Birmingham City F.C. when they had supporters and not whingers.

 With apologies to my two lady regular readers the time has come once again to talk about that, to you, boring subject - football, and in particular the Blues. In the sidebar to this blog you will see a link to Singing ther Blues  which has declined in recent years due to the sad demise of many of its former members but remains the primary Blues fans site where regular discussion can be had on the Blues without the vitriol and piss taking which seems to plague some, and I emphasis some of the current crop of smart alecs on other Blues sites.
 One of those former regulars was JimHerriotSavedBalls who was a regular contributor with a massive archive of information, and a cheerful sense of humour, who for years served us up some superb picturs and newspaper articles on the team. Well, I was browsing youtube and suddenly there was a video from Jim. Wherever you are Jim you are sadly missed and we could do with a few more like you now. Cheers to you mate for all those happy days from Spion. Jim HerriotSavedBalls presents:-

Union Man.

 For those of you familiar with my earlier posts on the subject of the Trades Union Movement you will know my feelings on the matter. The one thing that I am proud about, above all others, and dear reader there is not a lot that I have been proud of in my life, except for my undying support over fifty seven years for the Blues, is the fact that I was one of the appellants who took Thatcher through the British and European courts for Banning TRADES UNION membership at GCHQ in 1984. Having won in the High Court where Judge Glidewell ruled that the government ban was unlawful, the usual strings of the British establishment were pulled and greased and we were subsequently defeated in the so called Court of Appeal, The Lords[1] and the European Court. We were subsequently vindicated however when the International Labour Organisation ruled in our favour and in 1997, almost the first act of the new Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, was to once again allow free Trades Union membership at GCHQ. We had Defeated Thatcher. The following is an extract taken from Wikipedia, to which I subscribe and to those of you who don't may I humbly suggest that you do support this encyclopedia of our modern age.

Trade union disputes

NUCPS banner on march in Cheltenham 1992

Main article: Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service

In 1984, GCHQ was the centre of a political row when the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher prohibited its employees from belonging to a trade union. It was claimed that joining a union would be in conflict with national security. A number of mass national one-day strikes were held to protest this decision, seen as a first step to wider bans on trade unions. Appeals to British Courts and European Commission of Human Rights^[23] were unsuccessful. The government offered a sum of money to each employee who agreed to give up their union membership. Appeal to the ILO resulted in a decision that government's actions were in violation of Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention.^[24] The ban was eventually lifted by the incoming Labour government in 1997, with the Government Communications Group of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union being formed to represent interested employees at all grades.^[25] In 2000, a group of 14 former GCHQ employees, who had been dismissed after refusing to give up their union membership, were offered re-employment, which three of them accepted.<sup>[26]

 Of course banners, brass bands and singing have long been part of the history of the Trade Union movement as has been these songs some traditional and some modern.</sup>

 

 

And today I discovered this tribute by Phil Ochs to the labouring men and women. Only this rather muted video is available on youtube but ther is a superb version on, "Sliced Bread Records - The Songs of Phil Ochs" by Pat Humphries.

This song was never recorded by Ochs and this recording was made on a tape recorder at a concert in New York City in January 1964, hence the poor quality. In recent years, in some places, it has become an anthem for the labour movement. As the recording is so poor I have listed the lyrics, with cord changes below, wich have been compiled by Trent Ochs.

Hands

By Phil Ochs, Arrangements & lyric changes by Jim Glover

G                      Bm            C              D 
I've seen the hands of laborers that lifted all the loads
        G                         Bm           C                      D
And the granite stuck to their fingers as they dug the canals and the roads
    Em                      Bm
Now they're cleared and the bridges span
C                          D
The river paused for a power dam
    G                   Bm      C                  D
And now the hand of the laborer is reaching out to you

Chorus:
       G           Em    C    D               G           Em 
Oh the hands hands hands that worked to build land, land, your land
    D            G         Em C D                     G
The labor of the woman and the man workin' with their hands

Hands, hands, hands a-workin' with their hands

I've seen the hands of the miners digging out the coal.
The black dust stuck to their fingers as they lived their life in a hole.
The rocks they're still under the ground, and now their mine is a-closin' 
down. 
And now the hand of the miner is reaching out to you. (Chorus)

Well I've seen the hands of the lumberjacks; forests swaying in the breeze.
And the splinters stuck to their fingers as lumber was torn from the trees.
And the wood that came from the timber tall built your buildings from
wall to wall.
And now the hand of the lumberjack is reaching out to you.

