Posted on 24 May 2009 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 1st stop in Wales after the Severn River tunnel, 30 very inebriated customers brawled puked sang shouted, Bridgend station, brilliant 4-0 shutout against Middlesbrough, Cardiff Central, England refuse to work the last half of this train ride, English football fans get a bum rap, First Great Western Train, interview with political legend Stan Greenberg, London, many happy fans joined in London for the ride to Readin, melancholy parting, Midnight Train to Georgia, my eff-ing iPhone to anyone who would listen, Newport, roundtrip flight to Moscow, shattered after a day filled with meetings that began s, Swindon, Tottenham Hotspurs football team, trip normally costs about £70 or $110, up to £250 if last minute(!), wee small hours of the morning, “Game On”
Reprise from March on the midnight train…
“It’s one train before the Severn River tunnel and quite another afterwards, said Ed, the train manager (not his real name) as we all sat in a somewhat quiet First Class car for shelter. “Train personnel from England refuse to work the last half of this train ride for [...]
Posted on 31 March 2009 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: AIG bonuses, Alistair Darling, Ankara, Chancellour of the Exchequer, China, Czech Republic, England, France, G-20, George Soros, Germany, GM Chairman Rick Wagoner, Gordon Brown, Her Majesty, Istanbul, London, NATO Summit, President Obama, Prime Minister Zapatero, Russia, Stansted Airport, US Secret Service
London is all a Twitter as President Obama arrived here three hours ago, walked to the base of the Air Force One staircase then levitated across the tarmac to the amazement of startled onlookers, his red cape flowing beneath his 50,000 watt smile.
OK, I mean the BBC providing a live feed was a bit much [...]
Posted on 15 September 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 9-figure earning fund managers and bankers, AIG, bank stocks have fallen 20%, bankruptcy, Barclays, behaviours became more sinister, best of all worlds, Black Monday, BofA, Bush Administration turned a blind eye, could make money however they wished, dodgy instruments, Dow losing 700-800 points, extradition treaties, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, financial world markets 6% off, frog-marching of those responsible to jail, fund managers, Hong Kong fund managers and bankers, Ike, keep the party going, leaving someone else to hold the bag, Lehman, London, make room in The Hague, managers would then retire in mock shame, Markets fell precipitously, Merrill, new brand of global criminal, New York, non-financial world, party is over, repackaging horrifically bad home mortgage loans as sec, rest of us have to pay the bill, safe in the knowledge government(s) would always bail t, said no, seizure of their ill-gotten gains (assets), shotgun wedding without Bear Stearns like bailouts, stability and sensibility, The City, their millions already safely invested, thumbed their noses, ticking bomb of AIG Insurance Group, transparency and sensible regulation, unbridled optimism and irrational exuberance, Wall Street, wiping smug “greed is good” grins, worldwide
Am I smoking something?
There is a perfect storm in financial world markets… 6% off by noon London time – equivalent of the Dow losing 700-800 points. This could be a Black Monday in New York with the bankruptcy of Lehman and worldwide, bank stocks have fallen 20% or more. And perhaps, finally, transparency and sensible [...]
Posted on 23 August 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (1) | Tags: 10x per day crisscrossing the NE corridor, 12-minutes magically added to the schedule, 150 mph (220 kph), 1st Great Western, 28 million people (up from 25.6 million), 33% increase in the budget for Amtrak, abandon cars, Acela, age and neglect, alternatives, Amsterdam, Amtrak, Amtrak’s Northeast corridor, Anglo-French Eurostar, antiquated system, Atlanta-Dallas, avoid long drives, Belgians, boon to travellers, Boston, Bridgend, British TGV, Cardiff, Chicago-St. Louis, Congress, Congress seems to be listening, continually slept, deferred major infrastructure projects, delays are often very long, Dutch, EU, Eurostar, exceed 300 kph or 200 mph, Frankfurt Airport, French, French in particular, German, Germans, high cost of petrol, high petrol costs, high speed rail, huge economic toll between major cities, huge struggle, ICE, infrastructure, Joe Biden, lengthen the time of the journey, London, London Paddington, long-running joke, Naval Observatory Circle, need 5-10x that amount, night and day, old equipment, owns 700-miles of trackbed, Paris, plagued with delays, poor quality track beds, public train transport, reener opportunity, rents from freight lines, ridership was up 14% in July, San Franscisco-LA, US citizens love to mock Europeans, US train system, USA, Vice President, Wales, Wall Street Journal, Washington DC
Now that Joe Biden may live this January in Naval Observatory Circle as Vice President that would free a seat daily on Amtrak’s Northeast corridor. But will it be enough? Amtrak ridership was up 14% in July and because of the high cost of petrol more than 28 million people (up from 25.6 million) will [...]
