( Cut because some people don't like discussion of the tooth doctor... )

Anyone with a clue what Charles Kennedy means by Would the originator of this message please remove it from my email system pronto.? Fascinating.

This morning was faff beyond faff. My leg is still painful so I'm still getting the bus. I usually get the 1 from my front door to Elephant, then change, ideally for the C10 to the door of my office, but if it doesn't turn up the 148 goes to the South side of Parliament Square. Sometimes, like this morning, when I don't get a seat on the 1, I give up at Bermondsey Square and walk up to Bermondsey Street and get the C10 directly. This is risky but variety is the spice of life and all that.

Anyway this morning there was no prospect of anyone on the 1 letting me sit down or getting off, so I wandered over to the relevant stop for the C10, where I found a despairing chap off to deliver leadership training at a Government building near my office, who had been waiting a little while. Bored, and waiting for some time longer, we chatted and had some stuff in common - both grew up in Yorkshire, both lived in London for about five years, both find the bits of London we can afford to live in a bit tedious but both have other halves who think London is the centre of the known universe and jobs where the pickings are slimmer out of town.

Eventually the bus arrived and was, of course, full. Although there was room at the back. The driver was reluctant to let us on, but Leadership Man pointed out all the empty space, got on, ordered people to move around in specific directions, and we eventually forced ourselves on. This seemed like an achievement, although when we got to Borough an almighty gridlock struck and another, much less packed, C10 overtook us. "That", I said, "is the difference between tactical leadership and strategic leadership". He took it in good spirit and said that would be the morning's lesson - leadership vs management.

Then pandemonium ensued when a lady in a wheelchair needed to get off. Well, for starters I was blocking her turning circle so I decamped, but then... I don't know if you've ever been on a C10. It's a small bus with only one door at the front, so if people won't all get off and back on again, the chances of extracting onesself from it in a wheelchair are about as good as those of taking the hint that came over the automatic speaker on a similarly packed journey in August that "Seats are available on the upper deck". It's a single-decker, if you hadn't already gathered that from e.g. the title of the post. Leadership man sprang into action and wheeled her off, leaving his presentation and briefcase on his seat - I thought for a moment the door was going to close and we would drive off, but it didn't.

So, in any case I arrived at work only about 45 minutes late. I gave leadership man a business card, we sometimes buy that kind of thing.

My father, there, marvellous.

There's nothing like a good practical joke (and this was nothing like... etc).

Sean, one of t'other DJs at Feeling Gloomy, always brings cheap alcohol to save himself money, and on Saturday he'd got 8 cans of Budweiser for the price of six. Remembering how angry he got when Sandeep and Frankie drank his cider, I knew what had to be done. So around 1am I sent Sandeep out to collect Sean's empties, moved his remaining beer save one to the fridge in the other dressing room, rinsed out the empty cans, filled them with water, and sat drinking them with Will, and waited. Eventually, he asked someone to pass him a drink. Mary, unsuspecting, takes the remaining can from the fridge, passes it through the stage door and says "here you go, last one". Sean flies backstage, sees what appears to be everyone but him drinking his beer, and goes spare.

Happy times. Meanwhile more househunting. Lovely flat in lovely Frognal location, well equipped and stunning garden, but just a bit too small a room I think - double bed, workdesk and two built in wardrobes, but no further space. You'd even have to move the bedside table to get into half of the second wardrobe. It did, though, have a catflap in the bedroom window, and is very reasonably priced. Deciding by Wednesday.

Tonight I'm seeing two cheap rooms near Manor House - recognising that my quest for one very big room may be vain, I'm thinking I could have a middling sized bedroom and a small further room as office / tv / storage / guest room. It's a thought, anyway.

What doesn't really help is seeing the sort of thing I think I want but failing to find it in a format which makes it available to me. For example I'd happily pay, say, £185 a week, maybe more, for the large room in this place. It's been on the market for ages so I reckon they'd take £700, meaning the other rooms would be £550 a month, which I think is pretty good for a double in Highbury. So, anyone know any 4somes who are searching?

