...end

... of a week of celebrating great achievements and important birthdays. Congratulations all round! Talking 'bout London, which we were all week, in December 2001, the Saudi-financed, London-based daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat published Ayman Al-Zawahiri's Knights Under the Prophet's Banner. In it, Osma bin Laden's sidekick offered this advice: "It is always possible to track an American or a Jew, to kill him with a bullet or a knife, a simple explosive device, or a blow with an iron rod." Guess he should know. He's a doctor, after all. However, if you want more of his advice, a consultation's going to cost $25 million because he doesn't do house calls anymore.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 17 May 2008 at 7:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cryptic communists

Snapped on the Rainy Day birthday last week at the Soviet War memorial in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park beside the Imperial War Museum in London. Soviet War memorial London But where's the London memorial for the millions the Soviets starved to death in the Ukraine? And where's the memorial for the tens of millions starved in Mao's China? "No one is forgotten," say the sympathizers, but this is selective memory of the worst kind.

By the way, this would be the ideal year to erect memorials to the gulags and the Little Red Book because of all the talk about 1968. That was the year when morally irresponsible brats chanted Marxist, Trotskyite and Maoist slogans. Remember? It was a time of "playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot," to quote George Orwell. Imagine Mao's murderous "cultural revolution" being held up as a model for Europe? Farcical now, of course, but it did happen. This absurdity reached its ridiculous zenith when Rudi Dutschke told the 1968 Vietnam congress in West Berlin that the Vietcong were "revolutionary forces of liberation" and their liberating truths had been discovered through "the specific relationship of production of the student producers." What was he smoking? But the 1968 Marxists and Maoists who have done so much harm to society will soon depart the stage and it will fall to the lot of the Johnsons and the Camerons to roll back the damage. "No one is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten." Those words should grace the memorials to the childish follies of 1968 and the crimes of communism.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 16 May 2008 at 12:44 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In safe hands

Father and son photographed leaving Wembley Stadium last Saturday after Ebbsfleet United had defeated Torquay United in the FA Trophy Final. One could say that the football tradition is in safe hands upon seeing a beautiful sight like this, and it is a beautiful sight because it suggests caring and sharing — the essentials of civilized behaviour.

Hand in hand

But what's this got to do with Boris Johnson, our focus this week? Well, more than 100 people have been stabbed this year in London. So far, 33 have died, with the youngest victim, 14-year-old Amro Elbadawi, killed in West Kilburn in March. He didn't get to see a game in Wembley Stadium. Ken Livingstone's response to the outbreak of knife crime was to accuse the media of sensationalising the problem, but it will reflect well on Boris if he's seen to face reality and back the police in their campaign to end this savagery. It doesn't stop there, however. He has to give unflinching support to those concerned citizens who want to challenge the anti-social behaviour that was allowed to flourish during Red Ken's malign rule. London today partly resembles New York before Mayor Rudy Giuliani ended a decade of rampant crime. With a similar policy of zero tolerance, Boris can make parents and children feel secure in their city again.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 15 May 2008 at 12:11 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The mayor's future foreseen

Boris on his bike to No. 10! "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall," wrote Cyril Connolly, famously, 70 years ago this year, in Enemies of Promise. Apart from such pitiless pithiness, another reason for the book's welcome second coming is that Connolly, uncannily, foresaw the triumph of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Summing up his feelings about Eton, Connolly formulated the "Theory of Permanent Adolescence", to wit: "It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual." Connolly made his point with a portrait of the aristocratic Alec Dunglass:
"He was a votary of the esoteric Eton religion, the kind of graceful, tolerant, sleepy boy who is showered with favors and crowned with all the laurels, who is liked by the masters and admired by the boys without any apparent exertion on his part, without experiencing the ill-effects of success himself or arousing the pangs of envy in others. In the eighteenth century he would have become Prime Minister before he was thirty; as it was he appeared honorably ineligible for the struggle of life."

In fact, in 1963, as Sir Alec Douglas-Home, this "votary of the esoteric Eton religion" became Tory PM. And it is also worth noting that in Enemies of Promise Cyril Connolly attacked Joseph Addison, co-founder of The Spectator, because he was "an apologist for the New Bourgeoisie". Having attended Eaton and served as editor of The Spectator, Boris Johnson was elected mayor of London on 1 May by the city's New Bourgeoisie. Can anyone now doubt that he will become Prime Minister one day? Not tomorrow, of course, or next year, but one day.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 14 May 2008 at 6:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Overheard at Heathrow

Picture this: A slim, very pretty young woman dressed in a classy navy suit with white t-shirt is at a baggage carousel in Heathrow that signals inbound luggage from Moscow. On one side of her is a uniformed male and on the other, an un-uniformed female. The man, who appears to work for Her Majesty's Border Agency, says: "We know that you're travelling on a forged Portuguese passport and as soon as you collect your bags, you'll be arrested." His colleague interprets the bad news.

