My uncle Charlie has started this year's UK tour with his band. Like last year, they will end up at the blues festival in the Orkney Islands, but unfortunately hasn't got any London gigs. Check out his tour schedule, under the "Gator n' Chips Tour". Charlie's been playing professionally for over 20 years now, and has gotten damned good - his latest CD is superb. If you know me and are in London, and don't have a copy of this disc, let me know, I've got a bunch that I haven't done a good enough job of giving away.

One thing I've realized is that I haven't heard Charlie play in ages, and Ozlem hasn't seen him at all. I'm not sure quite how that's happened, mainly I guess we see each other when he's got a break in his touring (usually we visit them in Switzerland when he's got time off to hang and 'board with us). We would love to catch his gig in the Orkneys, because a) I know they had a great time last year, b) there's lots of other bands to check out as well, and c) it'd be cool to check out the Orkneys. But I doubt we'll make it, mainly because of the expense. We're plotting though, we're determined to check out at least one of their gigs, even though it means an overnight trip.

The site ToryScum has some great photos of billboards for the UK Conservative Party that have been, uh, "modified". These billboards are just begging to be hacked. They feature a large handwritten message that emphasizes some fear-mongering aspect of the Conservative platform, for example "It's not racist to limit immigration", with the tagline "Are you thinking what we're thinking?", and plenty of whitespace.

There are some amusing modifications on that site, but what I'd like to see is thought bubbles coming out of the "Are you thinking what we're thinking", with suggestions of what Conservatives might be trying to imply without coming right out and saying it. The Economist has a good article on this "dog whistle politics", and a long piece which (for subscribers only, unfortunately) explores the facts of the immigration issue.

Of course, as a "bloody foreigner" I can't vote - not that I'm complaining, in spite of the substantial chunk of my paycheck that Tony and Gordon swallow every month. The "Who you should vote for" survey suggests the Lib Dems or the Greens match my views most closely (although I really don't give a toss about fox hunting, and the survey doesn't ask any questions about the environment). For those outside the UK, the Liberal Democrats are the official centrist party, but the political pigeonholes are a bit out of whack these days. Thanks to Tony Blair, the most business-friendly party in national politics is the one called "Labour" (which is a classic example of dry British "humour").

I would be sorely tempted to vote Lib Dem if I could, but they haven't got much of a shot, although they do much better than all of the third parties in the US combined. So I would be afraid the Tories would get in, and I learned my lesson about refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils on principle in 2000. In any case, Blair is supposed to step down in favor of Brown sometime in the next term, so in theory a vote for Labour is a vote for Brown, maybe, eventually, if they ever really do pry Tony's fingers off the controls.