Sensation! Angela Merkel Was A Teenager!

Around the media and web has appeared a picture of the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel at the beginning of the 1970’s.  She, a teenager, is in a sort of uniform and then a member of a Communist Youth Movement and is actually smiling on parade.  Possibly the presence of the official/officer in charge next to her and looking hard may have had something to do with it.

Although old enough to be her father, there is a touch of sympathy for that situation.  When a teenager not much older and conscripted into the Army, uniformed and paraded, when the Sergeant Major or other said “smile”, I smiled.  Nor did I volunteer for the various humiliations that service entailed. 

Although a volunteer in theory, I doubt that Ms. Merkel was in practice.  If the local party boss suggested you might join, you joined.  On another tack she was said to be 17 years old at the time. 

Personally, I should not like to be judged now on my form or on some of the things I did or believed in my teens.  I really should not have gone to a social evening for the local Guild of Abstaining Youth after a pint or two in the “Marquis of Granby” nearby.

Rehydration was needed after rugger training.  The consequence was not a happy one.  The organiser did not like the jolly atmosphere we tried to bring to the evening.  Now, I fully realise we should have stayed in the pub and left them to it.  It was evident that they did not want to be converted.

There are then the subsequent couple of decades after this picture of her when she was a part of the East German community before its collapse and take over by West Germany.  This was a grim authoritarian regime that brooked no opposition and adhered to an absolute dogma of power and social organisation.

Since then there has been a longer period when those in East Germany have had to march to a different drum and attach themselves to a changed set of ideas.  They were not simply German any more.  They had become “European” and made the change just when the EU was gathering pace and power.

There are to be elections in Germany in the near future.  The German system is complex and can give rise to many possibilities.  Sometimes it is relatively predictable but at present there are many uncertainties.  These arise from the situations not just in EU organisation and reach but the whole economic basis resting on the Euro currency union.

For a long time there has been the assumption and expectation that Germany can somehow maintain good control over its own affairs and influence others to a degree that allows it not so much a governing but at least a presiding role in European affairs. 

This may well be a main element in the structure of Ms. Merkel’s idea structure and her inheritance of top down social and economic organisation may owe much to the Prussian heritage embedded in the former East German Communism.  But the world may have changed too much too quickly for this to continue.

If we are to criticise and judge her sensibly then we need to look very hard at the way she operates, her essential thinking on the way things should be done on what should be done when and by whom.  Then see how this works within her party and whether her party can continue in this form.

It is possible that this time is past and there is a need for a rapid reordering and repositioning of the German government in the face of the ongoing crisis and the threats to Germany as much as the rest of Europe.  It may be that Europe is no longer Germany and Germany is no longer the heart of Europe.

In the meantime the UK media will continue its obsession with whether the proposed new England football kit is too like that the German one when Ms. Merkel was a teenager on parade.

The Naming Of Names

The Manchester United, for the time being, footballer, Mr. Wayne Rooney is now a father for the second time, Mrs. Colleen Rooney having given birth to a son a couple of days ago.  Congratulations to them both and my hopes that all goes well.

The child has been named Klay Anthony Rooney.  The reports suggest that the first name represents the practice among celebrities of choosing very modern or “different” names to distinguish them from the common herd.

This was once a practice in certain of the more ambitious and publicity seeking members of the former and now defunct aristocracy.  Old habits are hard to shake off in British society.

One problem is that the immediate effect is to encourage impressionable members of the plebeian classes to do the same.  So there are a lot of them to come.  There is a snag however, and that is sometimes these things need a bit of research.

After many hours toiling in libraries (OK half a minute on Wikipedia) this is what I came up with.  Apparently Klay is a character in a TV series called “Chaotic” that has escaped my relentless surfing of the Sky channels.

Quote:

Klay is not popular to say the least. He lies, steals and swindles newbies out of their best cards as well as grabbing any advantage over opponents that he can, but stops just short of outright cheating in matches to avoid being disqualified.

He also likes to lurk in the food court and eat people's leftovers. Everyone knows Klay's a dirty slimeball, but the problem is nobody can prove it.

Frankly, Klay couldn't care less what the other players think of him, and what the Code Masters don't know can't hurt him. he plays strip poker with the other players for their "cards"

In Perim, Klay is no more restricted by rules than by decency. He will often follow other players to good finds before jumping in and stealing their scans. Sometimes, he even tries to get rid of rivals ("dying" in Perim results in your Chaotic profile being deleted).

A longtime rival of Kaz's, Klay took an instant disliking to Tom as well and has spent most of the series attempting to sabotage both of them. It's been now known that he and Krystella work for Lord Van Bloot.

