There's a row going on down Clacton way.

The defection of Douglas Carswell to UKIP and the resultant prospect of a Clacton by-election should put the cat among the pigeons and not only at CCHQ. Apparently UKIP's chosen son for Clacton was supposed to be former tory Roger Lord and he is not best pleased at being elbowed aside by Carswell. A return to the Conservative Party and "ripping out Carswell's throat" are apparently two of the options that Lord is contemplating.
Clacton is an interesting constituency, To the north east is the anal retentive Frinton. Designed as a small and refined resort for the haute bourgeoisie, it would cling on to delusions of grandeur long after the posh people had come to the conclusion that it was better to be seen dead than seen in Essex and the town would resist such horrors as pubs and fish and chip shops right into the 21st century.

South west lies the former plotland of Jaywick the place that lays unenviable claim to being the most deprived human settlement in England. Clacton itself was a busy, cheerful seaside resort and home to one of Billy Butlin's first holiday camps. How we laughed at the jokes about the Martello Tower on the perimeter being there to stop campers escaping. Well Clacton's heyday is long gone and nobody is laughing now.  Like so many formerly thriving resorts the place has never really found a new future for itself.

In Frinton, Jaywick, Clacton and in the rest of the constituency people know that something is wrong. They can't quite put their finger on it but are pretty sure that none of this is their fault. An interesting place. Interesting times.

Public school/Oxbridge elite rule country shock.

The stats of inequality always make for sobering and sometimes shocking reading. Ever since I first started to take an interest in politics I have been digesting statistics about the percentage of global wealth owned by a tiny minority of the population. Now the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission have published a report detailing the social and financial advantages of attending private school and Oxbridge. 71% of senior judges, 62% of top army posts, 47% of newspaper columnists, 44% of the Sunday Times Rich List, 35% of Cameron's Cabinet, were all educated privately. But surely this is not a surprise. If there were not such huge advantages to a private education no one would pay the fees.  What is surprising is the numbers of working class people who by hard work and determination manage to break through and reach high standards of personal academic achievement. Some remember where they came from and devote much energy to giving others a hand up - others do not. At the end of the day inequality of opportunity means the loss to society of a huge reservoir of talent and the sad loss of personal fulfilment for countless millions. But we all know this. What we need is not the likes of Owen Jones foaming at the mouth and jerking himself off over the stats of inequality but a vision of what an alternative might look like and how to get to there from here.

Learning the ropes.

I always do my best to make newcomers welcome down at the allotments and if I can pass on any of my limited knowledge of growing a bit of veg I am only too happy to do so. I can well remember when the boot was on the other foot.
When Her Indoors and I rented a cottage and three acres in South Devon back in 1970 we were full of enthusiasm but totally lacking in any knowledge of how to care for livestock or grow anything at all. We borrowed books from Plymouth library but by far our main source of information was due to the kindness of neighbours who patiently explained what to them must truly have seemed the "bleedin' obvious". There was the couple who, as well as holding down full time jobs, ran a small egg and veg enterprise and they took us under their wing and showed us the basics of poultry keeping and horticulture.  There were also the two Arthurs.  One of the Arthurs just seemed to turn up on the doorstep one day, introduced himself and suggested that we keep a few pigs. Being suspicious townies I think that we might have wondered what his game was at first but in no time at all he had formed a pig keeping partnership with "Her Indoors", found us some work spud picking on the farm where he was employed and had become a constant source of information and encouragement.
We inherited the other Arthur as he was keeping bantams on part of the property when we arrived. Arthur number two was a retired farm labourer who lived with his large family on the council estate that bordered our holding. Previously the whole clan had lived in an isolated,and from all accounts pretty primitive, tied cottage with a herd of goats and countless chickens and ducks. The various boxes, runs and coops of bantams kept in our garden were Arthur's link to his past life. Always wearing a flat cap and usually dressed in a rather greasy gabardine raincoat with a piece of baler twine tied around the middle, Arthur would appear in our kitchen every morning, remove his cap, perhaps extract a particularly pretty bantam hen from his pocket, and make polite conversation about the weather before going off to feed and water his flock.   Arthur had spent all of his life in rural Devon apart from during the First World War when he had been "Out in Mespot. " He did his best to advise us but frequently struggled to come to terms with the true depths of our ignorance. One time I decided to scythe the field for hay to feed the goats during the winter. I ran the plan past Arthur. "So I cut it, leave it to dry, turn it and leave to dry again, then bring it in? Is that all you have to do with it Arthur?"  The old chap was silent. Removed his cap. Scratched his head before replying, " Well, there ain't much more you can do with it is there?" We had never met anyone like Arthur before and I doubt if he had met anyone like us either. He would never know that those two clueless young people would remember him for the rest of their lives.

