Politics & prezzies

Evidently it was a slow news day in the UK Friday, as a tempest has risen in that particular teapot over Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s visit to the US.

No, not over a jumped-up Labour party apparatchik-made-PM-by-default (when Blair read the graffiti on the wall & resigned to take up the role of World Elder Statesman, & collecting huge speaking fees) coming to this country to lecture President & Congress on the need to avoid protectionism (American) in solving the global economic crisis. (Because the UK needs all the economic help it can get.)

Evidently they’re in a snit over the exchange of official gifts. To wit: Brown’s-to-Obama = superb; Obama’s to Brown = sucko. & this is a matter of complete outrage to the British press.

Oh, please.

Iain Martin, reporter/blogger for the Torygraph was so worked up as to not only write about it; he imperiously condescended to be interviewed by NPR on the subject.

According to Martin, Brown “clearly put a great deal of thought” into the choice of official gifts: a pen holder carved from oak timbers of HMS Gannet (a ship of some apparent significance to the Brits) & a framed commissioning paper (whatever that is) for HMS Resolute, sister ship to the Gannet. & also a first edition of Martin Gilbert’s massive biography of Winston Churchill.

In return, Obama gave Brown a boxed set of classic American film DVDs.

Martin also whines that the gifts exchanged on behalf of the prime ministerial & presidential offspring shortchanged the Brown boys: Sarah Gordon presented the Obama girls with an outfit from Topshop (a British slightly upmarket clothing chain store—with outlets in the US), & six British children’s books. The Brown boys got a couple of toy helicopters modeled after Marine One.

Again, Martin snipes that Sarah Gordon “put a lot of thought” into the choices, while, again, the Obama gifts smacked of “someone realizing that at the last minute that a gift would be required & sending someone down to the White House gift shop to get something.”

He’s referring to this exchange as “Giftgate”. How droll.

What I love, though, is him attributing the choice of Brit-gifts to the Prime Minister & his wife. Like they weren’t picked out by underlings, exactly the way the Obamas’ prezzies were chosen by aides.

Let me just say this: if the Browns were spending time pondering just the right tone to set with bleeding official gifts (that the President cannot keep beyond his term in office anyhow), then that would explain the current state of the British financial situation. Not a good recommendation for the former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

I’ll concede that a set of DVDs wouldn’t be what I’d be looking for in the way of gifts-I-can-return-for-obvious-reasons. But perhaps the Yankee thinking was along the lines of, “the PM has a lot to do, what with the state of their economy, & those pesky Tories nipping at his heels. Let’s get him something entertaining, that he doesn’t have to devote a lot of concentration to.” Would that be a seven-volume biography of FDR? No—movies!

Although the scandal is roiling exclusively in Britain; it’s hardly made a blip in the American media. The Times, the Guardian, the Daily Mail & others have ponderously weighed in on the alleged scandal. NPR, the Chicago Sun-Times & a few bloggers are the extent so far over hear.

Of course, British media are accustomed to covering those gritty beats of Royals’ antics & lager louts getting tossed out of soccer matches across Europe, so this might be considered both something of a departure & right up their alley.

Here’s some advice to the media in that sceptred isle: get over yourselves. If you feel slighted on behalf of your leader, do what you usually do: go on a binge. & then grow the hell up.

Sunshine on your shoulder

Sunday marks the switch to daylight saving time for the US. You may be wondering why, exactly, we move the clocks (& watches & VCRs & car clocks & microwaves & electronics of all types) forward. It’s to save energy.

No—really. It’s to save energy.

California’s Department of Energy has a handy-dandy little site explaining all this. You may find it of interest that the clock-changing is one of the offshoots of war, specifically World Wars I & II.

Whatever—enjoy the sunshine later into the day. Summer’s on its way.

Restaurants on the run

The tough economic times have hit the restaurant business coast to coast—hard. Nationwide, sales at sit-down restaurants are forecast to be down 6% this year; for fine-dining establishments that’ll be 12% to 15%. In a business with narrow margins, those drops are like auto sales falling by 40%.

The LA Times reports that eateries on its patch had a bad year in 2008, where the Writers Guild of America strike hit hard. Even December—usually a boom month—tanked.

