Music from the 1970s that remains timeless, no.44

10cc. The Wall Street Shuffle

This seems a particularly timely inclusion; 10cc's art-house rock satire on financial speculation combines great lyrics with a semi-funky rock arrangement, with a fab guitar riff & piano accompaniment. As with all 10cc tracks its episodic & knowing but nonetheless an entertaining (and poignant) three minutes or so of socio-economic commentary (& still relevant right now).

#70sMusicForToday #music #politics

You know what’s next, right? Revoking every medal ever awarded to a black person or a person of color.

Trump: the King of Stolen Valor. Literally.

https://www.newsweek.com/memorial-to-black-us-soldiers-who-died-in-ww2-quietly-removed-11020241

As an unpaid carer I endorse Dan Taylor's argument that there are two things our political class get wrong about unpaid care:

1. Care has an under-acknowledged impact on the carer, their wellbeing & financial health;

2. however, carers choose to help their loved ones & therefore do not deserve pity but rather need support.

We need a much better culture of public support & respect for unpaid carers; few of us will in the end not be touched by these issues.

#SocialCare
https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2025/10/28/what-we-get-wrong-about-unpaid-carers/

Music from the 1970s that remans timeless, no.9

Roxy Music. Love is the Drug

There's so much in the Roxy Music catalogue I could have chosen, but this is a personal favourite, combining the art school posing of Bryan Ferry with a staccato funk backing & some great sax playing from Andy Mackay. This was the sound of school discos in my mid-teens not least due to the lyrics about the fumbling on the dance floor; so, today a particularly nostalgic one for me

#70sMusicForToday #music #SchoolDisco

If energy produced by gas sets the price of all electricity supplied into the national grid, then one way to rescue the price payed by consumers is to end that market-making price structure.... of courses the gas-driven energy suppliers would be unhappy, but the bigger prize would be a major reduction in the cost of living & the continued consolidation of the UK's renewable energy sector....

the Q. is will Labour take that route?

#energy #politics

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/04/electricity-users-save-5bn-a-year-gas-fired-stations-removed-from-market

Every night, alone in the briefing room in front of a large flag, begging for it to love him, a luke-warm microwaved Marks and Spencer curry congealing in front of him, while his family sit upstairs acting like normal people.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25432047.keir-starmer-said-hangs-england-flag-number-10-flat/

Battle of the Beanfield: 40 years on, very little has changed

Of course, wouldn't happen today.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2025/05/30/battle-of-the-beanfield/

I never thought I'd live to see a French President acknowledge a German Chancellor asking if France might extend its nuclear umbrella to Germany and its allies in Europe, because the US umbrella can no longer be counted on.

The post-WW2 reality is irrevocably broken.