That's about all. On Friday I played with the world's fastest cat, went to the countryside (well OK, Surrey, but really Surrey not Surrey-London, and I walked on a bridleway and a footpath that wasn't next to a road) and I met a black tabby which isn't something I've ever seen before. Drank wine and ate lots of cheese, which I just about survived. Then I made vegetarian toad in the hole with garlic and onion gravy. I have some left for lunch and I kind of want it now. That's not good, is it?

Here.

...there is a deeper issue here. Even assuming the Bank of England gets it right, all that happens is that we return to a fundamentally flawed model. The return of property inflation, asset bubbles, private equity deals and the whole big swinging dick culture that pervaded Britain back then does not signify real economic recovery: it is evidence of a deluded and chronically sick nation determined to learn nothing and forget everything from the crisis.

Deluded because the over-reliance on debt-driven consumption, speculation and financial engineering was what got us into this mess in the first place. Chronically sick because each of the recessions of the last 30 years has ripped a bit more out of the UK's industrial base and hence aggravated a problem ever-present since the second world war: we consume too much and produce too little.

The events of the last two years were a godsend for those who considered the UK to be a structurally dysfunctional economy. It was all there: an over-mighty financial sector that was too big to fail; a manufacturing sector in desperate need of some tender loving care; consumers borrowing against the rising value of their homes because their real incomes were growing only modestly.

The failure of the banks, not just the greed but the asinine decisions made by the supposed masters of the universe, created the perfect conditions for fundamental reform. Instead of an arm's length approach to the failed institutions brought under state control, the government should have used its position as majority shareholder to direct investment, utilising a cheap money environment to end the economy's over-reliance on the City by rebuilding the industrial base. When the banks were deemed ready for a return to the private sector, they should have been cut down to size so that they were not too big to fail.

Unfortunately, the government did not consider the economy to be structurally dysfunctional. Unlike Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1970s, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were not interested in fundamental reform, and, as a result, Labour's response to the crisis was managerial rather than ideological. There was never any question of the City being forced to accept the tough punishment meted out to the unions in the 1980s, even though the sins of the financiers were far more heinous.

...

So what does all this mean? It means that any recovery will be short-lived, because businesses have scant appetite for investment and consumers are saving, rather than spending. It means that the preconditions are in place for another global crisis, since the failure to reform the British economy has been mirrored in the US and China. Nothing has been done to tackle the imbalances in the world economy that have led to overproduction in Asia and overconsumption in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Finally, it means curtains for Labour. The one thing that has changed since August 2007 is that the government's reputation for economic competence has been shredded. Labour's pusillanimous approach to the crisis means it will be punished by the voters even if there is a feeble recovery between now and polling day, and it will be left to the Conservatives to pick up the pieces. Needless to say, they are just as clueless.

In no particular order, taking the obvious ones 'as read' (ho ho) and reserving the right to change my mind. 15 books:

1. Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
2. Ring of Bright Water (trilogy) - Gavin Maxwell
3. Essays in Logic And Language, Volume 1 - Gilbert Ryle & Antony Flew (eds.)
4. How to Be a Minister - Gerald Kaufman
5. The Most Offending Soul Alive: Tom Harrison and his Remarkable Life - Judith Heimann
6. Knots - RD Laing
7. Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships - Eric Berne
8. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
9. Brontë's Egg - Richard Chwedyk
10. A World Still to Win: The Reconstruction of the Post-War Working Class - Trevor Blackwell & Jeremy Seabrook
11. No Fire Burns - Avram Davidson
12. Ecclesiastes - author unclear
13. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman
14. Either/Or - Søren Kierkegaard
15. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? - Alasdair MacIntyre

But apparently my mate from school is a "Fringe Veteran".



Yes, well, anyway. I did always think Hollyoaks would be better without the straight male characters, and with more tunes. No, really, that's a compliment Dan :)

Also in Edinburgh (not me, so this is all a bit pointless) the kids. Great bunch.

http://www.monsieur-montpellier.co.uk/
http://www.notbbc.co.uk/edfringe2009/shows/15357/who_killed_dead_man_in_a_box.html

Anyone else?