And I've seen the hands of the farmers plowin' across the fields.
And the topsoil stuck to their fingers as the land was split by the steel.
Just growing all they could grow, to fill your tables row after row.
And now the hand of the farmer is reaching out to you.

Oh the hands, hands, hands were working on the land, your land.
The labor of the woman and the man working with their hands.
Hands, hands, working with their hands.

 Notes [1] Such is the twisted mentality of the English legal system that all

 confidentiality was breached

 by them,two hours before we filed into the house

 to hear the verdict that was to affect our lives, as the press had been notified

 of the judgement and a sympathetic journo had phoned us to inform us that we had

 lost. 

 THE BASTARDS.

Phil Ochs Greatest Hits.

I bought Phil Ochs' first L.P. in the early sixties, not because I knew his music, but because of the. cover of the album. I wore what was then known as a "Donkey Jacket" and on the cover of this  album was this cool looking guy sitting on the ground with one, with a wrecked city around him and THE CND SYMBOL showing boldly. Although then I was theoretically and actually working as an electronic spy at GCHQ I had left wing views, hated the Tories, had canvassed for the losing Labour Party candidate in Cheltenham and supported and marched with CND.

 My two regular readers will know all about my career or failure at GCHQ as that is all listed in previous posts, but is immaterial to the subject of this blog.

 So I brought the L.P. It's contents stunned me. Dylan was out and people were knocked out by his protest songs but this guy was different. He was a poet, a visionary whose voice was different,but not great, but the immediate impact was that here was a guy who had thrown himself into every line that he wrote with the intensely personal almost spiritual sense of a prophet. In fact he cared so much about what was going wrong with this world that he stood up as a patriotic American and said what is going on here is UN-AMERICAN. We are electrocuting people for crimes that they may not have committed, we are fighting war after war after war and what have we gained? Black people are being treated like vermin and other terrible crimes are being committed in the name of democracy and THIS IS WRONG and I am going to say so through my poetry, my voice and my guitar. There was no selling out, like some others, He was in it for good or good and nobody was going to stop him except himself. No thing and nobody frightened him and he really believed that through the power of song he could change this rotten, corrupt and sordid world in which we are bystanders and puppets being used by the dark side.

 I will touch briefly on a few other things, but this is not the start of a biography because an excellent one already exists, called "There but for Fortune" which was written by Michael Schumacher. This blogger refuses to link to the minimum wage, non-union owners of Amazon but new or good used copies can be found at this British book sellers site. Towards the end of his short life an album was made called, "Phil Ochs Greatest Hits", an ironic title because he never had one, and on the back were the words,  "Fifty Phil Ochs Fans Can't be Wrong".

Note the Elvis gold lame suit. On the L.P. are some songs of rememberance of his youth, some dream songs and a haunting piece on the death of the actor James Dean. Two years ago I liaised with his bother Michael Ochs, who has his own place in a quite different hall of fame, about getting a British  television company to show a bio-doc which had been made about Phil, again with  the title, "There but for Fortune" . My efforts, unfortunately we're not successful but for those of you who are sassy enough this excellent film of his life, with comments from a surprisingly diverse range of people , is available in the USA and on eBay etc. but only in the format 1 version , which is not compatible with European CD players but it has also been shown on American TV on the PSB channel.

Okay enough of my rubbish here are a few of his great songs, with some cover versions by other artists:-

  

                     No More Songs

                                                               Jim Dean of Indiana

                                                    Annie DiFranco - When I'm Gone

 

Joan Baez -There But For Fortune

                                                                                             I Ain't Marching Anymore

                                               Judy Collins - In the heat of the Summer

 There will be more.

