Balls reveals Economic Plans....George Osborne's

For the last 18 months Labour have been saying that the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition has been cutting too fast, they have stood along those in the public sector about their pay conditions etc. All the while many of us have asked what are their alternatives for this parliament then.

When finally the Guardian have got to the bottom of the issue in an interview with the Shadow Chancellor today.

Labour's alternative it seems is do exactly what is being done.

Balls says:

"My starting point is, I am afraid, we are going to have keep all these cuts. There is a big squeeze happening on budgets across the piece. The squeeze on defence spending, for instance, is £15bn by 2015. We are going to have to start from that being the baseline. At this stage, we can make no commitments to reverse any of that, on spending or on tax. So I am being absolutely clear about that."

He also says:

"It is now inevitable that public sector pay restraint will have to continue through this parliament. Labour cannot duck that reality and won't. There is no way we should be arguing for higher pay when the choice is between higher pay and bringing unemployment down.

"I know there will be some people in the trade union movement and the Labour party who will think of course Labour has got to oppose that pay restraint in 2014 and 2015. That is something we cannot do, should not do and will not do."

So now we as Lib Dems know just what we have achieved. We have tamed the Conservative plans to make things fairer for those who are worst off than they initially planned and we have done it so well that the Labour party cannot improve on what we have managed to get unto the table.

Therefore plaudits to Danny Alexander and David Laws in the early days for setting up a fairness in the plan to help the UK recovery. For making tough yet fair decisions. Even Ed Balls agrees.

Not all the world speaks English (American) #GOP

Considering that Nick Clegg can speak Dutch, Spanish, German and French as well as English of course which while this polyglotism is astounding is not shunned by British voters the same is not the case it would seem in America.

First of all there was shocking adverts by a group supporing Ron Paul about the fact that former US Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman might be able to communicate in Mandarin.



Now the fact that an American who spent 2 years in French in his youth can speak, shock horror, French has been attacked in this add from Newt Gingrich.



It is bad enough that most Brits think they should be able by with just English. I've spoken enough conversational Spanish, German and Russian to get by with greeting etc. but to use being able to speak to some of the 94% of the world who don't speak English as their first language, or some of the 75-90% who speak it as a second language is an atrocious sign of how little America and especially Newt Gingrich cares for foreign affairs.

The attacks on Chinese speakers of which 2 million existed in the 2000 US Census and French 1.6m shows that Gingrich and Paul are even not aware of the continuing diversity of the constituency that they wish to represent.

1896 Summer Olympics Athens: I Olympiad

Over the Fridays between now and the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Games I'll be taking a little look at the summer Olympiads that have gone before.

Nations 14
Competitors 241
Sports 9
Events 43

6-15 April 1896 in Athens, Greece

So to kick off it is back in 1896 to Athens where Baron Pierre de Coubertin vision which he first had in 1889 to revive the ancient Greek idea of an Olympics. He wasn't the first as Thomas Arnold head of Rugby School had first come up with the idea of the Much Wenlock games (after where one of the London 2012 mascots gets its name) in 1850.

• The original Olympic nations were Greece (the hosts)
• Australia (although not independent until 1901 the 800m and 1500m golds of Edwin Flack are listed for them)
• Austria (although part of the Austira-Hungary empire their results are listed separately)
• Bulgaria (they claim that the Swiss born gymnast Charles Champaud who was living in Bulgaria was competing for them)
• Chile (who had one athlete Luis Subercaseaux in the 100, 400 and 800m)
• Denmark
• France
• Germany
• Great Britian and Ireland
• Hungary (as with Austria above, but also including athletes from Vojvodina, now Serbia, in their team results)
• Italy (although their most prominent athlete Carlo Airoldo was deemed professional and excluded they also had a shooter Rivabella)
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United States of America

As you can tell from some of the above comments there was little organisation as such. Indeed some of the olympians happened to be in Europe and turned up to take part.

The sports were:

Contestants lines up for the 100m

Athletics with 12 events

• 100m (when Francis Lane (USA) won the first heat on day one he became the first Olympic winner he came 3rd in the final)
• 400m
• 800m
• 1500m
• 110m hurdles
• Marathon (a debut event of 40km from Marathon to the Olympic Stadium)
• High Jump
• Pole Vault
• Long Jump
• Triple Jump (James Connolly (USA) on winning became the first modern Olympic Champion)
• Shot Put
• Discus (part of the ancient games but never before part of an international competition)

USA won 9 of the Silver Medals (for winning), Australia 2 and Greece only the Marathon.

Cycling had 6 events mostly contested at the velodrome.