Restaurateurs are laying off staff, curtailing hours, doing their own shopping & flower arranging. They’re even offering deals & discounts to get butts in seats.

Across the country it’s the same story. Restaurants in Manhattan—notably attitudinal during normal times—are becoming downright obliging & amiable. Condescension is out, accommodation is in.

No more begging for a deuce near the kitchen any night at 8:45 during the next five weeks. If you call you may find a table is available tonight, at 7:30. & if it isn’t, the reservation-taker wants all your contact details to give you a call-back in case of cancellation.

Plus—they also have the deals & offers for their customers. At one place, owned by celebrity chefs, you can get the $250 20-course tasting menu for $175; the $175 nine-course tasting menu is now $125.

Ah, New York!

On the consumer side, those who are still eating out are looking for those deals, splitting orders & otherwise cutting back on restaurant costs. & they’re getting less attitude from servers or managers when they pull out the coupons or share an entrée.

What I find interesting, particularly with respect to the frugality blogger, is why it doesn’t seem to occur to these people that if they really want to save money on meals, eating out two or three times a week probably isn’t the best method.

Waters of life

During this winter of our discontent, it might not be appropriate to dredge up one of Eric Felten’s columns from December 2007, since it’s on high-end single-malt whiskies. But I'll do it anyhow.

When it was published I was living in a place where I might have been able to purchase one of them, were I so inclined—the District of Columbia being a free market liquor economy. I bring it up now because I haven’t a hope in hell of finding them within the borders of the Evergreen State, so I don’t really care.

Other than to comment that I just don’t get putting Laphroaig at the top of any list. The stuff I’ve had tastes like jet fuel Soviet pilots on Sakhalin used to siphon out of their MiGs. It’s some of the nastiest substances ever to emerge from Scotland, a nation-manqué that in my personal experience has produced some really worthless exports.

I can’t believe that a $230 version tastes any better.

However, I’m open to any of the others, if someone wants to share.

Economic relief

Well, here’s a potential path out of the perpetual government bailout mire of banks, auto manufacturers & every other business whose executive management teams sank them, their stockholders & their customers through repeated greed-driven boneheaded decisions: as reported in the Washington Post, the Mafia has stepped into the lending gap in Italy.

We should definitely see if we can’t make that model work for us here. Instead of Rick Wagoner & John Stumpf sidling up to the feds to ask for further squillions, & Congress being too spineless to put any real conditions on the use of our money (e.g., no bonuses, no junkets, no incentives except stock shares), how about they go to a shipping container outside of Detroit or Oakland & talk to a guy named Guido to get the dole?

Now, there’s a beautiful element to this solution: not only will it not be your dime & mine (at least not directly) going down these sinkholes, but there’ll be a much higher incentive for the corporate buffoons to take real action to get their companies out of the red.

Seeing as to how the red could be their blood.

I’m pretty sure that the bent-nosed boys will have no qualms whatsoever at examining GM’s or Wells Fargo’s books & demanding the elimination of executive perks…or executives—they can take their pick—until the loans are paid off.

& if the companies don’t make the payments, & they start appearing in Lake Michigan or the San Francisco Bay wearing fine Italian cement loafers, at least the gene pool gets thinned out.

Win-win, I say.

Humint

In keeping with last week's post on occupational observations by various military types, I offer up these aphorisms from other military sources.

Many of them are applicable to business situations, particularly in the software business. "No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection" certainly resonates.

Others are just truisms for life. "Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers" pretty much says it all.

Friendly Skies, v2

It being Saint David’s Day, it might be appropriate to bring up news from a fellow Celtic nation: Ryanair’s whack-job CEO Michael O’Leary has possibly announced (one never knows whether O’Leary is stating policy or having a wind-up) that the budget airline is considering charging passengers to use the toilets in flight.

Keep in mind that Ryanair is as close as you can get to a Greyhound bus and not make the entire journey on asphalt. Fares are in double-digits (even though the digits be pounds) and the airline famously charges for in-flight beverages, checked baggage and actually, you know, booking a flight.

Ryanair’s flights are probably a maximum of three hours, and the company is as well-known for its disdain for its customers as its cheap fares; but still—charging €1 to use the loo seems particularly egregious.

