by echoing my final remark in the 'comment' above:

Have a great Sunday!

MPs tawdry claim dismissed as a "genuine mistake"

Now here's a simple question. Is it a "genuine mistake" because, well because it was actually a "genuine mistake" or because it has now been exposed to the disinfectant of the sunlight of public exposure as a tawdry, mean-spirited and self-serving attempted(*) [mis-]use of public funds?

(*) Labour MP Frank Cook, MP for Stockton-on-Tees, has a claim for GBP5- in respect of a church donation rejected by the House of Commons Fees Office.

MSP expenses - and 'right and proper claims'

So far in the expenses 'crisis'/'witch-hunt', MPs have been in the firing line, whereas MEPs (subject to an election next week, curiously enough) and MSPs have been curiously immune from criticism.

As far as our MSPs are concerned, it's not because they are any 'better' or even that they are less 'venal' than MPs. No, it's nothing like that at all. Really it's because their own grubby expense-claim habits were brought under some kind of control a few years back, after some unsavoury episodes became public and were subsequently subjected to the disinfectant qualities of having sunlight shone upon their expenses by having them published in detail in the Scottish Parliament website.

So far, so good, but as teachers sometimes said to certain fellow-pupils in my youth - "don't take your books to the top of the class, because you'll soon be heading back to the bottom soon enough"! For there remains room, ample room it seems, for 'grubby' claims by MSPs whenever they think it will pass unnoticed. Such is the case for 15 MSPs who thought it was appropriate to claim as expenses the cost of wreaths they purchased to lay on behalf of the Scottish Parliament at Remembrance Day. Apparently these claims were 'within the rules' so legally they have done nothing wrong.

Why do I find their claims noisome though, and why, now that their claims have become public knowledge, have the 15 so readily 'caved' and agreed to pay back the money? For the latter it's no doubt at least partly because in the current 'witch-hunt' climate over expenses at Westminster a spotlight is being shone upon many who have done nothing, or very little, wrong. It's not the money in these cases that bothers me - for I assume the amounts involved are pretty minor. No, it's the very idea that these quite well-paid folks should consider it worth their while to claim back such minor sums, rather than simply consider it a privilege to be able to lay a wreath on such a solemn occasion. The MSPs claiming seem to think that their every move can be chargeable back to the tax-payer. They seem to have the jobsworth mentality that the State (i.e. the tax-payer) should pay for everything they do when, to be brutally frank about it, it is they as partisan politicians who gain the public 'kudos' of appearing on a solemn occasion. It is significant that it is MSPs from political parties which tend to believe that the State should play a greater, rather than a lesser, role in public life who are implicated in this particular 'grubbiness'.

Now I would consider it quite normal that certain wreaths laid genuinely on behalf of the public, or corporate bodies (public or private) should be paid for out of public or corporate funds. For example the wreath which our Head of State, Her Majesty the Queen, lays on behalf of the whole nation should certainly come out of public funds. So should those laid by the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leaders of other political parties represented in Parliament. So far as Scotland is concerned I would consider it perfectly normal that the wreaths laid by the First Minister and the Leaders of the other political parties represented in the Scottish Parliament should similarly come out of public funds. Similar considerations should also apply to wreaths laid by the heads of local government around the country - Mayors, Provosts, Conveners and the like. But I see no reason why individual MPs, MSPs, Councillors and the like should consider it their right to claim back for such expenses - if they don't want to pay for their wreaths, and don't consider it a privilege and an honour enough to be permitted to lay them and again to be brutally frank that the 'political kudos' they gain as individuals is reward enough, then they really shouldn't bother laying them in the first place.

Alisher Usmanov - an update

I wrote about a week ago about the attack on free speech successfully carried out by lawyers acting on behalf of Alisher Usmanov and followed it up with a related post a few days later.

It seems clear now that Mr Usmanov is edging ever-closer to owning sufficient shares in Arsenal football club to give him a 'blocking stake' in the company. I have, as I have written before, no interest in football so its ownership is of no interest to me. Whether Mr Usmanov is a 'fit and proper person' to be in control of a British company is another matter. On the other hand there are many other British companies whose ownership is in the hands of people of questionnable character both British and foreign, so Mr Usmanov, if he is indeed such a person (and I do not assert this - although there seems to be compelling evidence), would hardly be the sole member of such a group. In any case, attempts to block commentary on their client by Schillings have backfired badly - it was even carried on the national news earlier this week as a result of the storm created in the British 'blogosphere'!

