Socialist Reviews free on 1st June

I write reviews of books and films for The Socialist and Socialism Today. The book will be free on 1st June and very reasonably priced thereafter (99 cents in America and the equivalent in the UK and elsewhere) Click here

During the banking crisis, the BBC broadcaster, Sarah Kennedy, joked that “The TUC have a demonstration against capitalism this weekend. They are bringing it forward because capitalism may not last that long.” Yet capitalism did survive the banking crisis and every family in the land knows how it survived. It survived at our expense. Bankers still get million pound bonuses (I always think six months in prison would do them more good) and we get cuts in wages, pensions and social services.

Perhaps it is those who believe in capitalism who are living in cloud cuckoo land. They assert that Socialism is impractical but what could be more impractical then a society which robs the poor to give to the rich?

I have collected some of my reviews here. The most recent is a review of Parliamentary Socialism entitled Miliband on Miliband. The earliest is a review of Life on the Screen by Sherry Turkle which is simply the most fascinating insight into the strange world of cyberspace that I have ever come across.

I review things which move or interest me.That is the advantage of freelance writing.

Table of Contents

Miliband on Miliband
Les Miserables 2012
The Apprentice final
Fahrenheit 9/11
Remember me Rescue me
The Exception to the Rulers
The Media in Question
A Child called 'It'
The Root of All Evil
Battleship Potemkin
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
The Chatterley Affair
V for Vendetta
Forget you had a daughter
Two lives
Life on the Screen
Borgen
Ideological dimensions of Taxi Driver
The Iron Lady in meltdown
Various Pets Alive and Dead
Why I became a Socialist

My Amazon profiles

You've heard of Oxfam. Well this is Oxcred

Oxcred is a scheme in Oxford (hence the name) for a mutual credit scheme. I googled it and they thought I wanted OFSTED! Does any teacher really want OFSTED?

•    The idea is to create a social economy, one freed from the control of the banks, the speculators and the megacorporations.
•    Oxcred will seek to encourage community, co-operation and mutualism.
•    It will seek to encourage local trade, production and consumption of locally produced goods.
•    This social economy will be aided by the creation of a new currency in Oxford called the oxcred.
•    This currency will be issued by and under under the democratic control of its members.

It is an indication of the extent to which people distrust the banks that a scheme like Oxcred is being proposed. In the absence of a mass party representing working people it makes sense to take measures of self-defence like mutual credit even if the banks will do all in their power to subvert it if it becomes a threat to them. Remember how the building societies were hijacked by profiteers with only Nationwide surviving the onslaught.

Click here to find out more

War profiteer 1919 could be 2013

Requires no comment really 

Thatcherism is alive

This happened to me today. It has probably happened to you so many times it seems commonplace. It was a hot day and I tried to buy some water. There was no price on the water displayed outside the shop but I soon found out it was five Euros for 3 litres!

I declined. To be exact I told the shopkeeper what I thought of him and declined.

I then bought 3 litres of water for 50 cents at another shop.

If I were to try to steal 4 euros 50 from somebody I would wind up in prison. Lock up the profiteers!

Word game resource

If you like word games you will find this useful. It was created while playing "Bookworm" but the information is also useful for Scrabble, bananas, Lexicon and other wordgames.

Click here and see what you think

 

Left Challenge in NUT VP election

Socialist Party member Martin Powell-Davies will be standing for Vice President of the NUT. He has already received the backing of the Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC) and is now seeking nominations from NUT branches.

There is more information here

http://electmartin1.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/martin-powell-davies-to-stand-for-nut.html

Gmail account hacked

My gmail account has been hacked. I apologise to anyone who has received dodgy emails ostensibly from my account. I have had a go at tightening up security on the account and keeping my fingers crossed.

I had this problem some time ago with yahoo and deleted all my yahoo contacts. This was a bit drastic so I hope I don't have to do the same for gmail.

British Heart Foundation gaffe

I have a lot of time for the British Heart Foundation for the obvious reason that I have heart disease. I was concerned that the latest Heart Matters magazine features Vinnie Jones. I threw it away.

Jones was the presenter of the infamous Soccer's Hard Men video, which featured archived footage of himself and many other "hard men" of the game, and included advice for budding "hard men". After the release of the video, Jones was fined £20,000 and given a six-month ban (suspended for three years) for "bringing the game into disrepute". Jones boasted that " I've taken violence off the terraces and onto the pitch".
He has subsequently had a career as a thug in films.

One wonders whether this is the best possible image for the British Heart Foundation.

A verbal contract? Is it worth the paper it's written on?

A nasty piece of work this morning. I am still running the West Sussex NUT Helpline pro tem. A member has agreed to work two days a week as this fits in with childcare arrangments. The head insists that the member agreed to three days a week. Three days a week would be impossible for them. Head charmingly hinted they seek work elsewhere.

The head is taking advantage of the Goldwyn adage that "a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on" (It should of course have been an oral contract but Goldwyn was Goldwyn)

I suggested the member should set out their objections in writing and request a meeting with the head.
Members are entitled to be accompanied at meetings:
Ideally by the NUT rep
Failing that an NUT member
Failing that another member of staff.
They should certainly take a record of the discussion since this seems to be a shortcoming of previous negotiations.
It is most important to have clear objectives for the meeting. It is most often the person with a clear agenda who gets their own way.

Click here for Classroom Teacher Manual - the book of the helpline

Levellers

Levellers' Day is a fortnight away on 18 May.


The Levellers were predecessors of today's socialists. Their demands were not socialist but they went far beyond anything Cromwell was likely to countenance.

One summary of their demands is here

Link to Levellers' Day

Blog update

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Ark update

Ark is a local charity in Horsham helping people who are homeless or addicted or just plain poor. It also helps people like me. There isn't really a client/volunteer atmosphere at Ark. We are all in the same boat so to speak. 

On of the things I do is provide advice on ICT, numeracy and literacy. As part of the literacy work of Ark, one of our members has been writing a story. It is available here Over 400 people have looked at it so far. You could be the next :)

Site for short fiction Mayday update

There is no money in this but it is probably good publicity The site is http://www.short-fiction.co.uk

The story as of Mayday 2013 is as follows:

 

Bad Romance 628 readers

What's on the Television 192 readers

When I think about you 4187 readers - that is a lot of readers!

Mayday Socialist Reviews Thanks

Thanks to everyone who downloaded on Mayday. If you liked Socialist Reviews of Xavier's Recipe Book please feel free to make a comment on Amazon - doubly so if your surname is not McMillan! If you didn't like it, never mind :)

Socialist Reviews

Xavier's Cookbook