baria’s blog

So my chums,
this is what I have been doing all these months. Setting up the Legends of Formula 1 Festival at Silverstone next week.

It has taken a year to get the licences and acts in place and longer than that to funds it all and I haven't bored you with it because, as ever with these things, it cold all have gone belly up at any time.
BUT NOW IT IS ON!

4 days of frivolity and mayhem at the British Grand Prix.

My God there is a fortune invested in it and not just in time. Effort, worry, resources of all kinds. My reserves are depleted. It has been like waging a war.

Please do me a favour and spread the word to all petrolheads over the globe.

The line up includes, THE STIG, Murray Walker, Vicki Butler Henderson, Bobby Davro, 20 bands, DJ's, Comedians and 3 of the biggest bars the world (or me anyway) has ever seen. I've laid on Grid Girls and raffles and god knows what else and all of it is for you my friends.

If anyone is coming over on June 18 - 21st come and find me and mention the word "tweenie" and they'll win a free drink.

So hurry up, get up to Silverstone and join me in the mother of all hangovers!

I haven't posted for eons.

That's what happens when you suddenly start something new. The old things get left behind.

It is a lot like a relationship. You meet, fall in love, can't leave each other alone and no one wants to say goodbye on the phone. All you want to do is snuggle up and watch the flames of your log fire of love. Tea and crumpets anyone?

Do you remember that feeling?

God Knows I do.

Then the days turn into months and the months into years and before you know it you are watching Simon Cowell every night and a pint of beer and a night on the town aren't so appealing anymore.

You develop opinions on curtains and soft furnishings and a wave of apathy rolls over you if anyone mentions anything that isn't related to nesting.

Then come the babies and total obsession.
That's 5 years in a muddy bubble of spew, poo and insomnia.

Gradually you emerge.
Greyer, poorer and weary.

Life isn't so appealing now and there isn't much to do  that you haven't already done. Or so it seems.

Then you gradually find yourself again. Heart beats faster. Head feels stronger and ambition reasserts itself.

That's when you realise that you are still part of the rat race and the dreaded mid life crisis hits.

Some of us start to stray. Women in particular are looking for the rose covered cottage and that "dream hunk" who will shower them with flowers and love. Men just want a great pair of pins, a functional prostate and pneumatic tits.

Twas ever thus.

But if you don't fancy a $100 meander down the erotic encounters personal ads what do you do?
You look in the mirror. Gird your ever depleted loins and enagage in something new and invigorating.

You can be a parachute instructor or a horse wrangler; a fire appliance salesman or an arms dealer; you may like the idea of starting as a chocolatier or an alternative therapist. No matter. The trick is to start as you mean to go on and to hell with Ben and the Federal reserve; to hell with Bush, Blair, Obama and Brown; to hell with the news and the things you can never change; to hell with all the waste and wonder of the earlier years. Now is your time!

This is the era of re-invention and acting locally to effect globally.

You are the key to it all.

Whatever you want to do get on with it before the man with the sythe comes  knocking and you wonder what you have been doing for the past 70 years.

Don't bleat about what might have been.
Just do it.

Life is for living.
So love it, live it, sod it!

We all end up the same way. It is what you do whilst you are here that counts.

Have a nice day!

Guys
so sorry  I haven't posted in eons.
Been a bit crook and now I have repetitive strain injury which makes typing a nightmare.

Hope you lot are all well.

I'll get back to it soon

meanwhile have a great 2009

I thought this would add to the general state of merriment and it is especially for all My banana bender mates who are getting the shit kicked out of them by mother nature right now.

A man caught near Nobbys Beach with his penis in a pasta sauce jar led police on a 20 kmh car chase, Newcastle Local Court heard yesterday.

Police drew their weapons when they suspected Keith Roy Weatherley, 46, was armed.

Instead, they found him partially clothed with his genitals in a jar, a police statement said.

Weatherley, of Promontory Way, North Arm Cove, attracted attention parked in a no-stopping zone before noon on October 26.

Police believed Weatherley was doing something with his hands in his lap and thought that he might have a weapon.

Weatherley saw the police and drove away, despite them flashing their lights.

The chase lasted five to 10 minutes, with a top speed of just 20 kmh, before Weatherley was stopped at Centenary Drive, Newcastle. He refused to leave the car.

Four officers used batons and capsicum spray to remove him.

