Inveresk Street Ingrate

It's official . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:51:00 +0000

. . . apparently it seems that my most devoted reader is googlebot. If only it would leave a comment every once in a while.

The Californian one. Not the European one. The latter is still blanking me because of that regrettable incident with diggit.

Are You Smarter than a 4th Internationalist?

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:50:00 +0000

How are you with your knowledge of the history of early British Trotskyism?

Do you know your Heaton Lee from your Ralph Lee? Ted Grant's real name? The first bullshit myth Gerry Healy spun about himself? CLR James's batting average for the Old Fractionians Second XI? The name of the De Leonist organisation in Scotland which turned towards Trotskyism in the thirties? Who debated for the Bolshevik Leninists' against the SPGB's Adolph Kohn at the AEU Hall in Doughty Street in London in 1936?

Well, the answers to all of the above questions will not be found in the following clip from Mastermind, but what does follow is Paul Moorhouse answering questions on his specialist subject,"British Trotskyism Until 1949'. (What's the odds that all the questions were cribbed from Bornstein and Richardson's two-volume history of British Trotskyism?)

This edition of Mastermind dates from March 13th of this year but I've only just now stumbled across the clip. I got nine answers right but that's only because I'm from the Menshevik-SadBastard Tendency.

Give it your best shot:

But there's more.

When Paul returned to the black chair for the second round, John Humphrys asked him about his specialist subject in the first round and inquired, in an amused tone, if there were any Trotskyists left?

Paul resisted the temptation to leap upon the black chair and declaim 'The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International' in its entirety but he did lean forward in his chair like the seasoned cadre that he is and gave a fifty second thumbnail sketch of what it is to be a Trotskyist today.

Humphrys said nothing in reply, thus confirming the suspicions of two million Daily Mail readers that the initials BBC really do stand for the 'Bolsheviks Broadcasting Communism'.

A quick google search reveals that Paul Moorhouse is a longstanding member of the Millies (SPEW/CWI) down in Bristol.

I'm sure he got muchos-kudos from his comrades for putting his politics before an audience of a few million (back in the eighties, Mastermind could be watched by up to 15 million people), but I wonder if he also got his nose tweaked by the local full timer for not mentioning Peter Taaffe's name at least twice during those fifty primetime seconds.

The Menshevik-SadBastard Tendency member in me can't help heckling to the computer screen that he should have said: 'Trotskyism? Past'

More on that particular episode of Mastermind over at Life After Mastermind, the blog of 2007 Mastermind winner, David Clark.

Today's (Old) Quote of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:35:00 +0000

I love this quote from the late Stephen Jay Gould that caught my eye on Facebook yesterday:

“I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

Within minutes of spotting that clip I stumble across this picture - and its accompanying story - on Facebook. LabourStart readers have just voted it their Labour Photo of the Year.

If I had any fingernails, I'd dig them into the palm of my hand to remind myself that it's 2009.

Hat tip to MM for the quote.

'King Me!'

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:38:00 +0000

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain 122

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 122nd of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1535 friends!

Recent blogs:

Postal workers out on strike
Fat Cats: creaming off profits
Who’s afraid of the BNP?

Quote for the week:

"If the workers take a notion,

They can stop all speeding trains;

Every ship upon the ocean

They can tie with mighty chains

Every wheel in the creation,

Every mine and every mill,

Fleets and armies of the nation,

Will at their command stand still."
Joe Hill, Workers of the World, Awaken!, c.1914.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

A word from our sponsor . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:19:00 +0000

One for the Party archives?

Abstract propaganda front and centre in The Merry Frinks, a madcap comedy from 1934.

And there was you thinking that the Hays Code was enforced in 1934 because of Mae West's single entendres and Joan Blondell showing a bit of thigh. How wrong you were. Jack, Harry and Daryl apparently viewed Utopian Socialism as more dangerous than Upton Sinclair during this time period.

The commie curmudgeon in the clip is Allen Jenkins, who some of the ~~more infantile~~ older readers of the blog will recognise as the voice of Officer Dibble in Top Cat. A worker in uniform.

Of course I'd love to claim Allen Jenkins's Emmett Frink as one of us, but how do I explain away the earlier scene in the film where he's carrying under his arm a portrait painting of Joe Stalin? Despite my best efforts, I can't.

More Comintern Third Period than Great Dover Street Impossibilism, but a very funny film, nonetheless. It's worth hunting down.

SPGB'itis

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:10:00 +0000

We've had the staples: Small Party of Good Boys and Simon Pure's Good Brand are the best known, for instance.

We've had the witty Small Party of Glesga Bookies (as the local branch in Glasgow was known in its early days because, it turns out, a number of its members were bookies) and we have had the just plain abusive Smug Pricks and Gobby Bastards (just made that one up but I've yet to copyright it).

