tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32257954574072306382024-03-18T03:03:16.657+00:00Excuse Me Whilst I Step OutsideCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.comBlogger482125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-7123109918328291242012-03-07T21:36:00.000+00:002012-03-07T21:58:11.863+00:00Yakkety-Yak. Tracked Talk BackHere's a thing.
I went to Potlatch, a Typepad blog, and was mildly interested in this article and wanted to comment. I've commented there before, but only occasionally. I never had any trouble in doing so under my 'internet name' of Charlie McMenamin before. But I did tonight.
I have an 'internet name' as I am self employed and do work for local authorities, not-for-profits and charities.CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-34961612998068123632012-02-04T16:17:00.000+00:002012-02-04T19:52:41.158+00:00Tinker, Tailor,*Richman *, Soldier, Spy.....
In another stunning demonstration of how far I’m ahead of
the cultural curve, I finally watched last year’s Tinker, Tailor, Solider Spy last night. (Yes, I know: just call me Mr.Zeitgeist).
And very good it was too. Or very good ‘in its own way’, at least - I’ll explain
my caveat below. Basically: it’s 1973 and there may be a mole in the British
Secret Service.
But it’s not CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-13467538456333665722012-01-27T13:56:00.000+00:002012-01-27T16:52:37.449+00:00Traditional Forms of State Regulation of Banking - Worth Another Try?Enough of this wimpy stuff about bonuses. Bonuses aren't the point. How a given individual's remuneration package is divided between base salary and add-ons is a detail. The point is how large the overall payment is, and what the payment is made for. & payments to senior staff in state owned banks should be made for benefiting society -say by increasing lending to small and medium sized CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-55364285044864810242011-12-22T14:28:00.000+00:002011-12-22T14:46:51.473+00:00ECB Loans, Three-Card Tricks and the Dangers of Relative Non-Autonomy.
Chris Dillow claims one feature of the crisis of the Eurozone is that 'the markets' have given up on politicians' capacity to solve problems which, in principle, he claims are soluble (his own range of possible solutions are presented in shorthand here). I'm not so sure - not because I have any greater respect for the key politicians involved in all this, but because I'm increasingly beginningCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-78186093636280278072011-12-11T21:47:00.001+00:002011-12-11T22:03:40.965+00:00The Only Reason To Read This Post are the LinksMind, they're bloody good links:
Michael Hudson talks bitingly of the attempted Europe wide coup which constitute the current 26 country plans for dealing with the Eurozone crisis.
OCED finally joins the rest of us in acknowledging trickle down theory is a busted flush.
That is all. Off you go now.CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-2535250710566775832011-12-09T08:44:00.001+00:002011-12-09T15:31:18.454+00:00Two Speed Europe?We've all woken up this morning to the breathlessly conveyed news that the European political elites have staged an all nighter with the result that most of them have agreed to sign up to a new Treaty to deal with the crisis in the Eurozone. But not Britain.
Predictably, the initial coverage in our domestic media is very much focused on the 'Europsceptic v Europhile' axis. Some idiot Tory CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-48576494890915190422011-12-02T17:03:00.001+00:002011-12-02T18:22:58.388+00:00I Can Feel An Internal Contradiction Coming On....
Blimey - blast from the past time: Etienne Balibar (yes, that one - I'd forgotten about him too if it makes you feel any better) comments on the various risks involved in this latest attempt to hold together the Euro. He lists three main possible risks to Merkel's plans for a revised Treaty and a fiscal union.Details of these plans are sketchy at the moment, but apparently centre around givingCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-61422922814373797312011-11-15T09:41:00.001+00:002011-11-15T10:11:44.670+00:00What The Internet is ForSchoolduggery is a blog brought to my attention in the last 24 hours. According to the Guardian it is the work of a primary school governor in Suffolk. There's a rather impressive post up on the site which collates data showing that the new wave of so called Free Schools have systematically admitted lower percentages of children on Free School Meals (FSM) - the standard deprivation measure used CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-19215550738853587522011-11-13T20:51:00.001+00:002011-11-14T08:30:06.090+00:00A Song From 1981 (Or Earlier?)In October 1981, 250,000 people joined an anti-nuclear demonstration in
London. That summer, Tony Benn had come within 1% of being elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.
Me? I was unemployed in Brighton. So unemployed, in fact, I volunteered to work as a steward at that Labour Party conference. As a consequence, I find I am the owner of the 'Phonetappers and Punters Club Official CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-44290206148020927702011-11-12T17:44:00.001+00:002011-11-13T17:26:30.687+00:00Pass The Parcel: Euro EditionGillian Tett and Paul Mason have written
the two best popular
books
so far about the banking crisis of 2008. Perhaps significantly, neither initially
started life as an economist: Tett did her doctorate in social anthropology and
Mason trained as a music teacher and musical academic. With all due respect to Steph,
Pesto and the starry array of proper economists @ the FT, I think these two are
theCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-27490734753735039432011-10-28T14:17:00.002+01:002011-10-28T16:42:43.080+01:00Occupy Has Nothing to Say? I Blame the Parents
Socialism, or at least its 20th Century version, collapsed
for two main reasons: because it couldn’t find a political form which demonstrated at least much personal freedom
and democracy as the Western liberal democracies it opposed, and because it
failed to deliver economic progress
at the same speed or to the same apparent degree of efficiency as capitalism.
Like everyone else CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-70266002834402203962011-10-10T09:35:00.001+01:002011-11-13T15:32:16.253+00:00Once More With Feeling?
I wrote last week about my dismay at finding my children didn't know the words to the Red Flag; Rab said he used the tune as a lullaby to his kids when they were small. & this set me thinking about the role of emotionally charged symbols - be they musical or flags or whatever - in the passing on of political and moral perspectives.
