That joke isn't funny anymore

Johnny Marr took his bastard time.

Cue fanfare

Brilliant, brilliant news.

That bloke with the salt and pepper beard that Paddy McAloon was always writing lyrics about must really be up there.

I feel a Kitcheware music marathon* coming on.

Hat tip to Tin Can Pot

*The sprouts; Hurrah!; Kane Gang & Martin Stephenson

Under The Flag

Socialist Party Meeting: Neighbours (1952)

The Socialist Party of Great Britain will be hosting a special screening of the classic 1952 short film, 'Neighbours' by Norman McLaren. The film will be followed by a talk on the socialist attitude to war.

Date: Sunday, 16 December 2007 from 19:00 to 21:00

Speaker: Gwynn Thomas

Location: Socialist Party Head Office

52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN

Nearest tube: Clapham North

Nearest rail: Clapham High Street

For more information about the Socialist Party:

Email: spgb@worldsocialism.org

Website:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb

Somebody Else

Re: The Last Post

Billy Who? Billy Childish. Anybody who can piss off Jack White of the White Stripes is AOK with me.

Living By Numbers

The First Paper Sale To You

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (19)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 19th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 917 friends!

Recent blogs:

Religion or capitalism: Which is the root of evil?

Ethics and the class struggle

The postal workers strike

This week's top quote:

"It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should be done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious." William Morris, 1884.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Hat tip to Buff for pointing me in the direction of Adam Koford.

Unacceptable in the 80s

I've been here before on the blog about this matter, but please bear with me. Just posted on the unofficial myspace page for the Socialist Standard is the 'An A to Z of Marxism', an unpublished SPGB pamphlet that originally dates from the mid eighties.

Previously, the A to Z was posted in six parts on the MySpace Socialist Standard page, but this time I've taken the trouble to cut and paste all six parts together into one blog post for your perusal.

No longer do you have to be left hanging by your R's, wondering which S will follow the entry on Russia. Will it be Saint-Simon, as in Henri Saint-Simon, the Utopian Socialist; Sangria, as in Paul Lafargue's favourite tipple; or Saturday, as in Saturday's alright for fighting as Fred and Charlie go on a pub crawl down 1860s Tottenham Court Road, only to finish the night off with a polemical punch up with the Lassallean mob taking up residence at the Communist Club in Fitzrovia? (I won't spoil it for you.)

"Charlie, these Wetherspoons pub menus are excellent, and such good value. I suggest we line our stomachs with the five-bean chilli before we go on the lash and, that way, you might avoid a repeat of last week's incident with the cobblestones and the street lights down Tottenham Court Road."

Before I get a second wind for some more piss-poor jokes, reproduced below is the original introduction to the unpublished pamphlet that will give you some flavour as to what the text was setting out to do. Wonder why the SPGB didn't get round to publishing it?

It's a shame it wasn't published then. It's a shame an updated and revised edition isn't being published now.

"This dictionary is intended as a reference-companion for the socialist. It is aimed particularly at the newcomer to the socialist movement who may be unfamiliar with socialist terminology.

Our approach has been to combine brevity with clarity, as far as possible, with cross-referencing and a guide to further reading at the end of most entries.We have been selective.

We have concentrated on those words and ideas that are relevant to the case for socialism. In addition, there are many biographical entries of individuals and organisations of interest to the socialist movement. The inclusion of any of these should not necessarily be understood as an endorsement of their ideas and practices. Likewise, many entries have suggestions for further reading but the views expressed in these books are not necessarily the same as those of the socialist movement.

It will be obvious that there are some errors, omissions and unworthy inclusions. We make no claim to comprehensive, final and definitive truth. This dictionary can and should be better. We therefore invite suggestions and constructive criticisms for use in future editions of this dictionary."

I'd Rather Jack

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain (16)

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 16th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 872 friends!

