913 days ago
It is always the way that the woke of one generation will be devoured by the woke of the next. Who could imagine that feminist icon Germaine Greer and the heroic gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell might find themselved “no platformed” on British campuses, the marxist madrassas at the cutting edge of the woke revolution? The “crime” of both Greer and Tatchell was not to understand the pyramid of victimhood and thus to question even some of the demands of those currently perched at the top of the pyramid, the Transgender community. As we discovered yesterday with lesbians who do not want to have sex with a “woman with a penis” such challenges are just not allowed and are, at once, branded as hateful and bigoted.
1242 days ago
No this is not for the Mrs, a card carrying member of the Labour Party, who has a rather nice present sitting in one of the barns at the Welsh Hovel. There are other lefties in my life, notably, almost my entire family. And thus, each year, one struggles for a suitable present for such folks. After all, you have already given them in prior years the complete works of Ayn Rand and Titania McGrath. What to do in 2020?
1244 days ago
You may remember that at Manchester Airport we met up with our friends from the Mani, the Guardian-reading, lunatic, mask jihadists L&G. They assured us that when arriving in Greece, they would be isolating in order not to spread any British germs to the Mani and so it was a while before we saw them, in a socially distanced manner, in the Kambos restaurant formerly known as Mirandas. They are a thirsty couple and, even from a distance, conversation flows freely.
1343 days ago
Okay, this is only one store in a medium sized Welsh village. The one I live in. Perhaps, unbeknown to me, absolutely all of my fellow villagers spend their nights re-reading the works of Ayn Rand, brushing up on Austrian economics or on the greatest 100 quotes of Ronald Reagan and we are somehow atypical. My instincts are that this is not an unusually enlightened place. And thus in light of my article earlier in the week on #BoycottBenandJerrys and the woke hypocrisy of Unilever (ULVR) I bring you a photo from the village store.
2263 days ago
An ex employee of Ariadne Capital, terming him self John Galt after the Ayn Rand character has already exposed the truth behind the myth that is First Tuesday. In his second post on LinkedIn he now exposed the series of scandals and lawsuits that have marked the career of Julie Meyer MBE of Ariadne. His punishment, someone complained and his account has been suspended. Luckily I copied the posting before that happened and so since I really am a free speech supporting libertarian unlike some folks I could mention...
2275 days ago
John Galt is, as you know, an Ayn Rand character. It is also the "nom de plume" of a former senior staffer at Ariadne Capital Limited (now in a shocking administration after £10.5 million disappeared in 10 months as we revealed HERE) who has said that he will expose Ms Meyer. His opening salvo has appeared on LinkedIn today.
2480 days ago
Sing & Sign is not to be confused with politically correct poetry. The latter is on a Wednesday at our local library or will be until, that place is shut down. As the Po faced poetry dominatrix explained this week, Bristol City Council is being forced to make big cuts. Well of course there is no cut in its donation to the Pride festival, the City council can afford a fully staffed press office, to fund Chess Tournaments and to make donations to very rich charities such as the Terence Higgins Trust as well as Womankind Bristol Women's Therapy Centre Ltd, Independent Sex Workers against Violence, the Hype Dance Company, the Bristol Zimbabwe Association and a whole raft of other valuable causes. But it must close down our library here in the white working class district of Brislington because of the wicked Tories. Whatever.
2611 days ago
I find myself reading a book called Tales of the Farmyard to my, almost, six month old son Joshua. The lad probably is not following the stories clearly, at this stage he just about knows that a sheep is big, white, fluffy , has four legs and goes baaaa while a cat is like Oakley so is black and white, less big, has only three legs and goes miaow. As I read "The Tale of the naughty sheep" by author Heather Amery, I felt the need to explain a few things to Joshua.
2789 days ago
When you see that a conference which claims to be business focussed, as is the PRI In Person jamboree in Singapore, but is in fact "supported by the United Nations" you know that it will be a nest of vipers seeking to enrich the 1% at the expense of the 99%. At this point I quote Ayn Rand
2792 days ago
I refer to my 8 Reasons Donald Trump will win podcast in this bearcast - you can listen to that HERE. Elsewhere I discuss the problem of a corrupted press with reference to today's Sunday Telegraph on Gulf Keystone (GKP). I then examine why I think the stockmarket might crash this fall. Finally I offer up a quote from Ayn Rand and challenge you to disagree with how, in 1957, she describes the sad world of 2016.
2866 days ago
And so our party finally made it through the large blue door which marks the entrance to the house that Paddy built in Kardamili. Turning right along a terrace open on one side we found ourselves with the rest of the group in the library. This was all rather different from the Greek Hovel.
2937 days ago
I guess most people on the Bristol Uni public events email list are members of the Welsh Militant Tendency then. Or am I just a bit narrow minded? You see my email arrives and I am promised that this month "we have events to suit everyone."
Goodie goodie thought I - an evening with blond lap dancers gyrating on stage before reading their favourite excepts from the works of Ayn Rand with a screen at the back showing a replay of West Ham winning the FA Cup in 1964, all washed down with free ouzo on tap. Surely that would please lots of folks? Oddly it appears not to be on offer. Instead I have a choice of:
2972 days ago
What is there that the mad lefties who run the Guardian, the BBC, Channel 4 News and all the State supported quangos celebrating IWD 2016, could not see in a woman who was an illegal immigrant ( overstaying a visitor's visa), an ethnic minority (Jewish), an atheist and whose writings are so influential that she is seen as the driving force of a major school of thought?
Surely on International Women's Day we should be holding a woman - whose family were persecuted when she was just 12, losing their homes and facing starvation - and who herself was booted out of University for not adhering to the line of an oppressive regime, up as a role model for our daughters? This woman achieved so much despite all the odds being stacked against her.