Let me share another anecdote.
This summer I CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-74800601151184730612011-10-01T17:14:00.001+01:002011-10-01T17:40:16.055+01:00Name That TuneSo I walk into the kitchen and there is young Ms. McMenamin, aged 12, doing some nonsense free-form rapping about squirrels or whatever. It was the tune that caught my attention: dum-dum-de-dum/dum-dum-de-dum/de-dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum.
I asked her if she knew what the tune was called, and she searched her memory and came up with a rather hesitant,".. something about trees?".
"Well... CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-61740450102258034072011-05-07T14:00:00.005+01:002011-05-07T20:30:45.408+01:00That NHS Listening Exercise in FullFrom the LRB blog,"...there’s more to the listening exercise than a website. Paul Burstow, the care services minister, announced last month that 119 listening events had been planned. 119? Impressive. It would be nice to see a list. Apparently if you ask for the list you are told to contact NHS Future Forum. But it turns out that NHS Future Forum does not take incoming calls. Not, it would seem, CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-4825518030601120312011-04-26T12:03:00.008+01:002011-04-26T12:41:19.278+01:00AV: A Tactical Question for England ?I'm in the 'Oh alright then, if that's the only thing on offer' camp on AV.That's simply because, on balance, I think it is just a tinsey bit more sensible that FPTP. But proportional and fair it sure ain't. Not that any electoral system can necessarily guarantee those aims: you pick a electoral system to fit the underlying political sociology in my view, not to change it. Therefore a system CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-81457234632809991092011-04-06T13:09:00.007+01:002011-04-06T14:48:06.592+01:00The Nakedness of Class and the ClassroomI thought I had given up blogging, but some things make you so angry you just have to write something down. Who is to blame for my return to my pointless habit of hurling typo strewn invective into the ether? Step forward Mr.Toby Young and his West London Free School idea.Everyone needs to be clear what's happening here, so a little background. There is a 'zeitgeist-y' feeling across all welfareCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-51319999219643164132010-12-14T13:32:00.016+00:002010-12-19T23:34:28.121+00:00Waiting For the Great Leap Backwards?I had been wondering exactly what the Coalition now expects to happen. They've pushed through the budget, they've handed down the pain to the operational bits of the public sector in eye wateringly-tight financial settlements and they've (just about) got through the first really tricky Commons vote, the one on tuition fees.Were they, I mused, now hoping a spirit of grim, 'post Dunkirk-like CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-35661775462441299622010-12-10T10:58:00.004+00:002010-12-10T11:06:55.691+00:00Two Things Worth Browsing TodayThe graphic is from here: it shows the changes in relative compensation between executives and average workers in the US over the last fifty years. Click on it to get an enlarged picture.Keeping that image firmly in mind trot on over to Will at Potlatch, and consider his sharp eyed linkage of bankers compensation and last night's student protests."If bankers had just managed to keep a limit on CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-51577159910521385832010-12-09T09:34:00.025+00:002010-12-09T18:35:30.531+00:00The Student Revolt Against Tuition Fees and the Limits of Public Choice TheoryFor what seems like decades the Right has claimed that markets or quasi markets in social goods and services protect the interests of consumers, and that public services are inherently subject to being run in the interests of the producers rather than the people who use them unless they are subject to such external discipline. These assumptions have been hard-wired into policy debate to such anCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-91920124071881525232010-11-26T16:37:00.002+00:002010-11-26T16:40:34.606+00:00Or is This Just Me?FromCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-26760594646237137622010-11-23T18:24:00.009+00:002010-11-25T20:26:19.343+00:00Haircuts All Round?A GUBU Day if ever there was one, I'd say : little Ireland threatens to crash the Euro simply by not rolling over immediately to the idea that they should all go back to potato farming and emigration. It's that pesky democracy thing getting in the way of sensible business decisions again. Cowan is surely done for, his reputation as well as career in tatters, surely now seen as little more than aCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-1386020887244537482010-11-23T16:05:00.006+00:002010-11-23T16:41:02.870+00:00The Death of Fianna Fail in Two Quotes and a HeadlineJohn Naughton reminds us of Eamon De Valera rebuking the Brits for criticising Ireland's neutrality in WW2:"Mr. Churchill is justly proud of his nation’s perseverance against heavy odds. But we in this island are still prouder of our people’s perseverance for freedom through all the centuries. We, of our time, have played our part in the perseverance, and we have pledged our selves to the CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-74568491071653552010-11-19T09:00:00.007+00:002010-11-19T10:39:12.538+00:00Why Academies (or Any School) Shouldn't Control Their Own AdmissionsHere's the lead story from the front page of my local free sheet newspaper: "A disabled 11-year-old girl has been rejected by an academy school because she poses a “health and safety risk” to other children. Idayah Miller, from Norbury, was told she could not go to the elite Harris Academy in Crystal Palace because her wheelchair would restrict the movement of other children in the CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-11272787327421132442010-11-18T17:08:00.006+00:002010-11-18T21:00:31.907+00:00Every Picture Tells A StoryThe green postbox tells you the picture has been taken in Ireland. We have the Guardian's word for it that the bloke on the left is the deputy director of the European department of the IMF. All in all, I think that bloke begging is going to have to get a bigger cup....Let's be clear about what's going on today. A small country has attempted to take on the debts of a disproportionately sized CharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3225795457407230638.post-6612881267988346502010-11-16T19:25:00.007+00:002010-11-16T21:14:19.532+00:00OK, Let's Get the Old Street Party Committee Together Again..Addendum: At last - some good newsCharlieMcMenaminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00942021756417667913noreply@blogger.com2