"Time Gentlemen, Please!" No More.

2am: The effects of 24 hour opening on a pair of typical twentysomethings

Under a cloud of hypocritical prudery from the drunks of British print journalism last weekend saw the start of 24 hour opening for Britain's drinking establishments. Despite dire predictions of vomit and violence beyond all measure a jolly weekend was apparently had by almost all; Rule Boozetania, and all that. Of course, bitterly cold temperatures, the fact that establishments had to apply and be approved by local authorities for an extension, the fact that many pubs only extended their hours by and hour or two, and the inability of drinkers to find an extra fifteen or twenty quid in their budgets for extra booze probably combined to help keep the lid on.

Frankly, I'm in favour of the change, and not because it would mean I can throw more Abbot down my neck on our next visit to the family. I have become used to going out later of an evening and have found that I have a fairly standard window of about four hours before I should probably stop, find a glass of water, and go and have a quiet conversation with my pillow. Also, by the time the various sets of relatives and friends I go and visit have finished primping, eating, fitting masts on boats, and so on we used to find the amount of time allowed to us between arriving at the pub and the last orders would become so compressed that an anticipated evening of connivial conversation and gentle imbibing would become a gassy, bloated, red-faced sprint.

There are always casualties of change, however. Along with the rituals of the last orders bell, drinking up time, surly staff (including at one time, a teenaged me) stacking chairs of tables as you grimly clutched your last pint, and the raucous shouts of the landlord at chucking out time ("Do your talking while you're walking! Don't you have no homes to go to?") the cherished tradtion of the after hours lock-in is set to fall by the wayside:

BBC News: R.I.P. Lock-ins
LOCK-INS, the party is over, time has been called.
Legislators will make the traditional pub lock-in redundant on Thursday when new opening hours come into force. Under the new Licensing Act, premises can now apply to extend their opening hours beyond 11pm, allowing round-the-clock drinking and killing off the need for an after-hours get together.

Many pub lovers, for whom there were few more pleasurable drinking experiences than the illicit thrill of carrying on when others had been asked to be on their way, will rue the day. For while 24-hour drinking will become widespread, the attraction for many was that lock-ins were secret, a conspiracy between publican and patron. Also, they were exclusive, usually with only a few select regulars.

It's a tradition that had been enjoyed by generations of drinkers, with even the likes of Prince Harry enjoying a few covert pints. While publicans risked losing their licence by allowing them, police often turned a blind eye if things were kept low key. They did crackdown when things started to get out of hand, with police recently finding 140 patrons enjoying an illegal after-hours drink in one County Londonderry pub they visited.

Friends may have foreseen the end when the government announced back in 2000 that it was considering the biggest overhaul of drinking laws for 90 years. Licensing laws in England and Wales had changed little since 1915, when they were tightened to stop factory workers turning up drunk and harming the war effort. While some said the shake-up was long overdue, lock-in regulars knew time would be called on their exclusive after-hours drinking club.

No flowers.

I'll miss those special, rare occasions; the nod from the pub owner, the hiding in the beer garden, toilets, or kitchen until the "strangers" were turfed out; the more brazen sitting still and quiet until the un-elect grew embarrassed and shuffled out; the bar staff on the public side of the bar; the money left in a jug ("We ain't selling it after hours- the money's for 'charity' mate"); and even the heart stopping moment of the beat copper peering through the window, then winking and walking on.

Ahh, change is so bittersweet.

This Is Not A Football Blog

The popular British comic book character Plug

Liverpool and England "Big Man Up Front" Peter Crouch

Did Bush Want To Bomb Qatar?

From the BBC on Saturday, following up on a story in England's Daily Mirror newspaper:

Al-Jazeera calls for No 10 talks

The head of al-Jazeera is delivering a letter to Tony Blair demanding the facts on reports that President Bush suggested bombing the Arab TV station. He wants a memo published which is alleged to show Tony Blair dissuaded President Bush from bombing its HQ.

