Yazoo's 'Don't Go' (Jonathan Ross Show,16.5.08)

I know I'm being arsey but I don't like to make a habit of posting too many You Tube embedded clips on the blog at any one time.

However, I have to make an exception for the following clip. Alison Moyet has still got it.

Could that swine Reidski be right, after all?

In the words of the poet, Ian McNabb, 'You must be prepared to dream'.

Amber means pause for 'Gers celebrations

Just woke up, and my mind's too cloudy to properly focus. Just a marker to say that had the caffeine had time to kick in, I would have rejigged and recycled this old post.

Come on the 'Well!

PS - possibly the worst post title I have ever come up with.

A killer quote to bite me in my SPGB arse

A quote staring back at me at the bottom of an email newsletter:

"Pity the revolution that devours itself in order to obtain victory.

Pity the revolution that waits for a final triumph to put its ideals into practice." - Jose Peirats.

Where's the sitcom tendency when you need them?

Going down the dip with you

What can I say about the galloping major that hasn't been written a thousand times before? (one thousand, eighty hundred and forty seven if you include the writings of Brian Glanville.)

The sweetest left foot. The fulcrum of the best team never to win the World Cup. Playing in that game that every male Glaswegian over the age of sjxty claims they saw in person. That wee jink and move to turn Alf Ramsay inside out for that goal against England in '53. Oh and someone is using his name over at the Guardian Sportsblogs to fuel the conspiracy theories in anticipation of R*ngers end of the season run-in:

"You're aware who currently manages Aberdeen?

Tango and Sash will make sure Rangers secure any necessary points at Pittodrie next Thursday.

Having said this Bob Malcolm FTP won't be trying to hard this weekend to upset the orange, I mean, apple cart.

Hence Celtic's greatest hope lies at Love Street on Monday - bugger." [Rangers' treble triumph in the hands of McGhee's Motherwell men]

Conspiracy theories to the left of us, conspiracies to the right of us. A future R*ngers domestic treble staring right back at us.

First We Take Larkhall

Q: What do you get when you cross a left anorak with a psephologist

A: Someone who will click on this latest/final post from the SPGB's election blog, Vaux Populi.

The comrades over at VP give a breakdown of the votes for the SPGB candidate in the Lambeth and Southwark constituency. Turns out the Party's best ward vote - a whopping 71 votes - was in the Larkhall ward. I'm not knocking it. It's the first recorded victory of a Menshevik over a Bolshevik (71-50) since the Georgian Parliamentary Election of 1919.

Now we know where to concentrate comrades. Larkhall can be the Little Moscow Paris Commune for the 21st century.

PS

Q: What a good definition of 'reaching'?

A: When the comrade in the same post suggests that the SPGB's best result in Southwark - Faraday Ward - can be put down to the fact that the Party had an " . . . outdoor speaking station [that] we ran at East Street from the 1930s to the 1960s." [My emphasis.]

That comrade is now being head-hunted by Gordon Brown for the position of Chief Spindoctor for the forthcoming General Election.

Tommy Burns 1956 -2008

Shocked to wake up this morning to the news that Tommy Burns has died at the criminally young age of 51.

He was a wonderfully elegant midfielder for Celtic for over 15 years, and was unlucky during his time as Celtic's manager in the mid-nineties.

Think back to the 95-96 season. To lose only one league game during the course of the season - including a 31 unbeaten run - but to still lose the title to R*ngers? That must have been a heartbreaker.

But some things in life are just so much more important than football.

Bronze Frippery

A couple of months ago on the blog I thought I was being cute when I posted a still from early doors Brookside with the accompanying sub-heading of a 'Early promo pic of Goldfrapp*'.

Living as we do in a just universe, my studied smart arsery was rewarded with zero comments. Lesson never learned.

But that's enough about me and my blogging woes. Via his sterling work of delving through the back issues of ZigZag magazine, H over at Cactus Mouth Informer has unearthed an article from'83 about Alison Goldfrapp's first band, Fashionable Living Death.