Britain still ruled and run by elitist establishment

 This blogger is not surprised to hear that the top jobs in the public sector, including judges, civil servants and the heads of important public bodies are still held by a public school and Oxbridge elite . Thee BBC has in recent years, unfortunately reverted to its former role of becoming the voice of this establishment and it's news broadcasters, editors and presenters as well as it's top executives and board are part of it to their eternal shame.
 There is however one important omission from this  clique at the Corporation which is their website, which, on the whole, remains balanced and fair in its news output. My experience of decades in the IT and communications industry is that the vast majority of the techies involved are not from this elite and that those that are are of a far more liberal breed , such as TIM Berners Lee who gave the internet to the world for free, and those others in the open-source community who contribute Unix and the like,  unlike those who have since taken it over such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon who are naked tax avoiding old time capitalist crooks. It seems that the elite either do not understand the workings of this strange and technical underground, where people are totally dedicated or do not wish to work the massively long hours involved. This blogger says bollocks to them all and on with the revolution.

Neil Young pays tribute to one of the greatest poets that ever lived - Phil Ochs

Random pictures of the world that is not the Eden that it should be. KRO.

                                                                       SMILE

                                                YOU MIGHT CONFUSE SOMEONE

               

                                    

Beheaded and Beholden

Pete Seeger, "When will they ever learn" . The answer sadly seems to be never. I am anti-war, but not a pacifist and would have signed up to fight Hitler and his wickedness. Those students of history know that the Middle East has been a continuing cycle of an eye for an eye and the west blinkered support for Israel terrorists whilst aiding and abetting corrupt and cruel dictatorships and unelected, so called kingdoms, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt shames us.
Millions of Arabs, including hundreds and thousand of women and children have been burnt or blown to death whilst little outrage has been expressed. The Americans, with British support have bombed ISis and torn their bodies apart and incinerated them alive and then go into a frenzy of outrage when one poor unfortunate soul is brutally killed in retaliation. This is gross hypocrisy and their revenge will probably soon hit the streets of England and America.
The irony of all this is that Hague and Kerry covertly supplied ISIs with arms when they were attacking Assad, in the same way that they armed Sadam Hussein, when he was fighting Iran. For all our bombing and loss of British troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and the bombing of Libya these states are now controlled by tyrannies far worse than those we spilled blood over in our sad attempts to oust them. The prize for our failure in these areas has been to maintain control of their oil but we have lost. ISIS have established a kaliphate which we will not be able to defeat and Iraq will become three states controlled by the Kurds, The Sunnis and Isis and the third controlled by the corrupt Shia, whom we have backed. What has happened is a failure for the west and the loss of much British blood. 

                                                                           

Israel's hold on the United Kingdom.

My honest belief, as someone who served in British a Intelligence for  over twenty years, is that at some stage during the creation of the State of Israel there was at least a four party secret agreement made guaranteeing the preservation of the Israeli state. The agreement included, certainly the supply of arms and intelligence to them, and possibly military intervention to support them, if it looked as if they were about to be over run. The four parties would most definitely have included the State of Israel, the USA, France and the United Kingdom. Whilst this was completely understandable in the context of the destruction of the Jews by Hitler during the war, as Isreal is now regarded, even by American conservative commentators, as a fascist state, which is suppressing internal dissent then now is the time to get real and condemn Israel for its actions and begin sanctions against them.
 One early indication of  this agreement probably occurred in 1956 when France and the UK , under the cover of protecting the Suez Canal from nationalisation under Nasser, launched a military operation against Egypt as a cover for an Israeli invasion. Although Britain and France withdrew because of American and Russian opposition,and enormous domestic pressure, the Israelis  continued the war and achieved their objectives. Excluding the Initial Israeli overthrow of Palestine this was to be the first Arab Israeli war.  The American objection to the French and British action was a reaction to what they considered to be a post colonial action and does not nullify the assurances that they have given, that I was suggesting in my first paragraph,and their massive political, economic and military support for the State of Israel.
  I have come to this conclusion as the only possible explanation for the unconditional support that, "The West" has given to the Israelis since the formation of that state and the deafening sound of silence to the war crimes committed by Israel recently in Gaza whilst these same hypocrites have condemned Russian action in The Ukraine and other actions sadly currently occurring in the middle-east. This western support for Israel  and the gun runners and torturers of Saudi Arabia is all part of a wider policy of military and political action in Libya, Iraq  and elsewhere  in the Middle East which has resulted in death and injury to hundred of thousands of Arabs and may yet result in unforeseen consequences which could affect us all.
 For non-regular readers of this blog see, in other posts, my personal experience of the supply of British intelligence to the Israelis and our government's continuing policy towards the, "Dirty Arab"  - with the exception of Saudi Arabia which runs a cruel and sadistic closed and non-democratic state and has funded Isis and the overthrow of the democratically elected Egyptian government.