So as we celebrate Great Women today why won't the lefties tell our daughters about Ayn Rand?
Er..
3240 days ago
Obviously the coolest folks are libertarians. And so am I. Amanda Van Dyke has a few dangerous neocon tendancies (foreign policy) and some odd views on the EU but for a Canadian is a pretty libertarian - her fellow countrymen tend to be lefties. Charlotte Argyle, the daughter of Thatcher pictured above, is crystal pure. But you only know something is really cool when folks with no claim to be one of us, start trying to claim to be part of the crowd. That brings me to a total tosser called Nick Curtis, a columnist in the London Evening Standard.
I stress that I am not a regular Standard reader. But on the train back to Bristol last week I happened upon a copy and being bored started to read it. As ever I was struck how folks inside zone 1 of London are a completely alien speciies to the rest of the UK. They have different concerns, interests and views to the rest of us. They are the political, media and corporate elite and they just live on another planet.
Mr Curtis writes on the 10th June about how the busy body sheep shaggers at the Welsh Assembly wish to ban vaping ( "smoking e-cigarettes" in public places). And in the piece he proclaims "I'm a libertarian who believes in personal choice." Great news... a kindred spirit. er....
3390 days ago
I never thought of myself as a leftie. My hardline euroscepticism, belief in slashing taxes and slashing state spending, ripping up the rule book on welfare, allowing free markets to operate unfettered, belief in total free speech always made me think that I was really very right wing indeed in a 100% libertarian way. I think those folks who read my articles would be minded to agree as would the bunch of mad lefties who work with my wife. But it appears that by UKIP standards I am just a mad leftie myself. My crime… words fail me.
3434 days ago
I have promised her a paperback cop, but for now as she honeymoons in Sri Lanka, she has a Kindle version of “Life after the State” by my friend Dominic Frisby. You see the ex-GF is marrying a chap (the a’hole) from Euroland. And as such although she is innately conservative if not libertarian there is a danger that her mind will be contaminated by big Government nonsense and money tree worshipping. I cannot let that happen. I doubt that she will be reading Ayn Rand to her children but Dominic is a good start.
Big Government makes its folks less healthy, less wealthy and less happy. There is an alternative as Dominic explains in this wonderfully entertaining book. I would recommend it to all.
3681 days ago
I am useless at this present thing. The Mrs has a round number birthday on Thursday and one small gift (a book) has already been ordered but I sense that I need to do a bit more. I have a few ideas but would rather not balls this up completely. As such, all sensible suggestions much appreciated.
Jewellery? So far in our life together this has been my stock in trade at Christmas and I have guessed well – she actually wears what I have given her. But I think I will be trying my luck if I go down this path again. The complete works of Ayn Rand to help move her to a more enlightened plane? A good idea but sadly they are already resident on our bookshelves.
In fact we have more than enough books to last a lifetime. Clothes? Men always get that wrong and I am too much a Real Man and not enough of a meterosexual to even contemplate that idea. All in all, I am pretty stumped.
HELP!
4230 days ago
I have been bashed as a misogynist for having only two women in my photos of my heroes at the top of this blog – Ayn Rand and Baroness Thatcher. Both of them would laugh of such criticism – as meritocrats they would not support affirmative action in a blog photo hero list. Neither would today’s addition to the list – the woman I describe as my pin up girl: Melanie Phillips.
4276 days ago
Mitt Romney has selected his choice for Vice President, his running mate. But picking Congressman Paul Ryan will not save him from electoral defeat in November. Obama is 7 points ahead in the polls and will win. At one level I say this with sadness as I think Obama is awful. At another with disinterest as I also think Romney is pretty dreadful.
Let’s start with Paul Ryan. He is young and photogenic and best known for his plan to balance the budget. He describes himself as a devotee of libertarian goddess Ayn Rand in a desperate attempt to pick up the Ron Paul constituency. But this is desperate stuff. It will not work.
Those of us who think Ron Paul is the answer to America’s problems do so because he ( as a true Ayn Rand devotee) would repeal legislation which has suppressed civil liberties (notably the Patriot Act), would end foreign wars and by cutting defence spending (20% of Government spending) as well as spending elsewhere really could balance the budget.
I have read Karl Marx. That does not make me a Marxist.
4295 days ago
It is no secret that I regard our Prime Minister David Cameron with open contempt. I cannot remember ever thinking that he stood for much and as time has gone by what little he once stood for has been forgotten and abandoned. There has been so much that Cameron has done or not done which leads me to view him with contempt, but on Sunday his reaction to the victory of Bradley Wiggins in the Tour de France really just summed it up for me.
But before we turn to Cameron and Wiggins I ask you to humour me and watch Howard Roark speaking in his own defence in his trial in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.
I assume since you are reading this blog that you believe in the freedom of man
4319 days ago
Life as a visitor to a hot bankrupt country might sound idyllic. But when BOTH your computers play up suddenly my attempts to enjoy a stress free existence go up in smoke. And so it was, yesterday 29th June 2012. It was a day that was meant to be the end of one chapter for me and the start of another. For some reason both PCs now seem to be working again. Perhaps they just needed a day off. I feel rather exasperated by a day when my output was minimal but when a lot was happening.
I should start with AIM listed Athol Gold
4331 days ago
No, no ,no not one for the taxman and one for us! Just a day on two sets of books at the restaurant. First up is my library. The most valuable books are stored safely elsewhere but I still have well over a thousand books picked up over the years which are now being housed downstairs at the Real Man Pizza Company on Clerkenwell Road. If you have a spare afternoon and fancy a read over a coffee or just a book to digest as you digest a chocolate pizza – you now know where to go.