He also has an Australian accent implying that he is from Australia. His appearance somewhat resembles Bono and David Bowie. His Chaotic username is Klayotic.

Unquote.

Yes, well, these things happen.  But an Aunt who lived in Formby and was a much nearer neighbour to Mr. Rooney than she wanted to be would not be surprised.  She had strong opinions on the subject.

Perhaps the Anthony name comes from recent Prime Minister Blair and also relates also to his father-in-law, Anthony Booth, father of Cherie Blair nee Booth.  This is possible in that the Booths were close to the same patch as the Liverpool Rooney family.

One question is where did the earlier Rooney family come from?  One patch with an extended network of Rooney’s also has a number of other families in Liverpool in the past who are closely connected.

By one of those quirks of genealogical fate they connect to the Bowes-Lyon family.

Who needs “Dynasty”?

The Eyes Have It

When I turned out on the rugby field at scrum half and up against a pack of forwards who were more aggressive than was necessary, the ability to be swivel eyed and adopt unpredictable responses was an advantage.  Get your retaliation in first is our family motto.

But our politics today is less ordered and more violent than some grim struggle on a muddy field between men who are sworn enemies for eighty minutes before the bar opens.  Although reports from the Palace of Westminster suggest that their violence both of speech and person is often a feature of the activity in the bars.

So when there are complaints about swivel eyed loons wanting the UK to leave the EU there is an instinctive reaction to be on their side.  This is one of the great political questions of the decade.  There are others but not many. 

The EU debate is about our future for the rest of the century as a political entity and as either a democracy or an element in a quasi-imperial structure.  Down at Westminster essentially many of them have given up on democracy and see their chief task on getting the right deal out of Europe.

The difficulty is that their “right deal” is not my right deal nor of many other people and groups in the Atlantic Isles.  I choose the words “Atlantic Isles” with care because the various groups in that geographical area have a need for mutual support because of all the related interests.

In this case, Westminster is too often more of a liability than an asset.  Historically, many of the issues that have arisen around the Atlantic Isles are traceable back to London’s obsessions with money, power and global activity.  There have been some passages of time when The City’s influence has been reduced but not many.

Moreover the EU now is not what many people think it is, is not the same as it was only a handful of years ago and is quite different to forty years ago.  What we signed up for in the 1970’s was a Europe that we saw from the 1950’s.  We did not think much about what was going to be needed in the 1980’s and beyond.

Clearly, there can be many different views and perspectives.  There will be those for whom self interest is paramount, now it seems the governing consideration.  There will be others with ideologies and theoretical notions about what might be.  There are some trying to take a practical view.

Many of them will be merrily forecasting and predicting on ideas and data from one bit of the past or another.  At the moment in the Conservative Party it seems to be from the 1980’s.  In the Labour Party is seems to be from the time that Blairism was rampant around 2000.  That does not make it any better.

As a great many people have become cynical and distrusting there is a feeling to support a policy of “a plague on all your houses” which accounts for the surge in the voting for UKIP.  The allegation is that UKIP does not know what it is doing and has a mish mash of conflicting policies.

Probably, the critics are right.  The trouble is that to many that as the other parties are in an even worse state and UKIP as such represents the best of a bad job.  As for other elements when it was announced that there were 14,000 treaties and obligations to be renegotiated if the UK was divided this seemed to many to be a very good reason for it to happen.

At the moment it feels that we are playing behind a badly beaten pack with a line of threes that can’t tackle or pass; a full back with butter fingers and uphill and against the wind and rain on a filthy mud heap in a place where the local brewery is one of the worst in the region.

This is all going to end badly.

Is Bob Crowe Raven Or Right?

Part of my idea set is that as we move on into the 21^st Century our beliefs on what is economics, politics and other things need radical reordering.

Notably, one area is the Left v Right business.  If you look hard at who is supposed to be one or the other, it seems that it is not easy to apply that to the way things are and how they are becoming.

Below is a link to an interesting example from Bob Crowe of the rail workers union, who is not entirely popular amongst the commuters of the south east.  He is generally regarded as an ultimate Leftie. 

But if you look at his comments on Europe you wonder how far away from UKIP and Nigel Farage, their leader, he might be.

Perhaps they might have a pint or two together in “The Coal Hole” on The Strand.  If so I would be pleased to join them, if only to act as referee and as a one time member of the rail workers union over half a century ago. 

Adjacent to The Savoy Hotel, it is about as elitist as you get.  Also, it is but a few yards from Covent Garden, which when a fruit, vegetable and flower market was as plebeian as possible.