They found a 750-millilitre jar around his penis and noted that Weatherley attempted to continue "pleasuring himself in between bouts of wrestling".

A search of his car uncovered pornography, a home-made sex aid, women's stockings and a Jack Russell terrier.

Weatherley pleaded guilty to offensive behaviour, resisting police and disobeying a police direction.

Magistrate Elaine Truscott asked Weatherley, who represented himself, why he behaved the way he did.

He said he resisted police because he was trying to make himself "decent".

He was fined $600 for offensive behaviour and convicted of the other two offences without further action taken.

The Herald, Newcastle

Can you believe it?

What a night!

Obama finally wins and America re-emerges from the despotic regime of Dick Dastardly and his henchmen.
Finally we can enjoy being friends with America again.

He has a heap of trouble to deal with but for now, let's celebrate.

Just to keep the party going here is a reminder of what imbeciles have been in charge for the past 8 years.

Happy days will return!

What a race.
I mean WOW!
the last lap. The last 2 corners.
The world championship!

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!

I am still not sure what happened to Timo Glock but who cares. Britain has its first F1 Champ since Damon Hill and that is a long time.

It makes me glad that I decided to get into the travel business and book all those tickets for the Grand Prix.
Someone is going to buy them.
Aren't they?

This morning the esteemed political operative James Carville published an op-ed in the Financial Times.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Here it is in all its glory.

Financial times image

The most predictable and fascinating ritual of American electoral politics has begun. And, no, I am not talking about early voting or pundit predictions. It is not last-minute robo-calls or get-out-the-vote operations either.

I am talking about finger-pointing. Yes, the blame game. In case you have not noticed, it is in full tilt.

You may think the blame game is played in smoky back rooms and dark alleys. Be under no illusions. The blame game is not merely a sideshow of the drama of the world’s most influential democracy, which elects the world’s most influential leader. In the coming weeks, watching the Republican party implode will be the main event.

The opening salvo was fired in the op-ed pages of the US newspaper of record, The New York Times. On October 13, William Kristol drew his guns in what he believed to be the start of the Republican civil war by beginning his weekly column: “It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign.” He continued: “Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic.”

Such an esteemed conservative intellectual would, of course, place blame on the “McCain campaign”. What a convenient target. This is the same Mr Kristol who advised the party in two of its greatest disasters – the Iraq war and the selection of Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee. His idea is to point the finger at political professionals.

My colleague, Paul Begala, and I counselled Republicans on October 20 that the blame game could not begin soon enough and could not leave out any faction of the fractured Republican infrastructure. With so much blame to go around, I am sure everyone will get their own shots in but the people who work on the fringes of our democracy should not bear the brunt of an entire American political party going awry.

Allow me to rise in defence of my fellow political operatives.

The truth is that there was little Mr McCain, or his campaign, could do with a party falling apart at the seams. When Mr McCain announced his second run for the presidency on April 25 2007 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Republican brand was already tarnished, perhaps beyond repair. At that time, a poll for Democracy Corps, a non-profit polling organisation I co-founded, found that his party was viewed more negatively than positively by far, with 47 per cent of likely voters giving it poor marks and just 34 per cent viewing it positively. At that point 66 per cent of likely voters thought the country was on the wrong track. Of course, it only got worse as the campaign and George W. Bush’s horrendous presidency trudged on. Our latest poll finds that 79 per cent say the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Remember, it was not Mr McCain’s campaign that started the idiotic Iraq war or masterminded the poorly thought out strategies there and on the economic front at home.

It was not his campaign staffers that reignited ridiculously divisive and unnecessary culture wars in 2004 just to win an election, in the process alienating a generation of young Americans.

It was not a campaign staffer that simply flew over a major American city as it was being inundated with water after the failure of federal levees created one of the worst disasters in our nation’s history.

It was not a McCain staffer who made the brilliant choice to appoint Alberto “Fredo” Gonzales as attorney-general, a man who will surely go down as one of the most buffoonish and incompetent individuals to serve in the US government.

It was not just a few McCain staffers who sold their soul and their political party to corporate America and Wall Street while the national debt soared.

It was not McCain campaign staffers who sat idly by as America plunged into its greatest crisis since the Great Depression. (Although one might pause here to note that Mr McCain and his economic advisers played an active role in creating the crisis over the past few decades.)

