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No6

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  1. Which one's Guy Garvey? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpvZoyo4TOk
  2. I always thought that Housing Minister Grant Shapps was a bit of an idiot, today he tries his best to prove it with his "Mates Mortgages" (must appeal to the plebs with the type of language they understand). There again, he is only doing what is expected to be done to prop things up.
  3. They never mention number of sales, which I'm guessing are low. Lower sales levels can easily distort prices as there is no real lower entry level to the market right now what with FTB'e almost totally priced out. I suspect total sales are still running at about 30% of the peak in 2007 when light touch regulation, 125%, make up your income to whatever level you want mortgages were all the rage. Property must be a lot cheaper in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, etc and as the UK is part of the EU it must be an option for Brits to go and live there, provided they have job skills that can be transferred or a skill to make money wherever they live. Mind you, if the UK ever does pull out of the EU, it is just possible all those Brits living the British way of life in someone else's country and refusing to assimilate, might just be asked to leave. Parts of Southern Spain, or Britannia El Spania, would be deserted.
  4. 0.5%? Time to become a public sector banker then. Five senior RBS executives share pay and bonuses worth £21m http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/five-senior-rbs-executives-share-pay-and-bonuses-worth-21m-2245269.html It's a bit of a struggle to find evidence of current pay deals for the public sector, which may suggest there aren't any - pay freeze. A search reveals little but there are a number of longer term deals that ended in April 2011. Local Government already has a pay freeze in place and I suppose it is now possible that this will be extended to the NHS, police, etc. Along with education, these are the biggest public sector employers. I doubt the rest of the public sector is as generous with increments as the education sector seems to be, but it is possible that these are now being used to replace the lack of a pay increase? I suppose it depends on where the money comes from to fund it. Are increments paid out of the annual wage settlement or from another budget? I would have thought the latter, after all, a zero pay increase means no settlement, but some would still get increments in accordance with the terms of the contract of employment they started on. I can imagine that increments will be targeted soon. Who knows what to believe?
  5. Not entirely the case. There is a lot of fiction in the media right now about public sector pay which serves an important political purpose of distraction and divide and rule. Many of the pay rises that the public sector are getting right now are the tail end of 2-3 year deals, some of which were linked to the rate of inflation or x %, whichever is the greater in the final year of the deal. For example, I knew someone working in education who got a 4-5% (approx) pay rise a few years back because at the time the final year of the deal was linked to RPI. I suspect with the new Tory Government such linked to inflation deals will totally end. In fact, other than those in the lowest pay bracket, the Tories set a 2 year pay freeze, but existing deals would be honoured. I also read somewhere that the current best paid public servants are the bankers who were nationalised. Amazingly, their pay increases and bonuses are included as part of the public service now, but the media and those with a political agenda to attack public sector workers hardly report this at all. As for increments, public servants don't get these every year indefinately. They are usually part of the pay package when someone starts a job on a salary range within a job. Again, I know someone who works in public sector IT and their annual increment is linked to their career progression. They move up an increment the more skilled they become although again there is a maximum number of increments that can be attained, usually between 4-8. Many however, will get their increment regardless of achievement, but this often tends to be in the much lower paid jobs where career progression doesn't exist.
  6. 1960's Taiwanese all girl garage band. Morrissey should do an English version of the first song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzuVfRnmG-k
  7. Now here's a story. The Shaggs were an American all-female rock group formed in Fremont, New Hampshire in 1968. The band was composed of sisters Dorothy "Dot" Wiggin (vocals/lead guitar), Betty Wiggin (vocals/rhythm guitar), Helen Wiggin (drums), and later Rachel Wiggin (bass). The Shaggs were formed by Dot, Betty, and Helen in 1968 on the insistence of their father, Austin Wiggin, who believed that his mother foresaw the band's rise to stardom. The band's only studio album, Philosophy of the World, was released in 1969. The album failed to garner attention, though the band continued to exist as a locally popular live act. The Shaggs disbanded in 1975 after the death of Austin. The band was described in one Rolling Stone article as "...sounding like lobotomized Trapp Family singers." [1] As the obscure LP achieved recognition among collectors, the band was praised for their raw, intuitive composition style and lyrical honesty. Philosophy of the World was lauded as a work of art brut, and was later reissued, followed by a compilation album, Shaggs' Own Thing, in 1982. The Shaggs are now seen as a groundbreaking outsider music group, receiving praise from mainstream artists such as Kurt Cobain and also from Frank Zappa after he called the Shaggs "better than the Beatles".[2] The conceptual beginning of The Shaggs came from Austin Wiggin, Jr.'s mother. During Austin's youth she had predicted during a palmreading that he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after she had died, and that his daughters would form a popular music group. The first two predictions came true, so Austin set about making the third come true.[3] Austin withdrew his daughters from school, bought them instruments, and arranged for them to receive music and vocal lessons. The Wiggin sisters themselves never planned to become a music group, but as Dot later said, "[Austin] was something of a disciplinarian. He was stubborn and he could be temperamental. He directed. We obeyed. Or did our best."[4] Austin named The Shaggs after the then-popular shag hairstyle and as a reference to shaggy dogs.[4] In 1968, Austin arranged for the girls to play a regular Saturday night gig at the Fremont, New Hampshire Town Hall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shaggs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxPsXPCR5MU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ny2pV-CCxQ&feature=related
  8. Poly Styrene's last interview from just a few weeks ago found here (might not be available for long). http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011890d/A_Tribute_to_Poly_Styrene_of_XRay_Spex/
  9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1Esuqywo9k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOPGcQVWxEs&feature=related
  10. How naughty, where did you get that song. (part 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1c2OfAzDTI
  11. How naughty, where did you get that song. (part 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CyNvEfWoE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=021WZBh1R4I
  12. How naughty, where did you get that song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3t66Nrqteo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGJ8ixlfKUs
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