there  could  be  snakes  in  here

Let us reorder this world around us. - Tony Blair, 2001 A regime review. When attaching responsibility for a social situation to an administration, the question is: how do we distinguish policy effects from bland luck? One can't really place the recession (2007-9) against New Labour; why should they claim credit for. Ecclestone thorny crown. Furthermore, economies are such wildly complex things that one should resist giving anyone much credit for good times - which is not to say that crashes and mismanagement are not the fault of their core financialization. MERITS 1. Credible drive towards cultural equality Acknowledgement of institutional racism post-Stephen Lawrence inquiry (1999) Age of homosexual consent equalized (2000) & introduced one for lesbians. LGBT adoption (2005; Scotland 2009) Civil partnerships (2005) Equality Bill (2009); public breastfeeding, magistrates to take up pay discrimination cases Various maligned positive discrimination processes. ...

"Biology rightly protests when alien concepts are imported from other disciplines, such as occurred with the Intelligent Design hoo-hah. But this embargo cuts both ways; God's existence is not a scientific question, and scientific inquiry therein is simply a category error. Do not dismiss from outside without examination from inside. Truth cannot be traced across the borders here; they are exogenous species." Aberdeen Uni recently ran a series of incredibly poorly-publicised lectures one Dr Julian Lethbridge, (a Spenserian-Wittgensteinian theologian-curmudgeon from the University of Tuebingen). The umbrella was a Defending the Humanities gig, and the weight of his understanding was properly novel, a little intoxicating. I was in rout for much of the time, trying to sense together his system, the shape of his world. Here's my attempt to formalise a holist, then. I'll try not to just copy out the notes, though I'm utterly sure I'll miss something critical an...

  " My father has been dead about a year; my mother is living and has ten children, five lads and five lasses; the oldest is about 30, the youngest is four...mother does nought but look after home...I go to pit at 5 o'clock in the morning...I do not stop or rest any time for the purpose...the bald place upon my head is made by thrusting the corves...the boys take liberties with me sometimes, they pull me about; I am the only girl in the pit...all the men are naked ..." - “ Patience Kershaw ”, quoted in the "First Report of the Commission On the Employment of Children" (1842) " This girl is an ignorant, filthy, ragged, and deplorable-looking object, and such an one as the uncivilized natives of the prairies would be shocked to look upon ." - Lord Ashley, philanthropist. DISCLAIMER: This album is one of the more lovely things I've ever appraised. The Unthanks pull off well-worn melodies and unsurprising cadences and make them compelling, wher...

7:21pm. A well-meaning front blows in; pressure generally depressed. Openers 'Turning 13' aim for a Fugazi slink but don't have the mean drama that sort of thing demands; the sub-Weezer vocals particularly let them down. When their unassuming guitarist fills in the regular tuning intervals in the manner of a very embarrassed Sonic Youth, we note something else; they're local bairns, but they bear no hint of any culture underneath the breathy Billy Corgan vox and workaday dual-guitars. Praise them faintly: not disagreeable. 8:10pm. Prospects changeable; chances of hail are good. "It's impossible to look up while playing a Telecaster, see." notes a friend of followups 'This Familiar Smile'. The cultural abnegation goes on: these stalwart Glaswegians throw more American/Nowhere disjointy post-hardcore at us. They are At The Drive-In without the psychosis which was the most compelling thing about that lot. The high, high but non-falsetto vox ow...