Greetings

I saw this a couple of days ago, and let it past, but today I am reminded what a good idea, letting people choose their greeting is and so decided to share it here.

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The Shires vote, and so does Lewisham

Last night was election night for much of the country, although on the whole not in London and it seems, not in Northhamptonshire. It’s been a confusing set of  results and I’ll need to think about what it means; I don’t plan to be as quick as either the Leader of Sunderland council nor his remainer opposites, when I find out who that is. But in Lewisham London, Labour held the two seats up for election.

Congratulations Lionel & Kim

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Meaningful Votes

Meaningful Votes is a role-playing game, written by Richard Barbrook, where player’s (or teams) represent parliamentary factions and replay the last 3 months in Parliament to see if a different outcome might have been possible. The factions have different power (ie. votes in Parliament) and the different goals i.e. different Parliamentary goals which are enforced by the scoring system. You can also win points through your rhetoric. At least some factions score higher if they are on the losing side of some votes. Heckling is encouraged.

We played this with Lewisham West and Penge CLP.

Richard suggested that people play a faction with whose views you disagree because the learning experience is better. I played the “Lexiter” faction and certainly clarified my ideas about who they are and what they represent, an alliance of rump Bennites and Blue Labour and that’s before we just consider the careerists & triangulators, who are frightened for their seats or for a majority. …

The Gemalderie

I went to the Gemalderie in Berlin’s Kultur Forum. The art was a bit too religious or bit too civic. It made me want to got back to the National Maritime Museum for some seascapes, or the the art gallery at Newmarket. I missed the classic, i.e. Botticelli pictures of Venus which it seems are there but found one by Titian, called Venus & the Organ Player, fortunately painted and titled 425 years or so before Peter Cook’s satirical speech on the Jeremy Thorpe trial summing up. It reminded me a bit of the Jo Brand & Helena Bonam Carter sketch on the objectification and changing fashions of female beauty.

The Gemalderie has a sign saying photography permitted, the staff were wonderfully polite, even when correcting me, and the Cafe had a fabulous salad, but I think I need to go to Musee Insel next time., now over to the Embassy to show solidarity with comrades on the “finalsay” demo. …