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Listed below are comments made by Stop_it_Aggers between Thursday, 11th June 2009 and Monday, 20th July 2009.

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• Flintoff - England's gladiator supreme 7:12pm on 20 Jul 2009 Well done to the boys - a great result however you look at it. Those querying some of the wickets might want to think back to 2007 and Strauss' bad decisions in particular. in an ideal world such things wouldn't happen but in the real world you just have to accept the decisions that don't go your way.
  
  People are right to highlight The roles played by Jimmy and Swanny in particular. As an aside, when did an England scorecard have 6 clean bowled?
  
  The batting continues to be a worry. If KP isn't right then he should rest until he is. Meanwhile there is an obvious replacement for him or Bopara. Someone with a Test double century to his name and currently in the form of his life, single-handedly scoring more runs at Cardiff last week than the entire England team managed in their second innings there. The other thing abbout Rob Key is that he has rather more experience of captaincy than most of those on central contracts, which is another area that needs some work. Not Strauss' fault, just the way things work these days with Test players having little time to play with their counties and practice the art of captaincy there.
• Next week's banking White Paper turns out a bit "green" 2:48pm on 02 Jul 2009 This is worth a read :
  
  http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3658
  
  "requiring the banking system to hold more capital on average will not improve the resilience of the financial system if we do not also better match risk-taking to risk-capacity"
  
  Still bemused how conditions are too bad right now to sell off assets like the Post Office, but it's imperative that we flog off Northern Rock to Tesco before the election. I can't possibly think what the reasoning is here.... :-)))
• Blood, bees and banking: theatre and the credit crunch 6:24pm on 28 Jun 2009 PS Talking of ghost towns, can I just vent a small bit of spleen about Mary Portas' Money Programme? What a complete waste of her address book, even if it is lined with alpaca of chinchilla or something. She's got the clout to get the likes of Rose and King talking about their businesses, but would rather show us kids giving away fairycakes!
  
  She's obviously very good at her day job, and I quite enjoy her take on the Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares theme usually, but this was like matching a tiara with dungarees. Whether it was a production team needing to "sex up" or the fairycake godmother only operating on "transmit", it ignored the first rule of documentaries - have enough confidence in your subjects to just let them speak. Perhaps the best "retail" documentary on the recession so far was the "accidental" one on BBC4 a while back about Berry Bros, a company much closer to the heart of the crisis than the Beeb itself.
• Blood, bees and banking: theatre and the credit crunch 6:23pm on 28 Jun 2009 First off Paul - I meant to congratulate you earlier on your Money Programme, partly for exactly this reason. It was the first thing I'd seen in the media telling the sorts of stories that I was hearing plenty of anecdotally - and all the more welcome for featuring the sort of ordinary people that never normally get on TV but that are far more recognisable to me than the "ordinary people" normally found in the media world of Big Brother et al. Should be compulsory viewing for all those in the Westminster village, I hope you give out some DVDs.
  
  If only the media spent as much time talking about the people taking pay cuts and short-time working as they did about selfish idiots like the Tube drivers, then maybe expectations in the public sector would be reset a bit and we would all be better off. In that respect it would seem that the Midlands in particular is far more in tune with the outside world than many in London, but hitherto there's not been much reporting from there - I don't think the London media made enough noise about the leadership given by the JCB workers in particular. Actually JCB probably deserves more coverage than it gets in general, I guess it's just too far from the M25 to "count". On the same line of thinking, I can't help thinking that there's a great documentary waiting to be made about one of the big chemical complexes like Grangemouth or Immingham.
  
  Going back to the topic, I think there's several reasons why "the definitive artistic response to the crisis [will] take years not months". Partly because the crisis so far has been very "intangible" in a way - the Wizard of Oz is the only major bit of art that comes to mind that can be interpreted as coming out of economics, and even that is debatable (for those that don't know, the theory is that it's about the false hope of agriculture, industry and the cowardly financiers going down the "yellow brick road" of the gold standard). Looking more recently - did any great art come out of the repricing of oil in 1973? It's a bit tenuous, but I can only think of Yergin's The Prize, which was published nearly two decades later. In the same way, a collapse in interbank lending is just a hard thing to write about or do anything with.
  