The British Buggery Corporation (BBC)

 It has long been my view that the BBC is the outlet of the British  establishment, with it's grovelling sycophantic treatment of our hugely dysfunctional royal family and failure to criticise or challenge  aspects of government policy, such as it's recent reticence to denounce Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
 But, it would appear that like the British establishment, it to is rotten and corrupt at its core. Recent cases of paedophilia have largely involved BBC entertainers and many of the offences have been committed on BBC premises. There are also huge question marks over the excessive salaries that it pays it's senior executives and media darlings (Wogan, Clarkson, Forsyth and Evans come to mind). Most of its output supports right wing views and it's stars are not known for any left of centre leanings and many have been involved in tax avoidance schemes.
  And yet it fails dismally to provide the pluralistic view of the millions of viewers who pay the licence fee. Indeed in recent years it has lapsed back into promoting the Oxbrige set as the core of its programme makers and presenters and it's sad attempts at political correctness has imposed on us a mediocre and lack lustre brood of female presenters. The institution needs root and branch transformation to represent the pluralistic society that we live in and a complete review of its expenditure and an opt out of the licence fee for those who do not watch its flacid pro-establishment propaganda.

No More Songs.

 WHERE HAVE ALL THE POETS GONE?

NMS03.2014Front PageLeave a Comment

“Back in the day” is a phrase which is usually employed by people who oppose change simply on the basis that it makes them feel old. This time though, it would be appropriate to use the phrase, simply on the basis, that things really were different back in the day.

Once upon a time, it was always the case that any kind of significant – and sometimes not-so-significant – rally or event would attract at least one angry young singer, prepared to thrust themselves to the forefront of the protest, often risking arrest or assault as they made their point. Phil Ochs, of course, was one such singer. Phil would travel anywhere for a cause he believed in, but where are the Phil Ochs’ of today?

It’s unfair to say there aren’t any angry young men, willing to carry their guitar to a place they’ve never heard of, to support people they don’t know in a cause most of the world don’t even know exists, but it’s a rarity in today’s social media-driven political landscape. In the same way that most politicians are now almost exclusively professional politicos from the moment they can avoid answering a direct question, so it’s true that most protests are done in the largely faceless world of Facebook and Twitter.

Feel the need to add your voice to a cause? Don’t worry about pouring into the streets, simply log on and add your name to a fairly pointless list on a fairly pointless website. It will be ignored, but at least you’ll know you tried, right?

Wrong.

The world doesn’t get changed by internet petitions, it gets changed by direct action. That’s not to say you have to throw petrol bombs at lines of police in riot gear, or you have to smash every window of the UN building, it just means having the will to get off your backside and attend rallies in support of worthy causes, to lobby your own Mayor/Governor/MP/Whoever to support the cause, and to try and effect the change directly. If you can play the guitar and sing, whilst you do it, all the better.

Just as Joe Hill died when he took a volley of bullets to the chest, not because he murdered someone, but because he believed in fighting on the side of right, Phil Ochs died not because he put a belt around his neck and closed a door, but because he’d fought and fought, and ultimately couldn’t get past the fact that he felt he’d failed. Their deaths, and countless others, guarantees the rest of us the right to legitimate protest.

If we don’t exercise that right, then we probably deserve all we get.