But I think the old school playground nicknames all fall by the wayside with Julian V from Enfield and Haringey Branch's recent suggestion on the Party's discussion list that the SPGB now stands for Senile Pensioners in Geriatric Bathchairs. The bloke's got form in the witty stakes. It was Julian who came up with the title of 'Socialism Or You Money Back'.

Sterling Cooper's loss was the SPGB's gain.

Cheeky opponents and the usual malcontents will riposte that they've been referring to us as that for years, but it's no good now mentioning that now on the commentary of your latest dvd. Prove your point by providing the requisite YouTube clips from those Arena specials you were on all those years ago. Otherwise, button it or we'll send the youth section around to have a word, brew a pot of tea and share some Werther's Originals.

Breakin' (1984)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:59:00 +0000

Mellow dramatic

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:39:00 +0000

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain 121

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 121st of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1527 friends!

Recent blogs:

Market behaviour
A girl's best friend?
UN World Food Day

Quote for the week:

"Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen." Woody Guthrie, Pretty Boy Floyd, 1939.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Forty Days of Tucker J. by Robert Leeson (Fontana Lions 1983)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:07:00 +0000

Tucker walked outside. Paddy was still there.

Hello, Peter, then. I see you've joined the toiling masses.'

'Wish I had, Paddy. Are you out of work, then?'

Paddy smiled: 'No, I'm not. I'm doing this for a friend. Just to give a hand, like.'

Tucker took a leaflet and walked away reading it.

'Fight for the Right to Work' said the leaflet.

They must be joking.

Bend it like Bent

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:20:00 +0000

Love it.

No jokes please about beach balls, freakish goals and Liverpool having to cut short next year's summer holidays so that they can try and qualify for Europe via the backdoor.

That joke is redundant now that they've abolished the Intertoto Cup. Europa League it is.

A year and a day

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:40:00 +0000

Owen's first birthday.

The orange ~~giraffe~~ ~~moomin~~ horse gatecrashed the party. Ostler Owen had to bring it under control.

World Socialists a twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:39:00 +0000

Being the slow reader that I am, I've only just spotted* this most excellent competition in the September issue of your soaraway Socialist Standard:

Competition for the Twittering Classes
The latest fad for micro-blogging is coming under fire, with a study showing that 40 percent of ‘tweets’ are ‘pointless babble’ and only 8.7 percent pass along ‘news of interest’(BBC Online, 17 August). Considering the gargantua of garbage which is the printed book output, this is not a bad batting average. However, keen as ever to raise the bar of public discourse, Pathfinders proposes a competition for the best expression of the Party Case in 140 characters or less. Brief reflection offers: ‘World for the Workers, not the Rich W**kers’ however you are sure to do better than that. Emails or letters to our Clapham office. Closing date 10 November, for our December issue, and best ideas will be printed. First Prize will be, of course, comradely adulation, as we socialists are trying to move away from material remuneration systems.

Why not? I'm sure I read somewhere that someone has been putting The Communist Manifesto on twitter (bugger if I can find it, though). And, no doubt, someone from Aufheben will eventually get around to serialising The Grundrisse on twitter . . . but we may get socialism before that particular exercise in twitter publishing is actually completed.

My contributions to the comp are the following:

world socialism - for a world without war, want, wages and the fat controller.
Banish the gods from the sky, the capitalists from the earth and the chuggers from the high street.

I thought I'd play it safe with a careful tweaking of the classics.

I can already feel the "comradely adulation" coming my way, and I don't like it. It seems so unnatural: comradeship and the SPGB, I mean.

*'just spotted' roughly translates as 'this post has been in draft for three weeks'.

The Snapper by Roddy Doyle (Penguin Books 1990)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:53:00 +0000

Sharon sat down again. She whispered to Jimmy Sr.

- Me uterus is beginnin' to press into me bladder/ It's gettin' bigger.

Jimmy Sr turned to her.

- I don't want to hear those sort o' things, Sharon, he said. - It's not righ'.

He was blushing.

- Sorry, said Sharon.

- That's okay. Who's tha' fuckin' eejit, Darren?

- Can you not just say Eejit? said Veronica.

- That's wha' I did say! said Jimmy Sr.

Darren laughed.

Veronica gave up.

-Da, said Darren.

- No, yeh can't have a bike.

Darren got up and left the room in protest. That left Jimmy Sr and Veronica by themselves.

- There's Cliff Richard, said Jimmy Sr.

Veronica looked up.

- Yes.

- I'd never wear leather trousers, said Jimmy Sr.

Veronica laughed.

Jimmy Sr found the remote control. He'd been sitting on it.

- He's a Moonie or somethin', isn't he? he said as he stuck on the Sports Channel. - And an arse bandit.

- He's a Christian, said Veronica.

- We're all tha', Veronica, said Jimmy Sr. - Baseball! It's worse than fuckin' cricket.

He looked at it.

He looked at it.