Click on for pics of a teenage Alison Goldfrapp, working with political skits, tales of the deepest south coast of England that would have had the late Thomas Hardy wincing in recognition, and an early mention of Moby. No, not that Moby. Another one.

Do They Mean Us? #15

Lazy bastard that I am, I've had this post in the draft section for the last ten days. Whatever . . .better late than never, I guess.

The following glowing testimonial is from the discussion board of Urban 75 and dates from a few weeks back when, during the course of a increasingly heated discussion on the post entitled '10 candidates for Lambeth and Southwark GLA constituency!', SPEW/CWI member, 'dennisr', thought he would try get into the Guinness Book of Records by seeing how many urban myths about the SPGB he could cram into one post:

"The socialist party you link to has feck all to do with the SPGB - either faction. They are not 'dissidants' - they are an organisation of thousands (which is not a lot in itself but - as opposed to 20 just or however many the ejets of the SPGB claim...). The SP are registered as the Socialist Party but not allowed to stand as the Socialist Party.

The Socialist party - which has sitting councillors in Lewisham and Coventry comes from the Militant. irt is forced to stand as Socialist Alternative because the two man + dog of the SPGB (now split inot 2 or 3 factions all with members possibly only just in double figures...) got their knickers in a twist about the name.

In Huddersfield the SP candidate stood under the Save Our NHS name because she was part of an alliance with non-SP members - she is also now a sitting councillor (she is also a doctor which may have something to do with her NHS concerns...).

Outside of the prolatarian stronhold of Clapham the SPGB don't exist." [Post dated 07-04-2008, 15:46.]

Fast forward three and a half weeks and my eye catches the results of Lambeth & Southwark and its neighbouring constiutency of Greenwich and Lewisham.

The SPGB candidate, Danny Lambert, receives 1588 votes (0.97%). Yep, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking William Morris and how it's hardly a case of " . . .a thousand and society begins to tremble . . ", but not too bad an effort in the circumstances from two men and their dog.

How did the artists formerly known as the Militant Tendency do in Greenwich and Lewisham? Must have done better than us sad sacks. According to 'dennisr', they've got thousands of members. The SP/CWI has been one franchise in the crowded Fourth Internationalist market who have been experiencing genuine growth in recent years (admittedly after a fallow couple of years), and in Chris Flood, a sitting local councillor, they had a popular candidate. A tribune of the people, no less, who has built upon the work of their other councillor in the Lewisham area, Ian Page.

Drum roll please:

1587 votes (1.08%). If I could capitalise that, I would. Wait up, I can: ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN VOTES. Thank christ for their own sake that the Millies don't indulge in the SWP-mantra of 'It's never been a better time to be a socialist.' If that was the case, 'dennisr' would be eating so much humble pie that he would be the SP/CWI's answer to John Molyneux in a matter of weeks. And by that, I don't mean that 'dennisr' would be submitting articles on Picasso to Socialism Today.

And, for the record, we in the SPGB camp shouldn't be too gleeful about the comparable results. As a comrade pointed out in the comments section of the SPGB election blog, Vaux Populi, after the London results came in:

"Of course we shouldn't get carried away. What's happened is that they've been relegated to our league (Third Division South?) rather than us promoted to the league they thought they were in."

Very wise and insightful words from the comrade and, by way of a reward, for his (and other comrades) hard work during the election campaign, the Party should have a whip round and buy him a Rothmans Football Yearbook that's been published in the last 15 years.

I don't care if he has read (and understood) the footnotes in volume three of Capital. He should be brought up to speed as soon as possible with regards to the football pyramid system currently applying to clubs in England and Wales.

FC Zenit St Petersburg 2-0 Rangers

No gloating. No piss taking. No ha ha on the blog.

In its simplest terms, R*ngers did not do enough tonight to deserve to win the Uefa Cup. Don't believe me? Think I would say that, anyway? Just look how R*ngers own fans reacted after Zenit's first goal went in.

Just under twenty minutes to play and the deathly silence and resigned resignation - yep, resigned resignation - was palpable 3500 miles away in Brooklyn. If R*ngers fans were ever considered the 'twelfth man' for the club, Walter Smith should put them on the transfer list tomorrow morning when he gets back to Ibrox. Shocked at how they didn't try and gee up their team.

