Pop star goes to toilet shock

Thanks to the BBC for this little nugget, on the main news section of their website today

Yes, I often compose plays whilst ensconsed on the loo so I get exactly what it's like for my fellow creative artists.

Stanley Kramer Joke of the Day

They are remaking the classic film starring Sidney Poitier about a young black doctor who is brought to meet his white girlfriend's parents for the first time; this time it is set in North-West London. Don't miss the explosive and thought-provoking "Guess Who's Coming to Pinner?".

Raiders of The Lost Weekend, or something

Just as well I had no particular plans for last weekend, other than a vague idea about watching a FA Trophy match against local rivals Hayes. I spent most of it either sneezing, coughing or lying down with dizzy spells and sinus pain. It was rather surreal to be listening to a radio comedy show on my dinky little mp3 player at 3:00am on Sunday, (but the alternative was to stare up at the bedroom ceiling) whilst all the time trying to breathe without bringing on another tiny little tickle at the back of the throat that would without warning force another bout of coughing, with such force as to make my stomach muscles ache all the following day.

All the familiar ingredients came out of the medicine shelf - the lemon and honey drinks, the sticky cough mixtures, the soothing tablets.  I've no idea which of them worked but, after three days of it, it looks as though the worst is over and I can sit at my desk and write these few words without too many sessions of chest-ripping hacks. [I'm keeping my distance: Ed]

So, what was happening in the world while sod all was happening round my way? Top news is that the so-called "Wealdstone Raider", a diminutive middle-aged fan of the football club that I also support, has become famous for two ludicrous reasons:

1. A YouTube video was made of him some 21 months ago when we played away at Whitehawk [A Ryman Premier League team based in Brighton. So I'm told: Ed]. He had an altercation with some of their supporters and the video consists of him, gripping a pint of beer tightly, informing them that "You've got no fans" (true, although they won the Ryman League that season, and it took us the following season to emulate them, their support was pathetic) and "You've got no ground", which was untrue. When a comment is flung his way he turns on his interlocuters with the immortal phrase "Do yer want some? - I'll give it yer". The genius of the person who uploaded this 33 seconds of movie history was to dub him The Raider and to add "You don't want to mess with this lad"
2.  This video went viral, as they say, but after a long period of nothing much else, suddenly interest has mushroomed. The man, now with some assistance from the commercial management at Wealdstone FC, is doing nightclub appearances, is selling merchandise with his face emblazoned on it, and has released a recording which his supporters seriously hope will become the no 1 best selling single for Christmas. It is currently nudging into the top ten. It comprises a monotonous drum and bass beat with samples of his diatribe stitched into what I believe the young people call "a rap" [Don't ask me: Ed]. The Raider, bless him, has said that the proceeds will go to charity.

Just in case you think I'm making this up, this is the original video, (warning: offensive language),  here is a link to an even more ludicrous story in The Sun and here some Barnsley supporters "entertain" with their own version of the single. It's a funny old world.

Those Awful Advertising Slogans - 5. "Must End"

Not a swipe at any particular advertiser [Astute readers may be able to draw their own conclusions: Ed] this morning, just a general observation. When someone promotes a "sale" and proclaims that it "must end" on a given date, I suppose they want our reaction to be as follows:

Scene: the household of Mr & Mrs Consumer
Mrs C: Here's the morning paper, our dad
Mr C: Thanks thinks why is she talking all Northern this morning, she's from Exeter
Mrs C: I'm so glad we've finished all our Christmas shopping, today I'm going to put my feet up.
Mr C:  Oh no you're not. Read this! hands over paper folded to a full page ad
Mrs C:  Good heavens. Sparks and Mencer are having a sale, the chocolates that were on sale for a very reasonable £57 per kilo are now a staggeringly good value £28 per kilo.
Mr C:  And the sale MUST END soon so hurry hurry, it says here.
Mrs C:  It must end? I don't believe it.
Mr C:  Says so here. It MUST END.
Mrs C: You mean...
Mr C:  Get your coat, Amanda, we're going shopping!

