evil

the nhs is evil.
sarah palin said so.
it must be true.
she also said 'death panels' so that must be true as well.
she is american and so right wing that she is playing out of the park.
aha nothing to worry about then.

except you have the 'eccentric' (according to david cameron) daniel hannan, a conservative mep, who describes the nhs as a "60 year mistake" that he "wouldn't wish on anyone". even worse the slimy little toad made his statements on american tv, and not in front of his electorate. (i wonder why he hasn’t said it on the hustings and saved it for american tv? could it be he wouldn’t have been elected and wouldn’t be earning taxpayers money – oh you like the taxpayers money when it goes into your pocket daniel, just don’t like it going on the health of others.)

mr. hannan is likely to get a ‘stern talking to’ – crikey i bet he is shitting himself – still we owe him a vote of thanks as he has given us a glimpse of just how secure the national health service is in the hands of the conservatives: not very.

there is little to like about either mrs. palin or mr. hannan, palin edges it because she hasn’t hidden her views from the electorate. palin is quite tasty and appears on the pat top tory totty list, but that is me being terribly shallow
neither quality can be applied to daniel hannan; still we can rest easy knowing he will be given lines and made to stand in the corner.

fame

we live in a fame obsessed culture. the media report on the lives of the rich and famous. it could be argued that this has always been the case in the age of mass communication – we have always been interested in knowing more about the stars that entertained us. the difference now is since the advent of the internet and 24 hour news we not only want to know more we need to have more people to know about.
people will do anything in order to get their moment in the media gaze. some will take the traditional route of hard work and paying their dues to earn their fame (and then ungratefully complain about the pressure of fame). most take the easy route and appear on tv shows making spectacles of themselves, with the vague hope that they might be spotted and turned from a nobody into a somebody. a desire to live the jade dream.
then there is that even more fleeting glimpse of media stardom that is very peculiar to modern mass communication. the voracious appetite of the modern media has led to a variation on the old kiss and tell stories, a variation on the citizen journalist concept.
the other day three people were granted a different type of celebrity: infamy. the murderers of baby p have been named in the press, this now puts their lives in danger. given the nature of their heinous crime i can’t say i am too bothered. they are unlikely to ever be reformed or redeemed and no one is going to shed a tear if parole after parole is refused.
their actions mean that they will never be safe if they are ever released. in a country that, rightly, does not have the death penalty there can be no rational argument that allows them to be released from jail without protection. to do anything less is to agree to the law of the jungle and advocate vigilante justice (if the state is not prepared to execute them, then it can not be left to the public to do the deed).
luckily for me i won’t be the politician who has to deal with this question (not unless the country really does go to the dogs).
journalists have been busy digging up the dirt on the three people in question.
it is that dirt that brings us back to the kiss and tell element of fame. we have seen it with the michael jackson when friends rush forward to tell their sordid tales rather than do what friends should do: keep secrets and honour the memory (yes mark and uri i am thinking of you).
then there has been the growth of the man in the street quote. it used to be something along the lines of: “he was a nice boy”. now they are given more time and more space, their opinions given credence.
the men in the baby p murder have previous form; it appears that they were particularly nasty towards their grandmother (nothing was proven as she died before the case could come to trial). still her neighbours have been quick to jump in with their comments. they have talked about how that whenever the men visited the granny was bruised.
on the radio we heard how the granny was very nice, a friend, how they lived in a close community, a quiet community. this quickly became a commentary about the low sentences that have been handed out, how the state does not do enough to protect people and how something like this will happen again. the implication being that the public has been let down by the state and people have been murdered because of it.
yet the irony of their close and quiet community life, their regard for the granny is lost on them. as one of them said in a piece in the metro newspaper “every time they came she was bruised.”
so you managed to see these bruises but you decided to wait until journalists arrived on your doorstep before saying anything? couldn’t go to the police or call social services? doesn’t seem like you could. yet you can go on national radio and pontificate about how the state is letting people down. perhaps some of the blame can be laid at the feet of caring concerned, but ultimately, quiet communities who only care in the spotlight of the media.
yet as many in the public gaze have found there are times when it sees just the worst of things. the desire to have that moment in the spotlight, that moment to be heard sometimes ends up just reminding us that we are not always worthy of the attention we crave.

debooking

i have been on a quest; epic is too small a word to describe it, to clear my flat. over the years i have accumulated lots, hoarded more and collected loads.
but enough is enough.
time to make a move in on the books. sort them out. move them on. should be easy, oh how i wish that was the case.

the plan is the break the books down into various categories.
keep - because i liked it.
keep - because i will read it (some day).
maybe - i might read it and i do quite like it.
give to friends - books that might appeal to friends now that i have declared them free to go (the books not the friends).
give to local charity - books i no longer want, but are not going to appeal to friends can go to the local charity shop.
give to local charity level 2 - books that i don't want, but for some odd reason i don't think are suitable for the local charity shop so they go to the book bin at sainsburys.
recycle - books which fall into the categories of "i must have been in a muddy thunderstorm when i read that one" or "i have no idea why i would have bought that in the first place and surely no one in their right mind would ever read it".

so in effect we are talking about three piles. keep, get rid of and i am just not sure.

such a simple plan. it falls down the moment i start looking at the books. the obvious ones are not the problem (though the ‘i think i will read that one next’ pile is getting very large). it is the ‘to keep or not to keep’ books that are causing the problems. i look at them and wonder will i miss this book once it has gone? the obvious answer is no as i haven’t looked at it in years, but you never know when the need will crop that i need to research drugs in sports, or how drugs create visions (no idea why i have them), maybe i might want to go back and read some of the slipstream stuff i have, i doubt it but i never know. true crime, maybe (i seem to have a large amount of such books, i have no idea what possessed me, perhaps the same demon that had me getting several crowley and magik books). perhaps i will dip into those popular science books i have, same with those current affairs titles (of course in both cases they are now woefully out of date, but that is not the point.

looking through my bookcases i can find things that interested me in the years gone by. i get all misty eyed remembering the thrill of buying those film theory books, ah if only i had read them then.

even worse is the discovery of a title that looks like it would have been really good to read at the time, but now the moment has past, or has it? (put them on the maybe pile).

scarily as quickly as i am cleaning space off the bookcases i am just filling them up with the books that have been lying around the flat in teeter tottering piles.

at least now i know i really shouldn’t be buying books until i have read a few more of the ones i have. except i have a hankering to read (well i mean attempt to read) james joyce’s ulysses and i would have sworn i had a copy of it somewhere, but seems i don’t. oh well i will read another doc savage novel – just as good.

one book i won’t be reading is liz jones’ ‘exmoor files’, see what she did there? for those of you lucky enough to have never read liz jones she is one of the many confessional columnists who populate the papers. she spends a lot of time telling people how miserable her life is, but how much better it is than the life we are leading. i confess that as part of my ‘daily mail’ addiction i do occasionally dip into the liz jones life. i never feel very good afterwards.
anyway the reason i mention this is because her book gets a review in the latest private eye. as you can imagine it is not that complimentary.
however one part made me chuckle.
“one of the problems with confessional hackery, though is that you quickly run out of material. there is only so much you can confess to, even if you are fred west.”

mmmm perhaps i should have kept those true crime books.