However, one aspect of quite a number of the articles posted by other bloggers that detracts, in my opinion, from the value of this campaign are negative comments on the physical appearance of Mr Usmanov who, from photographs I have seen, is not slim (and this is not yet, even in NuLabour's Britain, a crime); frankly this is the kind of schoolboy playground taunting that is hardly conducive to anyone taking seriously protests by bloggers about the very grave attack on freedom of speech which Mr Usmanov and his lawyers represent.

Difference in location, difference in tone

I may have posted a few days back about the iniquity of a number of British bloggers having their online presences eliminated at the whim of a wealthy foreign person of dubious reputation who has the means to employ legal paid help in this country to assist him in keeping criticism under wraps, by threatening a webhost here. All of these unfortunate bloggers deserve our sympathy and support, but there is no getting away from the fact that not all of these bloggers are people I would consent to have any personal dealing with, under any circumstances. Louses (lice?) may have the same rights as everyone else, but some soon revert to type when given half a chance:

Sweet - a post on the restored website of Boris Johnson MP by Tim Ireland;

and

Sour - a post at the temporary website of Tim Ireland; see para. 4) in particular. Graceless, I'd say. I've never linked to Bloggerheads in my blogroll, and have read his posts only occasionally (when mentioned in some of his allies' blogs that I link to) because he's not in my Bloglines subscriptions either; I don't plan to change this situation in the light of recent events. Obviously though, Tim Ireland should be able to publish his thoughts for those that wish to read them, so to that extent (and to that extent only) I continue to support his efforts to maintain an online presence and to receive redress from those who caused his blog to disappear.

No doubt Boris Johnson knows his own business, but I do find his choice of method of hosting his blog to be curious, to say the least. But that's just me.

'Sweary Blogging' and Usmanov

There's an interesting post up at J. Arthur MacNumpty in which I find nothing untoward, mostly, indeed I agree with more or less all the points made - I made my own small contributuion here on the web censorship that has been successfully carried out by Alisher Usmanov acting through his lawyers Schillings, even if they have not shut down discussion, in an oblique way unfortunately, of the underlying issues (the alleged background of Mr Usmanov). I do want to comment about one aspect of what he writes, though.

At one point Will (aka J. Arthur MacNumpty) writes:

Swearing is not the biggest threat to bloggery ", ... I hope that he realises that the threat comes from Usmanov for forcing the plug to be pulled, not from me (or anyone else) for using naughty words."

The 'he' referred to above is Tim O'Reilly, to whom Will refers here, with a link to a post by Angry Steve here. All this leads back, eventually, to the article written by Tim O'Reilly that got Angry Steve started and Will to take up the issue.

My own attitude toward what happens in my own blog is laid out in my Terms of Use and Links Policy (there are permanent links to both near the top right column of my blog). I have no desire to tell (or even suggest to) any other blogger what [s]he should or should not write in their own blogs, or allow others to write in the comments there. My views, which I enforce rigorously, apply only to this blog. As Angry Steve puts it, and I have modified what he has actually written without I believe changing the meaning in any way:

Blogs need content warnings? Tim O'Reilly needs a reality check You come in to my electronic home, and tell me how to live? *** off! [Be off with you!] You've come to this site to read my rants. MY RANTS, d****t [forsooth]. You can agree, disagree, ***k off, I don't care. But you came here of your own free will.

- let me be very clear, I share this attitude completely. I choose not to express that attitude, however, in ways that involve swearing. And I hope that my somewhat subfusc substitutions above are seen in the ironic way I intend them.

What all this boils down to is that I share Will's basic premise that censorship is a far bigger threat to blogging than swearing, per se, ever will be. And if he, or Angry Steve when he writes "But sometimes it's just funny" feel that the use of swearing or profanity adds something then who am I to naysay them? I don't permit it here, or in comments here - that's all. And if people don't like it then they have the perfect solution - don't visit.

Why, though? Some of the bloggers who use swearing regularly are highly-intelligent and expensively-educated people and write very entertaining and informative posts. Indeed I read some of these bloggers very regularly and comment very occasionally there, too. However, I do not feel I have to justify myself to anyone - this is my blog and I'll do what I like here and I don't like swearing or profanity. I do however live in the real world (and as someone who had 'Poof' scratched into the paintwork of his car a few years ago, I know all about that, thank you very much)! It's a matter of choice. There is only one thing that truly irritates me about some bloggers and that is interminably long posts about nothing very much, or about topics that the blogger has covered ad nauseam in the past - there are 'swear-bloggers' in this category, but there are also bloggers who rarely or never express themselves in this way, too. My solution to this kind of tedium is simply to cut down my visits, or stop reading entirely; having a feed reader helps enormously in sifting out the worthwhile from the dross, or indeed the gross.

