January 29th 4pm
One of the drivers at the intersection is panicking, I guess he’d confused or something because he isn’t going even though the lights are green. Still it means I can cross the road!
January 29th later
Coming back from Tesco and he’s still there, he’s sort of just staring straight ahead. Maybe he’s foreign or something and doesn’t understand how British roads work?
January 30th
He was still there today, looks even more panicked and was sweating a lot. The car is a green Peugeot estate that looks quite old.
January 31st
The guy was asleep today. He looks to be about 40 and has short black hair and a light blue shirt on. He looks quite dishevelled but I suppose he hasn’t left his car for a few days. The drivers behind him seem really annoyed now and are beeping their horns a lot.
February 1st
He hasn’t moved since yesterday, I think he might dead. Someone should do something.
February 4th
Lots less beeping of the horns now, I think some of the other drivers might have died.
February 5th
It all smells quite bad now because of all the dead people. Even the ones that are alive are festering in their own excrement. Grim. I should probably call the council, I don’t know why someone hasn’t done something already.
February 8th
Haven’t had time to call the council but I’ve found a new way to walk so I don’t have to go past it. People are saying it’s all been causing lots of traffic problems.
February 11th
There are traffic jams all over the city now, I’m glad I don’t drive but it’s getting pretty ridiculous!
February 29th
Got a letter in the post saying they are going to knock down my house to build a new road to alleviate all the gridlock. I’m just glad someone’s finally doing something!
Sunday 29 January 2012
Friday 27 January 2012
Why Dreams aren't Boring
Crikey it's been a while since I last wrote to you dear reader, my apologies. This one is just short but I hope it will tide you over.
Today I'm going to talk about dreams. Now if you're of a certain type, or even in a certain mood you've probably just stiffened up and though "Oh god not a dream story". I know this because whenever you are with a group of people and someone says" I had a weird dream last night" about half the group are going to say (or at if you are British think and then not say) "not another boring dream story".
This really annoys me, and what annoys me more is that I have done it myself. Dream stories are often by equal parts, insightful, exciting, and hilarious. For example I have recently been rejoicing in the fact that a lot of my dreams start with film noire style title cards, resulting in the truly incredible "Hercule Poirot and the Rat King of Brooklyn" (I don't care to explain but the title was pretty accurate). Beyond the absurd I also find that dreams conjur up some of the most incredible imagery impossible, flying over endless oceans, pillars of fire, dark twisted visions of places you know. Finally they really are a window on the soul, giving us a glimpse into the subconcious mind, our fears and worries. A simple example of this is a dream I have whenever I face a deadline where I am constantly missing the school bus home and end up stuck there forever!
Because of this dreams are a huge inspiration to me whenever I try and write. I think its time we stopped getting bored at dreams and slapped down anyone who says they do, rejoice in dreams, write them down, try and work out what they mean, and share them with your friends. It can be a laugh and it can be very interesting.
I leave you with a dream I had last night, I think the meaning is pretty clear but I'd be interested to hear what you think.
Today I'm going to talk about dreams. Now if you're of a certain type, or even in a certain mood you've probably just stiffened up and though "Oh god not a dream story". I know this because whenever you are with a group of people and someone says" I had a weird dream last night" about half the group are going to say (or at if you are British think and then not say) "not another boring dream story".
This really annoys me, and what annoys me more is that I have done it myself. Dream stories are often by equal parts, insightful, exciting, and hilarious. For example I have recently been rejoicing in the fact that a lot of my dreams start with film noire style title cards, resulting in the truly incredible "Hercule Poirot and the Rat King of Brooklyn" (I don't care to explain but the title was pretty accurate). Beyond the absurd I also find that dreams conjur up some of the most incredible imagery impossible, flying over endless oceans, pillars of fire, dark twisted visions of places you know. Finally they really are a window on the soul, giving us a glimpse into the subconcious mind, our fears and worries. A simple example of this is a dream I have whenever I face a deadline where I am constantly missing the school bus home and end up stuck there forever!
Because of this dreams are a huge inspiration to me whenever I try and write. I think its time we stopped getting bored at dreams and slapped down anyone who says they do, rejoice in dreams, write them down, try and work out what they mean, and share them with your friends. It can be a laugh and it can be very interesting.
I leave you with a dream I had last night, I think the meaning is pretty clear but I'd be interested to hear what you think.
Dream Fragment - They Are Selling the House I Grew Up In
It is late January now but the Christmas tree is still there,
Dead, Brown, Decaying,
The decorations smashed on the floor the lights flickering off,
They are selling the house I grew up in.
“I know I left but this is still my home” I say to the man,
Translucent, Ghostly, Faceless,
“We all move on” he hisses through invisible lips,
They are selling the house I grew up in.
“Give me my clothes!” I yell grabbing at a sheet to hide my
Nakedness, Loneliness, Fear,
“Your clothes are not here anymore” they all yell back,
They are selling the house I grew up in.
Thursday 12 January 2012
Cooking With G: Chilli Cookoff
I've been threatening for a while to do a cooking segment, and the time has finally come. This afternoon I bought my ingredients, cleaned my kitchen, and got to cooking. Today, as this is the first time, we are going to do something pretty easy, but still one of my favourites: Chilli! Before we get down to that though I think I should adress the first two rules of cooking.
1: tomatoes and any vegetable make an acceptable pasta sauce
2: Add the right spice/herb to that sauce and it is now any cuisine you care to mention!
Here are some herbs & spices I use the most.
From left too right we have: Mixed Herbs (make things italian), Chilli and Paprika (make things mexican), Garam Masala and Cumin (make things curry). Learn these and they will serve you well, and most importantly just experiment with them and all the other spices. Go crazy. If it doesn't taste great you know for next time.
Anyway here are the ingredients for today:
in no particular order 1 Onion, 2 Chillies, some garlic, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, 500g of beef, kidney beans, other beans, paprika, chilli powder. I will also tell you here the dark secret of chilli: the only ingredients you really need are chilli, beans and paprika. Everything else is extra so just pick and choose as you want, the recipe today though is G's Chilli so all of the above are needed. I usually go for Kidney beans and Pinto beans, they didn't have any pinto beans though so I got mixed beans. It really doesn't matter too much.
We'll start up by chopping these:
It's worthing having a bowl for putting the chopped vegetables in, like I've done with the onion here
With the onion done we can move onto the chillies. For educational purposes I've split one open
You see the seed body? That's where all the hotness is. Get rid of some or all of the seed body to make your chilli a bit cooler. I usually get rid of a lot of it because I'm a spice pansy.
WARNING: DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES YOUR NOSE OR ANYTHING RIGHT AFTER HANDLING CHILLIES.
Anyway once you've sorted your seeds out, chop that shit up and put it with the onion. Also at this point put some oil in a saucepan and start heating it up. You'll want the oven on a medium heat for most of this.
Next thing to deal with is the garlic. There is a great bit in goodfellas where the Don is cutting up garlic with a razor to get it as fine as possible. This is a bit OTT but the principle is sound: the more flavour you want the finer you should cut things, because it increases the surface area in the pot and on your tongue. I chop most stuff pretty fine but again this is up to you really.
Split your garlic into two piles, the first goes with the chilli and the onions. The second goes in your now hot oil.
Once the garlic starts to show signs of browning mix your meat in and IMMEDIATELY add paprika, chilli powder, pepper etc.
Once the meat starts to show signs of browning add in the chillies, onions and the rest of the garlic.
Stir it occaisionally to make sure it doesn't burn and chop the rest of the vegetables. I'm not showing you photos of this. You should know how to chop fucking vegetables. Once the meat has gone brown put your beans in
and thoroughly mix them in, and then add the peppers and mushrooms.
Erm I probably need a bigger pot...
Salvation!
Let all this cook for a bit until the peppers and mushrooms have softened up a bit and then its time for the tomatoes. These don't need to be finely chopped because their entire point is to boil down to nothing.
Once the tomatoes are in put a lid on and leave to simmer for a while on a low heat (I guess about 15 minutes should do it? I wasn't timing it, I never time things. It's why I can't bake)
Every now and then you'll want to stir and taste it. Add more paprika and chilli powder if it needs it. It probably needs more paprika because that shit is delicious.
It reduced down enough that it could all go in one pot. Looks good! (No seriously it does trust me). If it's not looking this gloopy just add more tomatoes and let it simmer a bit longer.
Now it's ready to eat! Have it in burritos! eat it with rice! Stick it in a taco! It's all good. I just slopped some on a tortilla and ate that.
It was amazing.
I bagged up and froze most the rest and probably have enough for about 5 meals which is awesome when you are poor like me. Also if you are a vegetarian just put in more beans to replace the meat, don't use fake meat because that stuff is gross and tastes weird. I will be going vegetarian in a couple of months (I will explain that closer to the time) and I will probably make some them.
Thanks for reading!
1: tomatoes and any vegetable make an acceptable pasta sauce
2: Add the right spice/herb to that sauce and it is now any cuisine you care to mention!
Here are some herbs & spices I use the most.
From left too right we have: Mixed Herbs (make things italian), Chilli and Paprika (make things mexican), Garam Masala and Cumin (make things curry). Learn these and they will serve you well, and most importantly just experiment with them and all the other spices. Go crazy. If it doesn't taste great you know for next time.
Anyway here are the ingredients for today:
in no particular order 1 Onion, 2 Chillies, some garlic, peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, 500g of beef, kidney beans, other beans, paprika, chilli powder. I will also tell you here the dark secret of chilli: the only ingredients you really need are chilli, beans and paprika. Everything else is extra so just pick and choose as you want, the recipe today though is G's Chilli so all of the above are needed. I usually go for Kidney beans and Pinto beans, they didn't have any pinto beans though so I got mixed beans. It really doesn't matter too much.
We'll start up by chopping these:
It's worthing having a bowl for putting the chopped vegetables in, like I've done with the onion here
With the onion done we can move onto the chillies. For educational purposes I've split one open
You see the seed body? That's where all the hotness is. Get rid of some or all of the seed body to make your chilli a bit cooler. I usually get rid of a lot of it because I'm a spice pansy.
WARNING: DON'T TOUCH YOUR EYES YOUR NOSE OR ANYTHING RIGHT AFTER HANDLING CHILLIES.
Anyway once you've sorted your seeds out, chop that shit up and put it with the onion. Also at this point put some oil in a saucepan and start heating it up. You'll want the oven on a medium heat for most of this.
Next thing to deal with is the garlic. There is a great bit in goodfellas where the Don is cutting up garlic with a razor to get it as fine as possible. This is a bit OTT but the principle is sound: the more flavour you want the finer you should cut things, because it increases the surface area in the pot and on your tongue. I chop most stuff pretty fine but again this is up to you really.
Split your garlic into two piles, the first goes with the chilli and the onions. The second goes in your now hot oil.
Once the garlic starts to show signs of browning mix your meat in and IMMEDIATELY add paprika, chilli powder, pepper etc.
Once the meat starts to show signs of browning add in the chillies, onions and the rest of the garlic.
Stir it occaisionally to make sure it doesn't burn and chop the rest of the vegetables. I'm not showing you photos of this. You should know how to chop fucking vegetables. Once the meat has gone brown put your beans in
and thoroughly mix them in, and then add the peppers and mushrooms.
Erm I probably need a bigger pot...
Salvation!
Let all this cook for a bit until the peppers and mushrooms have softened up a bit and then its time for the tomatoes. These don't need to be finely chopped because their entire point is to boil down to nothing.
Once the tomatoes are in put a lid on and leave to simmer for a while on a low heat (I guess about 15 minutes should do it? I wasn't timing it, I never time things. It's why I can't bake)
Every now and then you'll want to stir and taste it. Add more paprika and chilli powder if it needs it. It probably needs more paprika because that shit is delicious.
It reduced down enough that it could all go in one pot. Looks good! (No seriously it does trust me). If it's not looking this gloopy just add more tomatoes and let it simmer a bit longer.
Now it's ready to eat! Have it in burritos! eat it with rice! Stick it in a taco! It's all good. I just slopped some on a tortilla and ate that.
It was amazing.
I bagged up and froze most the rest and probably have enough for about 5 meals which is awesome when you are poor like me. Also if you are a vegetarian just put in more beans to replace the meat, don't use fake meat because that stuff is gross and tastes weird. I will be going vegetarian in a couple of months (I will explain that closer to the time) and I will probably make some them.
Thanks for reading!
Thursday 5 January 2012
Trains and the People Who Use Them
As I stepped off the station platform and onto the train the weather broke, for the first time in days, a week at least. The rain stopped, the wind dropped, the sun began to beat down, and I finally saw the blue sky above us. If there was ever a more definite sign that the good lord has looked down on the railways and is pleased it was at that moment.
Divine approval of train travel is of course not surprising. After all I love trains and my opinion is invariably (in my opinion) the correct one. There are of course some perfectly boring reasons to approve of trains, they are environmentally friendly, they are efficient, they are fast. I like to think that my reasons are more interesting and perhaps a bit more "poetic".
To start off though I feel I need to define my train love. It is not lust dear reader, no I am not like that lady who loves the eiffel tower or that other one where the men wanted to do cars. Nor am I a train-spotting type, sitting on platforms and noting down the technical minutiae of engines. I admit my love is somewhat practical as I don't drive and don't even have a license, but I don't hate cars and indeed look forward to the day when I can finally get that Aston Martin I've always wanted.
I think the word love is well placed though as there is definitely something romantic about train travel. This is clear to me from how ingrained the romance of the train is in our culture: from the train pulling out of the station in Murder on the Orient Express, the image of Frank Sinatra gunned down as he chases the train in Von Ryan's Express, the whole of Once Upon a Time in the West. With this is mind it is no surprise that one of the greatest film directors of the 20th century, David Lean, was always using trains in his films to great effect, A Brief Encounter, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, in all the train plays a central role.
One of my favourite films, a film directed by Lean, is Dr. Zhivago. Last year when the winter was so different than it is now and the country was blanketed by snow I took the train, as I often do, to Swansea where I grew up to see my family for Christmas. This journey is beautiful at any time of year but seeing it covered in snow, with the wind occasionally whipping up the snow into an impenetrable cloud around us, felt to me just like that moment in the movie when Zhivago and his family flee to Siberia through the harsh Russian winter. Rushing through a familiar landscape so utterly changed was exhilirating and, I don't intend this as a pun, moving.
That ability to provoke passion and drama is something I have never felt travelling going up a motorway, even though I am just a passenger and am not devoting my attention to the road. Whoever built the British road network seems to have gone out of their way to hide as much of the outside world as possible from view, which is only compounded by the fact that you are enclosed in a little steel and glass bubble. From railways you can see some of the greatest views the country has to offer and even though you are always on one track just the simple fact that you can stand up and walk about gives an extra sense of freedom and disperses the claustrophobia of the car.
In the title I also mentioned the people of trains and that is perhaps the greatest part of their charm. You meet strangers, you for a brief moment have part of their lives revealed to you. You glide through stations in the middle of cities and villages, it is the human river moving from one social vista to another. This is an experience we are all too often robbed of elsewhere as endless barriers separate us from the life of society as a whole. Indeed in our day to day lives we often find ourselves trapped simply going up and down the same roads day in and day out, to the same places, and the same people; afraid to explore beyond what we already know and trust. From the train one sees hundreds of roads.
Because of this trains are endless source of inspiration for me, I find flipping through my notebooks that nearly half of what I write I do on the train. Trains have an incredible way of opening up the mind and the soul and revealing ideas and possibilities that were previously hidden.
Divine approval of train travel is of course not surprising. After all I love trains and my opinion is invariably (in my opinion) the correct one. There are of course some perfectly boring reasons to approve of trains, they are environmentally friendly, they are efficient, they are fast. I like to think that my reasons are more interesting and perhaps a bit more "poetic".
To start off though I feel I need to define my train love. It is not lust dear reader, no I am not like that lady who loves the eiffel tower or that other one where the men wanted to do cars. Nor am I a train-spotting type, sitting on platforms and noting down the technical minutiae of engines. I admit my love is somewhat practical as I don't drive and don't even have a license, but I don't hate cars and indeed look forward to the day when I can finally get that Aston Martin I've always wanted.
I think the word love is well placed though as there is definitely something romantic about train travel. This is clear to me from how ingrained the romance of the train is in our culture: from the train pulling out of the station in Murder on the Orient Express, the image of Frank Sinatra gunned down as he chases the train in Von Ryan's Express, the whole of Once Upon a Time in the West. With this is mind it is no surprise that one of the greatest film directors of the 20th century, David Lean, was always using trains in his films to great effect, A Brief Encounter, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, in all the train plays a central role.
One of my favourite films, a film directed by Lean, is Dr. Zhivago. Last year when the winter was so different than it is now and the country was blanketed by snow I took the train, as I often do, to Swansea where I grew up to see my family for Christmas. This journey is beautiful at any time of year but seeing it covered in snow, with the wind occasionally whipping up the snow into an impenetrable cloud around us, felt to me just like that moment in the movie when Zhivago and his family flee to Siberia through the harsh Russian winter. Rushing through a familiar landscape so utterly changed was exhilirating and, I don't intend this as a pun, moving.
That ability to provoke passion and drama is something I have never felt travelling going up a motorway, even though I am just a passenger and am not devoting my attention to the road. Whoever built the British road network seems to have gone out of their way to hide as much of the outside world as possible from view, which is only compounded by the fact that you are enclosed in a little steel and glass bubble. From railways you can see some of the greatest views the country has to offer and even though you are always on one track just the simple fact that you can stand up and walk about gives an extra sense of freedom and disperses the claustrophobia of the car.
In the title I also mentioned the people of trains and that is perhaps the greatest part of their charm. You meet strangers, you for a brief moment have part of their lives revealed to you. You glide through stations in the middle of cities and villages, it is the human river moving from one social vista to another. This is an experience we are all too often robbed of elsewhere as endless barriers separate us from the life of society as a whole. Indeed in our day to day lives we often find ourselves trapped simply going up and down the same roads day in and day out, to the same places, and the same people; afraid to explore beyond what we already know and trust. From the train one sees hundreds of roads.
Because of this trains are endless source of inspiration for me, I find flipping through my notebooks that nearly half of what I write I do on the train. Trains have an incredible way of opening up the mind and the soul and revealing ideas and possibilities that were previously hidden.
Monday 2 January 2012
You're a good man Ron Paul. Or are you?
Normally I am pretty light hearted on this blog because for the most part I am a fairly light hearted sort of person but I also have a serious side and, I guess kind of unsurprisingly for a person with an economics degree and a politics degree, have found the current Republican primaries far more interesting than any normal person should reasonably find them. So I am going to talk to you about that. Kind of.
If you know anything about the current Republican presidential primaries you will know that they are completely ridiculous. Republicans are usually an odd lot, and were it not for their annoying habit of becoming some of the most important people in the world they would be a constant source of hilarity rather than the source of a mix of anger and fear. This years candidates have been a whole other level of bizarre though, I mean to the extent that you go "man that Richard Nixon was a pretty sane and reasonable guy".
In the running this year you have the guy who is trying so hard to be normal is actually kind of creepy, the sexual predator who sells pizzas, the man who divorced his wife right after her cancer surgery and preaches moral virtue, the woman who's so extreme that even Margret Thatcher is creeped out by her, This Guy, and a man who wants to abolish the US government.
That last candidate is one I want to focus on, because he's one of the strangest and most interesting politicians around: Ron Paul. Here is a picture of him.
Now I assume you are a person well aware of current events dear reader, but lets recap. That old man sitting alone in a bare room might win a contest tomorrow which is the first step on the road to becoming president of the United States. In fact at one point last week the horribly intelligent human calculator Nate Silver of the New York Times predicted that a Paul win in Iowa was more likely than not (though his odds have slipped slightly since then). Obviously the perennial popularity of a 76 year old obstetrician in the race for the world's most important job has elicited a lot of news articles and opinion pieces as journalists struggle to explain what the hell a libertarian is and why millions of Americans consider themselves to be one, but one thing that comes up again and again is that, much like Brutus, Ron Paul is an "honourable man".
The annoying thing is that even if you dislike Ron Paul and his policies (it's worth noting at this point that I would describe myself as a socialist so am unsurprisingly not a massive fan), his "honour" is something which is actually hard to disagree with. Unlike most of his fellow presidential hopefuls he is at least ideologically consistent, that is to say that he will support unpopular things if they are in keeping with his philosophy. So as someone who in essence wants to abolish the federal government (it is slightly more nuanced than that I'll admit, but basically that's what he wants) he was opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and wants to slash the defence budget whilst wanting to lead a party with an out of control military fetish. He wants to legalise drugs in a party that is probably a bit unsure about whether ending prohibition was such a good idea. Even if you don't agree with the man that sort of integrity and dedication to your principles in the face of constant opposition has to be considered admirable, and yes "honourable".
It is here that I am reminded of probably the greatest history book ever written 1066 and All That, also probably one of the funniest books ever written and something you should definitely read if you haven't already. Throughout there is an obsession with deciding if the various people and events of British history were good or bad. This leads to such lines as "Although a Good Man, James II was a Bad King". Perhaps much the same could be said of Ron Paul. This is because although honesty and integrity are obviously essential parts of being a Good Man, if the ideals which you hold are utterly insane and without merit then you cannot fail to be a Bad Thing.
So yes he opposes the war on drugs which is a Good Thing and is against military interventionism which is also mostly a Good Thing. But his "honourable" position also means he opposes the Civil Rights Act, which is clearly a Bad Thing and generally supports a lot of policies which would see most people starving and living in horrific poverty. If you are not familiar with the libertarian ideology then keep in mind that their perfect future is basically the movie Robocop, and if you think that sounds good you clearly didn't get the main point of the movie Robocop.
Of course this is on of the central jokes of 1066 and All That, defining things as good or bad is really an exercise in futility. Good and bad are totally subjective descriptions and honour is an especially grey term. I alluded earlier to Mark Antony's famous speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where he tells the crowd of Caesar's assassination and says of the conspirators "They that have done this deed are honourable: What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it: they are wise and honourable, And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you."
If Ron Paul ever had his way he would oversee the deprivation and most likely the deaths of millions and he would do so because he is an honourable man.
If you know anything about the current Republican presidential primaries you will know that they are completely ridiculous. Republicans are usually an odd lot, and were it not for their annoying habit of becoming some of the most important people in the world they would be a constant source of hilarity rather than the source of a mix of anger and fear. This years candidates have been a whole other level of bizarre though, I mean to the extent that you go "man that Richard Nixon was a pretty sane and reasonable guy".
In the running this year you have the guy who is trying so hard to be normal is actually kind of creepy, the sexual predator who sells pizzas, the man who divorced his wife right after her cancer surgery and preaches moral virtue, the woman who's so extreme that even Margret Thatcher is creeped out by her, This Guy, and a man who wants to abolish the US government.
That last candidate is one I want to focus on, because he's one of the strangest and most interesting politicians around: Ron Paul. Here is a picture of him.
Now I assume you are a person well aware of current events dear reader, but lets recap. That old man sitting alone in a bare room might win a contest tomorrow which is the first step on the road to becoming president of the United States. In fact at one point last week the horribly intelligent human calculator Nate Silver of the New York Times predicted that a Paul win in Iowa was more likely than not (though his odds have slipped slightly since then). Obviously the perennial popularity of a 76 year old obstetrician in the race for the world's most important job has elicited a lot of news articles and opinion pieces as journalists struggle to explain what the hell a libertarian is and why millions of Americans consider themselves to be one, but one thing that comes up again and again is that, much like Brutus, Ron Paul is an "honourable man".
The annoying thing is that even if you dislike Ron Paul and his policies (it's worth noting at this point that I would describe myself as a socialist so am unsurprisingly not a massive fan), his "honour" is something which is actually hard to disagree with. Unlike most of his fellow presidential hopefuls he is at least ideologically consistent, that is to say that he will support unpopular things if they are in keeping with his philosophy. So as someone who in essence wants to abolish the federal government (it is slightly more nuanced than that I'll admit, but basically that's what he wants) he was opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and wants to slash the defence budget whilst wanting to lead a party with an out of control military fetish. He wants to legalise drugs in a party that is probably a bit unsure about whether ending prohibition was such a good idea. Even if you don't agree with the man that sort of integrity and dedication to your principles in the face of constant opposition has to be considered admirable, and yes "honourable".
It is here that I am reminded of probably the greatest history book ever written 1066 and All That, also probably one of the funniest books ever written and something you should definitely read if you haven't already. Throughout there is an obsession with deciding if the various people and events of British history were good or bad. This leads to such lines as "Although a Good Man, James II was a Bad King". Perhaps much the same could be said of Ron Paul. This is because although honesty and integrity are obviously essential parts of being a Good Man, if the ideals which you hold are utterly insane and without merit then you cannot fail to be a Bad Thing.
So yes he opposes the war on drugs which is a Good Thing and is against military interventionism which is also mostly a Good Thing. But his "honourable" position also means he opposes the Civil Rights Act, which is clearly a Bad Thing and generally supports a lot of policies which would see most people starving and living in horrific poverty. If you are not familiar with the libertarian ideology then keep in mind that their perfect future is basically the movie Robocop, and if you think that sounds good you clearly didn't get the main point of the movie Robocop.
Of course this is on of the central jokes of 1066 and All That, defining things as good or bad is really an exercise in futility. Good and bad are totally subjective descriptions and honour is an especially grey term. I alluded earlier to Mark Antony's famous speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where he tells the crowd of Caesar's assassination and says of the conspirators "They that have done this deed are honourable: What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it: they are wise and honourable, And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you."
If Ron Paul ever had his way he would oversee the deprivation and most likely the deaths of millions and he would do so because he is an honourable man.
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