Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Why I'm glad I'm not a British taxpayer

Just spotted this entertaining stream of consciousness on the ever insightful, always amusing, Football365 Mediawatch page.

Thought For The Day
Joey Barton plays for Newcastle, Newcastle are sponsored by Northern Rock. 'The Rock' are now owned by the taxpayer - in other words, us. Therefore we pay Barton's wages. In addition to this he is now being held at Her Majesty's Pleasure so not only are we paying his wages, but we are also paying for his accommodation.
Above: Joseph when he was still a free man, a model athlete it has to be said.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Out of Africa: not much hope, but a good read all the same

The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence
Martin Meredith
A Book Review

Of all the regions in the world, Africa is one were economic reports regularly show that standards of living have actually decreased there in the past thirty years rather than increased. Right now there are more armed conflicts there than in any other continent. It seems that the news reports to emerge from that region, be they about famine in the 1980s, resource wars in the 1990s or tales of the scourges of AIDs and election manipulations more recently, are reports of misery. In this expansive history, Martin Meredith, an academic who previously worked as a journalist with the Times of Zambia and has published an acclaimed biography of Robert Mugabe, chronicles the events over the past fifty years that have brought this sorry state of affairs into being.

The task is an ambitious one – to chart the history of a whole continent over fifty years. While the book may not go into the same level of detail as a history of an individual country or historical figure, it nonetheless illuminates trends that were common to one degree or another in many of the countries in the years following independence.

The book is broken up into four sections. The first tells the story of the immediate post-independence era, when the rhetoric of the politicians of the newly independent countries was full of optimism. Meredith paints vivid biographies of leaders such as Kwame Nkumrah of Ghana and Nasser of Egypt, in which their confidence shines through. This honeymoon period did not last for long though – the optimism of the early 1960s soon faded when it transpired that the freedom fighters, once they had gained power, where not all that keen on holding free elections, risking losing that power. In the second part of the book the author writes of the various schemes used by ageing leaders across the continent to stay in power, from repressive measures to political cronyism. He writes about the vast prestige projects leaders invested in, such as Ghana's national airline whose only passengers were the politicians who had sanctioned setting it up even there was no demand from the public. One trend that seems to be common to nearly all of the newly independent countries was the setting up of huge state bureaucracies – not with the intention of delivering effective governance to their citizens – rather to provide cushy jobs for the ruling parties' supporters. In one depressing statistic he provides, there was one stage when the government of Angola were spending more money on sending family members of the ruling party abroad to private medical clinics than the proportion of that country's GDP was being spent on its national health system.

As the book moves into the 1980s, the picture becomes bleaker. There are stories of coups and counter-coups from Nigeria to Uganda. Economic growth rates declined, as countries struggled to pay off debts that had been acquired in the 1970s. Indeed, in his chapter on the Ethiopian famine of the 1980s, he notes that that decade is often referred to there as “The Lost Decade.” From the 1990s to the present day it seems that time and time again the people of Africa have been let down by those in power: the genocide in Rwanda, the South African government's inept response to its AIDs crisis and recent bloodshed in Darfur are all examples Meredith cites.

While there are some grounds for optimism Meredith outlines, on a whole this is quite a depressing book. However, the author's straightforward, logical and chronological style provide a great context for Africa's current problems. Essential reading for anyone who wants insight into the politics and current affairs of Africa.

Did I go to any of the gigs mentioned below?

No.

Why not?

Because the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men gang aft agley. Also I forgot about the Utah Saints gig.