Posted on 04 August 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 2012, 48-hour media blitz, Alistair Darling, BBC, Beijing, Blair memo, blood sport, Chancellour of the Exchequer, Conservative Party, courageous, David Cameron, David Miliband, Deputy Party Leader, Foreign Secretary, General Alexander Haig, Glasgow, Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman, John Prescott, Ken Livingston, Labour, London, London Mayoral, Margaret Thatcher, Number 10, Number 11, Olympic Closing Ceremonies, over/under bets, President Reagan, Prime Minister’s holiday, Scottish National Party, Shirley MacClaine, shot in 1981, Sir Humphrey Applegate, Sir John Major, SNP, State Secretary, The Brown Mutiny, The Telegraph, Tony Blair, Tories, White House, Yes Minister
It begins with one whose ambition gets ahead of him or herself. Like the proverbial drip, drip, drip of the tiniest hole in the dyke, Labour front bench cabinet ministers sat silently for the first few moments of Gordon Brown’s holiday and then one-by-one began to stick toes or more in to test the waters [...]
Posted on 12 July 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 20, 900 per day, abusive, anti-social behaviour, ASBO, BAA, baggage charge, baggage lottery, British Ariways, customer environment, EU shrug and smile, London, lost bags, Milan, Naomi Campbell, NHS, one hand on the phone, service, T-5, Terminal 5
Coming to London this summer? Flying a British Airways long haul flight to Heathrow? You too could be a loser in the T-5 baggage lottery. Yesterday we learned Terminal Five still loses 900 bags each day. And that’s an improvement. Complain or demand satisfaction too vociferously and you could find yourself arrested and facing an [...]
Posted on 04 July 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: Blend vs. Stir or Shake, CNN, cookouts, Council Tax, fireworks, FOX, Friday, Glamorgan Heritage Coast, Independence Day, Irish Sea, London, Monknash, over-stuffing, parades, Plough and Harrow pub, political speeches, Severn River, strange, tea bag, US ex-pats, US holidays abroad, vadimus post, White House
On my 10th US Independence Day abroad, I’ll walk across our meadow to where the UK’s Severn River meets the Irish Sea and toss in the contents of a tea bag to celebrate. US holidays abroad are a bit strange. It’s Friday here. No hours-long parades, political speeches, fireworks, over-stuffing myself at cookouts or other [...]
Posted on 03 July 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: $10.11 per gallon, 14% pay increase, A40 Westway road closed, Belgium, China adds 1, company blinked, Diesel fuel, drive on UK roads, four-day strike, France, fuel costs, high cost of diesel, Houses of Parliament, India, London, no cost parity across the EU, OPEC, panic buying, Peter Carroll. Transaction, Prime Minister’s Question time, Shell, tank up before getting on the ferry, taxes, The Guardian, Whitehall, wildcat action, £1.32 per litre, £1.50 per litre diesel
Diesel fuel averages £1.32 per litre in the UK or $10.11 per gallon. Since truck stop pumps dispense fuel at a rate of 120 litres a minute, 1,000 litres on average per tank means $2,600+ per. A huge percentage of the increase is in the form of taxes and thus truckers want Whitehall to do [...]
Posted on 01 May 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: Alexander Litvinenko, Champion's League, charter flights, Chelsea, diplomatic row, dissident, English football, government, hotel, KGB, Liverpool, London, Moscow, Russia, tickets, visas
What a night.
Chelsea stunned Liverpool in extra time with two goals to win their place in the Champions League Cup finale and the night before Manchester United’s amazing 25-metre screamer by Paul Scholes into the top right hand corner of the net early in the first half was enough after 90 nail biting minutes to [...]
Posted on 01 May 2008 by Denis Campbell | Comments (0) | Tags: 10p tax band, back benchers, Boris Johnson, change, David Cameron, George Bush, Gordon Brown, John Howard, Ken Livingston, Labour, local elections, London, mayor, Northern Rock, petrol prices, Swansea, Tony Blair, Tory leader, Wales Cardiff
UK Prime Minster and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown is in an unenviable position today. Tony Blair rode off into the sunset just in time. While never close, the knives are now sticking out of Mr. Brown’s back as Mr. Blair (through high placed discreet sources), Labour front and back-benchers, the London and UK-wide Press, [...]
Wiley and Non Squitur cuts too close to the quick for many.
UK Progressive E-Magazine began during the 2008 US Presidential Campaign and was created to consolidate and replace two blogs created in 2006 called “Outside the Boundaries,” a political blog and “Fire the Guru!” an expose blog of charlatans in the Mind Body Spirit business. It was briefly called The Vadimus Post. That name came from the Latin 'Quo Vadimus' or 'Where Are We Headed?'
When looking for pithy Latin URL names, I’d watched a moving episode of the same name (different tense, Quo Vadis) from Sports Night, an early series created by The West Wing’s Aaron Sorkin. It was the last episode and focused on the sale of the network to an unknown billionaire who asked the question every day of those who worked closest to him. He wanted to know the answer and… Do We Know Why? His rationale: we spend so much time on things urgent, we miss the important and do we ask ourselves (and others) why we are heading in a particular direction?
Well that is what we ask in these Op-Ed pieces, articles, live feeds, video segments and contributions from friends and affiliates. We are blessed to be able to dialogue with you and our aim is to provide independent, critical insight into the issues of the day. UK Progressive is published daily in Monknash, South Wales. Its founder, An American in Wales, is US journalist Denis Campbell who has been based in The Netherlands and the UK the last 11-years.
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