Thursday, March 30, 2006

Concert - and a little bit of politics.

Yesterday evening I accompanied DH to a concert at the Sage, Gateshead - our first visit. The performers were Remember Shakti. In case you don't, they are guitarist John McLaughlin, drummer Zakir Hussain, percussionist V. Selvaganesh, mandolin player U. Shrinivas and singer Shakar Mahadevan. I enjoyed the jazz/Indian fusion music more than I expected, and particularly liked the singer, who drew the tune in the air with his hand as he sang.
As many of the audience were wearing traditional Indian clothes, I was also able to enjoy seeing more square yards of beautiful silk than I have seen for a long time, some of it enhanced with amazing embroidery.

And a bit of politics -

Loans = peerages:
The treasurer of the Labour party said he didn't know about these loans, so who EXACTLY were they paid to, and how EXACTLY were they going to be repaid?
And historically, peerages have been given to people who help or do favours (sexual and otherwise) for the Crown (now the Government), so what EXACTLY is new here anyway?

ID cards:
Even if the government can find a company who can produce them (and "government computer project" has acquired its own expectations!), then so can anyone who wants to forge them.
It follows from this that there must be another reason for the imposition of ID cards by our ever-more controlling and centralising government; yet another encroachment on free speech and civil liberties.

Now - will Big Brother (and not the one on TV) require me to stop blogging, or will MI5 open a file on me? Assuming they can find out who I am, of course.

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