  That leads on to my second point - there's already been a lot of hardship and distress, but it's mostly been happening to people who work for banks and eg property developers - people of whom artists have little knowledge, and even less sympathy for. They will find much easier targets in a few years time, when there's car factories being shut and nurses being sacked. Steinbeck didn't write about Wall St bankers in 1929, he wrote about farmers in 1937 and 1939. So you might expect to find the first "recession artists" to be redundant City workers rather than the traditional artist in a garret somewhere, perhaps expressing themselves in words rather than in other media. It's maybe significant that perhaps the best art to come out of the recession so far has been the cartoonists in the broadsheet newspapers (as were) - I think I could make a case for Gerald Scarfe being the greatest artist in Britain today, who just happens to publish his work in a weekly periodical. Worked for Dickens, so I don't see why not. But boy has Scarfe been bleak recently. Obviously it helps that there's been political crisis at the same time as the recession, but the likes of Alex are a lot more in tune with the City than Damien Hirst for instance.
  
  A related point is that so far this has been a recession of two halves, a lot of pain in the real world and very little in the public sector. So the recession has had little effect on many who commission art, and so they are perhaps somewhat out of step with their audiences. BBC drama is perhaps the most noticeable example and might be contrasted with some of their competitors who have been hit by the slump in ad revenues - like the newspapers. .
  
  While I know some smart people holding budgets in the public sector who are already preparing for serious cuts, there's still a lot who seem to think "it can't happen to me" - and those underneath them are still largely unaware of what's coming. Maybe they think their houses are now worth what they were in 2005 (even if it's more like 2003 in reality, asking prices are a good example of the wider denial) but even that still feels a bit unreal to them. To that extent, the recent "10% cuts" debate has made a difference, changing attitudes among the people who can cushion the blow if they plan ahead.
  
  It's also interesting to think about how the arts themselves have changed since the last recession. It's not a particularly profound thought that (some) blogs are the successors to the 18th century political pamphlets. But you could also view the Spectator website's national debt widget in the same light, a bit of agitprop in Flash form. And an exhibition of football shirts would be a succinct way to show the varying fortunes of the British economy over the last 30 years, it's a great test of corporate hubris as Man Utd and Newcastle's shirt sponsors bear witness. Actually Paul there's probably a programme to be made there, just out of the advertising boards at sports stadiums - it's been fascinating to see a plethora of City institutions melt away from the tiers of Twickenham to be replaced by bailiffs and 70's-style manufacturing companies, we even had a cement company sponsoring the Twenty20 World Cup recently. Maybe it's just me that finds that kind of stuff interesting. :-)
  
  At least by analogy with the 70s and early 80s we've got some great music on its way, even if the great bands won't emerge until about 2014 - recessions give young men a lot of time on their hands. Again one difference is that they now play games consoles rather than guitars, so perhaps the greatest expression of this recession will be people with great artistry in the way they play Halo 4 and Quake V. Meanwhile we still have the music from that time, an early sign is Glastonbury programming "Ghost Town" - sorry, welcoming back the Specials. And Paul I suspect that "Industrial Disease" by Dire Straits will be the backing music for most of your programmes over the next 2-3 years....
• Iraq enquiry row rumbles on 2:22pm on 24 Jun 2009 Shame you didn't have more time for NR's point at the end about pandering to the meeja's heartbeat. I sympathise with the point about accountability to Parliament - but surely ministers have a higher duty, to the people who employ MPs?
  
  Is there any reason why Parliament couldn't run something akin to the City's Regulatory News Service, a newsfeed of record where most of the significant announcements are released at 7am? Thus everyone has the actual facts to hand first thing, and any debates/interviews can be held with everyone in full possession of the facts and having had time to study them? Seems a no-brainer to me.
  
  It could be combined perhaps with the ideas from TheyWorkForYou.com on producing parliamentary papers in some kind of standard database format. But this kind of thing could make quite a difference to reporting and analysis of business in Parliament, no?
• The global property scene 4:59pm on 12 Jun 2009 megagodfrey (#5) - I think she's right, from memory the overall national house price stats didn't drop during the late 70's, although one or two individual regions did. And obviously you can't generalise about individual streets or whatever, although usually it's not negative equity that causes repossessions, it's inability to pay the mortgage. The unemployment and strikes of the late 70's are classic reasons for repossessions.
  
  In fact there was a massive house price crash in the late 70's, but it was masked by inflation going mad at the time, it's quite revealing to see what happened to "real" house prices back then. The circumstances are quite similar now, the only difference is that inflation on consumer goods is low, so the crash is much more obvious. But you can't ignore the effect on psychology, the end of the "can't go wrong with houses" mentality.
• Things are looking up for Gordon 4:48pm on 12 Jun 2009 Last night's scores :
  
  9 - Sara Hobolt's bum (shown briefly during NR's segment) - a compelling argument for European integration.
  
