A couple of blasts from the past, specifically the start of my gig going years. TISM were absolutely mad, and the HLAH cover of I'm on Fire rocks.
The Cash version is also worthy, but I can't find a video of that one.
And one of these is fantastically mindblowing. Take your pick which is which.
We went to Tom Jones on Monday. The man has a new gospel album out, and he is even better live than on the album. The venue was Union Chapel, which happens to be both intimate (seating about 700) and down the road from our house. Bonus.
He still has all his top notes, and he is 70. I had no idea that he can go low as well - he can sing about as deep as I can, which means he has at least three octaves of pure power. Truly phenomenal. The video above doesn't quite capture his presence, he owns the stage.
If you were to be extremely vocally retentive you could observe that his tone is a touch huskier than in his younger years. But the counter argument is that he is enough of a legend that the change in tone makes him even better - Johnny Cash's American Recordings series is something similar.
As an example of how enduring he is: he introduced one song by talking about performing it with Elvis after hours in Elvis's hotel room, when they were both doing Vegas back in the 60s and 70s. Elvis!
An additional bonus of the evening was Lauren Pritchard, one of the introductory acts.
She also does a nice cover of Waterfalls by TLC.
Following up his 2009 video compilation, check out the latest Remi Galliard vid below:
The Hitcher, 2007 remake. Usually remakes are not as good as the originals, and in this case the original has Rutger Hauer so major kudos there, but this version still has some genuine jump / horror moments.
I just watched Sean Bean - the title villain - take out a rural police force complete with helicopter, to a soundtrack of Nine Inch Nails' Closer. O for Awesome. And thanks to the magic of youtube** , you can too.
Sean Bean has a wonderfully varied filmography. For all of his appearances in masterpieces - the Lord of the Rings, he also features in a hell of a lot of guilty pleasures - Death Race 2, Equilibrium, Silent Hill, and Ronin. The Hitcher definitely falls into the latter category, and it is awesome.
**Warning - the link contains strong language.
So, in line with the Calculated Risk analysis from my previous post, the graph below shows recovery from the last three UK employment recessions, with the current employment recession shown in red. Click on the graph for an easier to read version. A couple of points:
1) I couldn't get hold of UK employment data by quarter prior to 1978, and
2) This employment recession doesn't factor in the impact of the UK public sector job cuts, just the drop in private sector employment from 2008 to date. The public sector hasn't been cut as yet, but the evil lizard Tories will be announcing their comprehensive spending review tomorrow which will set out the full extend of the upcoming public sector job losses.
PWC stated last week that half a million public sector jobs could be cut, with an equal number of private sector jobs in related industries going as well. Joy...
The graph below is taken from Calculated Risk, and shows US employment loss (and subsequent recovery) for all recessions from WW2 onward.
The red line is the movement in US employment from 2007 to date. I haven't been able to find analysis like this for the UK or NZ employment markets, but it is a pretty damning picture of the current US employment market.
The singing kicks off about a minute in, and the first of his epic low notes is at 1:40.
I want to be able to make this noise. I am not sure where I would make it, and who would enjoy listening, but I want.
The Tories announced means testing of child benefits at their party conference the other day. This child benefit is about £1,700 per year for a couple of kids, and is a universal benefit. And given that this universal benefit is a major lever in getting the middle class to support the concept of a welfare state in the UK, the Tories figure that if they can remove this benefit they will reduce support for the welfare state.
At a high level this is quite a coherent strategy.**
However: the means testing announced by the Tories is complete and immediate loss of benefit for anyone earning over around £45k per year. So if you have a single income family unit earning £50k they lose £1,700, but if you have a two income family unit where the primary earner earns £40k and the secondary part time earner earns £20k for a combined family income of £60k, the family retains the £1,700 child benefit in its entirety.
There is no mention of tapering, big economic fail. An example of tapering would be a loss of child benefit equal to the amount earned over £45k, so at £45k you would lose zero child benefit, at £46k you would lose £1,000 of child benefit, and at £46,700 you would lose the child benefit in its entirety. My example of tapering is abrupt, but would avoid the current situation where someone earning £44,900 retains £1,700 of child benefit, and someone earning £45,100 retains £0 of child benefit (so is actually worse off).
When pressed on why the government isn’t means testing the entire family unit for the allowance, the Tories said that would be ‘too hard to implement, and would require major overhaul of the tax code’.