• Road Race (87km)
• Sprint (2km)
• Time Trial (1/3km once around the track)
• 10km
• 100km
• 12 hour race

There were only 19 cyclists from 5 countries taking part with 4 wins for France (three of which were by Paul Masson), 1 each for Greece and Austria.

Fenching held three events in sabre, foil and masters foil and the spoils were 2 for Greece, 1 France.

Carl Schuhmann taking part in the vault

Gymnastics comprised a total of eight events (the first five are familiar, the last two are now part of the team overall)

• Horizontal bar
• Parallel bars
• Pommel horse
• Rings
• Vault
• Rope climbing ( to climb a height of 14 m (only achieved by 2) with style and time deciding factors to split equal heights)
• Team parallel bars
• Team horizontal bar

Germany won five of the events, Greece 2 and Switzerland the remaining one.

Shooting  comprised 5 events 

• 200m miltary rifle (Greece filled the top 5 places)
• 200m free rifle
• 25m miltary pistol
• 25m rapid fire pistol
• 30m free pistol

Greece won three of the events with USA winning the other 2.

Swimming all the events took place in the open sea at the Bay of Zea

• 100m freestyle
• 500m freestyle
• 1200m freestyle ( the final race and Alfréd Hajós (Hun) who won the 100m and Paul Neumann (Aut) who won the 500m both entered with mixed results. Hajós won and Neumann DNF)
• 100m sailors freestyle ( this was only open to sailors in the Greek navy and the winning time was 1 minute slower that the open event)

Winners Hungary 2, Austria 1 and Greece one for a Greek only event.

Tennis had only men's singles and men's doubles. John Boland of Great Britain won both the doubles with Friedrich Traun of Germany.

Weightlifting was still young event in 1896 and the rules are different from today so there was the one handed and the two handed lift. Launceston Elliot of GB won the one handed and Viggo Jensen of Denmark the two handed, with each man coming second in the other event.

Wrestling there were no weight classes back in 1896 just one open Greco-Roman event won by German Carl Schuhmann.

So there you have it the nations and sports that first graced the Olympics. Some recognisable some very different to the sports we know today.


See also:

• II Paris 1900
• III St. Louis 1904
• Intercalated Athens 1906
• IV London 1908
• V Stockholm 1912
• VII Antwerp 1920
• VIII Paris 1924

Dixville Notch call it a tie

Picture from CBS

The first vote in the New Hapmshire Primary is in. The small villgae of Dixville Notch right up against the Canadian border traditionally votes at midnight. It's 9 voters have made it a tie in the Republican nomination between Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman with 2 votes each. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich picked up a vote each. The other three votes went to President Obama.

The village has 2 registered Democrats and 3 registered Republics with 4 who do not declare a party.

200 Days to go Olympic Countdown

In just 200 days time the waiting will all be over. The countdown since the announcement in 2005 that the games of the 30th* Summer Olympiad had been awarded to London.

Therefore as we are in 2012 with less than 30 weeks to go you may be asking what are the rules of Taekwondo,  or how many races are in an Olympic sailing regatta, or who is the most winning water polo team (the last is Hungary). So where can you find all these answers and more?

Well one book I've picked up recently is by David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton and covers everything from history, basics of the events, the ceremonial, how various events are scored and some of the heroes down through the years. Called "How to Watch the Olympics"  it is the armchair spectators guide to all that will be going on across London and indeed further afield between 27 July and 12 August (actually the football kicks off on the 25th). It may not be the most thorough of guides into the history, nor into the rules of the various games. But it is a gallimaufry that gives enough of a a taste of every aspect for a non-sport mad viewer, such as myself, an insight into everything enough to get enjoyment out of the events as they unwind.

If you want to invest in one book that is going to help you understand everything that the Olympics has to offer (because I can't be everywhere) this is certainly a book that will help you learn a little bit that even the BBC commentary team may not be able to fit into their commentary. But then again the number of hours they have to fill they may well have a copy with each one of them as well.

* There are three Olympiad where a sport never took part, the VI Berlin, the XII Tokyo, then awarded to Helsinki and the XIII London. These were all cancelled due to the World Wars.

Apparently I'm a leper now #lgbt

According to a conference that is being held in Orangefield Presbyterian Church I am a leper. The conference in organised by Core Issues who encourage reparative therapy for LGBT people who struggle to reconcile this with their faith.

The opening quote inside their literature make horrific reading (emphasis mine)

Failure to live out the reality of Jesus Christ’s presence in the common life of the church with those who struggle with same sex sins is a disease of epic proportions, a malignancy that
spreads throughout the Body and resurfaces as the Evangelical, Biblebelieving church attempts to deal with other sin issues. This failure is merely symptomatic of other deeper issues within the body, diseases that are not so easily identifiable nor that carry the same stigma or bigotry: spiritual complacency and ambivalence, hypocrisy, unaccountability and Biblical ignorance.”
- The Lepers Among Us

Of course where does that stigma and bigotry come from?