christmas

let me be the first to wish you a happy christmas.
in the world of retail there are many people who have been working on their christmas purchasing strategies for months, while others will have been planning their christmas displays. for those hardy types christmas is an all year thing.
slowly but surely it is becoming an all year event for the rest of us.
recently i saw an advert for a well known chain highlighting their christmas line. the other night i was watching bid-tv, look i really don’t understand what the attraction is of the bid-tv channel is, but i am hooked. feel free to judge me. so there i was engrossed in the patter of the presenter desperately selling some piece of tat when he pipes up that this would be a fantastic item for christmas and that a christmas gift special would be airing soon.
still fortnum and mason’s take the biscuit when it comes to early christmas coverage. in fact they take the hamper.
yes those of you who were thinking of treating me to the snow queen hamper have waited too long, as this £25,000 hamper has been taken off the market. so where will i get my goosedown powder puff, my silk opera scarf, my magnum of 1990 veuve clicquot or that 4lb tin of beluga caviar? (if you were to press me on that i would hazard a guess that i could pick them all up from fortnum and mason.)
it is not just the £25k hamper that they have taken off the market, but also the downmarket £5,000 hamper. they have kept a shoddy £1,000 hamper available for the cheapskates out there.
the reason why fortnum and mason have taken these hampers off the market because in the current climate they are “probably not appropriate”.
after all with unemployment approaching three million it makes sense that fortnum and mason show a more socially aware and more caring side. i am sure the fact that they get some press coverage for this move is just a happy by-product of the move, though i am betting they are kicking themselves now as they read that the banks have no such qualms about current climate and are about to splash the cash when it comes to bonuses.
let me be clear here.
there has never been a time since the establishment of fortnum and mason (1707) that is has been ok to drop £25,000 for a christmas hamper. for a large chunk of the population that is more than they earn in a year and that is a situation that has always been the case.
true the current financial climate is not a good one, but for most of the three million who are unemployed and the millions who are existing on the breadline what is being sold in fortnum and mason is the last thing on their mind, they are more concerned about the price of bread and milk in their local supermarket.
the only people who are going to be put out by seeing a £25,000 price tag on a christmas hamper are those city whiz kids who now find themselves surplus to requirements. my heart bleeds for them. call me scrooge.

still if you have a few thousand pounds burning a hole in your pocket and you really need to get a christmas hamper there is always harrods, although they dropped their £5,000 hamper are offering to have a personal shopper go around with you to fill up the trolley for you. i am sure you will be a few (hundred) pounds lighter after that. while harvey nichols has decided to stick with their £2,500 christmas hamper.
i’ll have three please.
by the way merry christmas.

education

funny thing about politics when you are in opposition it is easy to score points, in fact it is very hard not to. the joy of being part of the opposition is that you can pretty much criticise anything for any reason.
take education.
every year when the gcse results are posted the conservatives are there trumpeting on about how standards have declined and how the papers are so much easier than they were in the good old days. their can be no confidence in the results is their cry. surely though this can’t be true as most of the top grades come from public schools. do the wealthy middle and upper classes really spend all that money just to get qualifications that no one has faith in? that can’t be right.
so it must be the state sector schools whose results we cannot believe. those estate kids who go to the local comprehensive must be getting a dummies guide to exams paper each time they get to sit an exam. that must be the answer.
unless of course the real benefit of the public schools isn’t so much what you learn but who you learn it with.
so the bottom line seems to be that it is all too easy for children to pass their exams. they need to be challenged. they need to be truly tested; they have to prove themselves in the heat of the exams.
fair enough you might say.

yet when the sats (that is standard assessment tasks to you and i) results decline in english for the first time since the tests were introduced (1995) what do the conservatives say?
step forward michael gove and tell us: "we have seen a historic drop in english results, the brightest students are not being stretched, and the weakest are being failed the most. it is deeply worrying that english results are in decline."
from that you would think that the drop had been from the highest mountain and into the deepest abyss. when in fact the decline was from 81 to 80%, a big, a very big 1%, disaster.
i believe mr. gove has entered hyperbole corner.

hold on a second haven’t the tories been complaining that standards are too low, that it is all too easy.
now call me stupid (and many do) but if you are planning on making something harder you are expecting to see more people fail because if they don’t then the tests are the same as they were before.

really all this shows is that in opposition over education the tories have their cake and they have eaten it.
oh we want things to be harder to reward those that work harder.
oh no fewer have attained the standard this year it goes to prove education system is wrong.
all the conservatives are really complaining about is that too many oiks are passing too many exams. if someone from the local comprehensive is getting those results it just makes the private sector look a lot less attractive.

for all the talk about them being caring and compassionate the tories never really change. problem is this time next year they will be in power,

back

it looks like my internet problems are solved.
it looks like i am back.
it looks like i will be writing more rants.
it looks like you lot are going to be suffering my poor prose and even poorer puns.
it looks like the rain has gone and we can all see clearly now.
(have no idea where that came from.)

technology2

not been on for a while because i have screwed up my internet.
normal service will be resumed soon.

(longer version below.)

technology

gentle reader you may have been wondering where i have been, or you may have been thanking your lucky stars that you have been spared my brand of drivel. even so i think you deserve to hear why i have been absent.
currently i have an adversarial relationship with technology. sometimes it is my freeview box that just cuts out, or has a magical digital signal that works fine for all the really bad tv stations but doesn’t work at all on anything i want to watch. then there is the digital radio that turns itself on and off whenever it pleases, often in the middle of something i was enjoying listening to (and i will ignore the fact that the cd player on it has decided it will never work no matter what i do). shall i mention my dvd recorder that allowed me to record the recent (excellent) torchwood series and then decided at the very last moment to make the disc unplayable (not only did i lose the series, i also waved goodbye to the amiable film ‘cat ballou’). the ipod can’t be left out with its occasional moments of temperament when it just decides that the best option is to freeze. lovely. my mobile phone is a constant source of irritation i either lose if for periods or recently it has decided not to make a sound, leaving me to guess if i have been contacted (which to be honest is a rare occurrence anyway).
still the most recent technological disaster has been my loss of the internet. now i can take full responsibility for it going the way of all good things. i had stupidly taken the laptop to the local ‘idea store’, or for the old folk out there the local library (you can tell the difference between a library and an idea store thusly an idea store has wi-fi and computers and lots of people making lots of noise on their mobiles or just chatting (loudly) to each other, while sometimes eating smelly food. a library is quiet and has books. what me old fashioned? yes.) i was there to use the wi-fi. unlike anywhere else in the western world to use the wi-fi you have to reset everything on your settings. this i did. the really dumb thing was i didn’t make a note of what i was doing.
cluster fuck time.
get home and the internet and i are no longer intimate friends but acquaintances who have lost touch.
not to worry i can save this. i can rescue this. i can do this.
no. nope. nada.
worry time.
to cut an epic to a long story: i gave up and decided it was time to renew my broadband.

simple. so simple.
if only life was like that. really life would be great if it were that simple.
a period of reflection who to go with i plunk for bt.
a call to bt gives me more details and lets me know what information i need to provide them with, naturally enough i don’t have my customer reference number as i do that online (see the problem).
go to an internet café to log-in to my bt account. i am not recognised. what? ask them to send me my password again, but to answer all the questions they pose i have to see my bill (see the problem).
find an old email from bt click on the link to my online account and it takes me straight there (no need for a password or username, nice).
get customer reference number.
make the call to bt to place the order for broadband. now bt love their menus. so after a few minutes of digging down into the menu options i finally get to a point where i can place the order.
i do.
five working days.
fantastic.

the days go by.
internet hub has not turned up.
misery.

curse those post office employees for being on strike they are preventing me from getting back to the internet. now as a working class warrior (armchair division of the glorious galloway regiment, retired subs not paid) i can’t actually fault them for being on strike so i just grin and bare it.
ah my copy of last week’s socialist worker has arrived so the bt homehub can’t be far behind.
nope.
wrong.

apologies to the vanguard of the proletariat that are the postal workers, they were not to blame for holding up the bt hub.
no it was bt. the very helpful chap who took my order didn’t actually take my order.
a big thank you to him and may he have boils on his bum for the next ten years.

another game of going through the bt menu system and a new order placed.