Unfortunately the reaction in the Commuter household is rather different

Mrs C: Here's the morning paper and why you can't get it yourself you lazy good-for-nothing I'll never know, Mother was right about you.
Mr C: Yeah, whatever. Blimey. Would you look at that!
Mrs C: You mean the incredible sale at Sparks and Mencer which must end soon? Shall I get my coat?
Mr C: £57 a kilo? £57 a kilo??
Mrs C: Well we don't actually need a kilo darling.
Mr C: I can see why that sale must end. Their directors must be going bonkers. How can they possibly pay themselves huge bonuses just for doing the jobs they have contracted to do anyway if the company doesn't make enormous profits, and they can't do that at £28 a kilo. No way. I'm amazed that sale hasn't already ended and the person who thought of holding it been summarily sacked, barred from ever working in retail again and had his private phone spattered all over Twitter by the company's "black ops" department.  We daren't go anywhere near in case we caught up in the grim lines of middle managers marching up the aisles removing all the Sale signs,fending off desperate last minute shoppers with a sneer that says "We told you it must end and this is it" and rechecking their spreadsheets to ensure that all discounts are removed forthwith. It's going to be retail carnage.
Mrs C: quietly Mother was right.

Economics and the myth of the market

Many years ago I took a degree in economics from one of the UK's more prestigious universities. Much of what I learned has long since departed the brain but I can still remember the core of the theory of perfect competition - the idea that the optimal way to manage production and ditribution of scarce resources is to have many competing organisations both buying and selling so that none can gain an advantage over the rest by virtue of its size. This notion is so powerfully ingrained that generations of politicians mouth about "the markets" without having a clue about the unbelievably ludicrous conditions required to make "perfect" competion actually work (one is that everyone has access to the same information about the future at the same time so that nobody can gain an unfair advantage, another is that there is no such thing as intellectual property, a concept treated as trivial by the 19th century economists like Mill and Marshall). I don't have the inclination to go into it all now, and you certainly don't want to read it, but take it from me, the only economy where perfectly competitive markets could exist, and then produce the "optimal" result, is Fairyland.

In the real world, markets do not produce the best results in the sense meant by those economists who founded the theory of markets and relating theories about "economic welfare" (which is nothing to do with the Welfare State). We had a typical confirmation of this with the story that Premier Foods, a giant in the processed foods business, was requiring upfront payments from the myriad of small firms who supply it. Monopsony, we used to call that, meaning a single buyer wielding power over many sellers. It indicates a catastrophic breakdown in the competiveness of the market. Any politician who claims to believe in markets (Mr. Cameron? Mr. Osborne?) should be demanding the immediate breakup of Premier Foods into at least thirty competing firms. But they are not.

You can, of course, believe that unfettered capitalism, which creates huge businesses wielding enormous economic power, is a good thing in itself. You can believe that competitive markets, in the economic sense, are the best way to run the economy. But you cannot believe both. They are different things. As it happens I believe that the first is awful and the second impossible, and we need a third way. But that is another story.

The Nuisance Callers' Nuisance Caller

My landline rang. A pleasant English female voice asked me to confirm my name and then said they had a record that I had been receiving large numbers of unwanted calls and could I confirm this.

This displays a rather breathtakingly high volume of chutzpah - easily up to 11 on the conman scale (not to be confused with the conran scale which measures the pretentiousness of design in upmarket shops like Bivouac). Here is a nuisance caller, someone who is calling me despite my registration with the toothless old watchdog known as the Telephone Preference Service not to receive such calls, ringing to pretend that she had the solution. I did not need to hear her sales pitch. I know that she was either about to offer to install a "box" for £89 plus a monthly charge of £1.99 or so and all that said box would do is...well, nothing. Or she would claim to be able to reregister me with the TPS for a fee (for a service which is free). So instead of replying to her question I politely said she obviously hadn't checked that we were registered and maybe she had better get off the line without delay. Off she went.

What next?

Scene: Me peacefully at home. The phone rings
Me:  34567889 (not my number but close enough)
Caller: Mr. Commuter?
Me:  (cautiously) Yes (thinks, can't be the bookies, I paid "Big" Freddy off last week)
Caller: We understand you have been receiving nuisance calls from people trying to sell solutions to receiving nuisance calls and it just so happens we have the solution here. For just £200 plus £10 a week we guarantee to tut very loudly and sympathise every time you call us to say you have had one of these intrusive and timewasting calls,
Me: Absolutely brilliant, I'll take two.

                          FIN

As soon as I can line up Stephen Fry to play the caller, we're off to the West End with this one.