  8 - Jon McClure, just a shame that he was too polite and let the politicos talk all over him. When will they learn that we want to hear what the guests have to say (at least the good guests, they're welcome to drown out the Wozzas)? They're far too keen on the sound of their own voices; I know it goes with the territory, but even so.
  
  7 - Speccie, although one point is for showing his blooper....
  
  5 - Diane. The Prime Minister lies to his own MPs! What jolly japes!
  
  3 - Xavier. Dunno if he was short of sleep or what, but he was particularly tedious and boorish this week - see JM above. The BNP got a million votes - deal with it. The fact that they got 850k last time without getting a representative is beside the point, arguably that's more shocking. He just came across as wanting to disenfranchise those million people, he probably wants to repeal women's suffrage and the Reform Acts as well.
  
  2 - Debra-from-the-Apprentice. Not good enough for Earl Grey, not good enough for This Week. Bring back Saira Khan.
  
  The Brazil gag was one of your better ones though.
  
  York1900 and others might want to note Darling's interview with the FT today, which includes things like "we have got to live within our means and I set out a clear commitment to halve the deficit over a five-year period....80 per cent of that deficit reduction comes from cuts in public spending plans". He adds that the future is too uncertain to write a detailed budget, so it seems a bit rich to expect the Tories to do the same.
  
  Also with them going on so often about the praise from the IMF it's worth noting the IMF comments that they don't talk about : "The focus of this adjustment profile should be to put public debt on a firmly downward path faster than envisaged in the 2009 Budget...weigh the adjustment toward expenditure reduction...structural reforms to address rising costs related to demographic change."
  
  The IMF continue that any extra income from the back of the sofa should be thrown at debt reduction and not pre-election bribes, and that one of the key tasks of government is to persuade the public of the need for "sizeable fiscal adjustment".
  
  
  
  
• Are we all long-termists now? 4:04pm on 12 Jun 2009 FrankSz (#46) - I think it would be more accurate to say that we would be facing a rapid increase in oil demand, but in 2007 we didn't have much capacity to add to consumption. So the price, rather than consumption, would have been the thing that increased.
  
  foredeckdave was talking about electric vehicles replacing (implying 100%?) petrol and diesel by 2019-24. Widespread use of ultracapacitors just ain't going to happen on that timescale, it takes a long time for new technologies to break the automotive market. Remember how a decade ago Ballard were telling us that we'd all be driving fuel cell cars by 2010? Fuel cells are coming, it's just taken a lot longer than they thought. Same with eestor, it's technogeek heaven, but a commercially viable product - fully tested for long-term endurance, crash resistance etc - is still essentially vapourware at the moment. Once they have something sellable, then you can start incorporating it into your forecasts for the next 10 years. But for significant adoption this side of 2020 as foredeckdave was talking about, batteries are the only technology in town for EVs. I'm not saying that there will be no EVs by then, but they will have replaced petrol/diesel in 2020 to the same extent that hybrids have in 2009. On sale, commercially viable and quite possibly selling in the millions worldwide - but a long way from the 100m's needed to "replace" petrol/diesel.
  
  In fact the most significant technology to reduce oil consumption by passenger cars in the next 10 years is the diesel engine - or rather, the diesel catalyst. Historically the US emissions regulations have been used to keep out diesel cars (typically from Europe), but Euro V and Euro VI cars with cats now have low enough NOx emissions that they can now be sold in the US. So in the next 10 years there's going to be a huge switch from petrol to diesel for domestic cars in the US - and to a lesser extent in Japan. The diesel engine is not nearly as sexy as supercapacitors or fuel cells, but it's a mature technology whose time has come.
  
  foredeckdave (#47) - all resources matter. But yes, energy is always the big one - and to be honest we'd be better off concentrating on sources of energy first, and then worrying about the climate change implications than vice versa.
  
  "trains and trolley buses/trams are not going to meet all of out transport needs". Absolutely - but nor will personal boxes on wheels. We've been spoilt rotten by cheap oil, which has been able to serve as fuel for planes, and rural transport and urban transport. We're never going to have the luxury of that "universal" fuel again, we're going to have to save it for the real essentials.
  
  For instance, Concorde is already looking like a relic of the cheap oil age. The chunk of world oil production that used to zip Joan Collins to New York in 4 hours now transports commuters round the Beijing ring road or ambulances in Delhi. Thus oil consumption is being democratised and being concentrated in more "essential" than "frivolous" uses.
  
  The electric versus hydrogen thing is another example of how we'll have to get used to the end of "one size fits all". We'll have both - electric is well suited to intra-urban use, hydrogen is a better fit for rural and inter-urban use. And despite Top Gear's rigged tests, electric is closer to widespread adoption, there's still some significant technology obstacles before hydrogen goes mainstream.
  