so perhaps next week i will be online again.
keep your fingers crossed. i know some of you have been missing this.

no2id

with, yet another, change of tack in the implementation and purpose of the id cards perhaps now is the time for gordon brown to finally kick this unwanted (and unnecessary) piece of legislation into the very long grass.
it would save cash. it would be a vote winner.
even david cameron can see that, as he has written to several companies telling them not to sign long term contracts because he is going to scrap the scheme. have to say i agree with him.

one of the things we elect governments to do is to make the hard choice, the hard decisions that we, individually, would not do. the government should be seeing the big picture and operating in the best interest of society.
you can see why they thought that an id card scheme would be necessary and needed. yet they have failed to make the case for id cards stick. no one wants them. no one sees the need for the cards. opposition to the scheme has united people on the left and people on the right.

each time they change their approach the case gets weaker.
the only reason for continuing appears to be stubbornness on the part of gordon brown. (actually there might be a second reason they wish to continue with the scheme: the desire to push money into the hands of big business. governments seem to have a fetish for spending (well wasting) a lot of money on large-scale computer programmes. even worse business has a habit of promising the moon and providing a bit of swampland, but hey the free market always knows best).
this is the time when a good politician should step up to the crease (cricket, dear boy, and not that horrid baseball game) and admit they are wrong and they have decided to drop the scheme.
they won’t, but they should.

all the while gordon brown is passing on one of the promises he could easily make that would help restore his popularity. all he has to say is: no to id cards. simple really.


(more about saying no to id cards can be found here.)

evil

ever since eve took a chunk out of that granny smith there has been evil in the world. along with stupidity evil is one of the human traits you can find everywhere and every when. evil is a universal constant: always there.
evil comes in all shapes and sizes, it is perpetuated by individuals, groups and societies.
you only have to think of hitler, stalin, isle koch, elizabeth bathroy, spanish inquisition, the somme, agent orange, jeremy kyle and many others to get the idea.
i don’t want to paint too bleak a picture because as easy as it is to find evil, it is just as easy to find beauty. just the other day there i was wandering the halls of the tate modern, there you get a small glimpse into the creative soul of mankind. to stand in awe at the works of picasso and mondrian, to gaze with wonder at a lichtenstein or rothko, to be filled with wonder by hockney or wearing.
and that is just the art dear reader; i have glossed over the magic that can be found in literature and music or in film.
so while there is evil in the world there is beauty and joy too.
yet it was at the tate modern that i experienced my own personal moment of evil. it was not through the works of jake and dinos chapman with their dioramas of hell, that illuminate the darker aspects of man’s psyche, not was it in the canvases of francis bacon laying bare the diseased soul of humanity.
no fellow traveller this evil was more real than the art that fills the tate modern. this was real evil.
the evening was drawing to a close, i had enjoyed my walk around the per kikeby exhibition, but the time to go had come. feeling lazy i headed for the lifts. unusually a lift was there waiting. i get in. press the button for the second floor. doors close.
then it hits me. the evil strikes.
the perpetrator more mysterious than jack the ripper, the effects as lingering as mustard gas. yes, faithful reader, as the door clanged shut and the recorded voice told me which floor i was on i tasted evil, i smelt evil. i have no idea if when the initial crime had been committed it was an sbd (silent but deadly) but i can confirm that it lingered, it congealed, and it hung around the confines of the lift. trapped in that little space what had been to someone a simple fart had become a lethal toxic weapon.
vileness on a lovecraftean scale.
i am not sure i can ever enter a lift again, the trauma was so great.
somewhere out there a rasputin type character is cackling with glee knowing that one of his farts has claimed another victim.

i tell you now brothers and sisters there is evil in the world.
evil in the world.

buses

buses

there is something special about the bus. it is a microcosm of all that is right and wrong about the modern world. you can see people at their best and their worst.

it had been a pleasant day walking around london, a few galleries, a coffee or two. yet all things must come to an end, so homeward bound. joining the crowd (ah do you remember the good old days of when people knew how to queue? i do) waiting at the stop for the 25 bus. i settled back and prepared to wait. i let the first one go by as it was packed. easy to do, i wasn’t in a hurry.

one of the things about waiting for a bus is that you get to watch the people go by. a bit of a lecherous glance here, a giggle at a fashion faux pas there. the problem with looking around at people is that sometimes you just spot someone you wished you hadn’t seen.
there he was in all his glory. a very smart, neat black man who is carrying two canvases, the front one carrying the legend “ian tomlinson” the other one “mark quinsey”. he looks like he wouldn’t say boo to a goose; all that marks him out are the two canvases.

second 25 bus comes along. fewer people on it, fewer people getting on it. winner. hop on. sit down. get home. simple. i choose to sit close to the doors, hoping to get any cool fresh air that enters the bus.
canvas man sits down across from me.
doors close. the engines cough. bus moves off. canvas man starts to talk. he has a deep rich african voice. he is not talking to me, he is preaching to the bus.

he tells the assembled (captured?) passengers that he has been at a protest. he has been bringing to people’s attention that both ian tomlinson (died at the g20 protests) and mark quinsey (shot at army barracks in northern lreland) have been murdered. not just murdered, but murdered by the freemasons. not only were the freemasons in on it, but it was known about by the queen and sanctioned by a member of the queen’s family.
no one says a thing.
everyone knows it is better to let him rant. why? engage them in conversation or meet their eyes and you are trapped, you are going to be their bitch for the rest of the journey and they are going to talk to you and you alone. when that happens everyone else on the bus will just sit back and enjoy your discomfort.
so he is studiously ignored.
to his credit he doesn’t care. he just goes on.

every two stops he just starts to tell the story again.
around the fourth telling he adds more detail and colour to the tale.
the queen is still involved. so are the freemasons. now arabs and muslims are involved. hypnotism is added to the mix. throw in a little girl who looked at him, she did this, he informed the bus, in order to trap him on charges of paedophilia.
well when you add all of that up you either have one serious cover up that needs to be on the front page of the daily telegraph (if only he could have woven expenses into the narrative) or you have the ramblings of a fractured mind.

whatever the state of mind is the story is repeated like a broken record, does that analogy work in the digital world?

as i listened i wondered if in the world of conspiracy theorists there are people who are considered to be just too far out there, that even the david ickes of the world consider to be nutters?

say what you will about the bus but there are times when you get more than you bargained for.

500

five hundred years ago henry tudor became henry the eighth, king of england.
he was a bit of a renaissance man. a man of words, a man of action. a lover and a fighter.
before he became king he received some advice on how to live his life from jack skelton, his first tutor. some of them were banal such as "don't be mean". whoa, radical stuff to put before a king. don't worry skelton had a trick or two up his sleeve.
one of the maxims skelton offered prince henry was:
"don't deflower virgins, do not violate widows."

words to live by my friend.
words to live by.

euros

the two stories of the night are the decline of labour and the bnp winning two seats. a far bit of drivel spoken about both.

no shock that the european elections has proved to be a disastrous night for the labour party. talk about shooting yourself in the foot. thanks to people like ian gibson, who resigned because he didn’t like the way he was treated over his expense (still not to worry his daughter has a flat out of it) or hazel blears, resigning before she was reshuffled. james purnell, resigning in the hope that others would follow him to bring down gordon brown, but they didn’t. or caroline flint, one moment a loyalist, the next moment throwing her rattle out of the pram because she didn’t get the job she wanted.
mostly these seem to be about personality, none of them seem to have come forward with a plan on how to resolve either the expense row or how to steer a course through the economic crisis.
it is true that gordon brown is not the most charismatic of people, but he does seem to be the person who has at least an idea of what to do. if only his party would stop fighting itself.

