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Spotted an interesting piece on BBC News tonight about Liverpool:

All very interesting. In 1793 there were some banking collapses in London and an important bank in Liverpool went bust as a consequence. There was literally not enough cash about to oil the wheels, or perhaps rather fill the sails, of the burgeoning trade of the city. The council went to ask for a loan from the Bank of England but it was refused. So it took more radical action. They petitioned for a local Act of Parliament "...to enable thee Common Council of the Town of Liverpool in the Coutnty of Lancaster on behalf of and on account of the Corporation of the said Town to issue negotiable notes for a limited time and to a limited amount."

For two years the city issued its own currency on the creditworthiness of the city and its citizens and traders, until the financial storms rocking the global trade of which Liverpool was emerging as the centre calmed down.

All this brouhaha about the Olympics, torches, boycotts and so on has not passed me by. I hear all sorts of stuff from the "athletes' side" about how the Olympics is not political, about how people have trained all their lives to get to this supreme test of their skills and abilities against others from every nation on earth. I have some sympathy with that. I was once quite a competitive fencer. I used to love the competitions (second in the West Midlands under 16s foil if you're interested and can believe it!) and I can only imagine the excitement and satisfaction of having made it to the very top on the planet in your discipline.

But saying that the Olympics is not political seems to me nowadays like saying it's non-commercial and strictly amateur - at least the latter has been the case within my life time. But, as we all saw on 7th July 2005 (when there wasn't other news on that day), the choice of venue is intensely political, certainly in the sense that politicians are deeply involved in it. It can (and has already in the case of London) make people fortunes, that others pay for.

I admit to having had misgivings when Beijing was awarded the games - I don't like the fact that Formula One has a race there, though in a sense that's less of an issue because F1 is an unashamedly commercial, big money, oligarchic event that pays but lip service to the troubles of "little people" and with no loftier ideals such as the Olympic movement professes. But I, along with many others it seems, did hope that having such a high profile international event, together with their growing commercial and economic presence in the world, would focus minds in China on reform. Until I think it was last year sometime that someone high up in the Chinese government said something to the effect that China would never be a liberal democracy ("over my dead body" by implication). I accept that moving such a huge population to full democracy would take time, but this was a "never, never, never" type of statement.

Ever since I have thought that "we" should somehow object to the whole shebang and the credence it gives to the veneer of acceptability. I know that in 1980 the Moscow regime was pretty similar to Beijing's and that the boycott then was a specific protest about the invasion of Afghanistan (oh how we can now ruefully laugh about that!) and it did no good whatever so far as I can remember - though even then, China joined the boycott. So as an organized thing, I'm not sure a "national" boycott will do any good this time either. However, as in 1980, there are other symbolic objections we in the democratic world can make. Athletes could attend and take part under the flag of the Olympic movement rather than their national flags and anthems for example.

But it is pure fantasy to say that the Olympics are non-political - they never have been in reality, even long before they became a festival for junk food vendors and sweat shop employers to tout their tawdry wares and part of a professional athlete's career progression. The Soviet Union - and other countries within their sphere of influence - didn't take part from 1928 till 1952. African nations withdrew in protest at South Africa and Rhodesia being allowed to take part in the seventies. If it really were apolitical, why does the torch even go anywhere near Downing Street - surely if it's all above politics it should be a royal occasion.

Personally, if any athlete choses voluntarily, having gained a place in the team, not to attend, putting lives in Darfur, Tibet or, so far little mentioned despite last year's riots and crackdown, Burma before their personal attainment, they'll have my full support and they ought not to be punished or denigrated for making that sacrifice.

Plus ça change, as they say. I was persuaded to start blogging as a way of supporting Chris Huhne in the last leadership campaign, having been amongst the first to contact him to encourage him to stand. It's not quite skiing season yet, so I presume he's at least around and about at Westminster this time, and I hope he will stand again, as has seemed likely ever since the "discussion" about Ming's leadership began, ooh, sometime after 4th March 2006 I think it was.

This time it also seems likely that one of the other people I might have liked to run last time, Nick Clegg, will make his move. The media, and some who voted for Ming back then, have consistently portrayed him as Ming's chosen heir; indeed there were suggestions at the time that a deal had been done between him and Ming that kept him out of the running then on the basis that he would be the anointed one, fulfilling Ming's ambition and allowing him to create a following after a few more years at Westminster.

I see the BBC are speculating about a whole load more possible runners that could make for an interesting contest. I see they have also begun, not entirely unexpectedly I suppose, to stick little labels on these folk even before we have heard their story: Nick Clegg is apparently "on the economically liberal right of the party" (which is historically at least an oxymoron to me); we are reminded which of them contributed a chapter to the "right wing", "free market" Orange Book (which will probably now mean little even to most of our member-electors I suspect outside of the Westminster bubble let alone to voters more generally). The BBC's list does not include Steve Webb whom Channel 4 News were suggesting would run and who, as was their assessment of Chris, would mark a "shift to the left".

In any case, whilst welcome publicity for some of our strong cadre of top flight MPs, I don't suppose more than a couple of the BBC list is really seriously considering standing. Though one never knows; with the distinct possibility that whoever is elected this time round will have the longevity to see us through maybe a couple of general elections and maybe more a few outsiders may be tempted on a "now or never" basis and in the hope that their stock will rise and they'll get a decent job out of whoever is elected leader.

One thing is certain for me - I would prefer it to be more than three candidates this time who are able to stick it out till the count. It seems to me that the transferable voting system has a greater power to galvanize the membership behind the eventual winner if it feels that as many shades of liberal opinion as possible have been represented and discussed and then prioritized (I felt greater loyalty to Charles whom I did not include in my preferences at all than to Ming whom I put second from three). Besides, I reckon a nice wide field is better for making money on at the bookies, and I've got election expenses for 2008 to cover out of this!

But my initial loyalty is still for Chris. He's still President of ALTER and, together with Vince, I feel has really grasped what will be the main battleground for the next few years, fiscal policy. I know Nick has the Home Office brief where civil liberties will be important but he has been hampered by a lack of good topical targets recently. And he could to my mind have given more wholehearted support today to Richard Brunstrom's calls for "full" legalization of drugs today to get my vote. But I believe we cannot really be free in a civil liberties sense if we do not have financial freedom from state slavery - so, often unglamorous as it is, for me it is about "the economy, stupid" and those runners who have experience in that area are more likely to win my higher preferences.

But will any of them promise to widen the leadership to a team , involving more people from outside the parliamentary party whom we would want to share in a liberal government? Such a candidate would catch my interest at least, for whilst I would like to see Chris as leader, I do want whoever is leader to recognize that they are not some Messianic "visionary" on whose every word the party hangs as it appears too often with Blair, Brown and Cameron, but a potential Liberal prime minister determined to return power to the disenfranchised and unrepresented people of Britain.

And if you're uncertain who should get your vote, try this method - the candidate that's easier to caricature in a cartoon should win it...

I had to roll one up just to steel myself to read this: University announces smoking ban

Newcastle University is banning smoking anywhere on its campus from next year.

Staff and students are being warned if they want to smoke after 1 January 2007, they will have to leave the university site - not just buildings.

Now, I don't know Newcastle University at all. I presume it's a city centre type affair where it won't be too much of an inconvenience to step onto the public highway (until smoking is also banned there of course). Though I know they have an agriculture department and the policy applies on the university's farms which probably will mean a long walk to the roadside.

But no doubt this will come to us all eventually. Here at Brookes we have a policy that says not only is there no smoking in the university buildings, but also, in theory, not within five meters of outside doors or windows.

I am a good smoker. I always stub my cigarettes out and put the butts in a bin, if there isn't an ashtray. I can't stand the habit of just chucking it on the floor as you get to the door - often not even stamping it out - that seems to go on a lot around here.

And I always stand the requisite five meters from buildings if at all possible. The nearest spot to my office has a huge plane tree that provides as good cover as any umbrella or bike shed for most of the year, but elsewhere you can usually find some eaves or something to stand under that don't infringe the five meter rule. But I have to say that from watching other smokers I am if not the only one, in a tiny minority that give more than one hoot about people coming and going at entrances or working in offices with not terribly well fitting windows that always let in a little unpleasant whiff if someone's smoking outside.

So, fellow smokers, especially those here at Brookes, the only way in my opinion to delay this fascist onslaught is to abide by the quite reasonable rules we already have. Mind you, the university could take greater steps to ensure people know what those rules are. At the moment it is up to occupants of offices for example to print off a little petulant looking poster and stick it in their window. It doesn't look terribly official and it looks like the occupants are being a bit petty if you don't already know the rule.

But maybe the attitude is "why spend any money publicising the rule when we could spend the same simply banning smoking on site altogether".

Let's hope they don't want to extend it to one's own space in halls of residence.

If you rely on the Guardian for your news you won't have seen the cure for hiccups mentioned in the BBC report of the Ig Nobel awards: Teen repellent is Ig Nobel winner

Apparently, "a finger up the rectum cures hiccups". So now you know. It'll no doubt make the scraping of fingernails down a blackboard less excruciating as well...:)

Too much information for the Guardian presumably!