Olympic spirit? I should coco.

Olympic missile base at Shooters Hill.

Image by Anarchist Media Project.

This is not even the end of the beginning.

Rebekah and Charlie Brooks are among those arrested first thing this morning and Operations Weeting edges ever closer to Cameron & Co. Weeting, along with closely connected Operations Elveden and Tuleta, are being headed up by the Met's DAC Sue Akers. Question is will Akers prove to be a safe pair of hands and manage to hang enough expendables out to dry while at the same time keeping the heat away from Cameron.? Will the Olympics, the Jubilee and a major water shortage be enough of a distraction - or are we on course for the collapse of the ConDem alliance and an autumn General Election being added to all those 2012 Big Events? Did I mention the Mayan Calendar?

EDIT......... and just in case you think that I'm some deranged conspiricy theorist. Check this out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14846456#chapter1

The ups and downs of the seventies martial arts boom.

Just a few years before punk exploded onto the stage of popular culture everyone was talking about an eruption of energy of a quite different kind. The martial arts boom was something that had to be experienced to be believed. Largely on the back of the Bruce Lee film Enter The Dragon there was suddenly a huge interest in Chinese martial arts - Kung Fu. There had been surges of interest in oriental fighting arts dating back to the Edwardian passion for ju-jitsu, judo had matured to into an Olympic sport and the arts of karate and aikido had been practised in this country for years but there had never been anything quite like this. Literally thousands of young hopefuls queued up at the doors of the kung fu clubs that had mushroomed in a few short months. Karate and the other systems were able to piggy-back on the boom and there was a massive increase in participation. A lot of money was made during the boom. Apart from the cash from clubs and private lessons there was a deluge of books and magazines. Equipment was being sold as fast as it could be manufactured with everything from that most impractical form of combat footwear, the kung fu slipper, to reproduction samurai swords to (and I swear to God) a special dartboard for throwing shurikens at.

Of course there were positive aspects to all this activity. For a start it provided an impetus for young men, and this was almost exclusively a male obsession, to get off the sofa and go out and get fit and although most would last for only a few weeks of training for others it was the start of a rewarding hobby. On the down side there was an unfortunate orientalism in the air. Western boxing and wrestling were denigrated as being crude and lacking in technique. Many martial artists genuinely believed that no boxer would last more than a few seconds with a karate black-belt. There were to be a lot of sadly disenchanted martial artists around when full contact karate (kickboxing) arrived on the scene.

By the mid 1980's an increasing number of people were coming to the conclusion that recreating the hierarchy of feudal Japan in the local Scout Hut had little to do with real combat and that when it came to fighting, like much else in life, the proof of the pudding was in the eating. Many of the blind alleys of the martial arts boom could have been avoided by paying a little more attention to the one person who was largely responsible for the boom in the first place. When Bruce Lee's notes were posthumously published as the Tao Of Jeet Kune Do it became a best seller. I'm just not sure how many people actually bothered to read it. Personally I was amazed at how much politics I found in the book. Bruce Lee was more than just a young guy who wanted to make it in the movies. He was very much a product of the sixties. A pragmatist, a rationalist, who was happy to challenge the status quo. A wing chun practitioner he was also hugely influenced by western boxing and wrestling. Much of this has been supersede by Mixed Martial Arts but the core principle that runs through Bruce Lee's approach to the combat arts is as valid today as ever - absorb what is useful.

Rise again Captain Swing!

The austerity caused by continued government cutbacks is creating a confusing kaleidoscope of hardship. As usual the poorest, the weakest and the least organised are bearing the brunt. The food and agriculture industry is home to some of the very worst working conditions and after the tragedy of the Morecambe Bay cockle pickers a Gangmaster Licencing Authority was set up in an effort to at least curtail the worst abuse. How effective the authority has been may be questioned but it has prosecuted a number of employers for using unlicensed gangmasters including National Farmers Union vice-president Gwyn Jones. Now, in a response to squeals from business about "red tape" the government are ordering a more light touch. Light touch. Now where have I heard that before? The food and agriculture sector are deeply enmeshed in the murky world of people trafficking and worker exploitation. Rise again Captain Swing !

Every blog has it's day.

Congratulations to Johnny Void and Libcom for getting in February's top ten political blogs. It's well deserved especially for Void's fine anti-Workfair efforts on his site. I particularly like this post here. Nice one mate! They don't like it up 'em!

The Ridgeway Discovered.

Until a couple of weeks ago I had never walked any part The Ridgeway. This long distance footpath is based on the old neolithic trackway that stretched from the chalk downs of Dorset and having crossed the Thames at Goring continued along the ridge of the Chilterns almost as far as what is now Luton. The Chilterns section is easy to get to by train from London so myself and my trusty companion, "her indoors" have set out a couple of times recently and armed with nothing more than map, flask and sandwiches have had some cracking days out. On one outing we climbed up Ivinghoe Beacon and could see right across the Midland Plain. Amazing!

Mumbo Jumbo Out!

Mumbo jumbo of any variety is a curse and a blight on humanity. National Socialism, Roman Catholicism, Witchcraft, Pentecostalism, infallibility of both the Papal and the Leninist variety, UFO-spoofo hum-buggery of every description. It all belongs in the dustbin of history. The terrible death of young Kristy Bambu at the hands of witchcraft obsessed relatives who should have been caring for him may be just the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg. But how will the authorities respond to this? Perhaps the search is already on for moderate (as opposed to extremist) witchcraft believers. Soon it will be the norm to speak of a witchcraft community and where there is a community there needs to be community leaders. Spokespersons will need to be found. Budgets will have to be allocated. A think tank will need to be set up - we can't forget the witchcraft vote. Or we could just see all of this crap for what it is, put aside any fears of being branded "racist", thisophobic or thatophobic and denounce it accordingly.