  Sure transoceanic air travel is going to be one of the last redoubts of hydrocarbon usage. On the other hand, 40 years ago who would have predicted that London-Paris planes would be pretty much superceded by trains? And while I hear your arguments against public transport, a lot of that comes down to culture. 20 years ago I would never have dreamt that today I'd be using trains for maybe a third of my "pleasure" miles. I suspect that your children will be a lot more relaxed about public transport than you are. They'll learn to organise more of their social life away from late-night transport problems, and when they can't, "individual" transport home will be even more of a luxury price than late-night taxis are today. They'll adapt.
  
  As I say though, perhaps the most important answer to all of this lies in the town planning departments of Britain. If we can get them to start planning for the energy environment of 2040 or 2050, that will make life much better and cheaper for all of us.
• Things are looking up for Gordon 9:22pm on 11 Jun 2009 It's been nice to see the BBC economics and political teams have a good 24 hours for once - and a nice change to see them holding our lords and masters to account for once, over something that actually matters. More please of Robert Chote and his ilk, even if he does look like Lembit's geeky brother. Shame Paddy only just got a major point in, how the cost of borrowing affects how bad the spending cuts have to be. Hope that This Week's roundup will mention the second downgrade of Ireland's sovereign debt on Monday - people seem to think that the UK will be next. I've not heard anyone ask government ministers about how they have to keep the ratings agencies happy or they have to cut spending. Funny how it's all gone quiet about reforming those same agencies as a key part of preventing another credit crunch....
  
  I find this thing of protecting the NHS bizarre though, even if Burnham may have gone back on his Channel 4 promise in his speech today. Or maybe not. But given the huge expansion in recent years, there must be fat that can be cut. For some reason the Tories and Andy Burnham want to ringfence the GBP12.6bn spent on NHS central administration but cut military spending by 10% whilst we're fighting a war, and anti-terrorism spending by 10% in the run-up to the Olympics. Or even stuff trailed by Osborne in that interesting speech to the ABI this week, like tax cuts on savings. Yet he still wants to spend £350k on an NHS national productivity unit consisting of one woman and her PA, with no power to enforce any spending cuts! This must be saved even while they are cutting things that will help get us out of recession, like a new iii, or training the unemployed or tax credits for R&D. They must be bonkers - or terrified of the electorate. Still, at least that efficiency unit is proof that Alan Johnson had a sense of irony, it's sooo Yes Minister.
  
  Now, would Chote be interested in one of the Cheeky Girls, I believe there's one spare?
• Are we all long-termists now? 5:07pm on 11 Jun 2009 Tables like that energy one are a bit misleading - a lot depends on the extent to which energy consumption has been outsourced. For instance, most of the energy required to make a plane is consumed in refining aluminium. If Britain or Germany imports aluminium ingots from Canada, they're effectively importing solidified electricity. Canada gets little GDP benefit from a huge amount of energy consumption, whereas the Europeans get a lot of GDP for little energy consumption in transforming those ingots into an Airbus. And everyone in developed countries needs that aluminium to be smelted somewhere, in order to enjoy their Easyjet flights. Same with the outsourcing of steel production and other heavy industry. That's why the Chinese are keen to promote the idea of "embedded carbon" as way to get the West to pay for carbon emissions caused by outsourced energy consumption.
  
  Peak oil type arguments are another matter. The effect of that will be to fix the maximum size of the total oil "cake". What's happening is that the developing countries will take a bigger proportion of that cake as they industrialise - the OECD already consumes less oil than the non-OECD. So instead of sharing a fixed amount of oil between say 1 billion people, we'll have to get used to sharing the same amount of oil among 3 billion people. So the cost will go up, and oil will be used for fewer frivolous things and more "essentials".
  
  Incidentally - widespread adoption of electric vehicles before 2030 is pie-in-the-sky, we won't be able to make enough batteries because there won't be sufficient supply of things like lithium and lanthanum. Already forecasts of Prius production have been slashed due to resource limitations, it's probably better to spread the lanthanum across three hybrids with smaller batteries than one electric-only vehicle. Or just use a non-hybrid diesel outside cities....
  
  In fact the best electric vehicles we have are trains and trolley buses, I hope we'll see planning policy adjust to encourage more development based around such transport.
  
  Interesting speech though from Osborne, even if I suspect most of it came from pointy-heads behind the scenes. I don't agree with all of it, and I doubt he'll implement half of it, but I'd give it a B- for effort.

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