Who Are You?

 I've been writing this blog for almost thirteen years without bothering overmuch about whether anyone read it. I write it for myself, and only do so when I feel like it. Over the years I may have had a couple of specific readers in mind from time to time when I wrote particular posts, but one of them's husband found out and the other one died. Obviously, being my own target audience means that I am not particularly concerned with telling the truth and any stray passers-by who read posts would do well not to take what I write too literally. 

Why am I telling you this? Because suddenly I have readers, "Fousands of 'em". It would seem that 10% of all the views that the blog has ever had occurred in June 2025. Now, clearly these aren't proper sentient people. They aren't even wargamers. I'm assuming they're AI bots expanding their 'learning' to cover my ramblings. Don't you find it worrying that our new overlords will treat all this made-up tosh with a much seriousness as they do a serious thing on a serious subject written in a serious way by the Scottish philosopher Jock 'Serious' McSerious? I know I do.

"If you can plan for war, why can't you plan for peace?"

Some readers may have wondered why no tribute has appeared here to Tony Benn. Well I must confess that I had somewhat ambivalent feelings towards the man. Whilst he was right about many things - he foresaw that technology would lead to the surveillance state that we now live in many decades ago - he never actually achieved very much. Compare that with the also recently deceased Bob Crow whose members are, as Ken Livingstone pointed out, just about the only working class people left with well paid jobs. And one can't help thinking that much of what he did was driven by ego and arrogance. But one does clearly admire the energy that he sustained across a long lifetime. I never met him although I did stand next to him to at the back of a public meeting addressed by Michael Foot during the 1983 general election campaign. I have however had several conversations with his son Hilary Benn MP who I must say is one of the nicest people that I have ever met, which given that he is a politician is no mean feat.

Last night I went to see Oyster Band at the City Varieties. They did a fine version of 'The Bells of Rhymney' and dedicated it not just to Pete Seeger, but also to Benn and Crow. It was an excellent concert as one would expect. John Jones has possibly the worst moves of any lead singer that I have ever seen and it was perhaps no surprise that their backing singer on the night, Rowan Godel, was also a rather stiff stage presence; nice voice though. Adrian Oxaal, formerly of James, was on cello.

And speaking of the interweb and how much it knows about us, I have just received an email from Booking.com purporting to predict my next travel destination. Most likely is apparently Dubai, of medium likelihood is Cardiff and least likely is Crawley. I'll give them the last one.

Pot2pouri

On Wednesday last week James and Peter were kind enough to praise my blog, Peter even going so far as to describe it as 'erudite'. Naturally since then I have had complete writer's block. However, I have begun to experience a gradual rising of my mojo so here we go again. But first, James has complained that I only showed a photo of Peter in my game report. To redress the balance here is one of James ready to take the initiative.

 

There have been some other things of note:

I went to see 'Behind the Candelabra' which has mysteriously only been released in cinemas outside of the US. Now I'm not saying that this because we Europeans are more sophisticated than the Yanks, but, er, well yes I am actually. I suspect that Americans are not yet ready to face the awful truth that Liberace was not only (plot spoiler) gay, but also (another plot spoiler) wore a wig. Anyway, Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are both excellent, but their thunder is stolen by Rob Lowe as a truly scary (and scary looking) plastic surgeon. For Leeds residents only, the bald version of Liberace looks just like the chap who sells the Big Issue outside HMV.

Presumably US citizens have got other things on their minds at the moment, having woken up to discover they are living in a police state.

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  • "I told you so."

I went to see a band in the pub who weren't the usual dad-rockers. This bunch were quite young and, whilst a covers band, took it all very seriously; and any band that finishes with Paranoid and Ace of Spades is OK with me. They did a fair enough version of Gimme Shelter which reminded me that it is almost exactly 40 years since I saw the Stones open with that at the Empire Pool, Wembley. Bugger me I'm old.