The single reason why Communism failed

There are of course places in the world where communism survives. However, let's accept that in most former communist places in the world - the Soviet bloc and Balkans for example, Communism has been replaced by the most ruthless capitalism. Often because that's what the vast majority of people wanted it seems. Or perhaps not, you'll have to speak to some Chinese and South Americans to really get the facts because to be quite frank, despite my claims of being a wise knowing sorta fella, I don't know jack about the world. I kid you not.

Perhaps people said a cheerful goodbye and bid a sunny hello to capitalism, because the food was so shit. Russian food being a case in point, or at least most of it (Georgia and Armenia I know are a bit exceptional here, but then they were never "Russian" were they?) And what about China and its culinary delights. Maybe on a dodgy ground here?

A woman who lived through soviet style Communism, in former Yugoslavia, and sorry, for her name I have forgotten, once wrote, only semi-jokingly, in her excellent book "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" that communism failed because despite its lofty aims (some of which I'd even agree with myself) and high ideals, the Soviet version at least could not bring itself to admit that women exist. I'm not talking about equal pay and the right to be exploited by a particular boss - when it came to equality there, Communism was colour and sex blind - but that it couldn't even produce tampons that could be described remotely as on a regular basis. Such as, you know, the 28 day cycle, what most women go through for at least half their lives. Blood catchers. Sort of necessary wouldn't you think? And when the Yugoslavian state saw fir to bring them (more likely, when a shipment was sent in from which ever factory in Poland or Latvia produced them) they were spectacularly uncomfortable by her account. They were called 'Gull' I believe and had a wee bird as their mascot.

Her theory, interesting and left field as it is, is in fact wrong.

The reason communism failed was because of the quality of its biscuits. Take the packet below for example, which I bought in an Eastern European supermarket in North Woolwich expecting the kind of pleasant - or at the very least, interesting - surprise you get from eating, say Hungarian or Polish confectionery. I'm presuming these are an adaptation, though only in packaging, of a type made when Communism in Latvia was at its peak because there is no reason any sane person would want to eat them other than for nostalgia's sake in the same sense that Russians still eat Doctor's Sausage, a grim reminder of previous times and ate for the same reasons some old codgers here still like tripe and onion sandwiches. Back then, the packet might have contained the world "Biscuits" and the paper may have been bogroll, and that cute little doggy would have been in a commercial artist's baby dreams only. But what makes that biscuit what it is today, the essence of the biscuit, lives on in 2006.

These biscuits are awful. Mine were stale. While I agree that this is possibly because Latvia is a long way from Woolwich, it isn't that far. Its only a bit further than Finland, and the Finns make Fazer chocolate which is both fresh and tasty. The packaging on these biscuits is wimpy to say the least. Positively see-through in patches. I'm only kidding, but it is rather cruddy. Then there's the taste. Whereas a boring biscuit made in the UK, of which there are plenty, but let's say for example, a Rich tea biscuit, has a mildly satisfying taste of burnt vanilla, these taste of precisely nothing. A few people I tried it on said they could detect coconut, but i think they were only trying to wind me up. Coconut schmoconut. And there are the little gritty things which could easily be birdseed, bu minus the nutritional value. What are they? I don't know, I don't understand Latvian and there isn't an English translation on the packet. isn't this illegal?

I'm going to give these biccies zero out of ten. I can't think of one single reason why you'd eat them. Even if you were a desperately homesick Latvian I'd really rather eat dogshit than these. Then throw myself onto the M4 from a high bridge. And the cartoon dog on the pack, you may note, is in fact about to scoff one for himself and with those gritty bits riding down his alimentary canal at the speed of a French train, he should be producing some really fine shits soon afterwards. These should really be filed with the dog biscuits and passed as unfit for human consumption. Only thing is, dog food must be fit for human consumption and in my opinion, these aren't.

They are exactly how the packet describes them. Poopoo.

End of the line for North Woolwich NLL services

This will be blogged to high heaven by Railfans (when did word this replace the much greasier sounding 'trainspotter')?

Here's the small but meaningful Daggersdukc photo shrine to the end of the North London Line, which ceased operation between North Woolwich and Stratford stations on 9 December.

Mrs Daggersdukc and myself took ourselves over to Sugar Hill, as we've dubbed the area around the Tate and Lyle factory, a place, which I'm glad to say, is still operating, with all the whirs, clunks and unknown robot noises a factory should make. We discovered a rather fine Eastern European supermarket from which we bought Bigos (a kind of Polish stew) and goulash soup.

We said our goodbyes to the train service. Not one we've ever had cause to use much, but I lived next door to the NLL for 6 years and became almost comforted by the trains' noise. Any curtailment of this service is a sad thing in my opinion.

Here is the train at North Woolwich.


Here are a couple of signs...

And here are the distinct lamp-posts. Powered with high pressure sodiums - well,those which aren't busted - I bet these looked really eerie when they contained incandescent bulbs. I've had nightmares in which these creepy looking things feature, only in my dreams, they can move...

