Book Review: M W Craven ~ Dead Ground (2021)

Posted on October 16, 2024 by odeboyz

This is a marvellous novel.

The two principals are Sergeant Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw. The first is a no-nonsense *copper*. He’s diligent, very bright, intuitive, a ‘maverick’ and has a history of success. Tilly Bradshaw is from the Lisbeth Salander songbook.1 She’s an idiot savant. So, the team is a very bright policeman and a maladjusted computer whizz.

The genius of the story is that they work brilliantly together. The style is witty, incisive, with a hugely complex plot which unfolds at a pace.

Try this:

‘Writing malware isn’t easy,’  Bradshaw said. ‘If it wasn’t bought then whoever is behind this has serious skills.’

‘Could you write them, Tilly?’ Slater said

‘Pur-lease. I was writing them when I was still at school.’ p184

Note

1 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Wikipedia

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Yes! That’s me

Posted on October 12, 2024 by odeboyz
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The Monetary Policy Committee: a critique

Posted on October 9, 2024 by odeboyz

“Bill’s big bets were always on the Monetary Policy Committee. The bunch of knobheads at the Bank of England. Billy hated and he loved those people. He viewed them as everything he wasn’t: privileged, self-important, well-educated, prestigious, powerful and, ultimately, stupid…..He made a ton of money from it. And he fucking loved that.”

Notes

  • The Monetary Policy Committee sets British interest rates monthly and is believed to have worsened the 2008-9 banking crisis. Stevenson was a city of London currency trader. He made a great deal of money betting against their interest rate decisions.
  • City of London currency traders trade $2.9 trillion each day. Bonuses are very high extending into the millions. Forex Trading In The UK: Getting Started For Beginners (daytrading.com)

Gary Stevenson The Trading Game: a Confession (2024) p190

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Book Review: Wes Streeting ~ One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry up: A memoir of growing up and getting on (2023)

Posted on October 9, 2024 by odeboyz

To be honest I was repelled by this book before reading a page. I assumed he was presumptuous.1 I believed he was careerist student politician who’d got lucky.

Wrong!

Streeting is fascinating. He comes from a working-class background. (Most Labour politicians rely on working-class grandads to soften their bourgeois upbringing.) He experienced brutal poverty and appalling living conditions. His early life was dominated by insecurity mitigated by a strong family network.

School was very important with – named – dedicated teachers who nurtured him. The ‘getting on’ in the title began in primary and secondary school. Notwithstanding his constant changes in his housing and sometimes the gruelling journeys to school – Epping to central London in one period. He continued to be a hard-working student. Cambridge followed providing entry into university and national student politics.

The NUS was a power base for a very adept politician who transitioned into local politics and then the big stage in 2015.

Try this:

“…things can only get better. But experience and the evidence tell us otherwise, and I am afraid that the chances for children from backgrounds like mine are worsening….I thought that I had it bad. In many respects, I did, but the tragedy is that things are worse now than they were in the 1980s.” pp302-3, p305

 Note

1 Wayne Rooney’s 2006 autobiography is a classic ‘cut and paste’ autobiography. He was 20 when he(?) wrote it Wayne Rooney: My Story So Far: Amazon.co.uk: Rooney, Wayne: 9780007236282: Books

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Blackadder, Baldrick and being an MP

Posted on October 6, 2024 by odeboyz
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A Roman Catholic joke

Posted on October 2, 2024 by odeboyz

“Father O’Malley speaking”
“This is the Inland Revenue. Can you help us?”
“I can.”
“Do you know, Ted Houlihan?”
“I do”
“Is he a member of your congregation?”
“He is”
“Did he donate £10,000 to the church?””

“He’s just about to.”

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Kier Starmer’s Cabinet ~ Shirkers and Strivers, October 2024

Posted on October 2, 2024 by odeboyz

George Osborne divided Britain into ‘Shirkers and Strivers’.1 Keir Starmer is a Super-Striver, who has had two stellar careers. Firstly, as a senior lawyer and latterly as Prime Minister. He’s a Super Striver but what is his cabinet like? The test: what degree did they achieve at university.

Using Osborne’s categorisations we’ll find out.2 Ten of Starmer’s cabinet are shy about their achievements at university. ‘Shy’ is code for shifty and evasive.3 This blog ‘awards’ a default degree, which is ‘Mediocre’ to shy politicians. (Classically this applies to Boris Johnson. His Wikipedia entry boasts he was a King’s Scholar at Eton but is silent about his poor Oxford degree.4) Meanwhile, Starmer has nine Super-Strivers in his cabinet. These include the astonishing Angela Rayner who is a working-class hero. She and Wes Streeting have an authentic story of triumph over adversity.

Super Striver

Keir Starmer (PM)                               Oxford MA

Angela Rayner (deputy PM)               University of Life Ph.D. (she left school at 16)

Rachel Reeves (Chancellor)                 LSE MA

Yvette Cooper (Home Secretary)       LSE MA

Ed Miliband (Energy)                          LSE MA

David Lammy (Foreign)                      Harvard MA

Peter Kyle (Science)                            Sussex Ph.D.

Ian Murray (Scotland)                         Edinburgh MA

Lisa Nandy (Culture)                           Birkbeck MA

Striver

Liz Kendall (Work)                               Cambridge 1st

Shirker

Shabana Mahmood (Justice)               Oxford 2nd

Bridget Phillipson (Education)             Oxford 2nd 

Mediocre

Pat Mcfadden, Wes Streeting, Jonathan Reynolds, John Healey, Louise Haigh, Hilary Benn, Baroness Smith, Lucy Powell, Jo Stevens and Steve Reed

Discussion

Does it matter what politicians did in their early 20s? A top degree is an intellectual signal and a character reference. Starmer’s cabinet will be under intense pressure from him and their departmental Civil Servants to conform. How they react is a test of character. This was demonstrated during Johnson’s Partygate days with careerists swallowing the daily humiliations by not resigning.

Good government depends on constructive debate and Starmer’s cabinet looks very promising.

Notes

1 David Cameron’s Cabinet May 2015: Shirkers and Strivers | Odeboyz’s Blog (oedeboyz.com)

2 Liz Truss was described as a “quietly desperate shirker’ in a previous blog using these categories. ibid.

3 It’s believed that Boris Johnson didn’t get a First because he was idle unlike David Cameron who flaunts his success in his Wikipedia entry.

4 Boris Johnson – Wikipedia

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All men are equal: Up to a point, Lord Copper

Posted on September 28, 2024 by odeboyz
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Jewish mothers and their sons

Posted on September 25, 2024 by odeboyz

(Three Jewish mothers are arguing over who has the most loving son.)

Ethel: “My son sends me flowers every Shabbos.”
Pattie: “You call that love? My son phones every day!”
Miriam “That’s nothing. My son goes to therapy five days a week and the whole time he talks about me!”

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Trade Unions Forever

Posted on September 21, 2024 by odeboyz
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