I have been dwelling on that phrase ‘cognitive ethical failure’ that I wrote about the other day. Is that a reasonable part-explanation for the expenses mess?  And does it mean that there is a form of institutional corruption?   And would that mean that those flipping moat-owners are not bad, but are just victims of a […]
Entries from June 24th, 2009
Psychoville
June 24th, 2009 · Comments Off on Psychoville · Life
I missed the first episode of Psychoville, but after seeing a few favourable mentions of it I caught up with it on iPlayer (through the Virgin box and therefore on the big TV and not the PC screen) and immediately decided that it has to be the best thing on TV at the moment and […]
Tags: TV
Corvus Corax
June 24th, 2009 · Comments Off on Corvus Corax · Music
I have been getting just a little bit obsessed with Corvus Corax this evening – the band that became Tanzwut. Here they are on their own… You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video And then, as if that wasn’t magnificent and weird enough, here they are performing part of their […]
Tags: YouTube
My own expenses in full…
June 22nd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Politics
In the interests of balance, its only fair that I reveal what I spent on my most recent trip to France this month:
Tags: Expenses
Timing is everything
June 22nd, 2009 · Comments Off on Timing is everything · Politics
Spare a thought for a chap called Nicholas Allen. On March 31st he drafted a paper for the annual conference of the Political Studies Association in April this year. The paper was called British parliamentary misconduct in the early twenty-first century. That must have been like presenting a paper about famous shipwrecks in March 1912, […]
Tags: Scandals
Back to the Mela
June 22nd, 2009 · Comments Off on Back to the Mela · Jane
After the fun we had at Bradford Mela last year (our first visit after living here for 7 years – our bad) we were back again this year but this time we were working.
Get your wellies on!
June 22nd, 2009 · Comments Off on Get your wellies on! · Life
Looking at the BBC News website today I found some Google ads displayed.  I’m still smiling over the juxtaposition of the last two…
Not shameless after all!
June 21st, 2009 · 1 Comment · Politics
With all the recent fuss about expenses we were starting to think that MPs had no shame at all, but it looks like we were wrong, according to the Sunday Times. With the impending requirement to publish details of outside jobs (hours spent on them and amounts earned) MPs of all parties are rushing to […]
Tags: Greed
Hidden gem
June 20th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Politics
I just came across a candidate for quote of the week, hidden away amongst a huge number of comments to a post over at Labour List, Nils Boray said: I even have a modicum of respect for Margaret Thatcher – you always knew where you were with Maggie. It was just being there without a […]
Moan
June 19th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Life
I have been far too content lately. I think its time for a moan. I don’t know why I am so chipper: the election results were not good – personally I lost heavily (not unexpected) and the Labour party got almost wiped out to the extent that our share of the number of councillors in […]