Now I have rabbited on quite long enough! I'm writing this sitting up in bed (it's now 9.05am) and I do need to get up, take a shower and get some breakfast.

PS/ I've just noticed that one blog (other than Guido) that does not mention the Usmanov story is Samizdata; ironic really given the meaning of the Russian word 'samizdat'. Freedom of expression is for everyone - right-wingers, left-wingers, communists, fascists, homophobes, spaced-out hippies. Equally I think it is fine for people to express disagreement with the views of others. It's only when that freedom of expression moves on to certain actions that the law needs to step in.

Eurovision and the questionnable validity of the result

(see UPDATE at end for a link to the full official scoreboard for this year's Eurovision Song Contest)

I've blogged extensively, some might say far too extensively, about Eurovision, but I've just come across a pretty amazingly blasé admission of cheating in a blog I read occasionally (I came across it because it is from Ukraine and it started around the time of the 'Orange Revolution' there). I quote the post in full in case it is modified subsequently, just to show how blatant the manipulation is; if this is replicated by a high number of voters then the whole thing must be regarded as even more of a farce than I have come to believe that Eurovision has become in recent years. Here is the post in full from Neeka's Backlog:

Sunday, May 13, 2007 Serbia has just won the Eurovision - I liked Marija Serifovic's voice. I voted, like, 14 times for our Verka Serdyuchka (I'm in Moscow, not Kyiv, so I'm allowed to do that), and I also voted four or five times for Romania. Ukraine came in second, and I'm sort of glad, maybe because we have Euro-2012 to prepare for, and hosting the second Eurovision in three years would've been too much. Estonia gave 12 points (the highest mark) to Russia. Turkey gave 12 points to Armenia. Very strange - and moving. Then there's all the diaspora voting: "France" giving 10 points to Armenia, "Portugal" giving 12 points to Ukraine. Israel gave its 8, 10 and 12 points to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (maybe not in this order, though). All the former Yugoslav countries voted for Serbia. Maybe Eurovision should replace politics. Eurovision and the World Cup (football). This would make the world such a passionately friendly place. :) by Veronica Khokhlova - 5/13/2007 02:30:00 AM

In theory mutiple votes from one telephone number should be rejected, but who knows if the mechanisms to allow this work? Even if they do there is nothing to stop someone using multiple telephone numbers. Eurovision doesn't matter much, of course, but this open admission of cheating, with no qualms whatsoever, shows just how flawed telephone voting is. I regret to say that Eurovision has now become an embarrassing shambles - unless something radical is done to tighten up the way it operates then I think that we (i.e. the BBC) should consider reducing our financing of it drastically; if that means we don't appear in the final, then so be it. I voted for Ukraine, by the way, but the winning entry from Serbia (whilst much better than the atrocious effort from Bulgaria) was a pretty mediocre effort.

PS/ I posted a comment in Neeka's Weblog post on the Eurovision results:

'Tactical voting' is one thing, but your blatant admission that you may have voted well a dozen times for your own country ('legally' because you happen to be in Moscow) and 4 or five for another just throws into even more doubt the whole validity of the result. For the record I voted, once only(!), for Ukraine.

Here's what Veronica Khokhlova (the person behind Neeka's Weblog) responded in the comments thread:

Bill, Yes, I'm a minor cheater. In 2005, I voted more than once for Moldova. Just kept sending SMS's until time ran out. Part of my reasoning is, if multiple voting weren't allowed, they'd be counting only one vote from each phone number. Technologically, it shouldn't be that hard, right? But I don't think this is the case. As for the legality of my voting for Ukraine because I "happen to be in Moscow" - well, everyone does it: Ukrainians in Portugal, Armenians in Russia and France, Turks in Germany, etc. It's part of the fun - and also says much about the contemporary migrant and other diaspora communities. While we're at it, the Russian TV guy in Helsinki said yesterday that from his Russian cell phone number, he was voting for Belarus, and from his Finnish number, he was voting for Russia. And one off-topic bit - multiple voting is in my blood, I guess: in 2004, I cast three votes for Yushchenko, all 100 percent legal. Was way more fun than voting for Verka Serdyuchka yesterday, though. :)))

You see just how bad things have become. I will be campaigning from now on for us (the UK) to withdraw from this farce. I have no objection to the UK not winning, after all it wasn't a great song (although better than some of the horrible entries we've put up in recent years), but the tactical voting aspect, and the realisation of just how much cheating must be going on, has soured the whole thing for me.

