The Other News From England.

31st. July 2000.

Index of earlier issues - click here.

(Those who like digging about will find that there are hundreds of articles on many subjects to be found on this site.)

Old issues.

There are some much earlier Other News on this site. Click below.

early Othernews - 1992, 93, 94.

Bonnington Cafe and Bonnington Square.

This Saturday - Should be Phil playing guitar and singing. Don't know what this is like.

Bonnington cafe is a communally owned cafe in Vauxhall. The atmosphere is somewhat Bohemian, friendly, educated, and much wine (bought from the corner shop across the road) seems to get drunk. Good quality vegetarian. Cheap. The only lighting is usually candles stuck in wine bottles, and the furniture is a collection of odds and sods that people have thrown out. The overall result is relaxed and pleasing. People tend to spend the whole evening over their meal.

The cafe gets very full, but sometimes there is a list of telephone numbers of the people who cater there in case you should wish to try to make a booking. Most Saturdays are catered by Marguerite - but not all.

Bonnington Cafe, Vauxhall Grove, London SW8 UK. Near Vauxhall underground and mainline station, and many buses. Booking is difficult.

Economics.

Once again, the subject of money crept into the conversation this afternoon. People try to avoid talking about it, as though it is an obscene subject - probably because they have been conditioned into that kind of thinking owing to the servile role of their ancestors - but it always manages to come out.

I'll repeat my message, without knowing exactly what I think should be done about it.

Approximately 1% of all the money in circulation in this country is in the form of currency notes and coins, and the rest is even more fictitious than that. It consists of electronic transfers and a few bits of paper not backed up by anything more solid - not even that pretty but largely useless metal, gold. We all take it seriously because we have been brought up to take it seriously and because those who seek to be in control harrass us in various ways trying to force us to find some to give to them (tax collection, etc). This on occasions indirectly leads to theft of money, thus further conning us into believing it has a worth (otherwise why would people steal it?).

The money is created by the banks from 'out of thin air' with no particular restraint, and interest is charged on it from the moment it is created, thus guaranteeing (a) inflation at the rate of interest or more, (b) that most of us spend our lives in debt, and (c) that it will never be possible for everybody (not even most people) to pay the created money back. This must lead to a situation where (1) the banks own almost everything, even if only indirectly, and (2) the only sensible investment for long term will be something which is not intended to have immediate financial value so much as practical value - tools, land, food, clothing, housing etc. This may not be a good thing, and I invite you to think about why, because although my intuition says it is not a good thing I cannot quite undertand why I think that.

There are a few things one ought to know about economics as practiced and with regard to the 'hard' currencies of the world, and these might be the subject of another article. For the moment, it might be worth your knowing that something in the region of 70% of all international transactions involving currency are entirely parasitical ones, where currency dealers have bought and sold currency purely for profit, with no material goods or services changing hands, whilst the bulk of international trade may well be being done by barter, thus excluding (not including) many poorer countries from any chance of participating in trade (this may be a cloud with a silver lining. I don't know).

There are one or two websites concerned with economics listed below. Have a look if you find this subject interesting.

Joe Punter's Shakespeare.

King Henry the 6th. part 1 Act 5.

ACT 5.

SCENE 5.

London. The royal palace.

Enter Suffolk talking to the king, and Gloster and Exeter.

KING:

She sounds a right stunner. I must have a sight of this. I'd risk heaven and high water to meet her - especially as it would appear she loves me.

SUFFOLK:

That's nothing. A mere taster. It would take a whole book to list the delights of this lady - who also wishes to be your slave.

KING:

Therefore, lord protector, please consent to her being queen.

GLOSTER:

You know, king, you are already betrothed to another beauty. How can you honorably escape that commitment?

SUFFOLK:

She is a person of lower birth, therefore the betrothal can honorably be broken on those grounds.

GLOSTER:

But Margaret's father is no more important and pompous than an earl! What's the difference?

SUFFOLK:

Her father is actually king of Naples and Jerusalem, and has some influence in France. Therefore this marriage will help to keep the peace and unity between France and England.

GLOSTER:

Equally the earl of Armagnac would do, because he is closely related to Charles.

EXETER:

Besides which, Armagnac is rich and will offer a good dowry, whilst Reignier is more likely to ask than to give.