my favourite comment from the night came right at the death when a tory mep said that if we had a different system then the bnp would not have been voted in.
i am still amazed that so many people can be for democracy but only when it provides the results that we agree with.
over the course of the night on the radio one of the big stories was the potential success of the bnp. lots of stuff about it being a dark night for democracy, various pundits making sure that they got their sound bite on how “depressed” “disgusted” they were that the bnp had polled so many votes. given the tone of the comments you would have thought that we were witnessing an updated version of krystallnacht and that the bnp had stormed the polls, rather than they won two seats. previous experience shows that they will prove to be ineffective in power and they will be out at the next election.
all the thunderous words of condemnation of the talking heads does is make sure that the bnp remain in the public view, that they get a chance to air their opinions, (and i would argue that part of the reason for the success of the bnp in this election was in part down to all the free advertising they got from the media worrying about the bnp benefiting from the expenses fallout.

lost in all of this was the fact that the green party won two seats, and increased their share of the vote, but that is a positive story and that doesn’t sell the news.

if labour does not buck its ideas up then the results are a signpost to their future: the wilderness.

meltdown

listening to gordon brown giving a press conference about his cabinet shuffle. he has never been seen as the most gifted of speakers, that said you can tell that he is a man who is a man who wants to do a good job, and he believes he has the answers to the problems that face the country.
throughout the press conference he went on about how he wasn't complacent but that he was resolute, yet each time he said it you just got the feeling that even he knows that the end is drawing closer and closer.
that the government is in meltdown was further strengthened by the news during the press conference that one of his ministers, caroline flint, resigned and was pretty scathing in her comments.
whatever happened to loyalty?
whatever happened to working for the public good?
that seems to have deserted the labour party.

i don't want to see gordon brown resign from the job at hand (and during his press conference he said several times that he wasn't going to walk away, almost as if he was a country and western singer) but i do want to see him grab the labour party by the scruff of the neck and take control of labour members of parliament, remind them what is at stake and make sure that they work together to make sure that the conservatives have no chance of winning the next election.
(and if the thought of the conservative party in power is not bad enough, then the thought that we will hear more from eric pickles should be enough to scare us all).

oh and i have a pony as well, just to throw a calvin and hobbes reference in there to lighten the mood.

why

why on earth are kajagoogoo getting back together?
why on earth are kajagoogoo touring?
does anyone care?
surely this is a sign of the coming apocalypse?

there should be laws against this sort of thing.

tosser

there are times when all you can do is scratch your head and wonder, not quite jaw dropping but almost. my working life was filled with moments like that when the only sane response was: “they did what”?
british politics is going through a head scratching moment that is veering towards the jaw dropping.
there are two major problems that face british government the credit crunch/crisis and the mess that is the expenses of members of parliament. ideologically the conservatives and labour may have differences of opinion on how to steer a course through the economic crisis. so far it seems that labour have more answers than the conservatives. on that basis it is a case of more of the same please when it comes to who runs the country.
the expenses question is one that involves all the main parties working together to create a new clean and transparent system, which also means making sure all the freeloaders are named and shamed. on that basis it seems too sensible not to call an election until the system is cleaned up.
i can understand why the scottish nationalists and plaid cymru are planning to table a commons motion to call for an immediate general election. david cameron’s reasons for agreeing with them are little more than political game playing as he and his team just keep going on about how little authority gordon brown has, while providing little in the way of concrete solutions to the issues of the day.

it is accepted that labour is going to suffer some serious losses in the county and european elections. most of those losses can be laid at the feet of the expense fiasco because voters are giving the party in power a bloody nose.

there is to be a cabinet reshuffle and it was also going to be likely that jacqui smith and hazel blears were going to lose their posts, both chose to resign before they were pushed. this has become gordon brown has lost two of his ministers – it makes for better press that way.
james purnell, who was the secretary of state for work and pensions, has now resigned. in his resignation he calls for gordon brown to stand down in order to give labour a fighting chance to beat cameron and the conservative party in the next general election.
mmm i wonder who is smiling at that resignation letter? oh no need to struggle with the answer it would be david cameron. so now the tories have some meat to their claims of a government in disarray. so thanks very much for that james purnell, thank you for making it even more likely that cameron gets in. thank you james purnell for making sure that the next few weeks are taken up with wittering and twittering among politicians as they plot, scheme and jockey for position. thank you james for making sure that politicians are not focused on the job of running the country but more concerned with internal wrangling.
step forward james and take a bow, you have done the conservative party a great service.

as for you barry sheerman if you want a vote to change the leadership – don’t do it by secret ballot, let us see a show of hands, let us see exactly who we can hold responsible for any changes that take place. if labour mps are too shy to take ownership of their view on who should lead the party then perhaps they should not be voting on it.

the sad part of it all is that all this has done is make sure that we have a conservative government after the next election. i am already dreading it, something else i can thank james purnell for.

quote

while i am not adverse to a chat and a natter i am not one of life’s most approachable people, i wear a scowl that seems to say “leave me alone, i am not interested”. mostly that is a perfect state of affairs for me. ever so occasionally i get dragged into a conversation with a stranger.
i am not comfortable with this for the simple reason i have never really learnt the art of knowing when a conversation has come to it’s natural end (these days i know by the glazed look of fear in people’s eyes “will he never shut up” they seem to say).

so there i am on sunday walking down brick lane. the weather was too hot for me (expect lots of moans about the heat in the coming days, weeks and months) though i was still cocooned in the happy glow of a decent cup of coffee. there is a part of brick lane that has become a little bazaar where people rock up to sell any old bits and bobs that they have. one chap seemed to have a leather coat for sale. i wasn’t interested in buying it but he had hung it up on the wall and it made for an interesting picture. i asked him if i could take a few snaps of the coat. he said yes. he commented on the camera, we chatted.
it was one of those chats where it wasn’t so much a dialogue but two overlapping monologues that had the appearance of a conversation.

i learnt he was out of work, was a physicist, liked walking, did photography, enjoyed a drink, was involved with a collective of artists, had problems with an ex. all the usual broad strokes you quickly get.
most importantly he provided me with a great quote: “i drink, i fuck, i occasionally shoot photographs”.
on that sunny sunday afternoon it sounded like the perfect advice on how to spend your day.

contrition

a lot can be said about the current expense row that is rocking parliament.
one of the things that seems to be lacking is the perfect apology.
thanks to a member of the public i think i have found the right words for the various members who get caught with their hands in the kitty.
now i live in an area that is filled with a lot of lads who put an inordinate amount of effort into maintaining face, they strut and swagger down the street (well some waddle thanks to their low slung jeans) courtesy is not the done thing – it is a sign of weakness. this is especially true when it is the boy racers who are involved. their shiny gleaming cars all sounding like overworked hoovers.
so there i was today minding my own business walking to the shop when two lads in cars have it out because one had impinged on the other.
i miss what the first chap says. luckily i catch what the second says. i say lucky because i think that it is perfect balance of apology, challenge and belief that they did nothing wrong.
so for members of the conservatives, labour and liberal parties i give you the apology you need to use whenever you are confronted by a tax paying member of the public.
“yeah my fault, sorry, fuck you.”
perfect.

need

there is a difference between needing something and wanting something.
i need food, but i want cream cakes.
i need sandals, but i want trainers.
i don't need books, but i want books.
i don't need dvds, but i want dvds.

i am man enough to admit that a lot of it is greed. all of which is complicated by the fact i suffer from collectoritis.

all that said somethings you see and you know that want and need come together in a blinding flash of beautiful obviousness that there is no denying that the object in question should be owned.
i give you the helmet of thor, crikey it is a dream come true. i need it. i want it.






by my troth, but verily tis a lovely thing.

bright

it was a bright warm day.
sweat came easy. sneezing came easier (no not swine flu, but hay fever).
great relief to see it is supposed to be blowy and rainy all of the coming week.
but i saw that on the daily mail website - so it is unlikely to be true.