Sale of the century.

I am mainly aware of writer and journalist James Meek through The Peoples Act Of Love, his epic tale of Revolutionary Russia, the Czech Legion, castration cults, armed trains and the Siberian winter. If it were possible for a Scot to write a great Russian novel in the 21st century Meek is your man. Earlier this year he wrote one of the most insightful articles about the current situation in Ukraine that I have come across and now turns his attention closer to home with a new book Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs To Someone Else. The great British knock down sale of national assets may not have been quite as traumatic as the Russian equivalent but it changed the face of this country and there is little sign that the increasing polarisation of wealth is likely to stop any time soon. There will be no going back. I look forward to James Meek's contribution to understanding how it all came to this.

Norman Cornish and the new Kings Cross.

A few days ago some journalist or other, I can't remember what paper, was banging on about how wonderful the new Kings Cross is. Comparing today's uber-sterile environment to the old Kings Cross of prostitutes and junkies this scribe was claiming to wait for a later train these days so cool and trendy had the place become. I would be the last one to glamorise either the sex trade or smack addiction and I well remember just how grim a road York Way was in the seventies but am I the only one to think that the back of the station redevelopment has been hyped up out of all proportion? I wandered through the area the other day on my way to visit the Norman Cornish exhibition at Kings Place. Cornish, who died earlier this month, was the last of the so called Pitmen Painters and his work captures the thirty years he spent in the mines as well as the life of the local pubs and streets. For better or worse it's a world that has gone forever now - and it was a world away from the new Kings Cross.

A sporting weekend to remember.

It was certainly some weekend for British sport. What with the biggest ever medal haul at the European Athletic Championships, the England team taking home the Women's Rugby World Cup, Alistair Cook   coming good in the end and leading his team to victory in the 5th Test and series against India and Sheffield's Kell Brooks winning the IBF version of the World Welterweight Championship, blimey!
What all this sporting activity meant for most of us of course was spending hours slumped on the sofa watching other people exert themselves. All well and good, and I spent far too much time glued to the box myself to start throwing stones at anyone else, but perhaps we could have done with a bit more publicity for initiatives like the Street Games charity who while all the splendours of the elite side of sport were going on gave 1,500 disadvantaged London kids the chance to try a sport at a multi-sport festival. Yes, I do know about the Coke and Mars sponsorship but needs must.

Covert insertions and tangled webs.

Some Kurdish factions are claiming that the jihadist fighters of Islamic State are being secretly trained by the Turkish Army in the hope that IS will act as a buffer to Kurdish national aspirations. It might seem unlikely that the Turkish government would want to fund a force that could well bite the hand that feeds it but when discussing this with "The Man Who Knows" he was quick to point out that it's no more unlikely then the Israelis setting up Hamas as a counter to the PLO or the CIA being patron to mujahadeen/Al-Qaeda. Such are the machinations of realpolitik.

British ingenuity alive and well in Orpington.

We recently paid a visit to Down House the home of Charles Darwin. The house and especially the Head Gardener's tour of the grounds, where Darwin carried out many of the experiments that helped him formulate the theory of evolution, was certainly interesting enough. The top floor of the house is given over to an exhibition detailing the development of Darwin's work and his struggle with the scientific and religious orthodoxy of the day; a visit should possibly be mandatory for all creationist Islamo-Christian funda-mentals. But that's just my opinion!
The journey to Down House involved waiting for a bus in Orpington and we used the time to wander around the shops. It was here, in a local bakers , that we came across an interesting example of both evolution and the British ingenuity exemplified by Darwin's grandfather Josiah Wedgwood. I refer to the evolution of the Cornish Pasty. I am normally pretty conservative when it comes to pasties and reckon that the traditional filling takes some beating but I was unable to resist The Breakfast Pasty.  This gastronomic masterpiece consisted of egg, bacon, sausage and beans IN A PASTY. And they say that the age of British ingenuity finished with the hovercraft.

All change for one Kipper at least.

Even the most cynical of us would have to admit that when it comes to gender politics there has been movement in the right direction. It's difficult to imagine old time fight game impresarios like Jack Solomons and Harry Levine telling the world that they always felt themselves to be women trapped inside the body of a man. But when former boxing manager and promoter Frank Maloney announced that he would like to be known as Kellie in future and was undergoing sex change procedures there was nothing but support and understanding from the boxing world with everyone from Lennox Lewis to Steve Bunce  wishing Maloney well. What Kellie Maloney's old comrades in UKIP will make of it all remains to be seen. Much choking on the G&Ts I would imagine.

Summer time blues.