- They're dressed up like tha' an' chewin' gum an' paint on their faces, so you're expectin' somethin' excitin', an' wha' do yeh get? Fuckin' cricket with American accents.

Jimmy Jr stuck his head round the door.

- Finished with the paper yet?

- No.

You're not even lookin' at it.

- It's my paper. I own it. Fuck off.

Jimmy Sr switched again; an ad for a gut-buster on Sky.

- Jesus!

- You've got the foulest mouth of anyone I ever knew, Veronica told hi. - Ever.

- Ah lay off, Veronica.

Runaway (1984)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:04:00 +0000

Spacers and an intellectual skinhead

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain 120

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 120th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1528 friends!

Recent blogs:

Billion Dollar Bribery
Prisons: In Capitalism's Stockade
Karl Marx and the Classics

Coming Events:

Autumn Delegate Meeting

Saturday 17 October 10.30am to 5.30pm

Sunday 18 October 11.00am to 5.00pm

Socialist Party Head Office, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4.

The Zeitgeist Movement

Wednesday 21 October, 8.30pm

Community Central Halls, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow.

Radical Film Forum, Sundays 6pm - 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.

1st November - The Fog of War

15th November - Matewan

29th November - Sicko

13th December - Earthlings

Quote for the week:

“I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” George Carlin

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

The Commitments by Roddy Doyle (Penguin Books 1987)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:34:00 +0000

- We'll ask Jimmy, said Outspan. - Jimmy'll know.

Jimmy Rabbitte knew his music. He knew his stuff alright. You'd never see Jimmy coming home from town without a new album or a 12-inch or at least a 7-inch single. Jimmy ate Melody Maker and the NME every week and Hot Press every two weeks. He listened to Dave Fanning and John Peel. He even read his sisters' Jackie when there was no one looking. So Jimmy knew his stuff.

The last time Outspan had flicked through Jimmy's records he'd seen names like Microdisney, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Otis Redding, The Screaming Blue Messiahs, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel (- Foetus, said Outspan. - That's the little young fella inside the woman, isn't it?

- Yeah, said Jimmy.

- Aah, that's fuckin; horrible, tha' is.); groups Outspan had never heard of, never mind heard. Jimmy even had albums by Frank Sinatra and The Monkees.

So when Outspan and Derek decided, while Ray was out in the jacks, that their group needed a new direction they both thought of Jimmy. Jimmy knew what was what. Jimmy knew what was new, what was new but wouldn't be for long and what was going to be new. Jimmy had Relax before anyone had heard of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and he'd started slagging them months before anyone realized that they were no good. Jimmy knew his music.

The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin (St Martin's Press 1998)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:45:00 +0000

Rebus knew his own criteria came cheaply: his flat, books, music and clapped-out car. And he realised that he had reduced his life to a mere shell in recognition that he had completely failed at the important things: love, relationships, family life. He'd been accused of being in thrall to his career, but that had never been the case. His work sustained him only because it was an easy option. He dealt every day with strangers, with people who didn't mean anything to him in the wider scheme. He could enter their lives, and leave again just as easily. He got to live other people's lives, or at least portions of them, experiencing things at one remove, which wasn't nearly as challenging as the real thing.

Marvelouse

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:06:00 +0000

The Invisible Man trusses up Maradona like a stuck pig.

Forty million Argentinians ~~couldn't give a toss~~ sign an online petition urging the Invisible Man not to untie Maradona until the end of the World Cup qualifying matches.

More wonderful World Cup pics here.

Ghost Town (2008)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:54:00 +0000

The Commitments (1991)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:15:00 +0000

The Branches That Meet in Caffs

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:30:00 +0000

I'm intrigued. Tell me more.

Insert your rewritten Dexys Midnight Runners song title here. I've already had a go. (See above.)

'Bob . . . bob . . . bob . . . bob'

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:04:00 +0000

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain 119

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 119th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1528 friends!

Recent blogs:

New roots of conflict
The disease that is capitalism
Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World

Coming Events:

NATIONALISM AND DANGEROUS NONSENSE

Speakers: Gwynn Thomas & Danny Lambert.

Tuesday 13 October, 7.30 pm

Socialist Party Head Office, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4.

Autumn Delegate Meeting

Saturday 17 October 10.30am to 5.30pm

Sunday 18 October 11.00am to 5.00pm

Socialist Party Head Office, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4.

THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT
Wednesday 21 October, 8.30pm

Community Central Halls, 304 Maryhill Road, Glasgow.

Radical Film Forum,

Sundays 6pm - 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.

1st November - The Fog of War

15th November - Matewan

29th November - Sicko

13th December - Earthlings

Quote for the week:

"In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

All The Years Of Trying: An Ode To Patrik Fitzgerald (2009)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:16:00 +0000

Just a Boys' Game (1979)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:30:00 +0000

The Big Lebowski (1998)

noreply@blogger.com (Darren) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:30:00 +0000