R*ngers played better in the second half, but they never really deserved to get a sniff of the game. Kirk Broadfoot was a lucky hunny bunny with that stonewall pen at the end of the first half, and Ferguson was kidding himself with that penalty claim in the second half.

What does it mean for the rest of R*ngers season? Well, they were neither robbed nor spanked - and that meteorite was a no show - so they're still red hot favourites to win the domestic treble.

Kirk Rabbitfoot

Oh my, that was a stonewall penalty. Broadfoot's red face gave it away after the event.

Unless R*ngers win by two clear goals - and I don't mean on penalties - that will be a talking point if it's Ferguson whose lifting that trophy that Denis Law was struggling with before the game. (How's that for a convoluted sentence construction.)

Hunchester

R*ngers fans queuing in a disorderly fashion for their daily ration of buckfast at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester city centre earlier today.

Joking aside, if you like very closely at the top left hand corner of the pic you'll see my younger brother. He's tall, dark, good looking and looks nothing like me.

Yeah, the family secret is out: my half-brother is a bluenose. Half the family is. I'm torn and conflicted about this sad state of affairs. I'm caught between pitying them and sending them a bottle of Russian vodka come tonight, when Zenit overruns R*ngers in the final.

What's a person to do?

Temporary Autonomous FC Zenit Saint Petersburg Fan Zone?

As the Motherwell TAZ post falls off the bottom of the page, I prompted to ask myself if I can bring myself to try this TAZ lark again with tonight's game?

On the previous two occasions I've tried it, I've come unstuck. Does that qualify as blogging hubris or just bastard bad luck? And tonight's final is a bit of a special case in that it is Gazprom poster boys versus R*ngers. A case of the unacceptable face of capitalism versus the unacceptable face of Glasgow's south side.

Bottom line to ask myself is what's the best result tonight for Celtic's outside chance of retaining the SPL title? I can think of three possible scenarios:

Option A R*ngers winning tonight's final, and in their best fashion being consumed by their very own hubris which will result in them coming unstuck against Motherwell and St Mirren in the league.

Option B Zenit Saint Petersburg do what they did against Leverkusen and Munich in the previous rounds in tonight's final, and a crestfallen R*ngers trudge back north only to come unstuck against Motherwell, St Mirren, Aberdeen and Queen of the South in the coming weeks.

Option C A meteorite hits the middle of the pitch at the City of Manchester Stadium, and Barry Ferguson, David Weir and Nacho Novo fall into the resultant crater. Ferguson is out for the rest of the season with cruciate ligament damage after his knee smashes into Novo's new gnashers. Weir, conscious of the fact that he isn't getting any younger, decides that this is as good a burial plot as any and refuses to leave the crater. He asks that wreaths be sent to Little's Funeral Service Home on the Paisley Road West Road.

The referee decides that his only option is to postpone the game. This despite Walter Smith's protestation that his R*ngers team has never used the middle of any pitch and why should they start now? The new crop of injuries coupled with R*ngers adding to their current backlog of fixtures forces Walter Smith's hand and he has to give Thomas Buffel a game in the season run-in. Rangers come unstuck against Motherwell, St Mirren, Aberdeen and Queen of the South . . . and barn doors the length and breadth of Scotland release a collective sigh of relief.

If it's about Celtic doing the impossible, and snatching championship victory from the jaws of Ibroxian mediocrity, I'll have to go with option a as the best possible scenario.

The blog's hexed ye.

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (46)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 46th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1241 friends!

Recent blogs:

The Fetishism of Money

Dude, where's my revolution?

What causes world poverty?

This week's top quote:

"When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion." Voltaire, Letter to Mme. d'Épinal, Ferney (1760).

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

11 13 15 17 comments! Blog life imitating art.

Back to Gregory's Girl:

"You read it, don't you? I've never seen you turn your nose up at anything I've made. Hours and hours I've spent writing you lovely, lovely things. And all it means to you in the end is 11 13 15 17 comments over a random film poster?"