Boo fucking hoo. You want to implement a cut on the welfare state more drastic than anything enacted by Thatcher, that is the prerogative of being the ruling party (or at least the dominant partner in the ruling coalition). But you can’t get out of doing your homework to make the policy equitable by saying that is too hard. Go back to school and learn how to do numbers.
Oh, and the policy looks like it is disproportionately severe on widowed parents. Whoops.
When the general public duly erupted in the oh so predictable backlash (“when I said cut welfare, I meant cut welfare for other people”), the Tories responded by announcing a tax break for married couples / civil union partners.
This is social engineering in favour of smug marrieds / smug civil unioniseds, so raised my hackles a little. (I could pontificate about how your marital status shouldn’t be used as a proxy for tax policy, but that is verging on a philosophical debate rather than a factual debate. If you disagree with me I am not going to change your mind, ergo discussion is pointless)
But don’t worry about people going out and getting married for the tax break, because this tax break is…… wait for it…… £150 per year, offsetting 9% of the child benefit cut.
And there are murmurings of RPI + 3% average fare increases on the railways. Fare increases for the past few years have been set at RPI + 1%, and the Lib Dems campaigned on RPI -1% (ie fare cut in real terms). A couple of major problems here:
This is an indirect tax on rail commuters, who are reasonably likely to have just been affected by the removal of the child benefit as above, and
Depending on where the commuter is travelling this fare increase may go straight into the pocket of the private sector franchise operator, so the government doesn’t receive the full benefit of this tax. Economic lunacy.
I don’t mind parties making shit up when they are in opposition. All the opposition party has to do, and is required to do in order to regain power (assuming that the populace become disenchanted with the ruling party over time), is remind people that they exist and they are different to the governing party. The Tories could announce a policy of zero income tax and flat 30% consumption tax when they were in opposition and I wouldn’t be particularly bothered, just so long as they replace this with a less socially reprehensible policy when they seize power.
Announce fringe policies when in opposition, tack to the centre when assuming power. Everyone does it, nothing to see here.
To announce inequitable and makeshift policies like the three above when you are in power (well, announce two policies and release one rumour)? That is intellectual laziness.
To preside over the release of three intellectually lazy ideas in as many days? That is just plain sloppy.
I mean, the Tory politicos will have a squad of economists who should have called bullshit on this.
Or do the top dogs get together at their party conference, engage in unseemly behaviour and think up some wild ideas whilst under the influence of grade A pharmaceuticals, call said hallucinogenic ideas policy, and announce policy without running policy past any tax wonks?
**Note I said coherent, not desirable or compassionate. Thus methinks the overall coherent strategy was thought up long ago, back when the Tories were drooling in anticipation of single party rule. Suckers.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, busking outside Embankment tube with Balicky Bon. Holy shit these guys are awesome. I have seen them in concert a couple of times, nice to see them staying in touch with their (busking) roots.
One tell of an awesome live performer is whether they can recreate their studio sound whilst live, and for bonus points while acoustic. Here is the album version of Balicky Bon , and it sounds pretty similar to my ear....
So, I finally found a reasonable quality live recording of Thing Well Made, and there is even a hi def option (in youtube, possibly not in the embedded file below). Shake and bake baby, shake and bake.
And for someone a little less musical but who always makes me smile:
I bought a bike a couple of months back, and have been cycling from canonbury to victoria - about half an hour each way, with a slight incline down in the morning. The route I follow sweeps past Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall and the pelican pond in St James Park, so there is always something nice to look at.
Plus, there is a coffee cart en route with arguably the best coffee in London, which breaks up the morning commute nicely.
Thus far I have achieved the following milestones:
Had my bike stolen from within the communal area of our apartment block 36 hours after purchasing,
Had Marie find it on gumtree,
Popped round to check it was mine, called the cops and got the guy arrested, and got my bike back,
Had a minor crash trying to jump a deceptively high curb, injuring only my pride,
Yelled at numerous pedestrians for stepping out in front of my road,
Worked out exactly how long an emergency stop takes to avoid hitting said pedestrians, and
Worked out the hierarchy of London rush hour traffic. Bigger = right of way, but buses are polite.
It is surprisingly easy to commute in the summer, and interacting with traffic is not actually as bad as it looks from the pavement. The real test will be whether I can continue biking in winter, when it is dark both to and from work. Marie has started biking as well, which is nice.
I have a perfectly functional Trek hybrid, which does exactly what it says on the tin. By North London standards this is not a particularly fashionable bike, as it has multiple gears and multiple brakes. Since starting cycling I have started coveting various bikes of a more fashionable persuasion, but I can't really justify having two bikes. Yet.