I know a couple of my LJ friends are hunting for cheap properties to buy in South London.

This might be slightly too cheap, but it's not a bad block (compared to the ones next to it, that is). Transport links are OK and will be better when the East London Line reopens.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-12913956.html

I shall, for the time being, pass :)

My list of favourite restaurants in London is, like most of my tastes, low-brow to an extent that it almost becomes an affectation. The all you can eat for £3.50 curry house in Angel, the late-lamented Sasa Thai buffet on Greek Street, the Pronto Grill Bar on Strutton Ground - double egg chips beans fried slice canofpop for £3.90. If I'm feeling rich, or there's a special offer, then Pizza Express and Wagamama tend to be the order of the day.

I have a guilty secret, though. A little list of more expensive restaurants I like. I don't generally let myself go to them, of course. It either has to be a very special occasion, or someone else has to be paying. Or, ideally, both. The list contains Matsuri, Manna, Alounak, The Gay Hussar - you get the idea. Last night, a new entrant stormed into that list.

Erebuni in Lancaster Gate is a Russian restaurant specialising in the food and drink of the South-Western Soviet states. We (willjsm, augstone, and I, with intermix popping in briefly to steal some of my food) were there for an Armenian experience, so skewed our way heavily towards that side of the menu. All the same, I kicked off with a Russian lager before we were seated for dinner.

In fairness, if we hadn't had three courses each, and we hadn't been drinking, it wouldn't even have been all that expensive. A starter and main course could easily be consumed and come in at under twenty pounds a head, and fruit juice is on offer at a very reasonable £5 a litre. A starter, main course, pudding, wine, beer, and cognac, on the other hand. Umm, well. After tip we got a bit of change each out of a red note, but not a lot.

The vegetarian choice isn't huge, though it's greater than Alounak, and it doesn't necessarily need to be vast as long as what is there is good. I started with marinated red pepper in garlic and parsley. It was good. Not a huge amount, but a starter doesn't really need to be. There was a lot of parsley. If you don't like parsley, ask for less. I do. It was exceptional, though possibly Will's starter, the same thing with fried aubergine instead of pepper was even better. Aug had stuffed eggs and caviar, because he is a ponce.

My main course was a dilemma. There were, realistically, two options. Kartoshka, which I knew I would like but wasn't really in the spirit of the thing, or the unknown "Hailasan", described on the menu as "A blend of potatoes, red peppers, onions, green beans, courgettes, tomatoes and fresh herbs poached in tomato sauce. It is said to be one of the most delicious Armenian vegetarian dishes. Served with rice". It was very nice. Someone trying to be harsh could probably describe it as slightly bland curry, but that would entirely fail to appreciate the subtle tastiness going on. The quantity was similarly pleasing to the greedy person (eg me).

Also at this point I tried a phenomenal Georgian white wine. I don't like white wine, largely because so much of it is too dry for me, but there it was. It had none of the sharp aftertaste that often comes with even quite good white wine, instead dissolving gradually into a note somewhere between smoked sausage and baklava. See, my low-brow mask is slipping as I am dragged to pseud's corner. I guess you had to be there.

Speaking of baklava, my dessert, being honey and walnut cake, looked a lot like a giant one. It was accompanied by a stupidly expensive, rough-smelling, but spicy-maple-syrup-tasting, Armenian Cognac. As we were leaving we also got complimentary shots of what, as far as I can tell (it wasn't really explained) was cranberry port. A+, would go again, recommend, etc.

Sale Date	Price	Type	New Build	Address
23/01/2009	£50,500	Flat	No	Flat 102, Northampton House, Wellington Street, Northampton, Northamptonshire, NN1 3NA
16/10/2006	£242,000	Flat	Yes	Flat 102, Northampton House, Wellington Street, Northampton, Northamptonshire, NN1 3NA

I whinge a lot about London - crowds, pollution, crime, rudeness, general hassle, and at the moment about stuff generally - by stuff generally, I mean my leg not working. I should counterbalance that by saying that sometimes it all comes together and is fun. So when I take Friday off to go in a big bleepy machine with a five ton magnet (and no radioactive dye in my leg despite my consultant asking for it, but hey, a scan's a scan), then watch the tennis, eat a tasty and unhealthy late lunch, and go out to a birthday party on Friday night, I should say that was a good day.

