Freedom and Whisky

Saturday, 5 August 2006

Tommy

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it’s "Thank you, Mister Sheridan", when the Media begins to pay,

I mean, surely the SSP is looking forward to receiving half of Tommy's winnings in line with party policy on wages.

But, what's this? The SSP's website thinks that the most recent newsworthy story in Scotland concerns school meals and Jamie Oliver.

And if you have a glance here it looks like the comrades are in an unseemly state of disarray.

Meanwhile, Martin Kelly reminds us that it's not over till the old judges confer.

How can the Festival compete with this?

(UPDATE: More comradely fallout here)

Friday, 4 August 2006

There's an increasing level of concern in the photographic community about harassment of photographers by "The Authorities". It's all in the name of "security" of course. It used to be possible to wander around the streets of any city in the West and photograph anything you damned well pleased. Not any more. Particularly in the English speaking countries, using a "professional" camera is liable to attract the attention of the police and all kinds of other security employees. Somehow, these goons think that there's something threatening about using an SLR with those big, "professional" lenses. Forget the fact that pocket-sized digitals often have more powerful built-in zooms than one is likely to find on an SLR; forget the fact that the ubiquitous mobile phone is increasingly equipped with an impressive camera; why not just have a go at those of us who like to photograph cities using good quality equipment. Let's face it: is a terrorist likely to take a photo of a target building while standing out in the open with a Nikon or Canon and a foot-long lens, or is he perhaps going to use something just a wee bit less obvious?

How interesting to note that we may end up having to go to Saudi Arabia to enjoy our hobby.

From the Beatles to Tommy Sheridan

It's good to read that judges still live up to their unworldly image:

He said: "I am not aware of ever having bought or read a single copy of the News Of The World but I am not in any position whatsoever to judge its journalistic standards."
From the articles that have been put before the court during the case, Lord Turnbull said the newspaper appeared to specialise in "human interest features".

Tuesday, 1 August 2006

The West Wing

There was a very interesting article by Janet Daley in yesterday's Telegraph.

According to Ms Daley:

If you didn't get 'The West Wing', you won't understand America

I think she's right and this is what she's getting at:

At its most sententious, it should have been absurd, but it was not. If you listened properly - and they did talk very fast - you could learn an enormous amount, not only about how liberals would like to see themselves, but also about America's reverence for democratic institutions, an issue of immediate relevance to the global crisis in which we are now immersed.

It's the love of democracy that makes America special, we are told:

What must have been quite astonishing to a British audience was how seriously everybody in American politics appeared to take the concept of democratic government itself. Government of the people, by the people and for the people seemed to be engraved on the heart of every politician of every party.

Democracy, it seems, is the true American religion:

This American notion that the will of the people, and the democratic process by which they express it, is sacred - a form of secular religion on which the whole concept of justice and human welfare is predicated - is absolutely fundamental to the position that America is now adopting on the world stage.

As Ms Daley explains, this reverence for democracy makes it very unlikely that a future Democratic president would be any less keen on promoting this "true religion" throughout the world than does George Bush.

The problem I have with Ms Daley's article is that nowhere does she mention that the United States was not formed as a "democracy" but as a constitutionally limited republic.

From the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The point of the Declaration and the subsequent Constitution is that the proper purpose of government is to secure the unalienable rights of the people, not to subject them to never-ending democratic revision. Sadly, America's politicians have been trashing the country's founding principles since the Civil War if not earlier. It makes no difference which party is in power. Left wing, right wing or West Wing, they're all the same. According to the current issue of Liberty:

Total government spending rose by 33% during Bush’s first term. The federal budget as a share of gross domestic product grew from 18.5% on the last day of the Clinton administration to 20.3% at the end of Bush’s first term.

I don't see that spreading democracy into the Middle East is necessarily going to help the situation in that troubled part of the world. Nor is it much use anywhere else, unless the people in question hold firmly to the values of liberty. If Americans, or anyone else for that matter, wish for a more peaceful world, they must encourage the pursuit of liberty, not of democracy.

Monday, 31 July 2006

Capitalism in action

Royal Bank of Scotland; Glasgow Herald; Highland Park; publisher A&C Black; law firms Balfour & Manson, Dundas & Wilson and Pinsent Masons; chartered surveyors DM Hall. What have all of these profit-seeking capitalists got in common?

Here's a clue. I've now received 20 tickets for this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival and, if previous years are anything to go by, I may just manage another one or two events.