Lunch in sunny London Fields, watching the local denizens on parade.
A sublime gruyere, and a brie with enviable viscosity. No cutlery, so finger licking good.
Then home to watch the penultimate leg of the Tour de France.
One of the best musical experiences of my life, I am such a bogan. Skip to the last 30 seconds for some serious pyrotechnical action.
They didn't play Engel or Amerika, but they did play Du Reichst So Gut (my favourite) and Du Hast.
Still buzzing days later.
Brief thoughts:
1) Michaelangelo's David is really really impressive. Alone this was worth the trip.
2) Italians really know how to cook steak, up there with the French. I never realised this before. Unlike the British, they aren't paranoid about Mad Cow so my roast beef at the central market was marinated in oil and rosemary and then lightly seared around the edges.
3) Fillet ala florentine is a kilo hunk of beef, minimum. I was yelled at for chewing the bone - photo to come shortly. Apparently I was only meant to pose with the bone, not actually gnaw on it.
3) You can get a martini with 42 Below vodka in Florence. It was everything a martini should be - ice cold and lethal, extremely large, and from New Zealand. When I got excited about the origin of the vodka, the bartender poured shots for me, him, the other bartender, and one of the regulars at the bar.
4) Coffee in Italy is consistently good, no matter where you get it. However, we didn't quite stumble over anywhere at the level of Dose or Flat Cap. Mind you, it took Marie and I a while to find excellent coffee in London, so accidentally finding it in a weekend in Florence was always going to be unlikely.
The following extremely simple table is taken from Library of Economics and Liberty, and shows the projected aging of the US population out to 2030 in the context of the US healthcare debate. Numbers are in millions.
Data drawn from US Census bureau, which happens to store international data as well.
My first thought was “impressive dataset, I do like data”. My second thought was “how does New Zealand compare, extrapolated out to 2040, and how will this affect my pension”?
This projected rise in >64 population from 552k in 2010 to 1.1m in 2040 is an increase of over 105%. This level of retiree growth in itself is not necessarily a concern, as New Zealand is incredibly sparsely populated and might be able to handle a doubled population. However this 105% growth in retirees is not matched by a rise in working age population – the 20-64 population only rises by 13% over the same period.
To put it another way: in 2010 there are 23 retirees (age >64) for each 100 workers (age 20-64). By 2040, this ratio has near-doubled to 43 retirees for each 100 workers.
Either
a) taxes on a relatively dwindling number of workers must increase to maintain pensions at historic levels, or
b) pensions must be slashed. The first of these is less politically workable, so slashing of pensions it is.
As at 2010 the NZ state pension for a married couple (my personal circumstances in 2040 all going to plan, logic holds for individual pensions) is NZD360 per week after tax in 2010 dollars.
If we assume the ratios above of 23/100 retirees/workers in 2010 sliding to 43/100 in 2040 prove accurate, and that tax rates on workers are held constant, and that any other factors are held constant, then in 2040 the state pension for a married couple must fall to NZD190 per week after tax in 2010 dollars (360 x 23/43).
Why 2040? I will be 62, so theoretically nearing retirement age. Welcome to the jungle…
Caveats of the above:
Yes I know 65 is potentially low as a retirement age, due to rising life expectancy. However projected (male and female combined) life expectancy only rises from 80.5 years in 2010 to 83.0 years in 2040, so this impact here is minor. Interestingly female life expectancy growth continues to outpace male life expectancy growth, so by 2040 females’ life expectancy of 85.7 years will be 5 years higher than males. Bring on the panthers.
Yes I know 20-64 is an arbitrary span for workers, due to university students etc not entering the labour force until their mid-twenties.
Rather than me trying to paraphrase him, just go read Bernard Hickey's great NZ Herald column about the unaffordability of housing for generations X/Y.
Then after that, read David Slack's Public Address column on the same topic.
Brutal. Absolutely brutal.
Two years of living in the UK has turned me round to capital gains tax and/or some kind of land tax- I was previously agnostic, but now I reckon tax them till they bleed. Carefully targeted to minimise impact on pensioners, farmers, etc...
Throw in some kind of stamp duty (in the UK properties under 250k are exempt) and you might start to see some moderation.
I think I have some kind of affliction, because I can't stop watching the clip below:
And in other news, this is a retrospective Praise Be on National Youth Choir through the years. My hair was quite terrible in 1998...