Blame the idiotic neocons, absurd culture warriors or the talk-radio crowd. Certainly do not forget the silly free-marketers who are now lining up before congressional committees to apologise to the nation for failed economic policy. Believe me, they all deserve every bit of of the blame.

But it was the pillars and icons of the party who did this: from Karl Rove, its self-proclaimed resident genius, to Dick Cheney, an overreaching vice-president, to Mr Bush. Of course, lest any of this read as an absolution of Mr McCain, the senator from Arizona was in lock-step with his colleagues on most or all of their failed policies.

Ultimately, the truth is that Mr McCain’s campaign was dealt an awful hand, albeit one he had a role in creating. You can second guess how they played it (and you should) but campaigns take chances (like they did in doubling-down on Ms Palin) when they are behind. So with only a few days to go before the party is handed its second mammoth loss in as many cycles, following the 2006 mid-term elections, my counsel to Republican friends would be to keep pointing fingers but lay off the political professionals as much as possible. They were not the ones responsible for the disastrous Bush-Cheney-Rove policies that Americans so desperately want to reverse.

The writer is an international political consultant, founder of Democracy Corps, and a CNN political contributor. He was chief strategist for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

This credit crisis is really winding me up! I am working twice as hard as before for zero money. I mean zero.

The thing is, I have decided that I have just about had enough of chasing round after Simon Cowell and his cohorts in the never ending battle between good and evil. The music business has sucked me dry and I want out.

Well, actually I don't want out but I am too long in the tooth and too bored by yet another boy / girl / rehashed 1979 punk / be bop / metal / B&R (sic) band to get excited by much anymore. 

I know I have heard a heap of stuff in my many years on this planet but I still want more. I want excitement and frankly with a few exceptions I haven't heard a major label release that has any merit since the White Stripes. Even that is a bit old hat in some ways. Indie labels are doing great things but no one cares or hear them and the world if filled with wannabe bands who can't wake up and get out there and help themselves. So as the Dragons say, I'm out!

Time for a change.

As an alternative I am in the middle of setting up a new venture. A travel company. A specialist travel company.
No.
Before you ask we don't do bespoke trips for billionaires.

This is indie travel with a twist.

I am doing el cheapo deals to some of the places I have visited and loved.

I am going to take as many people as I can to parties across Europe.
Fun for its own sake. No excuses. Life is for living. Those of you who have read what kind of a year 08 has been for me will understand why.

I have already lined up some killer trips to exotic venues like Munich, Dublin, Terschelling, Pamplona, Reyjavik and Pamplona. Plus as many Formula 1 Grand Prix as I can manage. Why not?

Crack a tube guys.
Stop cracking the sads.
Time to get away from all this paranoid misery.
Be contra cyclical.
Glass half full?
Fill it up!

I am calling the new venture PUMPKIN TOURS!

There.
You heard it here first.

We launch in a major way in January but if you would like to have a look and maybe tell me where I have gone wrong please link through.

Love it or hate it. I'd be happy to hear your comments.

Pumpkin Tours

Thanks
and keep the faith

Just a few days until we get rid of the Great Satan for a while!!

VOTE OBAMA

Phew! Do I have a lot to tell you about.

Except I am not going to tell  you now.

Later. Promise.

I can tell you that 2 months after we got married Mrs B and I have finally got ourselves a honeymoon!!!

We are going to Iceland. Without the nippers, for a whole week.
Sun, sea, sharks, slumber.

Well, maybe no sun but I am told the putrefied shark and puffins are worth eating

Can't wait!

I have also 99% withdrawn from the music business at last.

I still love it - off to a show in London tomorrow as it happens, but I just can't face the hangovers anymore.

Full details soon.
Meanwhile  here are a couple of clips. The first one was on Pertermcc blog.
 Cheers Mac!
Keep smiling!

Genx

During these days of doom and gloom there have been some little moments of schadenfreude that I must admit to.
I don't generally enjoy watching people suffer but there are a few that made me smirk.

It turns out that a lot of the pubs in the UK now belong to major corporations that are all funded from Iceland.
Since Kaupping went bust last week and Icebank froze all the UK accounts some new facts have come to light. It is amazing how we have all missed the fundamental changes money has made in our lives because we have been so busy chasing our tails in the endless pursuit of avarice.

