Ah, the Comprehensive Spending Review. 

Surely it was a Shakespearian drama of our times.  George O, costumed in hair and grin, cutting determinedly at the national budget, looking to save a buck or billion.  Nick and Vince (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?) squirming and smiling and not going to Oxford.  Grizzled Tories peering at the books and recoiling in 'orror from wot Gordon 'ad done.  And Ed, who had done none of it. 

Now I've kept my academic nose clean of politics and economics, so I'm not about to engage in any of the nitty-gritty analysis about whether this £ or that £ will do x or y to this or that group.  There are plenty of political bloggers for that.  And they have charts. 

As an anthropologist, I get to say that it's all about the people, man.  The problem is, I'm in not-so-sunny Melbourne; I'm not on the ground, scribbling frantically in my trusty notebook and taking the pulse of the nation West Yorkshire.  So other than my usual line about contemporary economic uncertainty and the possibilities for a turn to the past, I'm all out of revelations on the people front.

But I still want to talk about the CSR.  It's a big thing.  It's a big thing in that we don't actually know what the consequences down the track are going to be, and in that sense it is probably the biggest thing that the ConDem Coalition have done thus far. 

The response, in at least some quarters, has been weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Maybe some of that has been warranted; Tory wingnut pleas to dispense with the minimum wage and, y'know, post-Victorian labour laws, and left-of-left laments for the overnight obliteration of the entire North ... not particularly. 

What has been established is that the CSR disproportionately cuts at the poor.  That sucks; it really, really stinks.  But, this is a Tory government and in an era where even the leader of the Labour party is offended and distressed by the 'red' epithet, was anyone seriously entertaining thoughts that George Osborne was going to come charging out of Nottingham Forest firing arrows?  Even Friar Tuck is off signing up to the Anglican Covenant these days. 

I don't mean to suggest that this means we should say "oh well then" and be pleased we're in a semi-detached with a nice new sofa and an eco-wotsit.  Nor am I a great believer in that "real world" so often bandied about by those who have a cubicle all of their own (fancy!). 

But, the global political-economic system in which we find ourselves is not, and never has been, structured for equality.  In that it has created (or compunded) losers, the CSR is a product of that system.  It could not be anything else. 

And it is profoundly unfair. 

And it has benefited many of us. 

What are we actually willing to do about it? 

We start Britain Today in the manner of La Toksvig, with some cuttings from about this time last week.  Britain, indeed the world, may now have moved on, but as I haven't quite caught up yet I shall ignore this possibility.  Also, I'm listening to Yazoo.

First up, and bound to get you bouncing in your seats, is the Anglican Covenant.  Lesley has the inside scoop.  I applaud ecstatically. 

I'm not so sure, however, about Archdruid Eileen's taxation plans.  I fear the coffers will run dry once all the celebrity gardeners and media lecturers decamp for Australia. Though, if George Osborne happened to be dragged into a Husborne Crawley basement and Eileen happened to turn up in Westminster ... no-one would notice the difference. 

On the depressing front, Catholic Care are really emphasising the 'care' part by fighting once more for discrimination and bigotry.  I am pulling a face at them as we speak.  Also in equality news, my friend Robert Brown passed on this Indy article about Stonewall's Ben Summerskill and his recent anti- marriage equality weirdness.  Perhaps Catholic Care could adopt him?

Now!  New stuff!  A new museum in fact, for the (admittedly not so new) Mary Rose.  The museum will be opening in 2012 (Henry would have loved the Olympics.  Especially if he could have won everything.), and, interestingly, the conservation process finishes in 2016. 

Keeping with the maritime feem tune, do have a look at the Old Weather project, which is crowdsourcing transcription of WWI naval documents.  Apparently it's to be used as climate data, which dimmed my enthusiasm a little bit since I once spent a merry few weeks rummaging in Australian Naval Station reports from the 1870s-90s and, believe me, it wasn't the weather which caught my attention in those! 

I am keeping some other new (and old) things up my sleeve to have a natter about a little later. 

Dear to this anthropologist's heart are the ways in which bits and pieces of the past pop up today.  So it was with hand-rubbing glee that I discovered the Knutsford Great Race. 

This was held two weekends ago in the Cheshire town of Knutsford (once home to Bobby Charlton and Mrs Gaskell.  Not simultaneously.). 

What is it?  A penny-farthing endurance race, that's what.  Entrants have three hours to clock up as many laps as they can around a 1km course through the town.  Solo winner Jim Brailsford clocked up 107, so we're not talking a bit of sedate wheeling about: he was getting that baby up to around 22mph, according to Matthew Sparkes in the Guardian's Bike Blog.  There's a definitive account of the race up at Bicycle Slut. 

Penny-farthings are danger on two unequally-sized wheels since if you hit something (like a pothole, a squirrel, or a suffragette), you'll be pitched forwards off the big wheel.  Head first.  And the Victorians certainly didn't have helmet laws.  Fortunately, as Howard Barlow's rather good photos show, most Knutsford nuts were well protected.  The Guardian have a photo gallery too.  (I love that the cozzies on show range from athletic lycra to dapper Victoriana.)

Unfortunately MMRMTL will have to wait some time to report live from the event, since it's only held every 10 years.  It remains to be seen whether, in 2020, Knutsford will still be represented by the delightful George Osborne.