lottery

well i didn't win the euro lottery.
guess i will have to get a job or become a member of parliament. (oh such topical humour from me.)

runner

i am back on the running trail again. like most things these days i just don’t seem to stick at it for very long. i am getting fickle, as i grow older.
i like to run. running is a lot like sex for me: i do it alone, it is a lot of effort for a small pay off and anything like a headache will keep me tucked up in bed.

i like to run when there are few people around so that means either early morning or late at night, for the moment i am running in the morning.
i confess i still long for that rocky moment when i run up the steps dance and punch the air. for the time being i am just settling for making it back to my flat (i should also mention that there are no steps around for me to do the rocky dance, but hope springs eternal).

the big surprise for me has been discovering that most of my favourite albums are not that suitable to run to. when the albums work they keep me running with the occasional burst of singing and air guitar (which must thrill the people who see me).

if i run in the morning it is a great start to the day, invigorating. if i run late at night it is a great way to relax and unwind. when i run i find myself thinking, the thoughts running further and faster than my slow feet, that slap and pound the floor the thoughts slip and slide ninja style.
the run today had me thinking about why are there hidden tracks on cds or easter eggs on dvds? why? why? why? i continued to work out what was the point of danny dyer. still no answer. i came up with a great game for the iphone; sadly as i have no idea how to programme computer games it will go nowhere (but it would have been a great hit). had an idea for an art book. it would be a winner if i could ever get it sorted. more left field was the idea for a watch (to be called the iwatch); it was an odd thought because i don’t wear watches. i wondered why paperback novels have gotten fatter over the years and how wonderful it is to find a novel that is around 200 tightly plotted and well-written pages rather than the overblown 500 pagers that fill the shelves. the thoughts kept coming: just how does david caruso get away with his acting and why is it so addictive? he has developed a minimal version of overacting – it is fantastic. then there are the thoughts of things i need to buy and the things i need to do.
thoughts just tumble and rumble, some roughhousing others out of the way.
i am pretty sure paula radcliffe doesn’t have such thoughts; she is too busy counting the cash she is earning. oh slap me for being cynical.

an unintended consequence of running is that my bowel movements have become that much easier, slipping out like a silk hankie from a pocket. wonderful.

crikey i am already looking forward to the next run.

flu

i can't help but think that swine flu is no more than a lazy pig phoning the butcher and saying "oink can't come in my nose is running oink cough oink".
media coverage of it is at panic levels that should only be reserved for the confirmed decline of western civilization and not for a few sniffles.
i know we are all looking for things to take our minds off of the credit crunch and the impending conservative government (come on gordon you can pull it around, you can - you just have to believe, oh and cut down on the number of stupid things that happen such as the mcbride smear tactics idea (what were you all thinking?) but i don't think creating an over the top panic is the best way around it.

all that said: remember to catch it, bin it and kill it.

pat's public health message for the day.

boris

it must be great being boris johnson. there you are in a position of power and responsibility and you can make bold statements that you don’t have to make good on because they are outside your purview. (a little like being the leader of the liberal party).

in talking about the various bail-out schemes and fiscal stimulus that the government have initiated in order to get the economy though the current financial crisis boris points out that the debt that has been built up will be paid for by all of us. boris says, "everybody, i am afraid, is going to have to pay that off in much higher taxes all round."
in a sense it is fair that it is that way. after all it is a national situation (well more an international problem) and propping up the banks was necessary so that we can all get on with our lives. the government has intervened to try to protect the market. we all benefit from that; we all suffer if it fails. so we all bear the brunt of it.

except boris doesn’t mean everyone.
indeed some people shouldn’t pay higher taxes.
for boris the new 50% tax for those earning over £150,000 (phew members of parliament are safe then, as long as we don't count their expenses) are a return to the “soak the rich” approach of the 1970s and would harm london. for boris “london is the motor of the uk economically. we need to send out a very positive signal about the enterprise culture we have in london."
in other words the rich shouldn’t be taxed because they might leave and we need them to stay here because they are the ones that power the economy and we all benefit from them. which sort of ignores the fact that these masters of the universe got us into this mess, and that much of the debt we have is due to the government bailing them out.
that doesn’t matter. you have to look after the rich, after all the rest of us benefit from the crumbs that fall from their table, we should be thankful (doff cap).
as the song says:
it's the same the whole world over, 

it's the poor what gets the blame, 

it's the rich what gets the pleasure, 

isn't it a blooming shame?


in sounding his call to the conservative party not to implement the tax rise, but at the same time saying that we will all have to pay, boris johnson is showing us that really the conservatives haven’t really changed and that they are just interested in making sure that their pals in business are looked after. they know that if they don’t they won’t have a directorship to go into when they leave politics.

break

had a bit of a break from here. it has turned out to be much longer than i thought it would be.
one of the problems of the post employment state is the complete loss of any timeframe.
would like to say my batteries are recharged and i am flowing with creative juice (just bubbling with coffee i am afriad) but i am back to wow and thrill, to entertain and educate, to tell tales of wonder and spin stories of flatulence (which is next to flaunt in my dictionary which proves it is fine to let one go in public. really. honest).
in short it is business as usual.

twax

being taxed is a necessary evil, eating twix is one of life’s joys.
it seems (and you may have heard this) that people are getting fatter. a day doesn’t go by without a new scare story about foods that are bad for us, about how we are all getting bigger and fatter. except catwalk models who are getting thinner and thinner – so who on earth are buying the clothes they model? perhaps the fatties buy two to make a large one?
even as we are told about the dangers of getting fat we are given excuses. some say that having to think to hard to do your job causes people to eat more. some say that having fat friends stops you from losing weight. some say that there is an addictive gene and we can’t help scoffing. some say it is the sedentary lifestyle of modern man. it is due to affluence (and a few have pointed out that the current financial crisis will be good for people’s health – strangely those that have said that seem to be the ones who are least affected by the crisis. still we will have the last laugh we will be lean fighting machines and they will be dead of heart attacks).

now chocolate is to blame for our ever expanding girth (in my case it is the sensual fresh cream apple turnovers that sainsburys do. i am addicted to them), while other fat foods have been named and shamed chocolate has done a commando raid under the radar and turned us into fat prisoners in the weight war.
the solution? tax chocolate. yes dr. david walker believes that the rock road (copyright ben & jerry’s) to defeating obesity starts with a chocolate tax. cut down the amount of choc scoffed and you will start to shrink the waistlines of the nation. yay dr. walker.
unfortunately the good doctor was voted down at a british medical association meeting. unsurprisingly a spokesman for the ‘food and drink federation’ was against the idea claiming that not only would it be a bureaucratic nightmare, but also there is no proof it would work. let us not forget that this is the industry they responded to the ‘king size’ bar furore by replacing the larger bars with duo packs, because we know that you are going to save that other bar until later. no doubt the food and drink federation would also be against labelling food according to the fat content, so that consumers could make informed choices.
still i think he is right that a tax wouldn’t work – you just have to look at the consumption of booze and fags, both heavily taxed and both heavily consumed.
that said the idea that supermarkets might do a 18 bars of twix for the price of 6 like they do with beer is a tempting one, that newsagents might have a revels happy hour would be nice. though all those binge mars bar eaters who would hang around the street just after teatime would be a nuisance.

when it comes right down to it though the solution to the spread of obesity is going to be a mixture of measures from education to encouraging people to exercise and all the stops in between. a good place to start would be to get rid of all the celebrity chefs, not because they use chocolate but because i don’t like them.

right now what did i do with that yorkie bar?