Staples of society have been eroded so much that there are now a million Italian coffee bars in Bournemouth alone. Once welcoming boozers bedecked with flock wallpaper, burnished bars and copper fittings have been replaced by glamourous "hot spots" where there are no seats or tables so anyone over 25 is immediately at a disadvantage, the music is so loud and intrusive that a conversation is almost impossible and there are always 2 guys on the door with the qualifications of a water rat and the manners of a stoat.

In their defence these "ALL BAR SENSE" type places do have lots of fancy paintings and hand crafted floor coverings imported from Borneo as well as an endless supply of wine from god knows where at god knows what price. They are designed to be comfortable for the media savvy, wealthy tossers and tastemekers in the three years between University and their first real relationship and / or baby. They are not for anyone else. It is inclusion by exclusion.
 
I have to tell you, with a deep sense of foreboding that ther are almost no old pubs left in central London. That my friends is a bloody disgrace! Pubs are what made this country great. That and the ability to wage war whilst avoiding casualties on our side... but that is for another time.

So the financial collapse has some visible casualties and in particular one guy, Mr Tchenguiz, who lost a billion pounds last week. A BILLION! in one day. (That's $2 billion if you are American and the whole Northern Territory if you are from Australia.) Now he has to sell his stake in about 800 pubs. That is good news 'cos he has been shutting them down wholesale for years. I believe his motives were entirely profit driven but the fact that he is Iranian can't have helped. How could he know the damage his ventures would be doing? Would we have been allowed to go to Tehran and sell off the Mosques? I doubt it and ignorance is no excuse. Our temples have been desecrated and the damage is becoming more and more apparent.

About a week ago I was at a wedding on Saturday and Funeral on Monday. There was a huge contrast, obviously. But one thing struck me at both events. The wedding was glamourous and I was surrounded by very very powerful people. And to be honest I couldn't quite believe it. After all the wedding was about 10 miles from where I grew up, in rural Lancashire. There were fund managers, developers with multi million pound portfolios, equity traders, more doctors than the NHS can provide on most days, lawyers, union bosses and they were all there to get plastered and make fools of themselves like everyone else. It was excellent. Beer was the great leveller.

At the funeral I met a load of my old school mates. They are all doing well. Things have changed there though. Apart from the male pattern baldness and ever increasing girth we are all in rude health and there is still a bond between us that I know will last forever. The difference now is that of the 4 pubs that used to be in the centre of the village only one remains open. ONE!

I consider this a personal affront. It seems Mr Tchenguiz had bought 2 of them and put them up for sale and the other was owned by Punch Taverns who are doing the same thing. The wake had to be held at a hotel in the next village.

That is a crime!

When I was younger we made total idiots of ourselves with alcoholic assistance and I know that we could easily have been led into destruction and lunacy, a la Amy Wino, but the pursuit of alcohol was a noble and honoured tradition that deserves respect and some form of sanction at the highest levels. Enough of this big brother, Taliban demonisation. It is our birth right and no amount of Iranian, Icelandic, Thatcherite profit motive led prohibition is acceptable.

With the demise of our pubs our youth have lost a font of knowledge, contacts and places to perform. In turn the older generation have lost a means of communicating on level erms with their offspring and a rite of passage is in danger of being lost. No joke. This is like removing the chief of a village and replacing him with a vending machine. No wonder we are all afraid of our own kids. We never see them in a social setting and they never see us! 

I am disgusted at the way that a fundamental part of Anglo-Saxon has been stealthily eroded. Maybe thanks to the credit crash we will actually be able to pay our publicans enough to allow them to open again. It is an international disgrace and it should be reversed now!

For the past 150 years any self-respecting male 14 would have spent his time like this:
20% masturbating
40% asleep
10% learning
15% bragging about sex or drinking
10% working out how to get a bottle of cider without being caught

Nowadays they manage the same equation but replace cider with crack and sex and drinking with knives and murders.

In all seriousness, I mean this. If we continue to escalate the prohibition of alchol simply for "health" reason or because a tea total foreign investor sees more profit in Cappucino than in Carlsberg we are going to destroy the fabric of our society. Pubs aren't about booze. They are the tribal centres of our lives. They function like the long huts of primitive societies. They are the place where law and order is founded - not flouted. A decent pub has all ages and all classes and by mixing them together we avoid the race, age, wealth conflicts that blight our society.

Pubs are the nations glue and we need to remember it.

Now put on you coat and galoshes. Take a tenner from the jar above the sink and go and buy a pint. It may just save your way of life.