Topiary at Versailles

Last week’s mid term elections were not exactly great news for the Democrats but one state appears to have bucked the trend. California saw the re-election of veteran politician Jerry Brown as well as small advances in the state senate.

For me anyway, one result was rather curious: the electors of Long Beach voted en masse for Democrat Jenny Oropeza (left) who beat her Republican opponent 58.4% to 35.7%

This is despite the fact that Sen. Oropeza, had died on 20 October…. A special election will be required.

This sort of thing is not unknown. The odious and erstwhile Attorney General John Ashcroft was defeated in 2000 by Mel Carnahan who had been killed in a plane crash.

What I don’t understand is why these election went ahead when it was clear that one of the candidates was clearly unfit to discharge their duties if elected (or perhaps not: Strom Thurmond is believed to have died in 1983 but still served for many years).

Here if a candidate dies the constituency election is suspended (as happened in Thirsk and Malton this year) until the party whose candidate has died selects another one. It just seems odd that the in the US the election still goes ahead

Brancusi III

Brancusi II

Brancusi

Assassins of Allah

Originally called Hassan i Sabbah. This originally aeared on the 1977 album Quark, strangeness and charm. Its name changed to Assassins of Allah during the 80s

The Sex Pistols do Hawkwind

Actually not a big surprise as John Lydon was rather a Hawkwind fan. He may not have admitted than in 1977 though!

Hawkwind -Steppenwolf

It lives

I.m not around until tomorrow so I'm not participating in this week's photo hunt. Here's Crabby as he/she gets out of the way of the camera

A small spit in the face of public servants but still a spit

Wrong finger but we get the message

It’s not uncommon for governments to bring in placemen into departments as special advisors. Labour did it and the Tories did it when they were previously in power. I’m not saying that it’s right but it is done.

A personal photographer is a different matter though. If Cameron. According to the Guardian (and plenty of other sources) the Cabinet Office has confirmed it had given Andrew Parsons, a former Tory party employee described as Mr Cameron’s “vanity photographer”, a job in the civil service.
Nicky Woodhouse, a filmmaker who has made hundreds of the 'web Cameron' films for the Tory party, has also been put on the civil service payroll.

The pair have been hired by the Cabinet Office on a one year contract, worth around £35,000 each, with a brief to work across all Government departments.

The jobs were not advertised to anyone else and their positions did not exist under the last Government.

The Government announced a recruitment freeze not long after they took power. So much for that then. Okay this is not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things but it sends a message to civil servants facing the axe – a message of utter arrogance on the part of the Government.

If nearly half a million jobs are going, slashing the number of people to provide essential services and deliver policies then why the hell is there money for a personal photographer?