noise

it is an odd fact about me that much of the music i like can be described as loud and being just noise.
it is only on odd occasions that i inflict it on other people. i still have fond memories of irritating a whole warehouse by playing them some diamanda galas. i thought it was only fair as they had subjected me to the craig and terry house tape wiiiiiicked mix.

the modern world has created many problems for the individual. some small, some large. one of the ones that really annoys me is that it is almost impossible to escape other people's noise. in the streets there are cars chug along with their stereos pounding. on the bus there will be someone with an irritating tinny mp3 tune playing on their mobile phone, if it is not music then they are just talking very loudly into the phone, all concept of the private lost. on the tube it is someone with their mp3 player blaring out damaging their ears and annoying everyone else. (i might be a little more tolerant of it if they all listened to decent music. they don't it is just a collection of shit urban tunes that all sound the same.)
imagine how happy when i read about the ipod jacket. my heart sank. now people can wear their speakers on their shoulders. fantastic there will be no escaping the shite sounds of the city.
the future is noisy.

gordon

i enjoyed listening to gordon brown’s speech to the american congress. it was a sensible mix of praise of america (as one commentator pointed out not only is it polite to big up the host country, but the americans expect it) and hardheaded realisation of the problems that face the uk, america and the world.
interestingly while gordon brown was very keen to push the special relationship (which more and more seems to be a one way special relationship, except when america needs an ally in war) he was also quick to point out that america now has the chance to work with the most pro-american europe there has been.
no one really expects much more than pretty words at such speeches, it is not about laying down hard policy it is about rallying the troops.
well no one that is other than the gordon brown haters. he really is on a hiding to nothing. it is his fault that there is a financial crisis, even though it seems to be happening across the globe, he is wrong to try to stimulate the economy even though all other governments are doing something similar.
people just don’t like him; you can see that on the bbc messageboards, where pretty much to a man they hate him. it is ironic that there is so much negative comment about mr. brown on the bbc as it is seen as being the lapdog of new labour.
still never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

sole

there i was out for a walk. i needed it as i had a mild headache that was threatening to turn into a big arsed throbbing one. out i went. then it rained and it was very windy. it was the last few days of winter coming out to play just to annoy me. a little into the walk i realised that i was wearing a pair of trainers that had a hole in the sole. ooops. soggy sock time.
headache averted.
now i just have to hope there is not a case of manful on the horizon.

the case of damp foot could not dampen (see what i did there?) the silly pleasure in thinking through my brand new blog. an announcement on it will follow soon. i know you are already excited, it will be as anticipated as the new cannon and ball film, not to mention as funny and as relevant.

recovering

still recovering from my almost brush with fame.
though my rant was denied, i now have the taste for it. soon, sometime soon i will be on the stephen nolan show.
here me roar.

(i am now officially sad, at this rate i will be applying to appear on reality tv shows).

fame

i do spend a lot of time listening to the radio. i spend part of that time shouting at the radio, more often than not i am shouting at the stephen nolan show on radio 5. there is something about his delivery that brings out the worst in me, he plays the devil's advocate a little too well.
i have been known to send off a badly written ill-conceived email to the nolan show (and several other shows).
tonight they were going on about mickey mouse degrees which came about because of a comment by chris woodhead. universities are not servicing their students properly and that some degrees are just a waste of money surfing and media studies degrees were cited as proof of this.
i sent of a quick email, basically i asked why is it that a surfing degree is seen as being a waste of time and impractical but one in classical literature is not? email goes off. i get a reply requesting my mobile number. i give it. then i go back to listening to the boxing on the radio.
i get a call. they ask me why i sent the email. i say that the argument seems to come down to a case of intellectual snobbery on the part of mr. woodhead, i continued that you have more chance of getting a job and doing something practical with a surfing degree than with a classical language degree. the real difference is that cambridge and oxford offer classical language degrees and therefore they are seen as being valid. i also pointed out that chris woodhead also has an agenda as someone who is at the head of a group of independent schools he is interested in making sure that his students get into university and that the degrees they get are are seen as being worthwhile and an easy way to do that is to try to persuade others not to go to university.
the researcher who called me seemed interested in what i had to say.
could he call me back and put me on the show.
sure i said.
not sure when he tells me because of the boxing.
sadly the boxing went much longer than expected and i didn't called.
so the nation didn't get to hear my views, they were not able to be wowed by my cogent argument.
the nation was robbed and they were robbed by a poor performance by james degale.

i could have been a contender.

stop

harriet harman, jack straw and the rest of you just stop. stop now and think about what you are doing.
now is not the time to be jockeying for position to lead the labour party. now is the time to stand full square with gordon brown to chart a course out of the financial crisis that the country is in.
now is not a time for infighting, now is the for unity.
all that this speculation is doing is playing into the hands of the conservatives. now they don't have to describe their policies they just have to point to the high profile labour dissenters and say "see."

so the time has come to shut up and get on with the work of helping the country get through this recession.

the final words go to hazel blears:
"My message to my colleagues is simple: get a grip. Our first loyalty is to the British people. If they think we are more interested in our own jobs than theirs, they will not forgive us."

too right (oh ok the last words went to me).

pension

you work hard. you do your best. at some point you hope your pension is going to let you kick back and relax (mine means i can afford tescos economy water). thanks to the financial crisis the value of our pensions are not as much as they used to be.
still it is nice to know in these hard times that not all of us are suffering when it comes to pensions. according to the bbc fred goodwin, ex royal bank of scotland chief executive and the man credited for the woeful state of the bank (an £8 billion loss in 2008), has started cashing in his pension.
not that fred goodwin is losing sleep as he sits back and counts his £650,000 a year pension. that is £650,000 a year for the rest of his life. nice work if you can get it.
the bbc’s robert peston is at pains to point out that mr. goodwin did not take any compensation when he left the royal bank of scotland. oh that if ok then. quite why when you have screwed a company into the ground you should get compensation is beyond me, but then that is probably why i am not a business bigwig.
as one of my more financial astute friends has pointed out that it is more than likely such pension schemes were signed up to as part of the contract mr. goodwin signed up for.
somehow when the boys at the adam smith institute and the champions of capitalism go on about how the market rewards success this is probably not what they meant.
now as am i in a period of post employment i think i should start throwing my hat in the ring for being a chief executive for any of the big companies. i reckon i can do as much damage to a company as people such as mr. goodwin, but i would do it quicker and i would be cheaper.
so confederation of british industry and institute of directors i am manning up, stepping up to the plate and ready for action. you want to fuck up you company? hire me i am your man.

quote

"Honestly, we should shoot one banker a week until the others improve."
if ever there was a campaign promise that everyone in the country could get behind then this surely has to be it. unfortunately for ken livingstone it is not an election year.
are bankers the new estate agents?

neck

my neck hurts. i think i have strained it. i have no idea how. it is not nice. i can feel the start of a headache coming on. more not nice. i need to feel better before i fall asleep i think i will have myself an apple filled doughnut, or maybe two.
i am sure it will do the trick.

misjudged

there are times when you see a story and the immediate reaction is perhaps not the correct one, but seems to fit the bill. so at first i thought twat and then i thought misjudged. you decide.

i know nothing of the company permira or it’s chairman damon buffini, but it is a private equity firm that has done very well partly by buying companies and asset stripping them. not to mention a handy way with tax that makes sure some of the leading players in the private equity field pay less tax than the cleaners they employ.
they are not on the christmas card list of the gmb.

damon buffini is supposed to be a decent chap. his background is that of a single mother, council estate and state schooling. he is a regular churchgoer and is heavily involved in charitable works. the bbc’s financial guru, robert peston, describes buffini as a role model for can-do britain.
he is not only nice but he is good at his job, he appears on the uk rich list, his company goes head to head with the powerhouses of private equity and was invited to sit on gordon brown’s business council.