When the pub chucks out at 12:30, and a small group go to The Quays on Holloway Road (remarkable place) until 4, then get a taxi to someone's house and continue drinking but without that tiresome wasted state, instead good unusual music (Maddy Prior, largely) and interesting conversations that you're only really allowed to have when you're a student ("What's the difference between sinfulness and immorality then, what would be a sin but not break your moral code, or vice versa" - quite pleased with my eventual answers), it makes getting the tube home entirely acceptable.

It's good to do that on a Friday, having the weekend to recover is substantially more acceptable than having Sunday to recover. So a lie in until early afternoon, a fairly lazy day watching the cyling, then a trip out to Gloomy where, while I still can't DJ to speak of, the backstage remains a brilliant atmosphere, with many fine people who are involved in one way or another dipping in and out, catching up, telling their stories, then going out when they hear a song that makes them want to dance. When one's girlfriend is too tired to make it out for the evening, this is unfortunate, but better than coming out and being sleepy and not having fun. As long as she is, as she was, recovered by Sunday, ready to eat a further unhealthy meal (this chatter is all about the fact that I bought a giant bag of frozen hash brown from Iceland last week).

Shame about the tennis result, though. I thought it was very unsporting of Federer to keep challenging things that were simply not even close to being wrong calls, largely as a bit of psychological gameplaying. So, you know, good weekend, on balance. This week threatens to be slightly tedious but I have a nice meeting offsite on Wednesday to break it up into manageable chunks.

I had a bizarre experience yesterday. Not going out to see Star Trek, eating popcorn, going to Pizza Express, having a starter and a big pizza and paying less than £30 for 2 which considering how expensive everything in the world ever is, I thought was not too bad. Anyway, Star Trek, reasonably good film but don't recognise much of what anyone has said about it, and I think there's a huge plot hole.

No, different thing. I have for some time owed everyone a post on why I am absolutely certain that the recession is W-shaped, as I know you all look on me as an economic sage, the Nostradamus of the recession, if you will. Anyway I dunno if I can be bothered, it's all just so tediously obvious. Of course we'll recover a bit, the government is printing money like mad, interest rates are so low banks are paying people to borrow, and oil and stuff got cheap for a bit.

All of that reverses one way or another, and we find ourselves back in the situation we were in before, but worse - borrowing more expensive long-term, debt higher, imports more expensive as other countries recover. Pop quiz, for how many of the last 36 months have UK citizens borrowed less than they have paid back on their existing debt. Bear in mind there's been a 'credit crunch'. Would it surprise you that in fact in every month of the credit crunch, credit has actually risen? It's not a crunch - yet - just a slowing of the rate of growth. The big one where we actually have to start paying stuff back, rather than just running the national economy as if it was a 0% credit card balance transfer, that's all yet to come.

So, to the point. Yesterday I had a moment of self-doubt. I have for some time been saying that Spring would see stable or rising house prices thanks to all this free money, the psychology of the bull trap, and the general UK obsession with housing. I don't expect it to last, because unemployment is going up, long-term interest rates are going up, and house prices pretty much everywhere in the UK are still vastly higher than any sensible metric (local earnings, rental yield, whatever really).

However, yesterday I happened to spot a house and think "That's rather nice - I'd be willing to pay something close to the asking price for that place. Maybe I'm wrong, house prices have fallen far enough, and everyone is happy to pay this new reasonable valuation. I should probably go and take a look round it, although of course what I don't have is job security or willingness to stay in London for the amount of time it takes to make buying a house worthwhile".

I was a curious combination of relieved and disappointed today, on looking up the details, to find that the estate agent had been inundated with queries about said house, and corrected their listing to make clear that the price quoted is for a 50% share of the house, with hundreds of pounds a month of rent and service charges on top. I did think it was strange that someone was trying to sell a house leasehold, but London is a strange place!

