Author: Anthony

Pies in Brighton

Culinary discovery of the weekend was Pokeno Pies in Gardner Street, Brighton. Lovely modern, airy shop with excellent beef and mustard pies (also haddock and fennel, which Jane had, and chicken and leek for my mother in law).

Quick, friendly service with a huge chunk of mash and mushy peas. Lovely.

British and European attitudes

From the BBC.

Compare:

EU countries have come under pressure to control fuel costs amid a clamour for action from hauliers, farmers and motoring groups.

The French government announced a package of measures on Tuesday designed to ease the situation for farmers.
They will be offered tax breaks and refunds on fuel worth about 30m euros ($36.6m; €20.2m).

“The rise in fuel prices penalises farms, which cannot always pass the cost on,” Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told a meeting of farmers in Rennes.
“We must help them.”
Similar financial assistance was announced for hauliers on Monday.
Farmers unions have said that they would study any government proposals before deciding whether to step up direct action.

With:

The British government has ruled out any direct action over fuel costs.

Chancellor Gordon Brown ruled out cuts to fuel duties, instead urging Opec members to boost production and invest in new refineries.

I’m with the British on this one.

Ashes news

A good day for England in the cricket, and the Ashes inch even closer. BBC sport has the details, in a story that includes the first non-US use of ‘storied’ (meaning lots of tales rather than lots of floors) I can remember seeing.

Disastrous

The Washington Post reports that five out of eight leaders of FEMA (the emergency management agency that had such a triumph in New Orleans) had “virtually no experience” in disaster management when they were appointed.

This is – like so much about this Administration – astonishing but not surprising. The political appointment is so widespread in America, and so ill-managed in this administration, that there’s a wearying inevitability about the FEMA acting leader (the now-disgraced Michael Brown) and two of his senior officers having had ties to the Bush election campaign.

The alternative system, of life-term senior officials appointed through a career structure, has been around in the UK since the Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854. It’s not perfect – it’s conservative, slow-moving and generally resistant to reform – but it does produce experts and permit expertise to flourish. It can, on its day, even produce a radical and innovative appointment.

The quick-change act at the top of most American governmental organisations must surely lead to demotivation and confusion in the lower reaches of the organisation. The British civil service may be frustrating, but if I were picking someone to lead on civil contingencies, I’d rather have Sir Humphrey Appleby than some random Muppet.