The tail end of Hurricane Bertha dumped a couple of inches of rain across the country yesterday and in doing so put a bit of a dampener on the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small outdoor events that are a hallmark of the English summer. All year people plan village fetes, carnivals, street parties, pram races or the grand unveiling of a tiny community garden and a seat dedicated to Captain Sensible of all people. Most of the time, most of these events go off OK but the British climate combines with the law of sod to ensure that every summer a good few will get well and truly pissed on. No doubt many events were cancelled yesterday but I bet that far more carried on regardless. All that damp charcoal to cook all those burgers on. All that crepe paper and papier-mache dissolving in the rain as hours of fancy dress making washes into the gutter. All those heroic Mums and Dads clinging desperately to a thousand gazebos like so many Zeppelin anchoring German sailors. Is it safe to run the tug o war in all this mud? Bloody weather! But it will be better next year and anyway, have you noticed how the nights are drawing in?  Be Christmas in no time.

Oh dear!

One city stands above all others in international finance, business, arts and culture. that city is London.

One Commercial Street stands out as the new landmark address in the heart of this unique metropolis, poised between the financial square mile and the culturally diverse city fringe.

One Commercial Street towers twenty-one storeys above Aldgate
East like a blade of light, its glass fin dramatically adding a sculptural quality.

Central to the new vision for Aldgate, this is a building which makes a bold statement, but above all, it is a place to live. Within the tower are studios, apartments and penthouses specified to exceptional levels, with exclusive services for residents, making this the address of choice in the City of London.

When you enter the impressive glass entrance lobby and ascend in the lift to your sumptuously appointed apartment way above the City streets, you know you have arrived at the one place you have always wanted to be.

One Commercial Street is the address you want, and the home you are looking for. In this superb City location everything you need for your business life and personal life is close at hand.

As a pied-à-terre or main residence, One Commercial Street will meet every expectation with an outstanding collection of studios, apartments and penthouses.

The Tower Apartments, The City Apartments and The Penthouses range from the twelfth to twentyfirst floors, and as you might expect, the views are astonishing.

Every day is an inspiration when you live at One Commercial Street.

Today might have been no food day.

How did you cope food wise yesterday? Note anything different? I thought not but the seventh of August is as far as home grown food would last us. From now until the end of the year we are totally dependant on imports while only a few short years ago we could have been self-sufficient right into October. Just another piece of National Farmers Union Red Tractor propaganda some will say. Perhaps they are right. The debate about self-sufficiency (protectionism?) versus free trade might have been going on since the Corn Laws but for global capital the argument was won a long time ago and it makes perfect sense for basic commodities to be continually criss-crossing the world. Maybe my nagging doubts about food security are all down to a failure to understand the dynamics of global trade but Putin has placed restrictions on Russian food imports from countries critical of his foreign policy and this is bound to impact on EU farming. Again, why would a self proclaimed  internationalist like myself care about the UK farming industry? What's more, is all of this in some way connected to "patriotism" or as I prefer to think of it, "love of place"? It probably is.

Flash birds and diamond geezers.

It was a genuine street fashion that in no time at all had respectable folk convinced that the barbarians really were at the gates. Nothing had prepared post-war Britain for the Teddy Boy and nothing would ever be the same again. For a wonderful nostalgic look back at the days of drainpipes and brothel creepers and the good old boys and girls who keep the movement alive today, check out Edwardian Teddy Boys. You won't regret it.

And you can see some of Ken Russel's iconic Teddy Girl snaps here.

A strange celebration.

The centenary of the dreadful mass slaughter that was the First World War seems a strange thing to be "celebrating". I reckon that I'm as qualified as anyone to be writing about this. My father served right through the war and unlike many old soldiers who never liked to talk about it, would harp on about the Somme and Passchendaele at the first opportunity: how I longed to come from a normal family where Arsenal and Spurs were the favoured topic of conversation. But to be fair to my dad he never had any illusions about patriotism and recognised the cause of war as the crass stupidity of Europe's ruling elites. There is nothing wrong with schoolkids remembering the hardship suffered by their ancestors, but let's have an honest recognition of the utter futility of it all as well. The millions who perished did not "make the ultimate sacrifice for their country". Of course there must have been acts of great bravery but no one "laid down their life". Terrified and far from home, they were killed, Killed by other young men just as clueless as themselves - and for nothing.

Will the friendly games guarantee a YES vote?

I don't know how justified Glasgow's claims to having staged the "friendly games" are but the atmosphere seemed pretty warm and it certainly looked as though everyone was having a good time. Of course there have been great sporting moments, heart warming stories and mind boggling feats of skill and fitness. After the closing ceremony the big question will be if the feel good factor north of the border will translate into a resounding YES vote for Independence. My abhorrence of nationalism not withstanding, I tend to favour the efforts of small nations struggling to get out from under the heel of more powerful ones. Come on you Jocks!