It is where the people who broke the police lines to trigger the Suez Riots in 1956 made sure they were properly hydrated beforehand. 

Arguable, but it is possible to trace the line from the 1956 Suez debacle to our first hand wringing attempts to join Europe.

http://www.organizedrage.com/2013/05/social-europe-my-arse-once-eu-sided.html

Enjoy.

The computer change is impending so blogging will be light.

Large Immigration Shock

Nellie the elephant is beginning to wonder if moving to Britain is all that it was cracked up to be.

Will her future employment relate to her skill set and experience?

Just what is random memory function?

At The Risk Of Repeating Myself

“Little Local Difficulties” from June 2009.

Quote:

We have been here before.  In January 1958 a beleaguered Government under a non-elected Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, lost three senior ministers in a row over economic management and fiscal policy.  “Supermac” brushed the major policy disagreements and resignations aside by referring to it as a “Little local difficulty”. 

Despite the howling of the press, and adverse bye-election and council election results, Macmillan carried on with his high spend policies of public services expansion to create employment. 

He ignored calls for fiscal restraint and caution.  A host of learned economists were summoned to recommend that an annual rate of inflation of 3% compound would be entirely manageable.

It would lead to sustainable economic growth, maintain the value of the power, enable increased public spending, and last but not least keep the UK as a world economic and military power.  Well, we all know what happened in the next two decades don’t we? 

But do not forget, as I have not forgotten, that Macmillan won the election in the next year, 1959.  I recall too well at the count I attended the astonishment and despair of all those Gaitskellite Labour followers when the results were announced. 

It was clear even at our local level that against all the odds the Conservatives had survived, and Macmillan was clear for another give years.  Or everyone thought he was until the Profumo Affair and his prostate failed in 1963.

But it was Macmillan who when asked by the new President Kennedy of the USA (they were related by family marriages) what the main problems he faced were, answered, “Events, my dear boy, events.”

In the meantime, as Martin Wolf in the FT points out, we have a fiscal problem that is very serious, will not go away, and needs difficult decisions to be taken very soon, and not after the next General Election.

Unquote.

Try Youtube, Tennessee Ernie Ford with his 1956 hit “16 Tons”.

Pick A Pocket Or Two

As the Euro scuffles among the Conservatives continue some are calling it a Civil War.  Perhaps, but hardly Cavaliers and Roundheads, if Peter Oborne in The Telegraph today is right in his leader comment that those in Parliament now seem to have forgotten the lessons of their debacle on the scandal of expenses and other wheezes to feather their nests, then it is more like Cops and Robbers.

The trouble is that the Palace of Parliament it is evident that the robbers far outnumber to cops.  What is more some of them are behaving more like the Kray’s and Richardson’s of the past London gang land, or Capone and Lansky for those in the USA. 

The tales of bullying and harassment against the poor devils who have to sort out and agree their expenses and other claims is unsavoury at least and disgusting to any normal rational person.  But our Parliamentarians too often are neither.

Given that the EU as presently run and organised is one big, big honey pot for every shyster, fiddler, greedy gob and conman who can walk talk and open a network of bank accounts in convenient places then there is great scope for reform.

Even were we to stay into some kind of agreed customs and economic network the present Brussels system and the rest, notably the Euro currency will have to go and a quite radical reformation take place.

Those of us who do not quite recall the last Reformation will be aware that what provoked it was the determined centralism, predatory financing, out of control spending, secrecy and dogmatic ideology fastened on the peoples of Europe.

The latest “Private Eye” this week, No. 1340 has a six page section headed “Where There’s Muck There’s Brass Plates” subtitled “How UK Ghost Companies Made Britain The Capital Of Global Corporate Crime” starring Vince Cable, a sort of St. Ignatius Loyola of The Coalition.

In the meantime President Obama, firm in his belief that The British Empire is and always has been the chief enemy of the USA is now instructing Dave The Bagman, The Cameron who is not coming and has failed to arrive, that he must both believe in, submit and conform to Europe.

The President is a great fan of the former President FD Roosevelt and his ideas.  But The Mises Institute today features an article by David A. Stockman which is an excerpt from his book “The Great Deformation – The Corruption Of Capitalism In The USA” in which the words “intemperate, incoherent and bombastic” are the more complimentary comments.

He suggest that FDR and his later fan Tricky Dicky Nixon were peas from the same statist pod and between them made economic decisions on the hoof that helped enable some of the pre-conditions for our existing miseries.

This post may seem a tad bad tempered but a change of computer is impending.  Going through the pile of past things I came across something from a while back called “Windows 98”.  Could I use it for an update I wonder?

Which makes more sense that our management of the economy at present.