Hey, Pop Pickers

I have recently been exploring this excellent musical blog thang, Radio Blog Club. Lots of different playlists. You pick a song/artist you like and then see what else someone who has that in their playlist comes up with. Well, something like that anyway. Iggy Pop does the best version of the much-covered Louie, Louie. The Prince Buster original of Enjoy Yourself (click on Seu Jorge Lady Stardust, and it's in that playlist) is sublime, darling - in a different class to the (very good) Specials version, though it seems to have disappeared since last night. There's even a humorous ditty about George Galloway. Lots of good French stuff. All sorts really.

I have just finished Gyles Brandreth's diaries of his time as an MP. Entertaining enough for me to get through all 500 pages, and as the years cover 1991 to 1997 it's a bit like reading the humorous recollections of someone in Hitler's bunker - it's ok to laugh as you know they, all the bad guys, are going to get it in the end. Happy ending aside, I only wish to bring two bits to your attention - both of a sexual nature.
In a footnote on page 5, Brandreth tells us of his role in Lord Longfrod's inquiry into pornography when (in 1971) he accompanied Longford on a fact-finding trip to Copenhagen with, inter alia, Malcolm Muggeridge and Cliff Richard.
On 26/3/96 he attends a dinner hosted by Neil and Christine Hamilton (!) for Barbara Cartland. The Wales' marriage is in deep doodoo, and Dame Barbara opines "Of course you know where it all went wrong? She wouldn't do oral sex, she just wouldn't. It's as simple as that. Of course it all went wrong."

Health and Safety

I heard Caroline Flint (who she? a Health Minister it seems) on the World At One yesterday saying "Public health is not about Dick Tax." Well you trying saying "dictacts" and see what comes out.
Then I heard a discussion about the "glorification of terrorism" clause bollocks on the PM prog today. Lots about the difficulty of defining glorification, but nothing on problems with defining terrorism. What a load of crap just so the powers that be and their ineffectual hangers-on can be seen to be "doing something" or "sending out the right message". What was wrong with incitement to violence? What a bunch of fucking assholes. (I know this sort of gratuitous swearing can only weaken any point I may or may not be trying to make, but it makes me feel a fuck of a lot better).
To end on a positive note, the dickheads managed to vote for a ban on smoking in public places. I never thought I'd say this, but as I now realise the extreme weakness of my own will power, Thank You House of Commons. I think it will help me stop smoking and it will vastly improve the chances of my children not smoking. Give me an Alcohol Free Premises Bill and I may live to pensionable age.

Chris Morris is not funny

I watched the South Bank tribute to Armando Ianucci last night. The man is funny and talented (with a heavy hint of smug self-satisfaction) and The Thick Of It is about the only telly I've attempted not to miss recently (Six Nations and Test matches excluded, natch), however...he made some claim that it wasn't funny when you could see comics being comics, which was why they had gone for realism in The Day Today. But the Day Today wasn't realistic, wasn't funny and attempted to parody something beyond parody (24 hour rolling news channels have enough trouble looking real as it is). Now I realise this sort of opinion can get you a fatwa, and I am already anticipating the death threats from ces bourgeois de merde* who revere the man (you know who you are) and will be outside my house with their placards and state of the art suicide bomber chic but The Day Today never did anything for me. As for that bloke with the flared nostrils, he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a TV screen, and even Patrick Marber (an acclaimed playwrite so they say) reflects the worst of Ianucci when he performs, his only character being sneering, supercilious and, yes, unfunny.
Then there were the over frequent cutaways of Melvyn Bargg (still taking the Labour whip, as far as I can tell) nodding sagely, liver spot to the fore, eyes narrowed knowingly yet inquisitively...give me strength. And I say this as a man who has the In Our Time homepage bookmarked. Still, it was good to learn that the swearing in The Thick Of It is done by a specialist. The scripts are sent to a man up north (whose name I sadly forget) who adds top notch creative abuse. I doff my expletive enhanced hat to him.

*Merci a Bernard Laporte

Westminster Dour

It's suprising how in 24 hours when I have cooked my first cake (carrot, delicious), been stopped by police ("Looks like suspect for bagsnatch in Chuchill Square") and found a new political hate figure (John Hutton) time can drag.
"If anyone thinks that the right way to respond to Mr Cameron's emergence as Tory leader is somehow for us to move to the left, I've only got one message for them and that's just Get Real. There are no votes, there is no sense in moving in that direction. Labour has never won an election and never will win an election by moving leftwards."
That would be my new hate figure (sorry Trisha, we men are fickle) on last night's Westminster Hour. I'd never heard of the guy before, though already I find it difficult to recall this period of pre-lapsarian innocence. I wrote down some other stuff he said and then re-read it and it was like trying to catch hot air. The historically-challenged replacement for Blunkett at Works and Pensions is a former flatmate of Alan Milburn and has been mentioned as a possible successor to Blair by none other than Will Hutton. Lord fucking help us.
Then there was some Tory saying he would welcome the creation of a Homeland Security department in this country. Security schmurity, do we have to slavishly follow the US in name as well as deed?

The Meaning of Bishfest

Our ryhming slang correspondent from Bucks wrties

In the course of a delightful evening at our local French pub - "Le Soppy Hog" perusing yet another load of what our Scottish friends would call "gloopy pesh" in that obscure journal, the Shy Pope Log, I noticed that the word "Bishfest" has crept into our language. A search on Google now reveals more than "an annual festival set in the rolling hills of Buckinghamshire".
I haven't been able to discover its meaning, (something to do with a rant about software that doesn't work) but perhaps one of your readers can help me?

Arthur P Bottlebank (Miss)
Arbroath

No elucidation comes from either Urban Dictionary or Webopedia. Comments or explanations welcome.

Palestinian psephology

In the Palestinian elections Hamas got 74 seats (57%), Fatah 43 (33%) and others 13. On the popular vote however, Hamas got 42%, to Fatah's 38% - the complicated electoral system (combining both party lists and constituencies) bringing about the disparity between votes cast and seats won.
Compare this to the UK. At the last election Labour got 55% of the seats, yet only 37% of votes cast (on a 62% turnout). Hamas' 57% of seats from 42% of votes cast (on a 92% turnout) looks almost fair by comparison.

Talking of voting, my reader survey currently shows 100% of votes cast have been for "Life. Time you got one" from an electorate comprising one person (myself, natch). Come on people! Vote now and vote often.

By the way, my Shorter Oxford dates "psephology" to 1952, wihch I find surprising.