So what's with all of those companies that I mentioned? They are all sponsoring the Book Festival.

Let's look now at the Jazz Festival. I note sponsorship from Starbucks, Miller, Festival Inns and the Malmaison hotel group.

And the Film Festival? There's far too many to list. You can see them here, but they range from Standard Life to Lufthansa and from Viacom to Sheraton. It's a similar story with the Fringe (28,014 performances this year!) and of course at the "official" Festival, not to mention all the others.

So, the question is this: If so many capitalists are willing to sponsor the Arts, how much more could they do if taxation were to be slashed? In fact, it seems to me that Edinburgh's festivals demonstrate that the Arts can do just fine if only the state would get out of the way.

The taxing classes

Last Friday one of my sisters visited Edinburgh with a friend. Together with Mrs F&W we took a trip round the city with Mactours. As we were able to hop on and off, we passed across George Street on two separate occasions. The different guides both drew our attention to the statue of William Pitt and made suitably sarcastic remarks about his "temporary" introduction of income tax.

When passing the Scottish parliament building we got another burst of anti-politician commentary. The multinational tourists on both buses clearly appreciated the guides' lack of appreciation of the governing classes.

I did have one quibble though. We drove past the former Royal High School building, which everyone had expected to be the location of the Scottish parliament following the 1997 referendum. The guide told us that "our parliamentarians" had rejected that site in favour of constructing the present building at Holyrood. Well, sort of. The decision to reject the RHS building wasn't made by MSPs - none of them had been elected at the time! Holyrood was given the go ahead by the British cabinet in London. Everyone I know thought that the modest RHS building would be used as planned.

Tuesday, 25 July 2006

Auld Alliances

I foresee a potential problem for Gordon Brown when he goes on his holidays.

Sunday, 23 July 2006

Northern tour

All of the photographs from my recent trip are now up on Flickr:

Warning: joining the Army may damage your health

No, it's not the enemy in front that you have to worry about; it's the health and safety inspector behind you:

But the skirl of the traditional Scottish bagpipes is now under threat - from health and safety inspectors.
Soldiers learning to play the revered instrument have been issued with strict new guidelines aimed at preventing servicemen suffering hearing problems.

We ~~hear~~ are told that:

Army experts tested the loudness and sound pressure of playing bagpipes in a variety of locations to the tune 'Kilworth Hills'.

Army experts! They abolish the Black Watch and bring in Her Majesty's Health and Safety Regiment. That'll put the wind up the enemy now the pipes can't.

I read that:

General Sir Michael Gow, formerly of the Scots Guards, said: "I have never heard such a silly idea in my life. It's the whole health and safety culture gone mad. Whoever comes up with these ideas shouldn't be paid and certainly shouldn't be listened to."

If Sir Michael weren't "formerly" before, he certainly would be now.

Apparently exemptions from the health and safety laws are "only applying when the forces are on active service." I'm sure that'll be fixed ASAP.

Brian Wilson

Back in the old days I used to drive up from London every year and spend a week touring around Scotland. It was always a similar route: first night in Prestwick; perhaps a night in Glasgow; up to the West Highlands for several days and then finishing up in Edinburgh before the long drive back.

Once, I paid a visit to the head office of the West Highland Press in Broadford. As far as I recall they had advertised for an accountant and I had the rather mad idea of moving from Earls Court to Skye. I decided against applying, but who knows, maybe I could have converted the WHFP into Britain's first libertarian newspaper!

Its founder Brian Wilson became an MP and minister and I've always thought of him as being one of those know-nothing numpties that make up the majority in the Scottish Labour party. I've generally found his weekly articles in Scotland on Sunday to be trite in the extreme, although not perhaps as bad as those of Michael Portillo in the Times. This week, however, Wilson surprised me.

On the situation in the Middle East he writes:

In order to advise them on how they should respond, it may be helpful to imagine ourselves in the same position - however far-fetched that scenario may be. Israel is a very small country, less than one-third the landmass of Scotland. Its northern neighbour, Lebanon, has allowed the territory most adjacent to Israel to become the fiefdom of a military and political force, which has only one reason for existing - namely the destruction of Israel. On this matter Hezbollah, unlike governments in the region, does not mince its words and co-existence is not among them.

Then:

But if Lebanon cannot deal with, and indeed fully accommodates, Hezbollah then with whom - when the rockets start flying - is Israel's quarrel?