The Wire The reason this vignette made such an impact is that we're currently watching Season 2 of The Wire. Early on, Marine Police Officer Beatrice Russell is making her rounds on the Baltimore Harbour docks. She notices the locks on a container are loose, opens it, goes inside and finds the bodies of 13 suffocated young women. We're talking human trafficking. We're talking sex workers from Eastern Europe. And it's possible that the young woman at Heathrow with that forged Portuguese passport was part of that same global industry.

As an aside, we were somewhat surprised to see Lexington speaking of "victimless crimes such as prostitution" in the Economist this week. What happens between consenting adults should be a private matter, of course, but we don't live in a perfect world and prostitution, which is fuelled in many parts of the world by slavery, is far from being a victimless crime. But what's all that got to do with the London of Boris Johnson — the supposed theme here this week? Not much, admittedly, on the face of it, but one of the reasons the Labour Party is now held is such low esteem is that many in Britain believe immigration is out of control. And they hold the government responsible. The triumph of Boris Johnson in London heralds the coming victory of David Cameron in the next general election. But before that happens, there will be a fierce debate about identity and immigration. By watching what happens in London in the coming 12 months, we'll see the contours of that dispute defined.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 13 May 2008 at 12:25 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Walking on sunshine

After the deserving winners of the FA Trophy had collected their medals and the cup, and as they descended the 107 steps from the Royal Box to the Wembley turf, the stadium sound system blasted out "Rockin' All Over The World" by Status Quo. We sung and swayed along. Then, the team did that stage thing with the coloured streamers flying like fireworks into the air and all, just like the big boys. More posing for the cameras and the triumphal procession before the grateful fans rounded out the occasion. And that was it. Except that those diehards who stayed until the pitch had been cleared were treated to "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves, which is where we came in last Monday, sort of.

Ebbsfleet United FC Where will this experiment go next? The Times picked up on the tension that's emerged between the traditional method of selecting the team and the options available to us, the networked owners, using the so-called "wisdom of crowds". And this is where it may get interesting because many of the supporters in Wembley on Saturday were ordinary people from Kent and without them there would be no sense of tradition; no feeling of real community. Indeed, in his programme note, manager Liam Daish pointedly emphasized that, "Today's Final is a great day for Ebbsfleet, Gravesend and the local area, and it's given the people of the area a chance to come to Wembley and watch their local team play — and that opportunity doesn't come around very often."

And the Boris Johnson connection? For this is supposed to be a week of postings about the London of the new Mayor. Well, our "Man of the Match" was the uncompromising Ebbsfleet United left back Sacha Opinel, who sports a very Johnson-like shock of blond hair. Better still, he was described in the programme as "An eccentric defender... has become a cult hero." That's Boris.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 12 May 2008 at 7:27 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Week...

... of London coming up. It so happens that our current visit to London overlaps with that of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Coincidence? The behemoth business of running great cities needs the putting together of heads. By the way, Boris Johnson is now taking home £137,000 a year, while the salary for the New York job is a mere $190,000 (£98,000). However, given his personal fortune of $10 billion, Bloomberg doesn't need the regular cheque as much as Boris does so he opts for a token $1 a year.

Talking of dosh, with a £450 million London Development Agency budget at his disposal, Boris should be able to make good on those campaign promises of increased public safety, improved use of the Thames for commuters, 50,000 new units of affordable housing by 2011 and tackling youth, er, yob, crime. Oi! Put away that beer bottle!

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 11 May 2008 at 9:22 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

...end

... of a video week here. Those interested in video will know that Jeremy Allaire, formerly CTO of Flash-maker Macromedia, now heads Brightcove, which provides technology that lets people deliver video over the net. Allaire believes that we are staring at an enormous opportunity here. The global video industry is worth about $350 billion when you add up films, rentals, cable, broadcasting and the rest, and web video market amounts to maybe .01% of that revenue total. But if just five percent of the global video business can be shifted to the net over the next decade, a lot of entrepreneurs are going to get very, very rich, he says. While we're thinking about that, here's a good one to end the week with. Try this when shopping today.

It's all the rage in France, apparently.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 10 May 2008 at 8:03 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)