Boss Radio

Someone just said it on TV. I think they meant 'Quantitative easing'.

It means 'Inventing money'.

I think.

It's money, Jim, but not as we know it.

It's electronic money and doesn't really exist in the real world, it's just there for the banks to use to start them lending money to each other again. I do find myself worrying though, that they might get it mixed up with the real money. What if they then lend it to me? Will I get into trouble for spending money that isn't really there?

The real danger with this scheme - and it's one which the-powers-that-be are hoping that the-people-who-watch-out-for-this-kinda-stuff are not going to notice (But I suspect that they will) - is that other nation's financiers will think that this money is a bit real, they will imagine it in terms of suitcases full of money, and they will realise that this means that the pound is now worth less because there are more of them to divide into the total wealth of the United Kingdom, and they will devalue it.

This of course gives me an idea that I would really like to see as an experiment, seeing as how everything which is being done to fix this crisis is experimental anyway. It goes like this.

Bring forward next year's Domesday Book (You probaby know it as 'The Census'). Give everyone of post-school age who is mentioned therein a million quid of real, freshly minted notes. The pound will immediately devalue, but that won't matter because it will, at worst, only half in value, meaning that everyone will now have the equivalent of half a million quid.

If we are to believe the statistics... ...then 90% of our wealth is owned by 10% of the population, so 90% of the population will be much better off, and the richest 10% won't be, but they'll still be stinking rich beyond the realms of anything that can be ethically justified so we really don't care much about them, do we?

The important thing is that 90% of us will start spending money. Some will be sensible and will remain fairly solvent, others will simply hand the lot over to the top 10% who will rapidly become every bit as rich as they were in the first place.

Most important of all. I will be better off, and so, incidentally will you in all probability.

Will you tell Gordon or shall I?

Last year the UK flogged £5,400,000 worth of military hardware to Georgia. We also trousered a magnificent £55mil from the Russian army.

Now those two figures may seem a little uneven to the average unmilitarily educated observer, but the Georgian army also benefitted from a $63,000,000 train and equip programme from the USA. The intention was that Georgia could then join NATO and ooh maybe even, erm... fight in Iraq.

I suspect an assault on South Ossetia wasn't even discussed in the coffee break.

In a completely unrelated interview on the radio last week someone trotted out the old adage 'Guns don't kill people: People kill people'. I've never understood that argument.

If people kill people, don't give them guns.

They tell me it's spring. The flowers in my garden thought that a month ago and they were wrong, but this is spring according to the calendar so that's different. But not that different because the calendar's wrong as well. The venerable old tree at the bottom of our garden doen't think it's spring yet. It's showing no sign of bursting into leaf, and quite right too because it's phlippin' phreezing up in the computer room right now, and that means it's going to be even colder in my bedroom. I'm not about to start talking in Fahrenheit just yet.

This is, of course, my excusereason for not being around on here much of late. I can just about stand to check my emails and ebay but blogging is a luxury my little fan heater just isn't up to.

At the moment my fingers are like ice-lollypops (I would have said icicles but they've still got traces of the sweetener that I put in my tea on them), but I'm scarcely noticing. That's a lie, I am now noticing with a vengence but up till now I've been sitting fascinated by the £-$ exchange rate. I went to XE.com just to check if it was worth my while buying a CD from the US and as I looked the rate changed. The pound was now worth 0.0001 more against the dollar. I'm not even sure if that 0.0001 was in cents or nupennies and I don't care. All I knew was that if it kept rising I could buy that CD.

So I watched.

It's fascinating. Why is the pound slowly crawling up against the dollar? Has confidence in the pound suddenly gone up because we didn't change the interest rate this month? Is the dollar collapsing at the thought of someone of the wrong colour, age, or sex entering the White House?

Or are the strange faceless people who make money out of screwing around with our lives while not actually contributing anything to the economy whatsoever busy pushing up the pound prior to selling it and buying the now devalued dollar, which will then rise in value again so that they can sell it and buy something else that they've devalued?

I'm thinking option three. Pah. Pondscum of the Earth, the lot of them. Come the revolution....

Which hasn't stopped me from buying the CD, so Ms. DooWop, if you're reading this. Get that CD into the bag and off to me quick, before the faceless ones strike again...

The strange things you think about while you're driving... Yes, I know you're supposed to think about driving but I can't stop my brain from thinking whatever the heck it wants to, and today it suddenly found a connection between the following songs:

Louie Louie
Money
Wimoweh
Smokestack lightnin'

Having located this link it went on trying to think of other songs that also had this thing in common and it came up with 'Twist & shout' which I immediately disallowed. It nearly qualifies, but not quite. It then suggested 'Somewhere beyond the sea' and 'Mac the knife' which I promptly poured scorn upon, and then found myself wondering about the supplementary question, how does one 'mac' a knife?

I think I may have found new depths within the narrow confines of the term 'digression'.

So, you want to know the connection between the song that you've heard of and the one that you think you've heard of, plus the two that you haven't heard of although one of them sounds familiar?

For various reasons, although they are all much covered songs, none of them has been covered by a soundalike. The covers are all covers of a subsequent version of the song which changed it in some way. Except... OK, which of the songs doesn't this apply to and why is it still in the list? I'll tell you before you kill me, it's Smokestack lightnin', which for some reason is always played incorrectly by everyone.

Of the rest, all covers of Louie Louie since the release of the Kingsmen's cover, have been inspired by the Kingsmen's version, the original by Richard Berry & the Pharoes is long ago forgotten. The Kingsmen's version is now so all-encompassing that even Richard Berry himself took to singing their version of the song.

As for the song that launched Motown, 'Money' had an R&B piano/guitar riff in the background. When the Beatles covered the song they - deliberately or not - changed the riff to something similar but heavier, and every cover of the song since then has been based upon the Beatles cover. Some people even think they wrote the song.

Then there's poor old Solomon Linda who wrote one of the best selling African songs of all time. He died almost penniless having written the song which, for decades, was the song to feature in any movie, show, or documentary about Africa. It's title wasn't even Wimoweh, that's simply what it sounds like. The orignal title was 'M'bube'. When the Weavers covered the song they played it in compound time, the original was in simple time. Every version of the song since has followed the Weavers' rendition.

And so we return to Smokestack Lightnin'. For reasons that no one will probably ever be able to explain, when white blues players get ahold of the riff they play it where it sounds right, just after the first beat of the bar. On the original by Howlin' Wolf (And hey, he wrote it, he should know) the riff anticipates the start of the bar and actually comes in on the '4' of '1 - 2 - 3 - 4'.

I think I may deserve some kind of recognition from the R'n'R hall of fame for this...

But I suspect that all I'll get is more strange looks from the audience when I try to play these songs correctly.