Christmas lights in Dagenham

What with Christmas (sorry, Winterval) coming ever closer, I have noticed that people round Dagenham haven't been half as self-indulgent this year with their Christmas decorations. Usually, the whole area glows like Las Vegas, with snowmen, twinkly trees and fairylights on full display. Maybe this can be explained by people going green and wishing to use less energy (as if anyone round gave a shite about the state of the planet). Maybe its the sheer cost of running such lighting (blame those Godless Russians and their energy greed). Maybe its because punters are seeing through over-commercialism.

Shame, because as I'm really no more than a working class git with a semi-functioning brain, I rather like the overkill of lighting up your house as it you were trying to compete with Piccadilly Circus. Once from Hayes, always from Hayes. That's the not-posh Hayes near Heathrow, not the leafy one in Kent.

Anyway, I was having a wander around Dagenham (OK, I was walking around London's only circular road, Valance Circle) and came across this wee baby. Not so much a house decoration, but Santa's main London grotto.

PHOTO TO BE ATTACHED

And up our street is this electric blue number. Its notoriously difficult taking good shots at night, especially with a camera phone, and even a relatively competent one like my Samsung D900 struggles here. I've put them through a photo enhancement program, but even so, the full scary blueness of this house window cannot be fully appreciated. You can see the thing reflected on the opposite house as you walk down our street, that's just how bloody bright it is. Lacks any aesthetic, for sure, but makes up for it in sheer power.

PHOTO TO BE ATTACHED

Christmas is later this year

Is it my imagination or have companies cottoned on to the notion that selling Christmas in late August does nothing but turn punters off. Oh the battle betwen faux festive "jollity" and the good old fashioned hard-sell, eh? Thank goodness we're not in America where Christmas starts before Thanksgiving and just goes on and on and on... Bit like their election campaigns really. Christmas will always come, the Republicans will always win...zzzz.

Sadly, very little Christmas schlock on the radio either. I am being mildly ironic, though I have to admit that I'm rarely bored of hearing Slade track. One of the best songssc about the British working class ever - I kid you not, check out the lyric:

'Are you sure you've got the room to spare inside?"

I, like millions of ordinary Brits, grew up in a small terrace house in the scumburbs and getting more than about 10 people into your living room was and is quite a feat (thought we've had 30 in our tiny house!) The middle class, those who aren't in tiny city centre flats anyway, don't have this problem. I could write a small disseration on that track. Nice one, boys from the Black Country for basically summing up my feelings towards Christmas before about the age of 14. I'm also quite fond of "I Believe in Father Christmas" for its downbeat theme but ever so cheerful, uplifting, dare I say, tune. Jona Lewie's Stop The Cavalry too isn't bad (and wasn't even supposed to be an Xmas track, either) and of course the bawlsome "Walking in the Air" by that rather decent chap Aled Jones. I don't mind the singing, but its that little orchestral descending bit after the first verse which rarely fails to bring a tear to my cynic's glazzo.

Perfect orange

In, I think, 1991, the UK government ran a series of anti-drug infomercials. One which jumped out was an themed on the dangers of aceeeed advert where a chap was standing on the roof of a high building. His mates were begging him to come down, but no, the fellow jumped. The last thing he said was the he was looking for the perfect blue. I've done a bit of LSD and have never had the sort of trips that lead to delusions of being able to fly or perform any other superhuman ways. But the idea of the perfect blue creeped me out then and it was four or five years later when I dropped my first acid, and say vein-coloured horses coming out of the walls and became obsessed with the hidden meaning behind particular words that I really got to know the full extent of the mental strageness that is your brain on a trip. I've mixed views on the various drugs I've tried, but in my case, thankfully, no regrets at all, and double-thankfully, during the 10 or so trips I've done, no bad ones either. Tripping does alter the way you think about the world, and in some ways, with a greater respect for your mental health as you realise its only a few molecules which are holding your sanity together. it still pisses me off that acid house music was never actually about the drug at all, which was even then pretty much a cult drug confined to festival-heads, old time hippies and a few e-heads who wanted something a bit more interesting, more intense.

If the government had done the tiniest bit of research, it would have discovered that the acid in "acid house" was a reference to the Roland TB-303's bass synth's squelchy "acid" noises used on a lot of the tracks of the time.

I digress though - my acid experiences and government inabilty to real cultural references weren't going to be the point of today's lecture :)

It was merely a run-up to the fact that on Wednesday evening, while Christmas shopping in Matalan, I found the perfect oranage. It was resplendent on some plasticware: the kind of thing you stick plates on to dry, and I fell in love with it instantly. My phone's camera makes it look a bit redder than it actulaly is, and even with a bit of colour tweaking, I can't get it quite right. But anyway, here it is.

Garden done

Thank goodness for small mercies. Garden paved, problem-free. Lee, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

This is of course, of interest to no-one.

Merely a diary note of a sort.

Still pleased though.