SUFFOLK:

A dowry? What does our king want with a dowry? He 's not so bloody hard up he has to marry for money instead of for love. He is able to enrich his queen rather than to ask her to enrich him. You're going at this problem like a bunch of peasants trying to get a valueable wife or a bargain in cattle. This guy wants a woman he can sleep with, and as he fancies her most of the two I cannot see how he can be expected to pass up such an opportunity. The wrong marriage would be hell, and the right one bliss. A king needs the daughter of a king for a wife. Her extraordinary fine physical attractions, superb intellect, submissiveness courage and manners combined with her birth make her the perfect choice. If the offspring of this marriage are to be conquerers we need someone like this to bear them. So yield, and let the king get on with it. She is the only feasible possibility.

KING HENRY:

This argument is beginning to make me feel a bit nauseous. Let's get the thing over and done with. Go to France and agree to all that is necessary to procure Margaret to come to England and be queen. Get the money to do this by taxing the peasants. I must go and think this thing out on my own. Sorry Uncle if I have not pleased you with my choice.

GLOSTER:

I fear we may come to grief over this.

(exit Gloster and Exeter).

SUFFOLK:

Now we're really motoring! The king is doing my bidding. I am going to Paris to bring back Margaret, and once she has control over the king, I will have control over both her and the king.

Exit.

More next week.

Miscellaneous.

FOR SOME TIME NOW I have been worrying that this site is becoming serious, and that I am developing the image of a person with no sense of humour (possibly true). I don't really like this image, but every time I get out the humour some burk comes along and shoots it down.

Sorry, I can't complete this article because I've lost the punchline.

Politics.

YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED during the past few months the similarities between the behaviour of the 'nobles' of the Middle Ages as portrayed by Shakespeare and translated into modern vernacular by Joe Punter, and that of modern day football hooligans. If there is any difference it is only marginal. Essentially, these people were a collection of yobs who went about duffing up foreigners and calling themselves king when they won the fight and regent when they lost. As far as one is able to tell, they didn't give a stuff for the welfare of anyone save themselves, except in that they needed cannon fodder and persons to grow food for them, so that to that extent they might have supported and helped other people. They were, as portrayed by Shakespear, parasites who would not allow the world to be at peace unless everyone else was their slave and they were in control.

Modern European nobles are largely (or possibly completely) the descendants of these yobs, and in many ways behave in much the same way - the only real difference being that they use much more sophisticated means to achieve their ends - partially using currency and banking as the means of control instead of protection racketeering methods. They have condescended to allow the serfs (MPS anyway, even if not the whole population) to play at democracy, and have in some cases allowed the more politically or financially aggressive serfs to be promoted to become Lords - but one is tempted to assume that would only occur if they conform to the requirement of declaring an allegiance to the monarch of the day before all other things. Even so, to be a lord is not to be independent. It is still to be subservient to the monarch.

In other countries this same idea has taken a variety of other forms, and of course most people are reasonably familiar with the American and Russian models, where there appears to be an elected monarch (the president) and an elected government. Again, reading between the lines it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that the presidents in this system have less power than the British monarch, and the populace in some way believe that they have had a choice in who this elected monarch is to be, but that the main element of control is in banking and economics (run by the people who almost certainly decide who the candidates are and pay their expenses) - an area easy to gain control in because the politicians themselves have been hoodwinked into thinking that economics is an immensely complicated subject that is far too difficult for someone like them to understand, and so do as they are told (there may well be elements of 'financial inducement' and even possibly blackmail in some cases, too).

That, it appears to me, is the extent to which we have democracy, and is my explanation for why it is that I have only voted a couple of times in parliamentary elections during my life. I have not yet seen any party which is willing to stand up and say they think the whole thing stinks and they intend to do something about it whilst at the same time not presenting themselves as some kind of hysterical collection of political crackpots (there is a gap in the market here. Somewhere between the 2 lots of conservatives we currently have in this country and the crackpots there might be a space for a group of people who wish to endeavour to govern with intelligence and ethical standards).

Meanwhile, a country run by freemasons on behalf of the descendants of hooligans is hardly the sort of thing most of us would knowingly accept.

.......................................................................................................