Last week the Daily Mirror reported what it said was the contents of a memo showing Mr Blair had talked the US President out of the attack last year. Wadah Khanfar is calling for the facts to be made public and urgent talks. Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has warned newspaper editors against publication, citing the Official Secrets Act.

According to press reports, the memo includes a transcript record of Mr Blair attempting in April 2004 to persuade Mr Bush not to bomb al-Jazeera's HQ in Qatar. Qatar is an ally of the US and was the location of US military headquarters during the Iraq war. The White House dismissed reports of the conversation as "outlandish", but US officials have openly accused al-Jazeera of being a mouthpiece for al-Qaeda.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Mr Khanfar said: "Al- Jazeera is in the foremost of free form and democracy in the Arab world and therefore this news that we have heard is very concerning. So we demand a proper explanation and we would like to know the facts about this letter." He said the matter was very important and that it concerned not only al-Jazeera but journalists across the world. "We need to know if this discussion has taken place or not...if this document exists or not. By banning this document from being published it does cast a lot of concerns about this issue."

He said al-Jazeera had also asked the White House for an explanation. Downing Street said on Friday that it was quite happy to talk to al-Jazeera as it was to other broadcasters.

Clarifying his position, Lord Goldsmith said he had not been seeking to gag newspapers and had instead been urging them to take legal advice. Cabinet Office civil servant David Keogh has been charged under the Official Secrets Act of passing the memo to former Labour MP Tony Clarke's researcher Leo O'Connor. Both men are due to appear at Bow Street Magistrates Court next week.

Last week Labour MP and former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle tabled a Commons motion calling for the memo to be made public. He accused ministers of using the Official Secrets Act to save political embarrassment rather than protect national security as it is intended.

Lord Goldsmith also denied the Act was being used to prevent political embarrassment. He also refused to confirm the contents of the memo.

Many of al-Jazeera's employees have long been privately convinced that their offices in Kabul and Baghdad were deliberately targeted by the Pentagon in 2001 and 2003 respectively.

Hmmm. The Mirror has been undone by its desire to punish the pro-war camp before with eagerness superceding good reporting on more than one occasion (most notably publishing forged photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqis; a 'scoop' that lead to the resignation of editor Piers Morgan. There is quite enough of that sort of thing going on without the need for forgeries). The idea of bombing a private business in a friendly country because you don't agree with them is perhaps too insane even for this president (and too akin to, say, Libya blowing up a Pan Am airliner over Scotland due to ideological differences with the States. That was rightly called terrorism).

However, this row highlights the lack of trust in statements related to the war on terror issued by either Downing Street or the White House. Gone are the days when the simple denial of such a seemingly outlandish story would suffice. Our trust has been abused by too many misleading reports, incomplete briefings, or polished turds issuing forth from the centers of power. The very fact that this story is seen in some quarters as eminently plausible shows just how far the stock of our leaders has sunk in the eyes of the world.

I plan to try and keep an eye on this story (and the associated story of the incompentent mishandling of public sentiment and the Arab Street) as best I can. I've been out of the loop and don't know if the American mainstream TV outlets gave this any air between the endless "Black Friday" drivel (today is apparently "Black Monday", the online shopping equivalent- yawn); it does show up on the ABC, CBS, and MSNBC websites when you search "al Jazeera", but its not on the homepages or headlines.

However much I disagree with his policies and find his administration's tactical approach to the Middle East incompetent, counterproductive and dangerous I sincerely hope for his sake that President Bush did not seriously contemplate dropping bombs without warning on a civillian building in an allied country in an attempt to silence adverse opinion. For a "Culture of Life" president, that would be tantamount to murder.

"Wait, don't touch him. He's red hot with radio activity"

I was ill for Thanksgiving. I felt it coming on on Tuesday, had to call into work on Wednesday, and by Thanksgiving Thursday I was under the hammer. Huge, echoing, racking coughs rent my body in convulsive spurts. Aches and pains spasmed outwards from the very marrow of my bones. I was alternately boiling hot or freezing cold, so Country Mouse had to stand guard over the thermostat lest I burn a full tank of oil or plunge the house into subarctic frostiness. In short, I spent most of the past week flat out on the couch loudly bemoaning the state of my health, the imagined failings of our furnace, and the dire state of cable TV.

