AC/DC is on a highway to hell

Gotta love those pyrotechnics... click on the expand button to view in full size glory!

A youthful B B King at his best

Check out this rare footage: not just the cool blues guitar riffs, some barnstormingly good singing too!

red hot chilli from back when!

Suck my kiss direct from Moscow's Red Place

The Fly, rooftop views of London included!

Wake up people!

Rage Against The Machine now heading up the Download festival in June '10 alongside AC/DC! A flavour of things to come...

Gorillaz Feel Good Inc flashback

Stumbled on this again after a while... not too bad on the guitar either ;-)

David Cameron's deficit reduction: kickstarting the UK's lost decade?

According to today's letter from the UK's foremost economists to the Financial Times, you would certainly think so:

The Treasury has committed itself to more than halving the budget deficit by 2013-14, with most of the consolidation taking place when recovery is firmly established[...] for the good of the British people – and for fiscal sustainability – the first priority must be to restore robust economic growth

protesting the UK Conservatives call to halve the deficit right now.

For those who missed it, one of the main reasons for Japan's "second" lost decade of economic growth (after the bursting of the post-war bubble in 1991), was the Hashimoto government assuming the recovery was back on track in 1997 and increasing taxes to reduce the budget deficit. Simply put, the tax hike depressed consumption and the fragile recovery dipped back into negative or zero growth which continues this day... Let's hope the Cameron government is not just a Hashimoto government in Savile Row suits.

After 20 years, Japan, as the 2nd-largest economic power in the world, has transformed itself into a low-growth economy by necessity. Lessons for the next UK conservative government? Don't head down exactly the same - technically laudable albeit premature - path to long-term low-growth.