mr. buffini and the partners of permira were at the firm’s week away at a five-star hotel. one of the partners was overheard complaining about the food that the hotel served.
this upset mr. buffini; in order to teach his partners a lesson he instructed the kitchen to serve them burgers the following evening. while tucking into the fare before them they also had to listen to mr. buffini as he upbraided them for not appreciating how lucky they were.

at first view this seems to be a sensible reminder of how fortunate the very wealthy are and how far they are from the problems and worries of the average person. and what better way to bring the rich down than by making them eat the humble burger (though why a five-star hotel would have humble burgers in their larders is another matter).
but really does eating a helping of burgers remind the wealthy how fortunate they are? i doubt it very much. it wouldn’t surprise me if as mr. buffini huffed and puffed about how lucky they all were, a few of those at the table were trying very hard not to laugh.
remember this is a company that has no issues with making thousands unemployed, so it seems a bit rich to get all high and mighty because someone complains about the food that they have been served.
i am guessing that insisting that they all take substantial pay cuts or they all start paying a reasonable amount of tax was out of the question, besides that might have been a permanent reminder that they are fortunate, rather than a kid’s meal taste of humility.

to be honest it wasn’t the slight hypocrisy of the outburst that tickled me. it was that mr. buffini took umbrage at the fact someone had complained about the food. true the nature of the complaint is not recorded but if i was staying in a hotel that was charging £1000 a night for a suite and had a five-star rating then i would be expecting food of the highest quality. if it didn’t match that sort of standard then i would feel entitled to complain and not feel guilty about it.

perhaps mr. buffini was upset because the hotel was one that permira was considering taking over?

i admire mr. buffini for wanting to make his partners aware that they are truly fortunate, but can’t help feeling he could have done it in a way that was much more substantial and meaningful.

fuck

the f-word has been in the news a lot recently.
first off there was ‘fuck - a documentary’ a film that examines the use of fuck in the media. sure it is an interesting an idea, though not one that can sustain the running time of a movie.
still with a bit of luck that only the likes of max clifford can dream of, other notable personalities have jumped into the fuckmobile and driven it to the headlines.

step forward that blonde haired titan of london boris johnson (bo-jo to his friends, bozo to the rest) and his tirade of fucks to keith vaz. there is some dispute at how many times that boris uttered fuck to mr. vaz, but i feel sure he felt a sense of satisfaction each time the fuck left his lips.
why do i say that?
i am sure keith vaz is a nice man and very diligent at his job, yet it strikes me that mr. vaz is someone who is used to being sworn at. every time i see him on the tv or hear him on the radio i can’t help but shout, “fuck off”. so i have every sympathy with boris.
that said it is quite possible that the fucks uttered by boris were caused more by the fact that mr. vaz was in the right.

not to be outdone peter mandelson also did his bit to keep fuck top of the pops. it all came about when howard schultz (head of starbucks) had the temerity to say that the uk was in an economic spiral. one wonders if it is the same spiral that starbucks is currently in; a thousand stores closed and staff laid off.
according to the telegraph mandelson said, "why should i have that guy running down the country? who the fuck is he?" (for the sake of the sensitive i have restored the fuck to the telegraph’s edited version).
hooray for mandelson. is what i say.
but peter doesn’t leave it there, oh no. he also said ‘…i have noticed that starbucks is in a great deal of trouble. but that may be because of their overexposure given the state of the market.’
double espressos all round i think.

peter mandelson’s outburst resulted in a climb down and apology from starbucks. thus proving that judicious use of fuck can get results.

i am sure that both boris and peter’s outbursts will be on the director’s cut version of ‘fuck - a documentary’ the dvd.

empowerment

what have i learnt today?
that if you have confidence problems or body image problems what you need to do is go on tv get forced to do things you don't want to do (to use the jargon: being taken out of your comfort zone) and then appearing on tv naked.
voyeuristic tv based on embarrassment seems to be the road to empowerment.
very counter intuitive.

like david cameron’s recent attack on gordon brown. cameron’s thrust that brown could not be trusted he did not get his facts or figures right. look even his recent use of titian was suspect.
brown and titian? what? why?
at a recent world economic forum meeting gordon brown compared the situation of economic leaders to titian’s comment "i'm finally beginning to learn how to paint".
cameron jumped at the fact that brown said titian was 90. there is some uncertainty about titian’s actual age. that wasn’t enough for cameron. thanks to a conservative party worker the relevant dates for titian were altered on wikipedia to make it appear that cameron had the right age and brown was factually wrong. they even cited the entry as proof of brown’s inability to get facts right.
such a shame they were caught out in this little plot. cameron had to apologise and claim the staff member had been disciplined.
like i said it is all counter intuitive to me – you want to prove that someone is not deserving of trust then the way to do it is by telling a big fat fib of your own. yeah i can see how that works.
actually i can’t.
i can see how it shows cameron to be someone who is not interested in right and wrong but just in score very cheap points. it does go someway to remind us just what we can expect if there is a conservative government led by cameron.


s

dogs

dogs have been a bit of a news item recently. on the one hand there are a couple of feel good dog movies coming out and on the other hand a couple of dogs have been chowing down on a baby. ying and yang there.

when i was a kid i always had a dog. my parents used to joke that their two black labradors looked after me as if i was their own pup (so i was an ugly baby). i had no fear of dogs and most of the time dogs just seemed to like me, or perhaps it was the chocolate i always carried with me (so i was a fat kid).
at some point in my teenage years i stopped owning a dog, and aside from a few years of owing cats, i have been petless since.
the dogless years has seen me become more cautious of dogs. there are times when dogs can be dangerous and so you have to treat them with a little respect.

the recent case of the baby being killed by two dogs is a case in point.
baby left alone with the dogs, the family is left grieving.

the dogs are humanely killed and there is the usual public outcry for dog licensing and more education about dogs.
hold on a minute here. why are the dogs getting the blame? they are animals after all. sure the adults involved have to live with the knowledge of what has happened, but it seems responsibility falls on the heads of the two dogs.
the quick call is for all dogs to be licensed – the argument being that if you have to pay to get a license you are more likely you are to be to take responsibility for the dog (and of course be linked to the dog if it causes damage or harm).

having children is seen as a right.
as i get older and further away from the possibility of ever becoming a father more and more i think that having a child is too easy, after all it is not like you have to take lessons, it is not like it requires much skill: a bit of bump and grind a few moans and the chances are you are going to be a parent in nine months time.
fortunately most of these bundles of joy are wanted and are loved. sadly too many are just facts of life to be tolerated or coped with.
walk down most high streets and you will see young mothers who have trouble dealing with their kid(s) much preferring to be on their mobiles or you can see the parents whose only method of talking to their children involves shouting.
if there is a problem with “feral” children it has little to do with lack of facilities or a lack of education but with a lack of parenting.

so here is a radical thought for all those shouting that there should be dog licenses and that there should be pet classes why not have parent licenses and parent classes? perhaps the license idea smacks too much of a totalitarian state to be tenable, but the classes could easily be made compulsorily, and while the ultimate sanction of taking a baby away from parents who failed the classes is probably not going to work at least through the attending of classes there is a good chance that the parents to be would learn something that would be useful to them in the bringing up of their child.
to those that say but i won’t have time because of work i say well if you don’t have the time for the classes you are probably not going to have time for the child.

this is not about being anti-children this is about making sure parents are responsible for their children, that they bring their children up to the best of their abilities. true the state has to provide a certain level of support for parents and children, but it can only do so much and the rest has to fall on parents.

like puppies children are not just for christmas.

belt

i now have a new belt. my jeans stay up.
i no longer look like an old man trying to capture his youth by strutting around town in very low slung jeans.
no more can i be called a wigger.
i feel so much better.