Wonderful Country Mouse carried on throughout all my snotty histrionics, producing a delicious Thanksgiving dinner (I'd like to thank the combined powers of Dayquil, asprin, and Theraflu for allowing me reprieve enough to enjoy her hard work), tending to the dogs, maintaining the medicine pipeline through the snow, and nursing me with such tender patience that once again makes me feel humbled to have her in my life.

As I mentioned above, almost every offering on television over the holidays was terrible. Every single news broadcast was just a big ad for "Black Friday", inviting Americans to pile on more debt at crappy big box stores (just how good do you think a $350 laptop will be, numbnuts? I hope it comes with WebMD loaded as its homepage so you can look up "Mass Hysteria" when you get home). What is the point of a flat screen, HD TV when all the programming appears to be about how crowds of people are punching each other at Mall Wart in order to get one? Bahh. I declined to watch the annual Macy's helium and mylar fetishists' march (and thus missed the Hindenberg like end of the M&Ms balloon) as the only thing more annoying than watching a parade in person is watching one on TV while Al Roker cracks wise. I've never liked the Dallas Cowboys, and like them even less now that they have that albatross Drew Bledsoe as quarterback, so football was out.

At this point I was about to follow the perennial advice of my mother and just turn the damn thing off (mum has a television but seems to believe that it is never to be watched, and is best used as a platform for displaying photos or a nice vase). I was steeling myself for an unsteady crouch in front of the various CD racks and an existence of staring at the ceiling as my head was swimming to much for me to concentrate on a book or magazine. I gave the channels one last cursory flick through.

It was then I found In the Year 2889 on Movieplex, a channel I didn't even know I had.

To quote the highlighted review above:
"The whole idea behind the story was absolutely inane. Basically, there was a nuclear war, and everything and everyone on the earth was blown to bits, except for this one valley that happens to be surrounded by hills that are full of lead ore and also just happens to have a stream running through it that is heated by some underground heat source, thereby creating an updraft that helps keep the radiation out of the valley. Captain John Ramsey built a house there and equipped it with generators and supplies and his big plan was that in case of nuclear war, he and his daughter would take refuge there and then her fiance was to meet them there as quickly as possible. After that they would live off the rations for about three months until the environment cleaned up enough for them to start growing their own food.

So people start showing up at the house. John wants to send them all away, but "Oh no!" says his bleeding heart daughter, "We can't send them away!" This really ticked off her father, but he went along with it anyway because he didn't have the nads to stand up to her and put his foot down. Now, because Joanna's fiance never showed up, they could have taken in one extra person without any problem. We find out later that he didn't show up because he ended up becoming a mutant and started wandering around in the forbidden zone looking for raw meat..."

I have to say it was one of the most beautifully awful films I have ever seen. The photo at the top of this post shows Larry the Mutant. As you can see, high doses of radiation gives you the same hair as Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future. Eighty minutes of 2889 (when apparently the fashion was for retro 1967 clothes and hair. And weapons. And appliances) combined with all that medicine was enough to perk me up for Country Mouse's cooking.

But bad movies were not done there. In her infinite wisdom, CM had been to the video store, anticipating a lack of quality programming for the holidays, and among her picks had been a movie we had read about in one of her film magazines recently as being the worst flick ever made.

Now we all know it is rare for a movie to ever live up to its hype, but in this case I think "Manos", The Hands of Fate exceeded expectations. We watched the MST3K edition which of course came with the leavening of silly comments- I would recommend that, as on its own the film would be unwatchable. This post is already too long, but let me attempt a summary:

Vacationing family lost in Texas; find old house tended to by gigantic kneed bearded wierdigan (called Torgo [coming soon to a VW dealer near you!]), told "can't stay as master would not like it" but allowed to stay anyway; something eats family's poodle; master awakes from tomb sporting a hair/moustache combo supposed to make him look satanic but rather resembles Freddie Mercury while dressed in a UGA football blanket; various vestal virgins wrestle; everyone faffs about in the desert; then big shocker ending. Nobody can really do it justice, but these guys try harder than me:

The Agony Booth
Rinkworks- Manos

I hope everyone else had a pleasant Thanksgiving (even you Brits and Australians who were working- you'll make up for it on Whitsun, or Australia Day or something) and remember, should you ever be struck down with the galloping lurgie anytime this winter, be sensitive to your body's indicators and at the first sign of sickness get down the video store for a large inoculation of the worst films ever made. And one last thing: if anyone knows where I can find a copy of The Spawn of the Slyphis(sp?) I would be eternally grateful.
Torgo's giant knees of doom

All You Need To Know About Conservatism

Its 15 years to the day that Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister of Britain and as leader of the Conservative Party. In an interesting look at her legacy, the BBC has put together a statistical graphing gizmo that compares various economic and social indicators from her time at the top of the greasy pole. I chose to compare champagne imports with unemployment numbers (here) but even the most casual observer of politics should find something of interest in the drop-down menus.

And on the subject, Nov 22nd, 1990: Margaret Thatcher Resigns as Prime Minister.

Why Do Holidays Make Things Seem More Hectic?

Not much activity from Wisdom Acres here this week because:

1) I'm busier than a blue arsed fly,

2) The only subjects to tickle my fancy in the past few days would strike normal people as incredibly dry, boring, and esoteric (George Galloway in Syria, religious susceptibility as a byproduct of cognitive disfunction, and so on),

3) Still unpacking boxes in the new house,

4) I have an evil chest cold setting in.

Maybe I will have sufficiently recovered my zing to blog about my ex- sailor, ex- policeman grandfather's views on both New York in 1944 and the call to arm British cops by mid-week (both surprised me to no end on Sunday).

A New Favorite

You find the oddest things on the shelves on Maine supermarkets. While strolling through our local branch of Hannaford the other day, I somehow found myself in the liquor aisle (strange, that) staring at the dark rums and pondering another visit with Dr. Dark and Mr. Stormy. I was umming and ahhing between the the Meyers and the Goslings when a new bottle caught my eye; Newfoundland Screech rum.

One wouldn't normally associate cold, bleak, and northern Newfoundland with the tropical thunder water but if you think for a moment it really makes sense. As an outpost of the British Empire Newfoundland's true value was as a comodity trading post- Atlantic cod ultimately meant that the triangle trade was really a rhomboid (cf. the use of salt cod in Jamaican cooking).

Despite the unhappy and cruel antecedents of Newfoundland rum (and indeed, that liquor in general), Newfies have kept up the rum making tradition and over time have come to create an uncommonly smooth dark rum. Screech is not as sulphurous as Goslings or as treacly as Meyers, which in my book is a good thing. It has a subtle but distinct taste of molasses, but also a fair degree of citrus and honey to lighten the flavour. Most importantly, it is just the right side of boozy- not to heavy on fumes but not as cloying as a liquer. I have to confess too to a fondness of it being Canadian; despite the cutesy name and back story that fact cuts through a lot of the annoying Jimmy Buffettish, Pirates of the Caribbean style promotion of rums (especially of the spiced variety) that makes the drink seem like a cartoonish cousin of the more serious vodkas and single malts.

A nice (if vaguely uninformative) review of Screech can be found here. And while on the subject, I'd like to commend Mrs. Mondale for combining warmed apple cider with spiced rum during my visit to Brooklyn for a drink that tasted like apple pie with a healthy kick.

Norfolk: The Choice of Sophisticates

5th headlined story today on the Eastern Daily Press (the paper of record for Norfolk, England):

"Pigs in Barn Blaze Drama"

I love being an East Anglian. I can't read, and I can't write, but that don't really matter; 'cause I'm a Norwich City fan and I can drive a tractor. By the way, the pigs all escaped unscathed (otherwise Youthlarge would be booking tickets for baconpalooza).