Recent blogs:

Punk rock's silver jubilee

Opportunity cost

Freegans

This week's top quote:

""It is for the working class to study and realise that while one section of the community—the capitalist class—own the means of life of the whole community, the remainder of the community are slaves to that section. Whatever label a political party or person may wear—whether Conservative, Liberal, Radical, Reform, Labour or any other—the one question for the working-class is "do they stand for the retention of a system allowing a small section of Society to exploit the other, the working class"? If so, no matter, with what qualification or modification, if any, then they are necessarily and inevitably the enemy of the exploited and must be so branded. Fine promises avail them nothing. In the words of Wendell Phillips, "WE NEVER FORGET", but keeping the facts clearly in front of our fellow workers' eyes march steadily to the goal of our Emancipation." Jack Fitzgerald (SPGB), 1906.

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Some Jokes Are Better Than Others

Joke of the day. Found via here.

Not the funniest round of jokes I've ever read, but the one below is pretty canny. Not for the fainthearted or for those of you from Larkhall:

A Protestant Glaswegian family head out one Saturday afternoon to do their Christmas shopping. While in JJB Sports, the son picks up a Celtic Football shirt and says to his sister, "I've decided to be a Celtic Supporter and I want this strip for my Christmas" the sister is outraged at this and promptly whacks him round the head and says, " Go talk tae yer ma".

Off goes the unusually intelligent little lad, with Celtic shirt in hand and finds his mother.

"Mum." "Yes, son?"

"I've decided I'm going to be a Celtic supporter and I want this strip for my Christmas."

The mother is outraged at this, promptly whacks him round the head and says, "Go talk to yer da." Off goes this little pearl amongst swine, with Celtic shirt in hand and finds his father.

"Dad."

"Yes, son?"

"I've decided I'm going to be a Celtic supporter and I want this strip for my Christmas."

The father is outraged at this, promptly whacks his son round the head and says, "No son of mine is ever going to be seen in THAT!"

About half an hour later, they are all back in the car heading home. The father turns to the son and says,"Son, I hope you have learned something today?"

The son turns to his father says, "Yes, Father, I have".

Father says, "Good son, what is it?"

The son replies, "I've only been a Celtic supporter for an hour and I already hate you hun bastards."

Lovestruck

" . . .the greatest leader of the free world in history" and that she would save the world from the "satanic monsters and freaks".

Hat tip to Lenny.

Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Goal)

News just in and it's official: Scotland are better than the Faroe Islands.

Chant No. 1 (and No. 2)

From BBC Football:

"Are you Tottenham in disguise?"
Arsenal fans to Sunderland when they went 2-0 up at the Emirates.

"Are you Tottenham in disguise?"

Sunderland fans when Arsenal threw away their 2-0 lead. (Harry, UK).

"We've got Joey Barton, We've got Joey Barton, la la la la."
Newcastle fans to Man City fans last Saturday.

"You've got Joey Barton, You've got Joey Barton, ha ha ha ha!"

City fans after seeing their side go 3-1 up. (Julie, UK).

Is Vic There?

I've no idea if it signifies anything but in recent days the trusty sitemeter has revealed that a number of people have been finding the blog via google searches for individual SPGB/WSM members both past and present.

Could this mean that there's long lost relatives out there in search of that curmudgeonly old uncle who was sort of OK in his own idiosyncratic way until he got a few drinks in him at the family Christmas dinner, and then he'd insist on thrusting a dog-eared pamphlet into your palms instead of that spacehopper you'd set you're heart on? Or maybe it's an ex-member taking a trip down Fetter's Lane* in search of the Old Soul Rebels? Probably neither; it'll be a crumpled PhD student pissed off that he's - notice that it's always a bloke who does PhD on groups in the "thin red line" sector? - having to do some heavy duty primary sources research on the SPGB because no bastard's updated the Wiki page for the SPGB recently, and he can't remember who he lent his copy of 'The Monument' to.

No fear. A random act of kindness on my part is at hand. For easy one access visit to the blog, here's the pages you're after:

Vic Vanni

Harry Morrison (Harmo)

Richard Headicar

Steve Coleman and Issac Rab

It's not like I need the hits or the page views. It's amazing what the judicious placing of one picture will do to increase the rate of traffic that your blog will receive. A particuarly apt picture for this willo-the-wisp post.

*An in-joke for all you SPGB spotters out there.