The above was nicked from nomoresongs.com . People like FatBudhha and InkyBlue would understand what this means. There is no more honourable thing that I have ever done than March to Protest, with brass bands playing and the banners waving. As Ochs' said, "In an ugly world protest is beautiful"

KEEP RIGHT ON

Seventy today and fifty seven years of supporting my beloved Blues. It came at a formative time in my life and my loyalty has never wavered. Supporting,  Blues whose supporters are mad, endearing, loyal and above all blessed with a marvellous sense of humour has been one constant in my life and also a great lesson. Not the chords of fame for us, just the occasional celebration, for a promotion and two league cup wins but mainly we struggle - but the supporters remain loyal and I have seen the opposition applauded from the field when they have roundly beaten us. Booing our team is very rare because they are OUR boys in Blue and we support them through thick and thin. There are no other supporters in the land quite like the Blues brothers and sisters.
 The current manager, like the supporters is barmy, but he is earning his spurs and appreciates the encouragement that he is given and is in love with the fans and even the doubters are slowly being reconciled to the fact that he works all hours and travels the country in an effort to keep the team going and that he will  stick through the bad deal that he has been given. The owner is in jail and comes from a long tradition of rogues who have owned and abused the club - but eventually we, in turn,  abuse them and they disappear back to Honk Kong or London, like a couple of spivs we had, and, who knows, hopefully one day, we will be owned by proper Brummies. In my back lawn a piece of the pitch is planted and thriving after it was torn up when we had a riot to get rid of the London spivs. Although I hasten to add that I might have been the receiver of stolen goods but I didn't do the nicking.
 Most of my life I have tried to live by my own standards and have fought against evil, oppression and those terrible but grotesquely linked evil twins, poverty and war.
 Most of these fights I have lost but I will never give up and had one fine win when, over thirteen years,  some colleagues and I refused to be bullied by old mother Thatcher and give up our rights to belong to a free Trade Union of our choice. We took her through the British and European Courts, where we lost, thanks to the establishment beaks, who administer what is laughingly called justice in our land. One of her grave failings is that she had no sense of true justice and history and failed  to take into account that a grievous wrong will always be overturned. The Trade Union movement marched and rallied in our support and in 1997 almost the first act of the Labour Government was to restore our rights.  She was defeated.
 I have been lucky with a wonderful family and now four grandchildren by my side. If we are to give those children and all children a future of peace and happiness we have to get off of our backsides and march and protest about what is happening in our world and strive to keep our beautiful planet from the evil destroyers and exploiters. All of us have that choice and must vote for the triumph of humanity over evil.
 One young man has inspired me most of my life, since I bought his first L.P. back in the sixties, when we thought that we could change the world. His name is Phil Ochs and he tirelessly fought against discrimination, the Vietnam war and the overthrow of President Allende in Chile. He thought that the power of song could change mankind and when he suffered defeat after defeat he spiralled downwards into depression,and all that goes with it, and sadly hung himdelf. But his music lives on and this is what I intend to do and a few others too I hope.

Palestinian blood all over the hands of the United Kingdom Government.

The emblem of (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A model of the GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Having worked in British intelligence I can vouch for the fact that HMG passes all of its intelligence on Hamas and the PLO directly to the Israelis. To their everlasting shame this has been going on for decades.
 The philosophy of the "Dirty Arab" has never left the Foreign Office since T.E. Lawrence's time and we have betrayed them for most of the last two centuries and the Balfour Declaration was all part of the plan. The fact that the Israelis are war criminals and terrorists is disregarded.
 I was once posted to the Middle East section at GCHQ and although all of the Arab countries were covered our non-democratic autocratic mates in states such as  Saudi Arabia and the other oil producing states and the State of Israel were not.
 Although I was tasked with covering Egypt (not friends of ours at the time with Nasser in charge) I produced an intelligence report which was not published. I enquired why this had happened and a few days lated was told, by the head of the Middle East section (M.J.) that it contained sensitive information about Kissinger and the Israelis and could not be published for the following reasons:-

  a) Kissinger had a veto over British intelligence containing detail of his activities that he did not want revealed.
b) Copies of all information on the Middle East was passed to the Israelis.

 I asked for an immediate transfer on the grounds of conscience and one day will take GCHQ to court for not revealing to me, on my appointment, the above facts as I may have unwittingly been responsible for the deaths of Palestinian people.
 It is time that the British Government roundly condemned the deliberate killing of children and women in Gaza and the stealing of Palestinian territory. It is also time that their underhand collusion, with a terrorist state, was revealed.
 Also the media in the UK will not report real information such as this this because most of them report to MI5 or MI6 or comply with the demands of the authorities so that YOU are not allowed to know the TRUTH.