Commenters are already serving notice that Ryanair could expect to find passenger seats soggier than usual, or that the airsick bags (does Ryanair actually put those out? For free?) will be put to new use.

However, if O’Leary goes ahead I’m sure the move will be watched closely by US airlines. USAir has only just this week grudgingly announced that they’ll stop charging $2 for soft drinks, because while $2 isn’t going to kill anyone, if they’re the only airline levying that particular charge…

Well, whatever. Just keep it in mind that you could be looking at this new charge if you choose to fly in the future, because airlines will do anything rather than raise fares and give you an actually, you know, decent flying experience.

And the connection with Saint David? His symbol is the leek.

Buddy, can you spare a million?

In case you haven’t seen this yet, I offer it up for a bit of levity.

And lest you think it’s just fantasy, the New York Times has informed us that the $500,000 President Obama has set as the cap on salaries for execs at banks accepting Federal bailout money—well, evidently $500,000 just doesn’t go very far these days.

With that kind of dough you’d have to think hard about cutting your two vacations per year (minimum $16,000), pulling your 2.5 kids out of private school (at $32,000 per), wearing the same $15,000 frock to multiple charity affairs and laying off the nanny to save her $45,000 salary.

What I’d like to know is: don’t these people have any savings? How about investments that they can use to fund their conspicuous consumption? Or did their funds disappear along with the holdings of the poor schmucks who invested with Bernie Madoff?

Somehow I doubt that. If they can finagle $18.4B in bonuses in a year when money was drying up like an ice cube in the Sahara, they're going to be hurting that much.

Interestingly, while the NYT tells us that this sort of make-do-and-mend sacrifice just can’t be done, evidently the masters of the universe are giving it a go. Bloomberg reports that execs are thinking twice before ordering limos or $1000 bottles of wine.

I’m sure this resonates with the 2.6 million people who lost their jobs in 2008 and nearly 600,000 laid off in January of this year.

OctoMom Report, Week 4

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a whole page o’ OctoMom today—two AP stories about Nadia Suleman.

The first documents Suleman’s segue from miracle mom to pregnancy pariah. According to a USC sociologist, the backlash is partly laid at the door of people who’ve lost their job or a loved one died or is in jail, & that’s why they’re pissed off at her going back repeatedly to the well of artificial insemination.

Well, not so much. I’m in none of those categories & I’m still outraged—not so much at her, because she’s obviously a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but at the MD who kept filling her womb with embryos.

I got a kick out of the YouTube video on Suleman. This is the sort of thing DARPA must have been thinking of when they invented the Internet.

The PI also had a story about Oprah’s interview with Ed Doud, Suleman’s father. He claims that his daughter’s interview with Ann Curry on NBC was “under duress”. Evidently being tempted by a national news network to babble witlessly is somehow analogous to being forced to sing disco at knifepoint.

But the corker for today is the announcement that porn distributor Vivid Entertainment has offered Suleman $1M to star in a skin flick.

Of course, even assuming that the cool mil is net, that’s just the hospital fees for the birth of the octuplets last month.

America—gonif!

Winery 101

You may recall that one of the WSJ’s wine columnists’ new year’s recommendations was to visit a new winery.

Well, here’s their advice on how to make that visit successful.

I will say this about the metro Seattle area (particularly the otherwise stultifying Eastside): I’m spoilt for choice when it comes to visiting “local wineries”; even “local wineries with decent product”.

So I plan on hitting at least three in King County. Plus the Walla Walla, Columbia Gorge and Yakima valleys.

I truly could not say that about the wineries within a 60-minute drive of Fairfax County Virginia. I recall a trek I made with my neighbors about a year ago to several wineries in Loudoun County. At one of them—I’ve tried Googling on “wineries owned by polo-playing mid-easterners with blonde trophy wives”, but still can’t find the name—the 18-year-old good-ol’ boy who was giving us the tour assured us that the winery produced “one of the ten best champagnes in the world.”

Uh—scuze me?

For one thing, the name “champagne” is only allowed to be applied to wines coming from the département of Champagne.

For another, nothing out of that place was in the top ten of anything. Unless it was the top ten of themselves.

Well, regardless—there’s probably no state in the Union that doesn’t have wineries now. So take on board the suggestions of Gaiter & Brecher, head on out to the one nearest you, and enjoy.