UPDATE: (Monday 14MAY07 10.45 BST) Click here for the final scoreboard for the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest.

Released sailors tell of ordeal

Thankfully the fifteen British personnel have been released by Iran and have been recounting the ordeal they suffered during their time in captivity.

Some people, on both sides of the Atlantic, have denounced their behaviour during their time in captivity, criticising them for cooperating with the propaganda exercise so carefully, and seemingly successfully, mounted by the Iranian government (and it has worked, because so many seem to swallow whole the story the Iranians have peddled with their propaganda videos). I studiously avoided posting here about the whole incident during the time the fourteen men and one woman remained in illegal captivity; I did and do not think it would have been wise for anyone, even the 'voice' that my little blog has on the internet, to engage in second-guessing what was going on in Iran, for fear that even this would be used by the Iranian propaganda machine. Many other commentators, mostly with little or no personal knowledge of military affairs, felt perfectly free to make judgements. I am pleased that, since their return to this country, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band has defended the crew (for the next 7 days you should be able to hear what he said during a Today programme interview here); as he said during the interview the priority now is to continue the debriefing of these fifteen personnel to find out what actually did happen during their time as 'guests' of the Iranians, so that whatever lessons need to be learned for the future can be factored into future operational missions. It appals me that so many, who know little or nothing about such a situation, feel free to jump in with half-baked assessments. And, for our friends on the other side of the Atlantic, our military does not operate, thankfully, to the same 'rules of engagement' which your military does, nor indeed do our military operate to the same rules which formerly governed their own behaviour when captured - of course, neither does this country 'render' people for torture in dubious secret prisons, nor hold 'enemy combatants' in legal limbo outside the jurisdiction of our own court system; quite frankly since the present US administration came into power this country, the UK, has absolutely nothing to learn from the shambles that country has got itself into morally under its President today. We may share the same basic aims, but I'm afraid our methods of achieving those aims are governed by different rules even if our own present government has itself, in my view, lost sight of the bigger picture of what we are trying to preserve in the 'war on terror'; if you have to destroy something in order to save it then the terrorists have won. And what we are trying to save is our liberty and freedom, both physically and intellectually.

Will 'News International' itself be punished in phone-tap scandal?

OK, so a journalist and a private investigator have been gaoled and the Editor of the News of the World has resigned. But what, if anything, will happen to sanction the conduct of the proprietors of the newspaper, News International (i.e. the Murdoch clan and other investors), who allowed (more like 'encouraged') their underlings to indulge in questionnable activities intended to boost circulation, advertising revenues and ultimately profits? I suspect the answer is nothing.

I have never purchased, or read in over forty-five years, the News of the World and I stopped taking The Times soon after it was acquired by the same owners; for similar reasons I do not subscribe to Sky; Murdoch is the same creature, remember, who controls the US Fox Network. Like all his business enterprises they are devoted to reactionary politics and in the case of the UK fundamentally opposed to our very system of government; naturally I make no suggestion that he/News International should not be allowed to continue their business activities, I just wish that more people would choose not to use their products.

Madonna and her adoption - interview with BBC2 Newsnight's Kirsty Wark

I'm just watching the interview. I have no comments about the adoption itself - no doubt 'Social Services' have their own views on what is happening and as I know nothing about the 'facts' all I'm commenting on is the interview.

What is the stage set all about? Ruched net curtains on the walls and the floor. Bizarre faux-antique tables with faux-antique candelabras with flickering candles. Is this whole thing not an enormous fire risk? Where did the interview take place? Is it a room in Madonna's home, a 'normal' room as it is usually arranged, or is it a specially staged 'set' for this interview? Is the objective to disguise the whereabouts? Did it actually take place on 'Planet Earth'? Is this whole thing not just another episode in the media phenomenon that is 'Madonna', who I heard earlier today is just about to launch a new record? Is this interview related to that or this adoption? Is, indeed, the adoption all a part of the build-up to the release of this news record? Not that I doubt for one second that David Banda, the child in the case, will have all the privileges and care that the reputedly very large resources at Madonna's disposal can provide and will be cared for well and lovingly. That's really all I've got to say, for the moment.

Well some of the questions I pose are answered here, not that I am ultimately any the wiser. Truly, truly bizarre. Read also the brief article and the comments here.