This has spurred me to write the following email to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland's Board of Social Witness and the congregations involved.

As someone baptised into Trinity Presbyterian Church, Bangor where I currently attend I am appalled to learn that the Rev Jim Reynolds is holding a conference entitled:

The Leper Among Us: Homosexuality and Life in the Church 

on the premises of Orangefield Presbyterian Church and on the Sunday shall be preaching at Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church.

The title of such a conference victimises and diminishes LGBT people which seems to be in direct contravention of recommendation 2 of the Board of Social Witness's Social Issues and Resources Panel Pastoral guidelines Homosexuality (March 2007).

Fails to "encourage our congregations to ’Create an environment of love, acceptance, patience, forgiveness and grace." as in recommendation 4 as above.

In creates the feeling of unsafe spaces in these two congregations and potentially others in the PCI, when recommendation 5 called to create a safe space, which I believe has not yet been achieved.

The controversial methods espoused by Rev. Reynolds are things that I would never expect to a member congregation of the General Assembly to host. As one of the LGBT attendees of the PCI (currently not a member due to your guideline) maybe I am a Leper in your eyes. I am already excluded from full membership. Maybe you would want me to sound a bell and stay outside the building on a Sunday. Maybe you'd like me to get an extra long lead so that I can play my bass guitar to help lead worship so as I do not come inside the precincts of the building.
Of maybe both the congregations involved will take the time available to live up to recommendation 3 in the pastoral guidelines:

encourage repentance for the occasions when persons with same sex attractions have been treated in ways severely lacking in grace within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and that the Assembly encourage an attitude of grace and mercy to be actively shown to all who struggle with different aspects of their sexuality.

I'm hurt by the failure of adherence to your own pastoral guidelines. I'm hurt by the lack of action on those recommendations from 2007. I'm hurt by the treatment of LGBT members by the congregations to be associated with someone who names them lepers within. These actions are lacking in the grace that the Board of Social Witness recommendations sought to deal with. 

Daddy Addams 100 *click click* (no not Gomez)

They're creepy and they're kooky, 
Mysterious and spooky, 
They're all together ooky, 
The Addams Family. 

Today is the centenary of daddy Addams, that is Charles Addams the man who drew Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Pugsley, Wednesday, Lurch, Grandmama and Thing. He was born in Westfield, New Jersey on this day 100 years ago. He father who had studied to be an architect encouraged him to draw.

In 1933 he joined the layout team of True Dectective magazine and spent his time touching up pictures of dead corpses, removing the blood from them. He complained (quite correctly) that a lot of the corpses were more interesting as they were. In this day  no doubt somebody would point out that the title True Detective was incorrect as vital clues were missing through the blood trail and the photoshopping that would now be going on would have to seize.

However, he started to contribute cartoons to The New Yorker from 1933 and in 1938 the first image of what would become The Addams Family first appeared, a family based on corpses and the undead of various types. They appeared as 150 unrelated single panel cartoons in the magazine. Of them Addams said:

Gomez and Pugsley are enthusiastic. Morticia is even in disposition, muted, witty, sometimes deadly. Grandma Frump is foolishly good-natured. Wednesday is her mother's daughter. A closely knit family, the real head being Morticia—although each of the others is a definite character — except for Grandma, who is easily led. Many of the troubles they have as a family are due to Grandma’s fumbling, weak character. The house is a wreck, of course, but this is a house-proud family just the same and every trap door is in good repair. Money is no problem.

They became more widely known through their adaptation into the 1964-66 ABC TV series, during which run The New Yorker editor William Shawn refused to debase his magazine by publishing any cartoon linked to a TV show. Other Addams cartoons were published during this time.

They were brought to live in that first TV adaptation by John Astin as Gomez (the adoptive father of a certain Hobbit), Carolyn Jones as Morticia, Jackie Coogan (who had been Charlie Chaplin's The Kid) as Uncle Fester, Ted Cassidy as Lurch, Lisa Loring as Wednesday, Ken Weatherwax as Pugsley and Blossom Rock as Grandmama. And have since appeared as two animated TV series, a second TV series, a TV reunion film and the Film series, there is also now a musical.

Addams did draw other cartoons but it is the family that bears his name who he will always be remembered for. He died in 1988 in after suffering a heart attack after parking his car.

So it is only fitting to get your fingers ready to click along: