In my line of work, politics is either a burning issue or something that is never talked about - it depends where you are, really. My colleagues burn and bristle about cutbacks, budgets and bureaucracy, while my clients avoid the subject - actually 'avoid' is the wrong word, they ignore it, it doesn't exist, it means nothing to them.
Imagine my surprise then, when one of my young charges, someone who isn't renowned for interacting with people, started a conversation with me about politics - albeit basic politics. There's nothing wrong with talking about basics, especially to the youth of today, because for many of them the entire political world is like a field at a rainy Glastonbury Festival - a quagmire of brown.
"Politics is something that adults do." He said, driving passed the constituency office of his local MP. I commented that the MP must be a brave man to have an office in the middle of the town, it being such an urban sprawl of struggle and the MP being a Conservative. "I think everyone thinks they're all the same, Labour or Conservative. They're just as bad as each other." I made the comment about it not mattering who you vote for because the government always get in, but I think the irony was lost on him - like I said, Politics isn't even on the radar, so political humour doesn't work.
The conversation went a bit odd, he asked me a couple of questions, unrelated to politics, then he asked me something unusual, "I suppose you earn lots of money?"
"Not really. I'm comfortable, but only as far as a point."
"What does your wife do?"
"Government."
"Is your wife a politician?"
"No, she's a civil servant. An office manager, she manages people rather than products." He frowned.
"What's the problem?"
"There's something I don't understand." I asked him to try and tell me what it was. "What's tax?" Jesus, where do you start? I asked him to be more specific. "My dad pays income tax, he also pays National Insurance, he pays Council Tax and we have a purchase tax as well, he says." I frowned, 'purchase tax', then it struck me what he meant.
"You mean VAT?"
"That's it, VAT. I get the impression that adults all work for the government." I smiled, wiser words and all that. "Are there any more taxes?" I had to think about that one.
"Not that will affect you for a long time," I said, deciding against mentioning stuff like Death Duties, Corporation tax and all the other taxes that don't appear to affect the general public - indirect indirect taxes?
The lad shook his head and mumbled something about prison being a better option, because that way you won't be giving the government anything and they have to pay for you. I saw this as a typical idiot mentality you get from urban council estates - someone with half a brain comes up with this plausible (to them) reason for justifying prison. "Yeah, you're right. It costs the government about 50 grand a year to keep a kid like you in a YOI." He grinned, "Of course, the government don't get your money, but they get your freedom and they control you and continue to control you once you come out of prison. You become known to the system and the system never lets you go." He understood exactly what I meant.
"So, why do we pay so much money to them?"
"The basis for this is that we are a country and in this country there are millions of people and with millions of people there are millions of problems and duties, tasks and responsibilities. Everything from looking after the health of the population to making sure they have proper facilities and lastly to make sure that we always have the things we want when we want them."
"But why does it cost so much money?"
"If some politicians had their way we would pay even more money in taxes, to pay for such things as schools and hospitals, prisons and recreational schemes to occupy your time, but there are other politicians who want taxes to drop even lower than they are now, but these politicians only want direct taxes to fall - the tax you pay to the government out of your wages rather than the taxes you pay everywhere else by cash or direct debit, so that people think they have more money in their pockets and therefore make them feel good about the government. But the problem here is that when a government cuts tax, they cut their own revenue and that means that things they would normally pay for become the responsibility of councils and councils are like mini governments, who also take money from their residents to pay for the upkeep of the town rather than the upkeep of the country. This money pays for your street lights, your bin collection and passed that I struggle to think what it pays for, probably a lot of wage bills for council employees, employed specifically to make the life of its residents... awkward. If the government hasn't got enough money, then it has to place the onus on councils and they have to charge their residents more council tax and almost always you end up paying more money in indirect taxation (that's what it's called) than you would have done if it had all been centralised in one place."
"That's stupid."
"No, it's political blame deflecting. Councils are like 4th division football teams, they rarely perform giant killing acts, because government has more power than them. Chelsea are one of the richest football clubs in the world, but they're also enormously in debt [the boy is a Chelsea fan] and that's a bit like what our government is like, so it is difficult for councils to fight them, so normally the money that has been given back will be taken away and a bit more by the unsuspecting pawns of the central government, the council worker." I think I was starting to lose him. We sat in silence for a while.
"Will it ever get better?" How do you not shatter a kids allusions?
"How much are a packet of fags?"
"Fiver."
"Do you know how much they were when I was your age?"
"Two quid?"
"26p. I could buy 10 No.6 for 14p and have enough money left for a bag of chips and a bus home." He laughed, thinking I was joking. I wasn't. "In five years time, cigarettes will be £7.50 a packet." He looked horrified. "But you might have had a wage rise according to inflation, because that is why fags have gone from being pennies to being many pounds - inflation - the cost of living is always going to go up and the cost of running countries and towns and cities is always going to increase and councils will not be able to afford it and eventually everything will have to be paid for by the individual. I can't imagine a town like this ever being able to drag itself away from poverty and crime because there is never going to be enough money." I could see myself going off on some dystopian tangent and making the kid want to kill himself. "You have to play the game and try to stay one step ahead of it - having a job and doing stuff that you wouldn't expect is something you'll grow accustomed to and maybe one day you'll try to change it inside a council rather than in a stolen car." It sounded patronising, but he nodded, as if he'd learned more today than he could ever be taught in a school.
What is needed is for a government to explain how it works to the people who don't know, or don't care. People have forgotten what politicians do, they have become detached from our real lives and when they try to claw back some of their credibility they are pilloried by the press and quite rightly so, because there are very few politicians that many of the voters would trust as far as they could spit. Politics should be about passion and fighting for the rights of the people, not about what it appears to be - a new cult of personality.
I don't care what a politicians background is (with obvious exceptions) as long as he does a good job and achieves things. I don't care if he has gay, adulterous or criminal skeletons in his cupboard, just so long as they don't affect him doing his job. Some of the best people I've worked with in Youth Justice have got criminal backgrounds and they are by far the most effective workers. I don't care if a prime minister has smoked pot or taken cocaine in his youth, in fact I'd rather welcome it, because at least we'd have a person in charge who maybe knew what it was like to be young, bored and out of work.
Politics needs a complete overhaul if it is not to lose touch with its future mandate givers. It needs people in it that can actually relate to issues and are prepared to stand up and tell the suits that unless something is done then it's just going to get worse and whatever government inherits the former's handywork is never going to be able to fix it.
Politicians need to get real.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Forgiveness
I'm not the world's most prolific blogger, although I do have another blog that is about football and I have religiously kept that blog up all year. Today I find it has been blocked by Blogger, because it has all the characteristics of a spam blog... What the?
This is robot software for you, it couldn't spot a spammer in a box of pork luncheonmeat.
This is robot software for you, it couldn't spot a spammer in a box of pork luncheonmeat.
Monday, April 17, 2006
I'm a believer
I abhor the BNP and everything they stand for. It's evasive, hidden and nasty politics, but it is also the choice of the people who belong to it and it is the choice of the electorate if they choose to vote BNP as opposed to someone else (who won't give them what they need).
I cannot understand the role of the BNP in a widely multi-cultural country, but I can understand that people feel the ethos of the BNP is closer to their beliefs than those of Conservative or Liberal and therefore, because we live in a democracy (of sorts) they must be allowed to exist. Just because their politics are abhorant and offensive to most people doesn't mean they should be precluded from discussion. I know people who find members of the Green party just as vile and insidious, but we don't have government sponsored campaigns to rid us of the Green Party once and for all, do we?
The BNP is a face of Britishness that cannot be ignored or forgotten. The BNP appeal to a small minority of the population that will never change and will continue to procreate, so there will be a constant stream of poorly-educated bigots ready to carry the BNP standard. We need to remember that the world is made up of people - extremists - who don't agree with the rest of us (generally). The best way to treat people like this is with ignorance and a lack of respect - giving them coverage on TV and radio does nothing but polarise them in the eyes of those who maybe don't understand the BNP and might be tempted to follow their politics because of exposure they just shouldn't get. They exist, so do Jesus Freaks and conmen, but we don't acknowledge the others in the House.
I cannot understand the role of the BNP in a widely multi-cultural country, but I can understand that people feel the ethos of the BNP is closer to their beliefs than those of Conservative or Liberal and therefore, because we live in a democracy (of sorts) they must be allowed to exist. Just because their politics are abhorant and offensive to most people doesn't mean they should be precluded from discussion. I know people who find members of the Green party just as vile and insidious, but we don't have government sponsored campaigns to rid us of the Green Party once and for all, do we?
The BNP is a face of Britishness that cannot be ignored or forgotten. The BNP appeal to a small minority of the population that will never change and will continue to procreate, so there will be a constant stream of poorly-educated bigots ready to carry the BNP standard. We need to remember that the world is made up of people - extremists - who don't agree with the rest of us (generally). The best way to treat people like this is with ignorance and a lack of respect - giving them coverage on TV and radio does nothing but polarise them in the eyes of those who maybe don't understand the BNP and might be tempted to follow their politics because of exposure they just shouldn't get. They exist, so do Jesus Freaks and conmen, but we don't acknowledge the others in the House.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Who Killed Tangerine?
There is no such thing as a happy ending.
Call this life, purgatory more like.
I said to friends, sitting in a smoke filled living room in the late 1980s, 'This is as good as it's going to get guys. It isn't going to get better and in ten years we can look back on this time and say, "see, I told you so!"'.
I was accused of being a pessimist, which is probably a fair guess as I tend to be a 'glass is half empty' kind of bloke. The thing you need to remember is that Margaret Thatcher was the PM and we were halfway under the Tory regime that destroyed everything that made Britain great.
The thing was ten years later, sitting in a less smoky room, with many of the people I was with originally, we all eventually agreed that I was right. Yes, many of us were, individually, much better off than we were ten years earlier and there were, individually, great achievements; but the world as a whole was worse. This was 1998 and we had been under New Labour for 18 months and people, including us, were still in that blessed honeymoon period that this Labour government had bestowed upon us. Yet we all agreed that the country was worse than it had been and none of us had any allusions that it wasn't Maggie's fault.
I was in the pub last week with two of the blokes that shared the original forecast with me 18 years ago and were also there 8 years ago for the update. They both witnessed me say, in a God almighty like assuredness that, "It's going to be a damned sight worse in ten years."
I'm a Labour supporter. For a while, during the Iraq nonsense I considered switching my allegiance to the Lib Dems, but I soon realised that this was something I should only consider when I live in a marginal Tory seat. I realised something not so long ago - it doesn't matter.
IT DOESN'T MATTER! Whoever is in power they're going to fuck up eventually. It's got nothing to do with complacency or power mad bureaucrats (although Labour has always had a problem with that), it doesn't matter who is charge of the country, we are hurtling towards a MASSIVE economic and social upheaval. We are running out of fuel, we are running out of money, we have no future to look forward to because there will be even less then than there is now. We have social decay running rampant across forgotten council estates, we have growing civil disrespect, we have cutbacks and cost-cutting exercises that are depriving these victims of social decay of what little they already had and we have a National Health Service that, whoever runs it, will continue to place a massive drain on the resources of a people that are living longer.
The reason we have a Labour government that looks no different from a Tory one is because when all the chips are down and it's a matter of survival and making the country tick over until the next schmuck comes along, we're all fucked and it's just going to continue to get worse. Life in the UK has become, for many, entropy. But perhaps that's what it was all about anyhow...
Call this life, purgatory more like.
I said to friends, sitting in a smoke filled living room in the late 1980s, 'This is as good as it's going to get guys. It isn't going to get better and in ten years we can look back on this time and say, "see, I told you so!"'.
I was accused of being a pessimist, which is probably a fair guess as I tend to be a 'glass is half empty' kind of bloke. The thing you need to remember is that Margaret Thatcher was the PM and we were halfway under the Tory regime that destroyed everything that made Britain great.
The thing was ten years later, sitting in a less smoky room, with many of the people I was with originally, we all eventually agreed that I was right. Yes, many of us were, individually, much better off than we were ten years earlier and there were, individually, great achievements; but the world as a whole was worse. This was 1998 and we had been under New Labour for 18 months and people, including us, were still in that blessed honeymoon period that this Labour government had bestowed upon us. Yet we all agreed that the country was worse than it had been and none of us had any allusions that it wasn't Maggie's fault.
I was in the pub last week with two of the blokes that shared the original forecast with me 18 years ago and were also there 8 years ago for the update. They both witnessed me say, in a God almighty like assuredness that, "It's going to be a damned sight worse in ten years."
I'm a Labour supporter. For a while, during the Iraq nonsense I considered switching my allegiance to the Lib Dems, but I soon realised that this was something I should only consider when I live in a marginal Tory seat. I realised something not so long ago - it doesn't matter.
IT DOESN'T MATTER! Whoever is in power they're going to fuck up eventually. It's got nothing to do with complacency or power mad bureaucrats (although Labour has always had a problem with that), it doesn't matter who is charge of the country, we are hurtling towards a MASSIVE economic and social upheaval. We are running out of fuel, we are running out of money, we have no future to look forward to because there will be even less then than there is now. We have social decay running rampant across forgotten council estates, we have growing civil disrespect, we have cutbacks and cost-cutting exercises that are depriving these victims of social decay of what little they already had and we have a National Health Service that, whoever runs it, will continue to place a massive drain on the resources of a people that are living longer.
The reason we have a Labour government that looks no different from a Tory one is because when all the chips are down and it's a matter of survival and making the country tick over until the next schmuck comes along, we're all fucked and it's just going to continue to get worse. Life in the UK has become, for many, entropy. But perhaps that's what it was all about anyhow...
Monday, March 06, 2006
Jacket Hangs
In a previous life, I was a little above a nobody. It actually suited me. In this previous life I had my fifteen minutes of 'fame' - within the context of the life I led. And like has-been celebrities from the real world, I clung onto it with every fibre of my being - which was a bit sad really when you boil it all down, mainly because this world was nothing special in the first place.
Someone asked me why I kept going back even though this former life had bitten me on the arse so many times and to be honest I can't really give a definitive answer for that. I've given answers, but none of them seemed to be really heartfelt. Then, amazingly, without any fuss I managed to leave it all behind - much the same way I gave up drugs - quickly and quietly, with no fuss and no fanfare.
This last couple of weeks there has been a concerted effort by certain people from my old life to try and get me involved in my old life again. I can't fathom why it means so much to some people, I wasn't a somebody, I was just above a nobody - that doesn't count for much. But, there have been a number of things, that I would describe as 'chain-rattling', that seem to have been designed to get me roaring back into my old life with all guns blazing. And I just don't understand why. Well, actually I can, but it's so screwy most people wouldn't believe me and I'd need to write a 300,000 word history to reinforce my belief.
Life's too fucking short.
Someone asked me why I kept going back even though this former life had bitten me on the arse so many times and to be honest I can't really give a definitive answer for that. I've given answers, but none of them seemed to be really heartfelt. Then, amazingly, without any fuss I managed to leave it all behind - much the same way I gave up drugs - quickly and quietly, with no fuss and no fanfare.
This last couple of weeks there has been a concerted effort by certain people from my old life to try and get me involved in my old life again. I can't fathom why it means so much to some people, I wasn't a somebody, I was just above a nobody - that doesn't count for much. But, there have been a number of things, that I would describe as 'chain-rattling', that seem to have been designed to get me roaring back into my old life with all guns blazing. And I just don't understand why. Well, actually I can, but it's so screwy most people wouldn't believe me and I'd need to write a 300,000 word history to reinforce my belief.
Life's too fucking short.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Dying From the Inside Out
Time passes.
Lives change.
New horizons and vast improvements in my working life have made the last few months a happy place to be in. My friends are envious of me and I have a air of confidence about me that is clear to see. I've had some excellent results and have integrated into the existing teams with ease. I discovered just before Christmas that my services are highly rated and a reputation that was once almost in tatters has been rebuilt better than before.
A lot of that is down to the people I work with. Three people in particular have been constant colleagues during my initial five months in the job. We'll call them Julie, Tony and Karen (because they're good names) and you could tell there was a real sense of friendship, camaraderie and cohesion between us. I work in other areas of my new job, but the place to go for a cup of tea, to hang my hat for a minute, or just to get some 'reality' was Julie, Tony and Karen's office. I even kept my herbal teabags in Karen's desk for convenience and safety... And oddly enough it's been the teabags I've had on my mind, but I'll get back to them.
In the lead up to Christmas, the four of us sat in their office and chinwagged - we'd all exchanged Christmas cards (the only ones I sent, apart from to my boss) and talked about our plans. We were all going to the Christmas meal the next day, apart from Karen, who had double-booked and was picking up her father from the station - he was visiting her for Christmas and she seemed really happy about it. She was going off on an extended holiday leave and really regretted not being able to come along.
The Christmas meal was OK. Tony, Julie, me and my boss all sat together - we were tight and during the meal we commented that it was a shame that Karen couldn't have made it along. You know how sometimes when a colleague is missing from a gathering, you occasionally get some snide remarks? Karen never generated those, she was always regarded with immense fondness and respect - we missed her sharing the day with us and it was noted.
Little did we know that that previous day, sitting, having a laugh in their office, would be the last time any of us saw Karen alive again.
The job I now do is potentially dangerous. I work, alongside others, with young offenders and rehabilitated criminals, but on the whole we work with mixed up kids and Karen was brilliant at it. I worked on three specific cases with her and we got to know each other, respect each other and above all like each other, working closely on cases involving young people we cared deeply about the welfare and futures of.
On Thursday morning, something cropped up and I needed to talk to Karen urgently. I rang the office early, but she hadn't come in. The problem was, she hadn't been in since Tuesday, but her diary was full of appointments and it being just post Christmas, I'm betting people in the office had other things on their mind. So, it never crossed anyone's mind that something might have been wrong until I phoned a third time looking for her. This time, fortunately, I managed to contact someone with more common sense in the office and by the time I checked in at 3:00pm, the office manager was on the case.
Today passed without incident. I had little to do, so I did some paperwork, made some phonecalls and worked in the locale. This evening my boss called and asked me if I was sitting down. I said I was, even though I wasn't. Then he told me and I soon found I was sitting down. The little information we have is thin and sketchy, but it seems she was found by colleagues in her flat, there is evidence of foul play (but maybe not, it's difficult to work out the fact from the speculation) and the police are involved and everyone is in a state of shock.
Karen was good. It's tough making friends at this age and its tougher losing them, but sounds like I'm turning this around and I'm not - she's a great loss to everyone that knew her and I'm going to have the very unpleasant job of telling our joint clients that the main reason for their success is no longer with us.
Sleep well, Karen. You're going to have one long big party, mate!
Lives change.
New horizons and vast improvements in my working life have made the last few months a happy place to be in. My friends are envious of me and I have a air of confidence about me that is clear to see. I've had some excellent results and have integrated into the existing teams with ease. I discovered just before Christmas that my services are highly rated and a reputation that was once almost in tatters has been rebuilt better than before.
A lot of that is down to the people I work with. Three people in particular have been constant colleagues during my initial five months in the job. We'll call them Julie, Tony and Karen (because they're good names) and you could tell there was a real sense of friendship, camaraderie and cohesion between us. I work in other areas of my new job, but the place to go for a cup of tea, to hang my hat for a minute, or just to get some 'reality' was Julie, Tony and Karen's office. I even kept my herbal teabags in Karen's desk for convenience and safety... And oddly enough it's been the teabags I've had on my mind, but I'll get back to them.
In the lead up to Christmas, the four of us sat in their office and chinwagged - we'd all exchanged Christmas cards (the only ones I sent, apart from to my boss) and talked about our plans. We were all going to the Christmas meal the next day, apart from Karen, who had double-booked and was picking up her father from the station - he was visiting her for Christmas and she seemed really happy about it. She was going off on an extended holiday leave and really regretted not being able to come along.
The Christmas meal was OK. Tony, Julie, me and my boss all sat together - we were tight and during the meal we commented that it was a shame that Karen couldn't have made it along. You know how sometimes when a colleague is missing from a gathering, you occasionally get some snide remarks? Karen never generated those, she was always regarded with immense fondness and respect - we missed her sharing the day with us and it was noted.
Little did we know that that previous day, sitting, having a laugh in their office, would be the last time any of us saw Karen alive again.
The job I now do is potentially dangerous. I work, alongside others, with young offenders and rehabilitated criminals, but on the whole we work with mixed up kids and Karen was brilliant at it. I worked on three specific cases with her and we got to know each other, respect each other and above all like each other, working closely on cases involving young people we cared deeply about the welfare and futures of.
On Thursday morning, something cropped up and I needed to talk to Karen urgently. I rang the office early, but she hadn't come in. The problem was, she hadn't been in since Tuesday, but her diary was full of appointments and it being just post Christmas, I'm betting people in the office had other things on their mind. So, it never crossed anyone's mind that something might have been wrong until I phoned a third time looking for her. This time, fortunately, I managed to contact someone with more common sense in the office and by the time I checked in at 3:00pm, the office manager was on the case.
Today passed without incident. I had little to do, so I did some paperwork, made some phonecalls and worked in the locale. This evening my boss called and asked me if I was sitting down. I said I was, even though I wasn't. Then he told me and I soon found I was sitting down. The little information we have is thin and sketchy, but it seems she was found by colleagues in her flat, there is evidence of foul play (but maybe not, it's difficult to work out the fact from the speculation) and the police are involved and everyone is in a state of shock.
Karen was good. It's tough making friends at this age and its tougher losing them, but sounds like I'm turning this around and I'm not - she's a great loss to everyone that knew her and I'm going to have the very unpleasant job of telling our joint clients that the main reason for their success is no longer with us.
Sleep well, Karen. You're going to have one long big party, mate!
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
I'm still awake
In my past, I've analysed dreams for people. Frued made a career out of it, but in my opinion interpreting dreams is just common sense, even if your dreams include images like drinking tea from a goat or wearing a red suit in a bath full of pulped bananas. I've always believed the weird stuff in dreams is just the subconscious's way of masking reality.
Over the years, I've had many dreams. some I could remember, others that disappeared like the last twinklings of daylight at dusk.
This morning I had a very odd dream. Had I been a teenager it probably would have turned into a wet dream with mucho nocturnal emmisions. As a 43 year old it became something altogether different.
It was packed with imagery that I could ground in reality. I was at the pub with my usual two buddies. Although the location was not one of our usual haunts. We sat at a table that was occupied by three women and I remembered thinking to myself that there were three of them and three of us. As with dreams, much of the superfluous stuff is often brushed over because the next thing I remember is that we're all talking to each other and getting along like a house on fire, even my two mates are getting in on the act.
All the time I'm fiddling with my wedding ring. My first instinct is - take it off, stick it in your pocket! So I did, but the ring was still there on my finger. I took that off as well and discovered I had two rings in my pocket.
But instead of pondering the significance of this image, we were in the living room of the three girls. I was on my own with 'Laura'. My mates were either off with the other two girls or had gone home - their story wasn't part of this dream any more. Me and Laura hit it off like a house on fire, but my memory of the dream was that we just sat and talked.
Then it was the next day and I found myself in the street where Laura lived, standing in front of her rickety front door. I hesitated and pushed the door open and one of her room mates - not one of the other girls from the pub - was standing there. "You must be ****?" I nodded and she said, "Laura's up in her room, go on up." So I did.
Laura was lying in her bed. We begin to kiss, but I stop her and say, "You do realise I'm 43 and married?"
"I knew that last night. I don't care. Come here!"
And then I woke up... :-)
It's funny how the simplest things can inflate your ego. At least in my dreams I still have the ability to pull a good looking young woman. I shall walk with my head held high today!
Over the years, I've had many dreams. some I could remember, others that disappeared like the last twinklings of daylight at dusk.
This morning I had a very odd dream. Had I been a teenager it probably would have turned into a wet dream with mucho nocturnal emmisions. As a 43 year old it became something altogether different.
It was packed with imagery that I could ground in reality. I was at the pub with my usual two buddies. Although the location was not one of our usual haunts. We sat at a table that was occupied by three women and I remembered thinking to myself that there were three of them and three of us. As with dreams, much of the superfluous stuff is often brushed over because the next thing I remember is that we're all talking to each other and getting along like a house on fire, even my two mates are getting in on the act.
All the time I'm fiddling with my wedding ring. My first instinct is - take it off, stick it in your pocket! So I did, but the ring was still there on my finger. I took that off as well and discovered I had two rings in my pocket.
But instead of pondering the significance of this image, we were in the living room of the three girls. I was on my own with 'Laura'. My mates were either off with the other two girls or had gone home - their story wasn't part of this dream any more. Me and Laura hit it off like a house on fire, but my memory of the dream was that we just sat and talked.
Then it was the next day and I found myself in the street where Laura lived, standing in front of her rickety front door. I hesitated and pushed the door open and one of her room mates - not one of the other girls from the pub - was standing there. "You must be ****?" I nodded and she said, "Laura's up in her room, go on up." So I did.
Laura was lying in her bed. We begin to kiss, but I stop her and say, "You do realise I'm 43 and married?"
"I knew that last night. I don't care. Come here!"
And then I woke up... :-)
It's funny how the simplest things can inflate your ego. At least in my dreams I still have the ability to pull a good looking young woman. I shall walk with my head held high today!
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Uneasy Sunny Day Hotsy Totsy
This weekend on BBC3 is a documentary called "Who the F*** is Pete Doherty?", which begs the question, who the fuck is Pete Doherty?
Yeah, yeah, I know, former lead singer with the mildly successful Libertines, before falling out with his musical partners because of his heroin addiction. He then went and created Babyshambles, and is apparently as reliable as a... well, a heroin addict, when it comes to his committment to his new band. He's also shagging Kate Moss, which itself begs all kinds of other questions, specifically about the state of Ms Moss's mind - but really, it speaks volumes - she has sex with a hopeless heroin addict, who isn't even that talented.
What annoys me, in my Mr Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells mode, is that in a culture that frowns on heroin for all the right reasons, that Pete Doherty has become a press darling just about sums up what is wrong with the press in one fell swoop.
I wouldn't mind if he was doing anything remotely original. And that isn't an old bastard talking, that's an appreciator of music.
***
The weather, or rather the BBC's coverage of it... Jesus, where do I start?
Yeah, yeah, I know, former lead singer with the mildly successful Libertines, before falling out with his musical partners because of his heroin addiction. He then went and created Babyshambles, and is apparently as reliable as a... well, a heroin addict, when it comes to his committment to his new band. He's also shagging Kate Moss, which itself begs all kinds of other questions, specifically about the state of Ms Moss's mind - but really, it speaks volumes - she has sex with a hopeless heroin addict, who isn't even that talented.
What annoys me, in my Mr Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells mode, is that in a culture that frowns on heroin for all the right reasons, that Pete Doherty has become a press darling just about sums up what is wrong with the press in one fell swoop.
I wouldn't mind if he was doing anything remotely original. And that isn't an old bastard talking, that's an appreciator of music.
***
The weather, or rather the BBC's coverage of it... Jesus, where do I start?
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Some Journey
I suppose it's the lot of the aging to point out the faults in this ever changing world, why else would a programme like Grumpy Old Men become so popular - it's watched by a nation of grumpy aging people nodding in agreement (even if their guilty themselves) at the celebs putting the world to rights.
I have considered joining CAMRA in the last year, my love for real ale having grown exponentially since the discovery of some pubs with real variety. However, after careful scrutiny of the leaflet I couldn't see the point. It didn't offer me value for money. What might be a suitable alternative would be to buy this year's CAMRA Good Beer Guide (proceeds to CAMRA, etc.) but after thumbing through it I was hit by a horrible realisation.
I live in a town that has gone from being the centre of the UK shoe industry to being the town with the largest concentration of bars, pubs, and licensed venues in the universe. The town once dubbed Shoesville has been renamed Pubtown, it has meant that the town centre is a buzzing nest of vipers just about every night of the week. It brings in huge amounts of revenue for the council, but puts tremendous pressure on the police force and subsequently they spend more time sorting out drunken idiots on the main drag than preventing crime.
But that isn't my point today. If I was to go on a virtual tour of my town's nightlife we'd be here all day, there are 17 drinking establishments on the main road leading into the town centre alone and for someone of my age there are maybe two or three places that I wouldn't feel like a pervert in a schoolyard, and two of these places are anachronistic pubs - they could easily still be in 1970 (apart from the prices). The other place is so bloody espensive and exclusive that you leave feeling as though you're glad you're getting old if this is what it costs the young to have a reasonable time.
In my town there are about 400 pubs - I'm not kidding, but it is a big town. There are 3 (yes THREE) specialist real ale pubs, and another 6 pubs that have a changing real ale rota - the rest are lager and John Smiths pubs. Of the 3 specialist real ale pubs, one is incredibly parochial, one is a bit of dive and the other is about the most successful pub in town for a clientel of my age - the place heaves most nights and you rarely see flesh younger than 30 in there.
The villages around the town used to have some of the best watering holes in the country, now they are restaurants and bistros and concentrate on the discerning diner rather than drinker - beer is not a profit making business on a large scale, lager makes the money because most casual drinkers will have a pint of lager. I have no problem with lager, I drink it at home, but we used to be a country of fine brewers and while we still have many micro breweries in existence, fewer and fewer pubs are stocking real beer and worse still some that do have no idea how to keep it. Plus the aggravation for people in this area like me (and there seems to be a lot of us) is that with all this choice, we only really have less than a handful of places to go to.
I have considered joining CAMRA in the last year, my love for real ale having grown exponentially since the discovery of some pubs with real variety. However, after careful scrutiny of the leaflet I couldn't see the point. It didn't offer me value for money. What might be a suitable alternative would be to buy this year's CAMRA Good Beer Guide (proceeds to CAMRA, etc.) but after thumbing through it I was hit by a horrible realisation.
I live in a town that has gone from being the centre of the UK shoe industry to being the town with the largest concentration of bars, pubs, and licensed venues in the universe. The town once dubbed Shoesville has been renamed Pubtown, it has meant that the town centre is a buzzing nest of vipers just about every night of the week. It brings in huge amounts of revenue for the council, but puts tremendous pressure on the police force and subsequently they spend more time sorting out drunken idiots on the main drag than preventing crime.
But that isn't my point today. If I was to go on a virtual tour of my town's nightlife we'd be here all day, there are 17 drinking establishments on the main road leading into the town centre alone and for someone of my age there are maybe two or three places that I wouldn't feel like a pervert in a schoolyard, and two of these places are anachronistic pubs - they could easily still be in 1970 (apart from the prices). The other place is so bloody espensive and exclusive that you leave feeling as though you're glad you're getting old if this is what it costs the young to have a reasonable time.
In my town there are about 400 pubs - I'm not kidding, but it is a big town. There are 3 (yes THREE) specialist real ale pubs, and another 6 pubs that have a changing real ale rota - the rest are lager and John Smiths pubs. Of the 3 specialist real ale pubs, one is incredibly parochial, one is a bit of dive and the other is about the most successful pub in town for a clientel of my age - the place heaves most nights and you rarely see flesh younger than 30 in there.
The villages around the town used to have some of the best watering holes in the country, now they are restaurants and bistros and concentrate on the discerning diner rather than drinker - beer is not a profit making business on a large scale, lager makes the money because most casual drinkers will have a pint of lager. I have no problem with lager, I drink it at home, but we used to be a country of fine brewers and while we still have many micro breweries in existence, fewer and fewer pubs are stocking real beer and worse still some that do have no idea how to keep it. Plus the aggravation for people in this area like me (and there seems to be a lot of us) is that with all this choice, we only really have less than a handful of places to go to.
Monday, July 25, 2005
Smile
I'm a socialist, but as I get older I get extremes that are anything but socialist. I suppose these are the times when we think we're becoming our parents.
When I changed careers from one that involved nothing buit paperwork to one that required very little it was the secondary part of this new career that probably made it as rosy as it seemed. The support services and voluntary sectors had, over the last 15 years, become less bureaucratical and focused specifically on helping individuals, but because of the lack of recording it was easy for the slackers to slack and this meant there were people in jobs that were either not doing their job or couldn't prove they were doing it. So with the arrival of a new Labour idea - Supporting People - the entire sector was overhauled, new reporting systems and policies and procedures were brought in, many of them good and safeguards against abusing the system, but the majority left dedicated workers with their heads in their hands. We had gone from one extreme to another, where there was recording, vital notes made for the benefit of staff not present all the time, etc., now we have a situation where everything needs to be recorded almost in quadruplet, plus some of this repeated work has to be repeated in a different format somewhere else. In fact there is so much paperwork now that instead of 90% of our time being dedicated to our clients, we're having to cancel meetings with clients because the paperwork has become a priority.
My latest job was no different and what made that worse was that because of my loftier position I had to do even more paperwork, I had to justify everything I did, even if it was just part of my job description. Everything needs logging, almost to the degree if you have to go to the loo for more than a couple of minutes, OK maybe not that bad but it feels that bad sometimes.
The thing is I am praised for the good work I do, yet criticised almost in the same sentence for not doing the correct, or any, reporting. I know I could find the time or I could organise things to allow me the time, but I also know that the nature of the work doesn't really allow you to book 'periods of time' because the demands of the client are not based on a diary or a clock.
I'm moving jobs next week, the new one has two hours a week set aside for paperwork, all over paperwork is handled by a admin assistant (how good and clever is that?). The problem is with the voluntary sector is, why employ an admin person when you can get the support worker to do it all? Proving to me that the people running the voluntary sectors now don't understand it.
When I changed careers from one that involved nothing buit paperwork to one that required very little it was the secondary part of this new career that probably made it as rosy as it seemed. The support services and voluntary sectors had, over the last 15 years, become less bureaucratical and focused specifically on helping individuals, but because of the lack of recording it was easy for the slackers to slack and this meant there were people in jobs that were either not doing their job or couldn't prove they were doing it. So with the arrival of a new Labour idea - Supporting People - the entire sector was overhauled, new reporting systems and policies and procedures were brought in, many of them good and safeguards against abusing the system, but the majority left dedicated workers with their heads in their hands. We had gone from one extreme to another, where there was recording, vital notes made for the benefit of staff not present all the time, etc., now we have a situation where everything needs to be recorded almost in quadruplet, plus some of this repeated work has to be repeated in a different format somewhere else. In fact there is so much paperwork now that instead of 90% of our time being dedicated to our clients, we're having to cancel meetings with clients because the paperwork has become a priority.
My latest job was no different and what made that worse was that because of my loftier position I had to do even more paperwork, I had to justify everything I did, even if it was just part of my job description. Everything needs logging, almost to the degree if you have to go to the loo for more than a couple of minutes, OK maybe not that bad but it feels that bad sometimes.
The thing is I am praised for the good work I do, yet criticised almost in the same sentence for not doing the correct, or any, reporting. I know I could find the time or I could organise things to allow me the time, but I also know that the nature of the work doesn't really allow you to book 'periods of time' because the demands of the client are not based on a diary or a clock.
I'm moving jobs next week, the new one has two hours a week set aside for paperwork, all over paperwork is handled by a admin assistant (how good and clever is that?). The problem is with the voluntary sector is, why employ an admin person when you can get the support worker to do it all? Proving to me that the people running the voluntary sectors now don't understand it.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
LA Boost
On a lighter note... (for a change...)
Women...
Or more specificially - women, summer, clothes, lack of them.
It has often been an enigma to me why there aren't more tailenders during the summer - cars ramming up the arse of the car in front of you because the driver of said car is more interested in the semi-naked woman walking down the street than the other idiot gawping in front of him.
This evening wasn't the warmest evening on record, by a long chalk, but it was pleasnt enough to wear a shirt and trousers and not much else... Not Much Else is what a large percentage of the woman aged between 15 and 65 that were out wearing tonight.
I like women, always have. There's something about their tits, hips and stomaches that do it for me - women's torsos do it for me big time. Especially if they are under 5' 4"...
However, as I get older I find myself more amazed by the get-ups rather than sexually aroused. Don't get me wrong, if any of the upper eschelons of the gorgeous percentage out tonight had wandered over to me and said, 'fancy slipping me one' I probably would have consulted my diary to see when I could pencil in some infidelity :-)
And that's the point of this in a nutshell... I was very sexually active during the period between 1978 and 1983 (and beyond that but monogamously) and had more shags than I was probably entitled too, but as far as my addled memory allows, I can't ever remember a single girl uttering the words "fancy slipping me one", although with more intensive memery scanning I'm sure words similar to that were uttered, but I digress, I have had forward girls in my time, but none so forward as to take the entire responsibility...
I have a mate with two teenage kids - a girl of 16 who may or may not be sexually ambiguous and a boy of 15 who is anything but. He was also very active in the bedroom during his youth and chucked it about a bit. However, he, like me, didn't lose the Big V until we were 16.
Friday night, his wife at her usual Friday appointment, my mate rolls back from town after a few beers with some mates and finds his son and his girlfriend almost in flagrante on the sofa. My mate is a responsible bloke and prides himself on his upbringing of his kids, despite the fact that he frowns (as does his equally 1980s promiscuous wife) on behaviour considered too risky for kids in 2005.
Later, after the girl's dad has picked her up, matey decides to have a heart-to-heart with his son, maybe explain a few things that maybe he'd missed in the earlier years. Unexpectedly his son wasn't very happy or receptive to a 'chat'. Why? Simple...
The girlfriend, a petite, perfectly formed 14 year-old with the face of an angel and the mouth of a devil, had instigated the entire scenario. She had heard his folks were out and came round with the specific intention of getting a damned good rogering. The dad having arrived home about an hour earlier than believed had stopped the coitus before it could be interupted and the ultimate outcome was that 14 year-old nympho ended up dumping mate's son because he couldn't service her with the required volume. I'm amazed! But I can also see why the son was utterly pissed off. When I was his age I hadn't shagged anything, but most of the girls I got off with were never in the same league as this girl. Also as much as I got casual sex with willing girls in my late teens I always had to be the person who made the initial move, like girls in 1978 knew what they wanted but wanted you to prove it to them.
I feel very sorry for people who reached sexual peak in the years between 1982 and 2000. It seems that an entire generation were a damned sight more careful about their sexual habits than any previous generation, or the ones that are coming. Because of AIDS, sexuality never reached the heights it should have reached and is looking like it will reach over the next ten years or so...
And that should be the end of this little lecherous rant, except to say that when I was 18 and doing town on a Saturday, fashion and appearance were not the same as they were today, but tonight, while out for a meal, we were sitting next to a table with a few people on it. One of the girls at the table was stunning - you wouldn't have had a moment of doubt if she had walked up to you and said anything at all that involved you delivering a load on or in her and you would have been like putty in her hands.
However, I recognised one of the other women at the table and as they were leaving she saw me. It was an ex-wife of a cousin of mine and the stunningly gorgeous girl sitting with her was her FOURTEEN year old daughter (of only 8 weeks), and she was also my second cousin. If she had been out on the streets I doubt there would have been one person who would have put her age at anything less than 21 (maybe the Garfield T shirt gave something away, but other than that - nada - nothing to make you think she was her actual age.
I've seen this many times before, girls who should be playing with Barbie dolls wearing wonder bras and clothes that hookers would feel uncomfortable with. Tonight's example wasn't one of these, but there are hundreds of them out there and I saw then on my walk through town.
I hate getting old because the older I get the more of a pervert you'll think I am!
Women...
Or more specificially - women, summer, clothes, lack of them.
It has often been an enigma to me why there aren't more tailenders during the summer - cars ramming up the arse of the car in front of you because the driver of said car is more interested in the semi-naked woman walking down the street than the other idiot gawping in front of him.
This evening wasn't the warmest evening on record, by a long chalk, but it was pleasnt enough to wear a shirt and trousers and not much else... Not Much Else is what a large percentage of the woman aged between 15 and 65 that were out wearing tonight.
I like women, always have. There's something about their tits, hips and stomaches that do it for me - women's torsos do it for me big time. Especially if they are under 5' 4"...
However, as I get older I find myself more amazed by the get-ups rather than sexually aroused. Don't get me wrong, if any of the upper eschelons of the gorgeous percentage out tonight had wandered over to me and said, 'fancy slipping me one' I probably would have consulted my diary to see when I could pencil in some infidelity :-)
And that's the point of this in a nutshell... I was very sexually active during the period between 1978 and 1983 (and beyond that but monogamously) and had more shags than I was probably entitled too, but as far as my addled memory allows, I can't ever remember a single girl uttering the words "fancy slipping me one", although with more intensive memery scanning I'm sure words similar to that were uttered, but I digress, I have had forward girls in my time, but none so forward as to take the entire responsibility...
I have a mate with two teenage kids - a girl of 16 who may or may not be sexually ambiguous and a boy of 15 who is anything but. He was also very active in the bedroom during his youth and chucked it about a bit. However, he, like me, didn't lose the Big V until we were 16.
Friday night, his wife at her usual Friday appointment, my mate rolls back from town after a few beers with some mates and finds his son and his girlfriend almost in flagrante on the sofa. My mate is a responsible bloke and prides himself on his upbringing of his kids, despite the fact that he frowns (as does his equally 1980s promiscuous wife) on behaviour considered too risky for kids in 2005.
Later, after the girl's dad has picked her up, matey decides to have a heart-to-heart with his son, maybe explain a few things that maybe he'd missed in the earlier years. Unexpectedly his son wasn't very happy or receptive to a 'chat'. Why? Simple...
The girlfriend, a petite, perfectly formed 14 year-old with the face of an angel and the mouth of a devil, had instigated the entire scenario. She had heard his folks were out and came round with the specific intention of getting a damned good rogering. The dad having arrived home about an hour earlier than believed had stopped the coitus before it could be interupted and the ultimate outcome was that 14 year-old nympho ended up dumping mate's son because he couldn't service her with the required volume. I'm amazed! But I can also see why the son was utterly pissed off. When I was his age I hadn't shagged anything, but most of the girls I got off with were never in the same league as this girl. Also as much as I got casual sex with willing girls in my late teens I always had to be the person who made the initial move, like girls in 1978 knew what they wanted but wanted you to prove it to them.
I feel very sorry for people who reached sexual peak in the years between 1982 and 2000. It seems that an entire generation were a damned sight more careful about their sexual habits than any previous generation, or the ones that are coming. Because of AIDS, sexuality never reached the heights it should have reached and is looking like it will reach over the next ten years or so...
And that should be the end of this little lecherous rant, except to say that when I was 18 and doing town on a Saturday, fashion and appearance were not the same as they were today, but tonight, while out for a meal, we were sitting next to a table with a few people on it. One of the girls at the table was stunning - you wouldn't have had a moment of doubt if she had walked up to you and said anything at all that involved you delivering a load on or in her and you would have been like putty in her hands.
However, I recognised one of the other women at the table and as they were leaving she saw me. It was an ex-wife of a cousin of mine and the stunningly gorgeous girl sitting with her was her FOURTEEN year old daughter (of only 8 weeks), and she was also my second cousin. If she had been out on the streets I doubt there would have been one person who would have put her age at anything less than 21 (maybe the Garfield T shirt gave something away, but other than that - nada - nothing to make you think she was her actual age.
I've seen this many times before, girls who should be playing with Barbie dolls wearing wonder bras and clothes that hookers would feel uncomfortable with. Tonight's example wasn't one of these, but there are hundreds of them out there and I saw then on my walk through town.
I hate getting old because the older I get the more of a pervert you'll think I am!
Saturday, July 23, 2005
Getaway
I love a good conspiracy theory and if I can instigate one all the better.
Today's 2nd wave of terrorist bombs just didn't ring true, not in the context of a fortnight ago.
The police want more and new sweeping powers, how better to prove we need it than England being on red alert all the time?
Incidentally, there was a programme on the BBC in the New Year about how we have come to live in a climate of fear and how Al Qaeda doesn't actually exist. Next week the BBC will feature a documentary on the New Al Qaeda...
Today's 2nd wave of terrorist bombs just didn't ring true, not in the context of a fortnight ago.
The police want more and new sweeping powers, how better to prove we need it than England being on red alert all the time?
Incidentally, there was a programme on the BBC in the New Year about how we have come to live in a climate of fear and how Al Qaeda doesn't actually exist. Next week the BBC will feature a documentary on the New Al Qaeda...
Sunday, July 03, 2005
The Politics of Dancing
LIVE8...
Piss poor coverage by the BBC. Very poor sound quality for the first half of the gig. Digital coverage also poor. Too much time spent wasting music time talking to B list celebs or idiots in the crowd who had no idea what G8 was. Lots of other great concerts from other countries that could have had highlights slotted in between the 10 to 15 minute wait between many of the acts on the first half of the day.
I'm not an evil man, I work in the voluntary sector in the UK. I absolutely hate the fact that there are millions of people all over this world that are dying or are facing death through a host of things. But it isn't our problem, is it? Not you or me. If someone had to be blamed you'd point accusatory fingers at the heads of the richest countries, but you'd also point fingers at the corrupt and ruthless leaders of these African countries, who take the aid to bolster their own lives and who cares about the dying.
The problem is you can't just write off debts and increase aid to these places without policing it, and if you police it you are the USA and friends trying to take over the world. The only safe way to handle this would be to send the SAS and Navy Seals into these countries and wipe out all the insurgents and leave the countries to the people. Except, we all know that the people would become as corrupt as their former leaders and I'll bet you in 20 years most of somewhere on this planet will be up to its eyeballs in debt and living on the edge.
In a horrible and ironic way I'd love it to be the UK because perhaps we'd spend more time and money on the concerns of this country rather than trying to be one of the idiots on a pedestal trying to change it to further their own political ambitions. I have time and respect for these campaigners, but I fear that we live in a country where poverty and social underclass is growing - we might not have people starving to death, but we have a country where the actual infrastructure is falling apart and needs £50bn spent on it just to stop it from falling into more of a decline.
Our transport system is crap. Our utilities networks are archaic and in decay. Our roads are a collection of potholes and speed bumps, pleasing no one but the people who look after our roads revenue or fix our cars. We have drugs problems in urban areas, we have gun problems as well, we have a future generation that is growing to be uninterested in their own futures and therefore are going to be the people who help dismantle what's left of this country, because they have no desire to preserve it. Yet we can fill the streets with hundreds of thousands of people who give a shit about Africa, yet will turn a blind eye or ignore the soical injustices in this country. It isn't just us, we've seen what's happened in the USA and we're heading down the same path. Soon it will be safer to live in Lesotho or Ethiopia or even Zimbabwe than it will be to live in a major connurbation in the UK. It might be already...
Piss poor coverage by the BBC. Very poor sound quality for the first half of the gig. Digital coverage also poor. Too much time spent wasting music time talking to B list celebs or idiots in the crowd who had no idea what G8 was. Lots of other great concerts from other countries that could have had highlights slotted in between the 10 to 15 minute wait between many of the acts on the first half of the day.
I'm not an evil man, I work in the voluntary sector in the UK. I absolutely hate the fact that there are millions of people all over this world that are dying or are facing death through a host of things. But it isn't our problem, is it? Not you or me. If someone had to be blamed you'd point accusatory fingers at the heads of the richest countries, but you'd also point fingers at the corrupt and ruthless leaders of these African countries, who take the aid to bolster their own lives and who cares about the dying.
The problem is you can't just write off debts and increase aid to these places without policing it, and if you police it you are the USA and friends trying to take over the world. The only safe way to handle this would be to send the SAS and Navy Seals into these countries and wipe out all the insurgents and leave the countries to the people. Except, we all know that the people would become as corrupt as their former leaders and I'll bet you in 20 years most of somewhere on this planet will be up to its eyeballs in debt and living on the edge.
In a horrible and ironic way I'd love it to be the UK because perhaps we'd spend more time and money on the concerns of this country rather than trying to be one of the idiots on a pedestal trying to change it to further their own political ambitions. I have time and respect for these campaigners, but I fear that we live in a country where poverty and social underclass is growing - we might not have people starving to death, but we have a country where the actual infrastructure is falling apart and needs £50bn spent on it just to stop it from falling into more of a decline.
Our transport system is crap. Our utilities networks are archaic and in decay. Our roads are a collection of potholes and speed bumps, pleasing no one but the people who look after our roads revenue or fix our cars. We have drugs problems in urban areas, we have gun problems as well, we have a future generation that is growing to be uninterested in their own futures and therefore are going to be the people who help dismantle what's left of this country, because they have no desire to preserve it. Yet we can fill the streets with hundreds of thousands of people who give a shit about Africa, yet will turn a blind eye or ignore the soical injustices in this country. It isn't just us, we've seen what's happened in the USA and we're heading down the same path. Soon it will be safer to live in Lesotho or Ethiopia or even Zimbabwe than it will be to live in a major connurbation in the UK. It might be already...
Friday, June 03, 2005
Paper Sun
I'm going to go back on one of my decades old beliefs. I no longer believe Margaret Thatcher was responsible for the destruction of communities and community spirit, she just accelerated something that would have eventually happened, mainly because the advancements in technology would have eventually turned us all into what we are anyhow. It wasn't just Thatcher, it was also Reagan and probably a lot of other left leaning fascist leaders who we didn't hear about because the world wasn't quite as global then as it is now. Or as small.
Someone at work made the assumption that I was a well educated intellectual and was surprised to hear that despite having done a number of interesting jobs I had never been to university and I'm not particularly well read. In fact, while discussing these points with friends over beer the other night I came to the conclusion that intelligence is a good thing, but intelluctuals are not. Common sense is the thing that helps most people survive on a daily basis, not the fact they've read and understood Ullyses by James Joyce (which I've never read and would probably not understand).
The last few days have felt like summer and this year it's been a long time coming. It hasn't been bad it just hasn't been particularly good. However there should be a different kind of warning instead of sun factors and pollen indices should be introduced - flesh count. I am absolutely gobsmacked that there isn't a dramatic rise in fender-benders on hot days because of the amount of women walking around the streets with bugger all on apart from a couple of pieces of cloth and some friendship bracelets. Going blind must be the worst thing in the world...
Someone at work made the assumption that I was a well educated intellectual and was surprised to hear that despite having done a number of interesting jobs I had never been to university and I'm not particularly well read. In fact, while discussing these points with friends over beer the other night I came to the conclusion that intelligence is a good thing, but intelluctuals are not. Common sense is the thing that helps most people survive on a daily basis, not the fact they've read and understood Ullyses by James Joyce (which I've never read and would probably not understand).
The last few days have felt like summer and this year it's been a long time coming. It hasn't been bad it just hasn't been particularly good. However there should be a different kind of warning instead of sun factors and pollen indices should be introduced - flesh count. I am absolutely gobsmacked that there isn't a dramatic rise in fender-benders on hot days because of the amount of women walking around the streets with bugger all on apart from a couple of pieces of cloth and some friendship bracelets. Going blind must be the worst thing in the world...
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Goddess on a Highway
The most exceptional thing about the general election was the fact those smug Conservative twats like fucking Otis Ferry and Oliver Letswind have to put up with the grinning arse licker for another 5 years.
In reality the 66 (will probably be 67 when the election in Stafford takes place - that was cancelled because of the death of a candidate) majority will be better for the country because the different factions of the Labour party will have to work with each other and we probably won't have any Presidential like decisions seemingly made. This could (and should) be the most constructive time for this government and the foundations have to be laid for Brown's steering of the party to a 4th term.
However...
I might not be supporting the party then...
I believe now that the election is over and Blair is likely to be replaced in a few years by a man the country already trusts with the economy, that a fourth, maybe even a fifth term is more rather than less likely. The battle now is to make sure the Conservatives never return to be a party that can hold power again and to try and lift the Liberals into a position where they are the second party - the opposition. That might require me to defect from the now middle way of Labour to return to my more left wing tendencies with the Liberals. I might even investigate how to enter into the political arena myself.
Britain has a bright future just so long as the greedy Tories never get a whiff of power again.
In reality the 66 (will probably be 67 when the election in Stafford takes place - that was cancelled because of the death of a candidate) majority will be better for the country because the different factions of the Labour party will have to work with each other and we probably won't have any Presidential like decisions seemingly made. This could (and should) be the most constructive time for this government and the foundations have to be laid for Brown's steering of the party to a 4th term.
However...
I might not be supporting the party then...
I believe now that the election is over and Blair is likely to be replaced in a few years by a man the country already trusts with the economy, that a fourth, maybe even a fifth term is more rather than less likely. The battle now is to make sure the Conservatives never return to be a party that can hold power again and to try and lift the Liberals into a position where they are the second party - the opposition. That might require me to defect from the now middle way of Labour to return to my more left wing tendencies with the Liberals. I might even investigate how to enter into the political arena myself.
Britain has a bright future just so long as the greedy Tories never get a whiff of power again.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Black Hole Sun
Feeling slightly less pessimistic about the world (but please note I didn't use the word optimistic)...
Since last summer we've heard stories of flooding in major towns and cities; as recently as two weeks ago there was a BBC documentary about the building of new homes on flood plains and how these houses are at risk because of the imminent changes in British climate. Every bloody week we're being told - drier winters, wetter summers, warmer winters, hotter summers and every other month we're fluctuating between mediterranean or arctic futures, depending on what the Gulf stream decides to do this century...
Late last week the water companies decided to inform us that there is the best chance of a massive drought this coming summer than in any year since the last one, in 1976. I'm sorry, but what? I do not think I will be in a minority here, in fact more like massive majority, when I say that we don't believe you. I think it takes massive cajones of the water companies to stand up publicly and say there might be a drought in the face of all the opposing evidence, I mean, after all, 'the wrong kind of rain' excuse can only hold up so long, can't it?
Everyone I've spoken to, which I'm aware doesn't even constitute the beginnings of a Gallup poll, agrees with me - if we're having a drought then it's the incompetence of these companies and it should be up to water boards to sort the problems out. We pay them enough money and they are always posting profits at the end of the year, yet they're always asking for more money to help improve the system, but why they can't use the profits they make once in a while is beyond me (oh yeah, that's something else to blame Thatcher for).
There is going to be a general election and this journal is going to have no bearing on the outcome whatsoever, but I would like to state publicly that many commentators believe that the country is healthier than it has been for years and the economy is sound and we're moving forward domestically. That will all be reversed and destroyed unless Labour get in again for another term. We all would like lower taxes but the lower the direct taxes the higher the indirect taxes will be - that's a fact, and the lower the taxes the less services you will get and while that might not bother you at the moment, give it a few years and there won't be enough of anything left to be able to rebuild on. The Conservatives are only interested in short-termism: Michael Howard doesn't give a shit about your children, he doesn't even give a shit about his own - fat cat Tories will always be able to supply for their kids and when there is fuck all left in Britain they'll all bugger off to the Cayman Islands and retire in the knowledge that they helped destroy Britain.
If you don't want to vote Labour, just don't vote Conservative.
Since last summer we've heard stories of flooding in major towns and cities; as recently as two weeks ago there was a BBC documentary about the building of new homes on flood plains and how these houses are at risk because of the imminent changes in British climate. Every bloody week we're being told - drier winters, wetter summers, warmer winters, hotter summers and every other month we're fluctuating between mediterranean or arctic futures, depending on what the Gulf stream decides to do this century...
Late last week the water companies decided to inform us that there is the best chance of a massive drought this coming summer than in any year since the last one, in 1976. I'm sorry, but what? I do not think I will be in a minority here, in fact more like massive majority, when I say that we don't believe you. I think it takes massive cajones of the water companies to stand up publicly and say there might be a drought in the face of all the opposing evidence, I mean, after all, 'the wrong kind of rain' excuse can only hold up so long, can't it?
Everyone I've spoken to, which I'm aware doesn't even constitute the beginnings of a Gallup poll, agrees with me - if we're having a drought then it's the incompetence of these companies and it should be up to water boards to sort the problems out. We pay them enough money and they are always posting profits at the end of the year, yet they're always asking for more money to help improve the system, but why they can't use the profits they make once in a while is beyond me (oh yeah, that's something else to blame Thatcher for).
There is going to be a general election and this journal is going to have no bearing on the outcome whatsoever, but I would like to state publicly that many commentators believe that the country is healthier than it has been for years and the economy is sound and we're moving forward domestically. That will all be reversed and destroyed unless Labour get in again for another term. We all would like lower taxes but the lower the direct taxes the higher the indirect taxes will be - that's a fact, and the lower the taxes the less services you will get and while that might not bother you at the moment, give it a few years and there won't be enough of anything left to be able to rebuild on. The Conservatives are only interested in short-termism: Michael Howard doesn't give a shit about your children, he doesn't even give a shit about his own - fat cat Tories will always be able to supply for their kids and when there is fuck all left in Britain they'll all bugger off to the Cayman Islands and retire in the knowledge that they helped destroy Britain.
If you don't want to vote Labour, just don't vote Conservative.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Pilgrimage
The Internet is a horrible place.
It is and you don't need to know me to trust what I'm telling you.
The Internet is one of the three great things in the future downfall of civilisation (the other two things being greed and Margaret Thatcher), and it's this way because? Because humankind is essentially more prone to being mean and nasty than it is to be anything else. The Internet compounded isolation, it made it a force to be reckoned with because it gave the isolated a way of having a voice and remaining isolated and in turn allowing shattered personalities to run amok venting their own frustrations on others while feeling safe behind the glare of a computer screen.
I've often seen people say, "you wouldn't be like that if this was a face-to-face conversation" and equally I've seen occasions where the old double bluff is played when someone suggests meeting up to prove whether that theory is right or wrong.
For every friendship that is formed on the Internet you can bet there are 5 possible relationships that will be terminally shattered because of the degrees of maturity missing from some people who frequent this ethereal wilderness.
It is and you don't need to know me to trust what I'm telling you.
The Internet is one of the three great things in the future downfall of civilisation (the other two things being greed and Margaret Thatcher), and it's this way because? Because humankind is essentially more prone to being mean and nasty than it is to be anything else. The Internet compounded isolation, it made it a force to be reckoned with because it gave the isolated a way of having a voice and remaining isolated and in turn allowing shattered personalities to run amok venting their own frustrations on others while feeling safe behind the glare of a computer screen.
I've often seen people say, "you wouldn't be like that if this was a face-to-face conversation" and equally I've seen occasions where the old double bluff is played when someone suggests meeting up to prove whether that theory is right or wrong.
For every friendship that is formed on the Internet you can bet there are 5 possible relationships that will be terminally shattered because of the degrees of maturity missing from some people who frequent this ethereal wilderness.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Tomorrow Never Knows
I don't really have anything to say.
It's a bit pointless if I do.
The world strives to be a better place, but the reality of it is that things will never get better, they'll never get fairer, they will continue to change and for everyone that thinks something good is happening there will be 1000 people complaining.
There are too many people on this planet, by about 5.5billion. The problem is if we lost 5.5billion people from the surface of this globe, the ones left would be a bunch of bastards intent on destroying each other.
It's a bit pointless if I do.
The world strives to be a better place, but the reality of it is that things will never get better, they'll never get fairer, they will continue to change and for everyone that thinks something good is happening there will be 1000 people complaining.
There are too many people on this planet, by about 5.5billion. The problem is if we lost 5.5billion people from the surface of this globe, the ones left would be a bunch of bastards intent on destroying each other.
Monday, March 07, 2005
The Hedonist
I blame Margaret Thatcher for most things that have gone wrong in the last 25 years. I think it is a fair accusation.
I appreciate there are many people that will disagree with this statement, even some people who will believe, quite stoically, that Thatcher was responsible for many of the good things that have happened as a result of her radical form of governing. The fact that I think these people are intellectually retarded or 'fucktards' is immaterial, if Thatcher hadn't come to power we might still have a sense of community in this country, we might not be surrounded by a social underclass that smokes crack, exploits the exploitable and is a celebration of everything that is despicable about modern Britain.
However, one thing I can't accuse Thatcher of doing is creating a Nanny State or, more importantly to this piece, creating people who feel it is their moral obligation to moan and set themselves up as the moral conscience of the nation, or even worse, the moral conscience of the 'moral majority' (who of course are really the moral minority, they just think everyone thinks the same way). This was probably down to good old upstanding Mary Whitehouse, who younger people will be unaware of, but was the self-appointed moral watchdog of the country who felt she needed to poke her nose in others business because, obviously, the rest of us weren't intelligent enough to make our own minds up!
I suppose I've made a point in my later life of telling people that I'm something of a Royalist. I think for all the Windsor family's dysfunctions they still provide this country with something relatively unique and they bring a lot of tourist quids in - an enormous amount in fact. I'm not enamoured particularly by the lesser royals, but the major ones have my respect...
Prince Charles is someone I quite like. In fact I'd like to meet the man, maybe even have a chat with him, I think he's an eccentric, but so am I, and I think he's the sort of guy who at some point in the past said, "Oh fuck it, I'm not going to be king until I'm very old, if at all, and boy have I got my own opinions on things and I'm going to express those opinions occasionally." Therefore there are people who dislike him. There are also people who dislike him because of what he did to Princess Diana and I suppose a lot of what happened was unforgivable - at least in the eyes of the obsessive and those that hold grudges for other people, even people they don't know.
Charles is getting hitched again, or at least he's trying to. His desired wife this time is the woman it should have been 35 years ago and only the Royal family must know the reasons why this union was not encouraged before CPB went off and married someone else. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that he's an adult, he's entitled to do whatever he sees fit and if he wants to marry a woman he obviously really loves then he should be allowed to. But there have been NINE objections lodged at the Registary Office where the wedding has to take place. And... In today's Guardian there's this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,1432056,00.html which basically makes me sick because these people have nothing better to do with their time than be concerned about the affairs of other people. It also makes me wonder if Diana was still alive would these same groups have the same objections?
I appreciate there are many people that will disagree with this statement, even some people who will believe, quite stoically, that Thatcher was responsible for many of the good things that have happened as a result of her radical form of governing. The fact that I think these people are intellectually retarded or 'fucktards' is immaterial, if Thatcher hadn't come to power we might still have a sense of community in this country, we might not be surrounded by a social underclass that smokes crack, exploits the exploitable and is a celebration of everything that is despicable about modern Britain.
However, one thing I can't accuse Thatcher of doing is creating a Nanny State or, more importantly to this piece, creating people who feel it is their moral obligation to moan and set themselves up as the moral conscience of the nation, or even worse, the moral conscience of the 'moral majority' (who of course are really the moral minority, they just think everyone thinks the same way). This was probably down to good old upstanding Mary Whitehouse, who younger people will be unaware of, but was the self-appointed moral watchdog of the country who felt she needed to poke her nose in others business because, obviously, the rest of us weren't intelligent enough to make our own minds up!
I suppose I've made a point in my later life of telling people that I'm something of a Royalist. I think for all the Windsor family's dysfunctions they still provide this country with something relatively unique and they bring a lot of tourist quids in - an enormous amount in fact. I'm not enamoured particularly by the lesser royals, but the major ones have my respect...
Prince Charles is someone I quite like. In fact I'd like to meet the man, maybe even have a chat with him, I think he's an eccentric, but so am I, and I think he's the sort of guy who at some point in the past said, "Oh fuck it, I'm not going to be king until I'm very old, if at all, and boy have I got my own opinions on things and I'm going to express those opinions occasionally." Therefore there are people who dislike him. There are also people who dislike him because of what he did to Princess Diana and I suppose a lot of what happened was unforgivable - at least in the eyes of the obsessive and those that hold grudges for other people, even people they don't know.
Charles is getting hitched again, or at least he's trying to. His desired wife this time is the woman it should have been 35 years ago and only the Royal family must know the reasons why this union was not encouraged before CPB went off and married someone else. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that he's an adult, he's entitled to do whatever he sees fit and if he wants to marry a woman he obviously really loves then he should be allowed to. But there have been NINE objections lodged at the Registary Office where the wedding has to take place. And... In today's Guardian there's this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,2763,1432056,00.html which basically makes me sick because these people have nothing better to do with their time than be concerned about the affairs of other people. It also makes me wonder if Diana was still alive would these same groups have the same objections?
Friday, February 25, 2005
Personal Jesus
3 boys expelled for having a snowball fight!
This is yet another reason why this country is going to ruin.
When I was a lad there was a number of things I loved doing - playing and collecting conkers in the autumn. In the winter when we actually saw significant snowfall one of the best things was snow fighting - yeah we all heard the apocryphal stories about the kid who lost his eye when someone put a bit of broken bottle in the snowball, but we all knew this was an urban legend designed to scare schoolkids. Except, I can appreciate in this day and age that this is more likely than legend.
But excluding 3 boys for playing snowballs? Jesus H, I thought the council in Sunderland who cut down the chestnut trees because of the danger of sticks hitting people on the head during conker season was almost the most laughable bit of nonsense I'd heard in years, but now a County Durham headmaster takes the biscuit (for this week, anyhow) for banning these obviously evil and twisted little bastards who were probably trying to subvert national security with half a dozen compacted handfulls of snow.
One other rant before I go and make a vast difference to my life...
The 2012 Olympic bid. This time nothing to do with Red Ken's Jewish outburst, but more to do with a Tory statement that confirmed my deepest suspicions about the Conservative party's burning desire to get back into government at all costs...
In Stratford where the Olympic village is being cited there will be 280 businesses, plus about 300 homes that will have compulsary purchase orders slapped on them - this means they have NO recourse, no appeal, no nothing - they are given by the purchaser a compulsary amount of money - normally the going market rate plus a little bit extra to offset moving and other miscellaneous expenses. It sounds reasonably fair, especially if every piece of property in the UK, or especially London, was the same price. But Stratford is probably the cheapest place in London, by a Fleet Street mile, in fact it is so cheap that if you go across any of its borders into neighbouring boroughs you will find prices going up by astronomical amounts, some as high as £200K. The 280 businesses have collectively expressed both their desire to see the Olympic Games come to London and their dismay at being offered not enough money to relocate effectively, or if they did they would have to move so far away that most of their workforce would not being about to move or afford to move. The London Games committee (led by a staunch Tory, Seb Coe) have said they have done nothing wrong and the fair price had been offered. No one denies this, except that the 280 businesses and 300+ homeowners and tenants all live in the real world and not the fantasy world generated by computer for 2012.
What's this got to do with Michael Howard and his crones? Well, they've thrown their weight behind the businesses and are asking for a fairer deal, claiming, if they win the next general election, these people will get what they need to remain local. It was a Tory government that introduced Compulsary Purchase Orders in the first place and it has been subsequent Tory governments that have ignored the plight of small businesses, despite claiming to be the supporters of. It proves that they will all (and by 'they' I mean all politicians) say what you want them to say to give them the opportunity of getting into the Commons.
This is yet another reason why this country is going to ruin.
When I was a lad there was a number of things I loved doing - playing and collecting conkers in the autumn. In the winter when we actually saw significant snowfall one of the best things was snow fighting - yeah we all heard the apocryphal stories about the kid who lost his eye when someone put a bit of broken bottle in the snowball, but we all knew this was an urban legend designed to scare schoolkids. Except, I can appreciate in this day and age that this is more likely than legend.
But excluding 3 boys for playing snowballs? Jesus H, I thought the council in Sunderland who cut down the chestnut trees because of the danger of sticks hitting people on the head during conker season was almost the most laughable bit of nonsense I'd heard in years, but now a County Durham headmaster takes the biscuit (for this week, anyhow) for banning these obviously evil and twisted little bastards who were probably trying to subvert national security with half a dozen compacted handfulls of snow.
One other rant before I go and make a vast difference to my life...
The 2012 Olympic bid. This time nothing to do with Red Ken's Jewish outburst, but more to do with a Tory statement that confirmed my deepest suspicions about the Conservative party's burning desire to get back into government at all costs...
In Stratford where the Olympic village is being cited there will be 280 businesses, plus about 300 homes that will have compulsary purchase orders slapped on them - this means they have NO recourse, no appeal, no nothing - they are given by the purchaser a compulsary amount of money - normally the going market rate plus a little bit extra to offset moving and other miscellaneous expenses. It sounds reasonably fair, especially if every piece of property in the UK, or especially London, was the same price. But Stratford is probably the cheapest place in London, by a Fleet Street mile, in fact it is so cheap that if you go across any of its borders into neighbouring boroughs you will find prices going up by astronomical amounts, some as high as £200K. The 280 businesses have collectively expressed both their desire to see the Olympic Games come to London and their dismay at being offered not enough money to relocate effectively, or if they did they would have to move so far away that most of their workforce would not being about to move or afford to move. The London Games committee (led by a staunch Tory, Seb Coe) have said they have done nothing wrong and the fair price had been offered. No one denies this, except that the 280 businesses and 300+ homeowners and tenants all live in the real world and not the fantasy world generated by computer for 2012.
What's this got to do with Michael Howard and his crones? Well, they've thrown their weight behind the businesses and are asking for a fairer deal, claiming, if they win the next general election, these people will get what they need to remain local. It was a Tory government that introduced Compulsary Purchase Orders in the first place and it has been subsequent Tory governments that have ignored the plight of small businesses, despite claiming to be the supporters of. It proves that they will all (and by 'they' I mean all politicians) say what you want them to say to give them the opportunity of getting into the Commons.
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