7 Months To Go

England 3 Argentina 2. Yippeeee! Up yer junta, Maradona.

Seven months to go until Germany and the 2006 World Cup (and Country Mouse evicting me from the house for being an unbearable English sports fan with far too many "crunch matches" in far too many sports for her ever to get a rest from the football, rugby, cricket, baseball, American football, track and field, Tiddlywinks, dominoes, conkers, et al). I think I shall make a count down calendar, and colour in the squares.

Wandering Weasel Gads About Gotham II

Oh, alright then:

Dr. Kissinger tells the Park Slope Ambasador to fetch him another
breakfast sausage. Marathon watching is such hard work.

My long torso/short legs combo presents Mondale with schedule problems. "Hurry up, Weasel!"

They boarded their flight at Portland, Maine. I feel slightly guilty. I remind myself, I had the day off from selling expensive wine, cheese, and chorizo. I lived in front of the TV. I was not to blame. I thought of Bar Harbor's Kyle, who worked two blocks over and called us and who we in turn urged to evacuate as the second tower collapsed. Then I thought of the tens of thousands who die from malaria, famine, and random violence each year.
Am I callous? Am I a bastard?

There's a light that never goes out.

How the hell do all those traders fit through the door?

Oh, thats the front door.
I'm such a rube.

You can't really see it (even if you click on the picture), but that's a nice 24ft or so sailboat passing in front of the Statue of Liberty. What is personally great about that photo? Its only the route my grandfather took into New York on the Atlantic Convoys during the Second World War as an 'alien seaman'. Thought of 19 year old merchant sailor grandfather on shore leave in NY makes me slighty queasy. Lets move on.

Mondale was awfully upset that they had put the winter windows in and that they made us get off at Staten Island.

Wandering Weasel Gads About Gotham

I have a couple of skills; photography, however, is not among them. That said, I tried my best to capture the essence of my tourist time in New York (as opposed to my social gadfly time, documented on Mondale, Listmaker, and Maestra). Without any further ado, I present Weasel on the town (you can click on the photos to enlarge them):

My lovely long-suffering and forebearing hosts at the end of a long weekend: Mr. & Mrs. Mondale.

The obligatory Times Square Photo. I was more interested in the New York Times building somewhere to my left, but no photo opportunities of Judith Miller throwing herself from the editorial floor presented themselves. I was however impressed by the Quicksilver retail outlet, if only because of Country Mouse's surfing obsession: too bad surf wasn't up that Friday.

One of the fattest statues I have ever seen this side of Barvaria, in Brooklyn near the war memorial with the public loo in it (Mondale and I were both suffering from 'bar stools' and were very grateful to the architect).

Brooklyn Bridge Death March.

NYC 2008! Wooo hooo! Oh yeah, shit.

Public art, a la Playmobil.

Even the Woolworth's in New York is bigger....

Mondale revisits an old school nickname, and prompts juvenile memories of 'the great pancracker mix up'. Mushrooms on that?

The Englishman's view of Italians and Swedes looking at the Statue of Liberty and getting in the way.

Guy Fawkes, with a bottle of Bar Harbor Real Ale picked up for less than it costs in Maine. Mondale and I were very proud of our work on Guy but burnt him anyway. Bloody heathens.

OK, thats enough Weasel in New York. Back to the real world for future posts.

Ginger Haired Iraqi Baathist Dead

Although liking any of Saddam's deposed gang of cut throats and vicious Baathists is in rather bad taste given their heinous crimes, I always found it hard to take the whole gaggle of crap gangsters in ill-fitting berets seriously, especially that twerp above, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. I may well be wrong, but he was the only red haired aspirant tyrant this side of the Viking era. For us orangutan hued individuals we say good riddance to Izzat Ibrahim but pause quietly to ponder the lost chances for riches and power born of folicle kinship that have passed from this earth.

'Key fugitive Saddam aide dead'

A New Union Jack?