Wilson continues:

So deep-rooted is this hatred of Israel, not least in some ostensibly left-wing political circles, that its proponents are perfectly happy to make common cause with the dictatorships of the region which, on other grounds, they might reasonably be expected to deplore.

I would say especially in left-wing political circles, but let that pass for Mr Wilson goes on to say this:

When criticised, it (Israel) can point out with justification that listening in the past to the same voices calling for restraint would have led to it being wiped off the map many years ago.

I'm afraid that's exactly the case. I don't have any quick solution to the problem although there won't be one without a widespread regional acceptance of the principles of limited government, property rights and the rule of law. Don't hold your breath.

Oh, please

The SNP will pledge a return to free university education as part of its election campaign drive next year.

Or so it says here.

The SNP's deputy also says:

It will also abolish student loans and replace them with grants and it will allow for the write-off of the existing graduate debt from student loans that holds so many young people back from taking entrepreneurial risks and getting on the housing ladder.

What Ms Sturgeon actually means is that the student debt will be transferred to people like me. Believe it or not, there are still a few of us taxpayers around. If students can't learn to cope with graduate debt there's no way that they'll ever become entrepreneurs.

Sunday, 16 July 2006

My pre-G8 visit to St Petersburg

You can click here to see a full set of the photos that I took in St Petersburg a couple of weeks ago. I'll also post a few shots individually.

If you click on the photos and then click on "All Sizes", you can get a full-screen shot. You can also "View as Slideshow".

Saturday, 15 July 2006

Branding

I'm a 100% believer in the value of the free market. However, that doesn't mean that I think that every business decision is necessarily wise.

Consider this:

FOR generations of shoppers, Jenners has been a byword for discerning retailing.
But the iconic name could soon be consigned to history after it emerged the expected new owner is considering re-branding the 150-year-old Edinburgh store.

Utterly bonkers.

Someone understands:

Richard Ratner, a retail analyst with City firm Seymour Pierce, warned that Baugur would be unwise to go ahead with plans to drop the Jenners name, arguing that it would be bad for future sales.

"Ratner"!

Now where have I heard that name before?

Thursday, 13 July 2006

The trip

Since we returned from holiday I've been busy sorting out the 600-odd photographs that were taken. Three were posted here earlier. The full set will eventually be available on my Flickr account.

Here are a few taken on departure from Copenhagen.

The first port of call was Tallinn. Apart from a couple of hours in East Berlin just after the Wall came down, this was my first visit to the former (?) Soviet Empire.

It's obvious that a vast amount of money has been spent on the renovation of Tallinn's old town. Photos are here. Next to the old town is - surprise, surprise - the new town. But unlike its Edinburgh namesake, this one really is new and the small bit that I saw looked much the same as any other sizable city elsewhere in northern Europe. I have no idea what Estonia looks like outside the tourist-friendly centre of Tallinn, but of course the country has one of the lowest tax regimes in the EU and perhaps other parts are prospering too. Naturally, Tallinn boasts an Irish-Scottish pub.

Back

I've been away on a trip round the Baltic and now hope to get back to regular blogging.

Keeping in touch with the UK was done using e-mail but I did have my mobile phone with me. I'm a very recent convert to the mobile phone phenomenon and was impressed with my el-cheapo machine bleeping at me every morning with a message like "Welcome to Norway, calls cost 95p per minute." In one country - it may have been Germany - the welcome message also gave the number of the British Embassy...

But now I hear that the Eurocrats want to cut the high cost of using a mobile abroad, or at least within the EU. When I say, "cut the high cost", I don't of course mean that any of these people are going to enter the phone business. No, they mean legislation to bring down prices. Last night on the TV news an industry spokesman actually defended his employers by saying that competition was the best way to reduce prices. Apparently, the British phone companies could reduce prices of international calls but would have to make up the lost revenue by increasing the cost of our subsidised handsets. There's no such thing as a free phone.

In the quest for lower consumer prices, I place far greater trust with profit-seeking entrepreneurs than with politicians whose prime motivation is the creation of a European superstate.

Saturday, 8 July 2006

Anyone for tennis?

First quote

From Money Week of 30th June:

Lebedev, 46, is the first to admit that the KGB taught its recruits the value of elitism. "Tennis was encouraged, so you could move easily in high society in the West," he told the New York Times in 2000.

Second quote

From Ryrie's Bar at lunchtime today:

Can't we change at least one of the TVs to the golf? Who plays tennis in this place?

At least the anti-elitist Scottish working class is immune from the charms of the KGB!