The stuff that doesn`t often get changed now follows:

Biotechnology

Click here for an email that arrived in January 2000 concerning a proposed reasoned approach to this tricky subject

This website is about accounting investigations and fiddles. If you like to look at financial scandals (both hidden and public) this might be worth a look. I have not been there myself, but the books produced by these people, although difficult to follow, cover a lot of mysterious ground.

This website is about the destruction of countryside and agriculture. Worth a visit if you want to find out about how it is thought the British countryside will fair under the ongoing creep of the multinationals.

This website is one to do with monetary reform.The British Association for Monetary Reform. If you are interested in economics it is worth a look. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bamr1

This is a website about alternative currencies.Might be worth a look to those who have realised that you don't necessarily have to have money as such to be prosperous.

This is a website for something called The Green Guide. I know nothing about it, but am hoping it is something worthy. Please let me know if it is questionable.

This is a site concerned with one of the most unpopular planning decisions ever made in Greater London, the Crystal Palace Complex. It is so stunningly awful that only a handful of people who do not live near it appear to approve, whilst the rest are not entirely uninclined to mention such things as payola, freemasons....you name it! The site belongs to the London Borough of Bromley, but the aggro generated by it and the destruction of amenity caused by it will be almost entirely suffered by residents of adjoining boroughs and not the people of Bromley themselves.

This is a recycling site based in London, and offering materials to anybody. The organisation is a charity seeking to link suppliers of surplus materials with users. Especially good for the more ingenious designers amongst us.

The email of the people who run the above site is cs@london-recycling.demon.co.uk. They are called Creative Supplies. Look them up for more info.

Here's an interesting education site - particularly for those who have young children and are not quite sure what to do to avoid the worst of what`s on offer in the mainstream of education.They are called www.edrev.org.

early Othernews - 1992, 93, 94.

Early Other News essays.

There were a few essays that went out with the early Other News as a freestanding item. You can read these by clicking below.

Essays.

The Soup Designer`s Handbook.

The Soup Designer`s Handbook.

London Journey - a trip from Docklands through Beckenham and back to Docklands.

Friday Woodworkers.

(Friday Woodworkers are suffering a temporary break due to some of the episodes not having been fully edited at the time of writing. It may take some timne to fix this problem.

Episode 17.

(These articles were written in 1988, and were my first attempt at writing. Some people when shown these fell about laughing, some smiled faintly - and some yawned. I thought I was going to write a technical book, but it soon became apparent that I was much more interested in the people than the technology - and that is the main reason there are no drawings - although it might be rather good to do a couple of caricatures sometime.)

Index of Friday Woodorker articles (and a means of access).

Index of earlier issues.

Gabriele Gad on alternative therapy.

A READER COMPLAINED that it was not possible to go back more than 6 articles in Gabriele`s area. Regrettably this is because there is no index, and I have not the time to organise one yet. However, for those determined enough to find the early ones, they should be accessible by going to an early Other News and clicking through from it. This will not be fast, but I think will do the job. They started about November 1997 I think.

editor@othernews.co.uk

Cartoons and graphics.

drawings click here.

sheet music click here.

Consumers.

LEXMARK 3200 PRINTER.

In an earlier issue I told you about my feelings regarding Tempo retailers and the Lexmark 3200 printer I bought from them.

The Lexmark 3200 printer I got from Tempo must surely be the most uneconomical printer I could possibly have bought. The black cartridge only does about 250 pages of ordinary type - for £28! That makes each sheet cost 11.2 pence plus the cost of the paper and probably another 11.2 pence more if any colour is used! - ABOUT 22.4 PENCE A SHEET! Nearly a pound for every four sheets!

I wouldn`t recommend you to buy it - but also look at my earlier article for an idea of Tempo`s service.

Wanted

A person to help make up a subject index for the growing numbers of articles on The Other News From England. Email editor@othernews.co.uk

8- or more-track tape recorder. email pcj@gn.apc.org

All material on this site is copyright. Contact me if you want to use it. I am quite flexible. Educational non-profit use is free - but ask for permission and print an acknowledgement. If you can`t think what to print, put:

From The Other News From England. http://www.othernews.co.uk

Even better if you print the date of the article.

editor@othernews.co.uk

That`s all this week folks