The folks at the outstanding BBC comedy Little Britain (now to be found on both BBC America and on DVD via Netflix) recently ran an online contest to design a new spoof flag for the UK. Among all the satirical and comedic entries I found one I actually liked for real:

Sometimes I'm Quietly Proud of My Little Rural State

A victory for "Don't Tread on Me", "It ain't hurtin' nobody" common-sense New England tolerance and respect yesterday, summed up with simple BBC eloquence:

"In other election results across the country:

Texas banned gay marriage, while Maine banned discrimination against homosexuals"

Actually Maine voted to uphold a state law that provides the same employment, housing, and other basic protections for all it citizens regardless of race, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation, but lets not quibble with the stark divide presented above. Don't like it, oh ye of excessive faith? Then forgive us and pray for us :) And frankly I'm not surprised at the Texas result; have you seen the interior design of Dallas' Southfork Ranch? Not much of a natural opposition constituency in the Lone Star State, desipite all that high school football and "cow punching".

I am also cheered by the news that 8 school board members in Pennsylvania who were demanding the inclusion of "intelligent design" on the science curriculum were defeated by pro-evolution candidates.

A good overview of the US off-year elections can be found here.

I Have Returned

Back in Maine after my Brooklyn epic. Details to follow but already my host Mondale and pal Listmaker have got the ball rolling. As for Mitch, the NY Marathon man of the hour, epic details of his outstanding run through the five boroughs can be found here, at Handwashings.

Stay tuned...

Off To Brooklyn

Oh the famous people you see in fabulous New York; hey look! Its Calista Flockhart! Harrison must be nearby, drinkin' coffee, readin' the Times, and strollin' the Village. Or something.

Just a quick note to say that there will be a brief hiatus in posts as I gird my loins to leave the mountain fastness of Maine and journey to Mordor New York for a few days. I'm going to visit my old chum/sparring partner Mondale in order to help him throw a proper English Guy Fawkes Night party, and hope to have a splendid time with various members of the Brooklyn based blogosphere. I'll be back here around Tuesday, Nov 8.

Got Any Gum, Chum? The chewy thing in foil ain't gum, kid.

In shallow shoals English soles do it, Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it...

That despicable generation known as the baby boomers insist that sex was invented in the 1960s. It appears however that American "Piccadilly Commandos" and British "good time girls" blazed such a trail of free love twenty years prior to the sexual flowering of the "me, myself and I generation" that fears were raised that all the frenzied bonking taking place might scupper the Allied war effort and hand victory to Hitler. From the BBC:

Prostitutes 'preyed on US troops'
Prostitutes pestered American GIs so much during World War II that ministers feared for the transatlantic alliance, newly released papers suggest. Troops stationed in London were writing to family back home saying they were often accosted by "good-time girls".

The Scotland Yard file, released to the National Archives, shows concerns ran so deep that crisis meetings were held. Officials feared if the Germans found out, Nazis could portray British women as immoral in a propaganda coup. US Army chiefs were not only afraid of an outbreak of venereal diseases among their men, but also wanted to see British law changed, making it easier to jail prostitutes.

Colonel W.M. Clark, a US federal judge serving as legal adviser to the US Army in London, was so appalled that he demanded a meeting with the Attorney General.

One Home Office official said: "His points are there are far too many prostitutes, that their behaviour is far too blatant, and that the impression created on the American troops and their mommas at home is bad."

The Metropolitan Police did not share the US Army's concerns, saying many of the troops were the cause of the problem.

"It has been noticed that they congregate around Piccadilly Circus and Coventry Street, many of them worse for drink and quarrelsome until the early hours of the morning," said Superintendent A Cole, in charge of policing the West End.

The file also includes details of the types of prostitutes frequenting different parts of London. Women working around Burlington Gardens tended to be "rather expensive" while in Piccadilly Circus there was "a lower type of prostitute, quite indiscriminate in their choice of client and persistent thieves", according to the file.

One report called Pestering of American Troops by Loose Women referred to those GIs who consorted with prostitutes as Piccadilly Commandos."

I'm not sure which phrase- "Piccadilly Commando" or "Pestering of American Troops by Loose Women"- would look better in the interests section of my resume/CV.