Here's an unlikely, but not impossible, political history of the next six years.

UKIP do well this Thursday. Not brilliantly, but well. They hold their 2004 number of MEPs despite the UK's overall representation being cut, beat the Liberal Democrats convincingly, and at least run Labour close.

At the general election their vote share doubles again from 2005 to around 4.5%, and they save over 100 deposits, as opposed to 45 deposits last time. They take some distant second places in Conservative seats in the South-East and rural parts of the South-West, replacing the Lib Dems as the protest party in the countryside.

Despite losing some votes to his right, Cameron becomes Prime Minister with a healthy majority, though not a landslide - 40 seats overall. the Lib Dems end up with fewer seats than at present, and Labour are broken, turning to infighting between the Blairites and the left, and more importantly unforgiven for the current crisis by the vast majority of voters.

The W-shaped recession kicks in, as the Conservative government cuts spending savagely, and encourages higher interest rates to protect savers - this fails to bring in any new tax revenue as economic growth falls below expectations, and taxes have to rise to cover the growing cost of the government deficit. Reluctant to raise higher rate taxes, and committed to cutting inheritance tax, Cameron raises VAT to 20%, and increases national insurance costs on employers.

UKIP keep 'getting serious' as Nigel Farage's personal power is strengthened by the above electoral results. By mid-term, Cameron's Conservatives are polling around the 30% mark, and some 'rogue polls' show UKIP hitting 10%. Despite the Tories presiding over rising crime and a continuing chaotic immigration policy, the BNP are rudderless and disillusioned as they fail to make the promised advance, and lose their London assembly member.

Needing to curry favour in the EU to get the freedom of manoeuvre required on economic policy, Cameron gives in to his civil servants and signs the next EU Treaty - without the referendum polls show he would lose convincingly. He says it gives the EU no new powers, and calls it "game, set and match to Britain", in reference to Andy Murray’s success at Wimbledon 2012.

Disillusioned by Parliament and impoverished by the new allowances system, Crispin Blunt leaves Parliament to take up a vacancy as Britain's European Commissioner, vacated by Ken Livingstone’s return to the UK campaign trail for the London mayoralty. The Reigate by-election is on. Result 2010 as follows:

Conservative: 48%
UKIP: 16%
Lib Dem: 15%
Labour: 10%

The Conservatives select a Cameron A-list clone, committed to forcing the treaty through Parliament. UKIP select the telegenic grandson of former local MP and whipless Maastricht rebel George Gardiner. The by-election is fought as a referendum on the tax-raising, service-cutting Tory budget, and a proxy referendum on the treaty - a vote on whether to have a vote.

UKIP win their first elected member of Parliament, beating the Conservatives narrowly by 36% to 35%, and making a small fortune for a number of political gamblers. UKIP's poll ratings are transformed, and they are now regularly trading third place with the Lib Dems, depending on the pollster. A string of other by-elections across the south of England in the next 18 months see them beat, or come close to beating, the Tories, on the march in the way the Lib Dems were in 1993-7. In the 2014 Euro elections they top the poll, albeit with only 27% of the vote.

The 2015 General election is a messy campaign, with Cameron making all sorts of promises on renegotiating European treaties in an attempt to regain his core voters, but alienating a number of his Europhile MPs in the process - Ken Clarke resigns from the Cabinet and delivers a devastating speech, but Cameron hangs on. General election day rolls round, and the exit polls say:

Labour: 30%
Conservatives: 28%
UKIP: 18%
Lib Dem: 15%

Despite a clear win for ‘parties of the right’, the distribution of UKIP votes and the effect of relative turnout returns a Labour Party, fractious and unprepared for government, with a majority of 30 seats.

This is the Liberal Democrat Euro-election leaflet where I live.



I thought "Every Vote Counts" under the proportional representation we use for the Euro-election in question? Maybe it doesn't, but that's what I was told by, er, a Lib Dem.

The Tories have 'won round here' since the war, by the way. They have an MEP for the region, and Boris topped the disaggregated poll. The Lib Dems are also in coalition with them on the Council.