All change

Sorry to read (in the December issue of the National Union of Journalists’ magazine Journalist) that Roy Greenslade “cannot, in all conscience, remain within a union I now regard, albeit reluctantly, as reactionary. The digital revolution is here and I am a digital revolutionary.”
This is sad news. Greenslade he has always been a powerful force for unity in the industry. Even when he worked on The Sun, he managed to reconcile his union membership with offering every assistance to publisher Rupert Murdoch in his disputes with the NUJ. Greenslade even dragged himself into work through picket lines and barbed-wire fences in his attempt to bring about a peaceful settlement to Murdoch's dispute with his printers over News International's move to Wapping in the 1980s.
Greenslade, who was once a radical young reporter in the Dagenham area of east London, is now professor of journalism at the City University and writes a much better blog than this one, making full use of all the facilities of the Guardian Unlimited site (http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade).
I agree with him about some of the democratic benefits of the digital revolution. It has huge potential for improving the free flow of public information. Indeed all this information appears in a blog (http://debeauvoirnotes.blogspot.com/).
The invention of the Internet has not eroded the power of the major publishers, nor improved the working conditions of journalists. Greenslade is a beneficiary of publishers’ power, and often makes very positive use of that advantage. It is sad that, with his long-awaited return to revolutionary principles, he is formally finalising his abandonment of any industrial connection with organised journalists.

Pitch battle
England 2 Croatia 3: The pitch at Wembley looked to be in atrocious condition, verging on water-logged. Worse, it still had the scars and the markings from a recent American football game played on it.
Clearly the economics of the new stadium dictate that the pitch is going to get overworked to the point of being unplayable.

Up the Windsors
Congratulations to Mrs Windsor and her hubby on sixty years together, which is pretty good going by anyone’s standard.
The press has been churning out drivel by the ton about what a hard-working existence they have. In fact they have an army of flunkeys around at every corner, mainly at taxpayers’ expense, to make sure that their affluent lives go smoothly.
It suits the ruling class very nicely to have a powerless, non-elected apparently God-appointed person at the top of the social pinnacle. It sanctions the complete irrationality of the UK’s institutions. So much easier for commentators to brown-nose on about constitutional monarchy than to examine the realities of a 21st century democracy-tinted plutocracy.

Normans and Song Que

More thoughts about London and Normans.
Interesting line of axis from Rome to Chester as a European power line, with London always balanced on it. In the Saxon and end of Saxon times the contest for England is between Danes and Normans, with Cnut being the period of total Danish supremacy; but like most supremacies he survives on a degree of consensus (or absence of resistance), then William I reverses it to a Norman supremacy, but still with a degree of (enforced) consensus.
A speculation: The line that divides Europe from Roman times right up to the Reformation goes along the Danube, up the Rhine, over the Channel, up the Thames, up the river Lea and on to Chester.

Song Que, on Kingsland road added to restaurant reviews. Vietnamese, excellent food. Always good.

hague, murdoch, europe

Hague in h of c producing a huge list of ifs about europe and a ballot on the constitution, suggesting that the whole thing might end up with the Conservatives doing something (presumably renegotiate the Euro treaty) if all the ifs are fullfilled. Which the Tories would never do.
Odd really. Murdoch papers seem kind of lukewarm pro-Tory at the moment, but really very anti-Europe. The Murdoch empire interest looks really to be about getting into China at the moment and he seems to favour a weakened Europe and a stronger America as his best way in.
I suspect Murdoch knows that the Tories would never significantly challenge the European Union structure (Thatcher for all her huff and puff never did), so he won't get too excited about Hague's tub thumping, except insofar as it might embarrass Brown over Europe...

|Nevin; american nukes

Monday Oct 22
Interesting things this weekend: Pat Nevin, ex Chelsea footballer describing his politics as 'rather like my football: hanging around on the left wing not doing very much.' Roughly how I see myself, though I can't play football.
That was on Radio 5live, which is also where I heard about the four American military bigwigs being stood down for flying live nuclear warheads about over America without authorisation.
This story really was played down among the great tales of English sporting derring-do (ie heroic failure, Hamilton, rugby etc). But there is a Times online link to it, headlined US hits panic button - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2702800.ece

If anyone gets here by accident and wants to know about the De Beauvoir area of Hackney, London,

http://www.debeauvoir.org.uk/dbahistory.htm

is a link you might find useful.

What the ....

How I ended up here I don't know. I'm only trying to extract a very obscure bit of information about Fosters of Jamaica from a Google book, and there seems to be something called a Notebook somewhere...