Who's the daddy?

This is from Canadian TV

Now according to the respected medical journal 'The Lancet' anything from 1% of the population to 30% (in Liverpool dirty scousers!) were fathered by someone other than their "father". I only just found this link, I'll do a search of the Lancet in a minute, but it ties in with what I was thinking after watching the recent Channel 4 documentary 100% English, where we saw Garry Bushell find out he was actually part African and Carol Thatcher find out she was 25% Middle eastern, the funniest moments were the Woman who said you had to be able to trace your family tree back to Hastings to be classed as English threatening to sue the programme makers for revealing she was half Romany, and the mad old Diana Mosley wannabe (who was ranting on about gollywhitewogs, whatever they are) and turned out to be a mixture of East Asian and Red Indian!

I think the documentary makers being obvious metropolitan liberals were a bit disappointed to get sensible reactions from Bushell and a young squaddie (25% Balkan if I remember right) who took it in their stride, the squaddie in particular making the point that seeing your true origins might make the more racist amongst us think again.

An honourable mention must go to the patriotic woman from Grimsby who was the most English of all (99% or something) who said that Ian Wright was a true Englishman, unlike some Anglo-Saxons.

Anyway back to my point, all these people were convinced that their families were English going back generations on all sides, DNA tests proved them wrong, which just goes to make you wonder what their Grandmothers were getting up to... It also makes me think about all this family tree searching people seem to be doing recently, fair play but maybe combining it with a DNA test would help to give a fuller picture.

Wedding belles

Matt Lucas from Little Britain has got married in a panto style ceremony

The bit that really got me is that Phil and Peggy Mitchell of Eastenders turned up as The Demon Prince and Fairy Godmother! That's celebs for you, unfortunately I can't find a pic of them so here's one of Elton and David.

(sorry for the Heat magazine style post but my blogging partner has fled to Spain for Christmas and won't be back to the middle of next week, I'll be picking up the slack until then)

Farepack victim's letter to Clive Thompson's wife

I do not like to harp on about a subject;

Here is an excerpt from a letter sent to Sir Clive Thompson's wife by the dinner ladies at Taylor High School in Motherwell

So Mrs Thompson, we wish you, your husband and family no ill will or malice, in fact we hope that you all have a truly wonderful Christmas, as it will at least give us some sense of satisfaction to know that your family is at least reaping the benefits of the values that we had instilled in us as children, that if we wanted something we worked for it, and by us doing so it may not have proved very beneficial for us or our families, but, on Christmas morning, when you turn over in bed, and your husband hands you a gift, beautifully wrapped, and in the moment before you unwrap it, when you are feeling excited, and wondering what it contains, could you just stop a minute, and ask yourself, as a mother, "BY THE SWEAT OF WHO'S BROW WAS THIS GIFT PAID FOR?" and then think about some poor child, not in some third world country, but in Great Britain, who is at this same moment sitting in their not so luxurious home, and wondering why Santa didn't bring them what they had dreamed of, then open your gift and try to feel excited about it. Now tell us, would you like it to happen to your child? If your answer is no, then perhaps you are a caring mother after all, a caring mother does not only care for her own children. But if this letter has left you unaffected by the distress and disappointment caused to lots of families, by a company that your husband is chairman of, then we would say that you and your husband deserve each other, an we hope you never find yourself in this position as people will never forget it nor will they ever let you.

Yours Sincerely

More info can be found at;

http://www.unfairpak.co.uk/

I reckon the Farepack victims would have been better off going to Credit Unions, a vastly under used and under rated resource for those on low incomes. There's a good article here
on the top notch Liverpool Times website, the article on Irish credit unions is especially enlightening.

Don't panic Captain Mainwaring!

I've nicked this from Ken Macleod's Early days of a Better Nation blog

I think it's well worth a look if you're interested in the contributions of socialists and anti fascists to the war effort, look beyond the pacifist nuts at the real socialists...

'A Popular Front in arms'
Home Guard Socialism: A vision of a People's Army
by Stephen Cullen
Copyright, Allotment Hut Booklets
Price:3.00. Available for cash, UK stamps, or sterling cheque made out to the author at 76 Hanworth Road, Warwick, CV34 5DX

The BBC comedy series Dad's Army has probably done more to shape the popular memory of the Home Guard, Britain's WW2 volunteer defence force, than any other source. Good though the laughs are, this is a shame, because the Home Guard was a serious organization whose history has some significance today and may have more in the future. Stephen Cullen, an anti-militarist with a sound knowledge of military history, here provides a clear, well-documented and non-sectarian introduction to one aspect of the Home Guard's history that deserves to be better known: the key role of a small group of socialists and Spanish Civil War veterans in its initial organization, in the training of thousands of its members, and in the popularization of its ideas and methods to a readership that extended well beyond the Home Guard itself. Tom Wintringham's New Ways of War (1940), and 'Yank' Levy's Guerrilla Warfare (1941), both Penguin Specials, provided their readers with the political rationale and the military tactics of guerrilla warfare as a method of national and popular resistance to mechanized warfare and fascist occupation. Guerrilla Warfare is a severely practical manual: Levy's personal experience ranged from the Royal Fusiliers through the Mexican Revolution and Sandino's struggle in Nicaragua to the British battalion of the International Brigades. He drew also on the contemporary experiences of the Soviet and Chinese partisans. It's a long way from Captain Mainwaring's comical crew.

Stephen Cullen's pamphlet provides a wealth of fascinating information about Wintringham, Levy and their comrades, the 'Osterley Park socialists', and their vision of a People's Army. It leaves its readers to reflect on the curious and unsettling fact that in the national and social crisis of 1940, the one moment in the twentieth century in Britain when an armed people led by socialists was an urgent necessity and was rapidly becoming a practical reality, the great majority of Britain's radical socialists were otherwise engaged.

Why don't you run for parliament?

That's what a mate asked me in the pub last night, when I was expanding on my political views in a Guinness fueled rant. Well first of all it's not likely a pro-English independence socialist candidate would get elected, secondly er it's not likely I'd get elected if I was running for a mainstream party, thirdly if I was democratically elected by a significant section of the local population, I wouldn't be able to take my seat. No, I'm not an undischarged bankrupt or electoral fraudster, I'm a republican and as the Centre for Citizenship say here that disqualifies me from membership of our so called mother of parliaments...

Surely if we were a real modern democratic society, Members of Parliament would have to take a pledge of allegiance to the people, or some such formulation, not to Mrs Windsor, why should I make any extra effort to defend this woman just because her ancestors robbed more land than mine?

Meanwhile here is a spoof of the oath of allegiance that immigrants must make before getting British citizenship. Well spoof or just reading between the lines of what the oath really says? Now whatever your views on immigration, why should Liz and her parasitical intellectually sub normal family be first on the list? And why should authority derive from the crown? The only people who can grant authority is us, 'The People'.

Fourth in the table!

Fans' eye view on Saints getting to fourth in the table (that's self indulgent footie news for you nonsporting types ;-) ), Ugly Inside have this article on the possibilities of promotion

Meanwhile to keep with the England theme of the blog, our blind cricketers could probably show the so called able bodied team a thing or two, we've just lost out in the semis of the world cup

I'm a bit worried about that "Proud to Patronise" banner behind them...