apology2

"In the heat of the moment I made a remark about bankers which, upon reflection, i think does not go far enough, i just can't find the words to express my disgust."

bankers

amazingly several banks are giving their senior people bonuses. as it stands several of the banks have state funding to keep them afloat, so in effect our tax pounds are being used to reward, already wealthy, employees. many of these senior people are part of the cause of the current financial crisis. in most other lines of work if you are responsible for putting the company at risk you get the sack, with bankers (and seemingly all financial industries) it seems you get double bubble rewards.

bankers are the cocksucking whores of the civilised world, they are the sweat running down the wrinkly ballbag of the universe. bankers are the stink that hangs around abattoirs. in short bankers are fucking money grabbing cunts.

apology

"In the heat of the moment i made a remark about the jeremy clarkson's personal appearance for which, upon reflection, i apologise."

clarkson

jeremy clarkson is a big fat ugly cunt.

snow

london has had a snow event. the most snow it has had in 18 years (even though that statistic was just for central london as the newsday progressed it became the statistic for the whole country).
on monday central london was covered in snow. it was a special day. there is a rare beauty in seeing the city covered in snow. walking into the west end was an adventure, a skid here, a bit of a slide there. one step forward one slip back. the air bracing and chill, sounds deadened, happy voices raised.
a few things were quickly noticeable as i walked. there were no buses to be seen on the roads, it was the first time that the buses had been suspended across the city (although many routes were working by the end of the day). a large number of shops and offices were closed, across the country it was reported that 6 million people didn’t make it into work that day. there were few people in the streets, and even fewer cars. a large number of people who were out were playing in the snow, tossing snowballs making snowmen, just having fun.
it was a beautiful day.

well it was for me.

crikey the number of moaners that crawled out of the woodwork was immense.
parents complaining that their children’s schools were closed, moaning about there being too much concern of health and safety (of course they would have been the first to whine if their child had gotten hurt). parents whinging that they had to take a day off work to look after their children. shucks, they are your kids it means that sometimes you just have to look after them.
drivers complaining that the roads have not been gritted to the standards that they need. oh how they ranted and raved. where are the snowploughs, where are the industrial gritters, why are the local authorities not prepared for such extreme weather. of course none of the drivers had snow tyres to fit to their cars, because well they weren’t prepared for such extreme weather.
boris having a pop at skivers.
travellers wondering where their train was. one commentator on the radio claimed that all terrorists needed to do was put snow on the lines and they had crippled the country. hyperbole? maybe a tad.

the number of people who phoned into radio shows to point out that when they were on holiday in finland the people there just got on with life when there was a lot of snow, a royal marine said that when he went training every year to northern norway they had no trouble with dealing with the snow.
of course the fact these countries get snow on a regular basis seemed to pass these moaning minnies by. as did the fact that for many parts of the country that was very unusual weather.
what was not unusual were the number of people who wondered where all the special equipment was to deal with the snow and ice, naturally these people were not interested in paying any extra taxes to pay for said equipment, they just wanted it, no doubt they would be among the first to claim that such items were a waste of money in the snowless years.

one thing is sure you can’t do is please all of the people all of the time.

i was at a talk a while back where the veracity of the ‘blitz spirit’ was called into question. if the aftermath of the snowfall is anything to go by if we ever had the ‘blitz spirit’ we have surely lost it, struck down by a hastily thrown snowball.

belts

i seem to be having a run of bad luck when it comes to belts. a few weeks ago i broke a nice worn in belt. one day it had the prong that did the business, the next day the prong was gone and the belt was no more than a strip of fake leather with some holes in it. i buy a new belt. not as good as the previous one, it is stiff and, unusually, a size too big. still it did a job: kept my jeans up and stopped me looking like one of those sad middle-aged men who shuffle around in baggy saggy jeans pretending that they are still young, hip and trendy when really they look like charlie chaplin impersonators who have shat themselves.
new belt, not so good, but does the job.
this morning i go to put the belt on and there is no prong.
stop the presses it is a bloody conspiracy. questions need to be asked. what? how? why? answers need to be given.
perhaps i should just start getting jeans with an elasticated waist, true that is an admission that i am a fat bastard but it will save on belts.

misanthappy

it would be safe to say that my view of people in general is not a sunny one; it is made worse by the few genuinely wonderful individuals i know. most days this means i walk around muttering under my breath. it is possible that i am going to end my days walking the streets with a bottle of cheap cider shouting at people as they walk by.

today it snowed. white snow. cold snow. crunchy snow. nice snow. the snow brings out the kid in me. i smile like a loon. as i walked home from the cinema, my hands slowly going blue and turning into ice, i have to resist the urge to fall into the snow and make snow angels or to see how far i can slide. why resist? i can hear you cry. firstly i am now at an age where such activities can cause bits to break or fall off and secondly i am not the most elegant person in the world so such activity leads to observers falling over hurting themselves in gales of laughter.
still the crisp cold night and the coating of snow was enough to make me a happy camper. for a brief moment all was right in my world.
not often i can say that.

coffee@

to say i am upset would be an understatement.
to say i am shocked would be like explaining bears shitting in woods.
there i was last sunday having a couple of nice coffees. chatting with the owner. ten years he says, really i say, yes says he. crikey that is a lot of coffee i have drunk is my reply. (quite why you would think my conversation would be sparking after reading this blog is beyond me).
that was followed by a conversation with an electronics geek, all angles and enthusiasm for valve transistors (he lost me at valve).

today i am in my local newsagent i am having a rant (it is something i do quite a lot in the newsagent - i think it is the proximity of multiple copies of the daily mail that does it). he is used to me ranting, sometimes he joins in. as with most middle aged blokes we cover a lot of ground in the conversation. we set right the worlds of sport, culture, politics and the economy with the occasional break for a look out the window at the bevy of beauties that stroll down the whitechapel high street.

after a full rant i needed a coffee. i had been missing my fix of coffee at coffee@ over the last few days as they had closed early. so off i go. before i get there i chat to a local retailer. he is normally a happy chappie with a ready smile and a quick wit. i mention that i am going to fight off the cold with a coffee.
then he drops the bombshell: coffee@ has been closed down because of problems at the bank.
my immediate thought? fuck fuck fuck fuck no no no fuck fuck fuck no fuck no.

well that has fucked up my regular treat. i can only hope that the finances can be resolved and i can once again drink coffee at coffee@.

in the meantime it looks like i will be getting my hit of latte with an extra shot in the newly opened nude espresso.

but my weekend has been somewhat dipped in shit.

cherries

i have eaten too many cherries.
i feel sick.
i would have been better off eating too much chocolate.

me

discovered these pictures buried on the drive of the computer. thought i would share.





i guess this is why i don't have a career as a model for dkny, d&g or whaler's monthly.

cold

suffering from a cold. not bad enough that i can claim that it is man-flu. though it has left me spending the last few days curled up sleeping and only getting up to go out hunting and gathering (oh alright to the supermarket).
feeling better now, but at midnight on saturday there is very little to do. so i will do a little online, then read and then fall asleep.

just listened to a bit on the radio about the use of mobile phones and the etiquette of the mobile, i shan't go on about my loathing of the love of the mobile. but i did enjoy the new word "infobestiy" - the need to consume huge amounts of information that we can't digest. made me smile. will be trying to drop that into my conversations on a regular basis.

bowls

as if to confirm i am getting old i am typing this while watching the ladies match play bowls final.
darned fine it is too. much better than tennis (though the ladies are foxier in tennis).
recently i was watching darts.
at this rate i will be campaigning for indoor league to make a return to our screens.
next thing i know i will be craving pan's people!

"i'll see thee"

expectations

first day in the big job. expectations remain very high.
in some ways president barack obama, and his team, have fanned the flames of expectation and in other ways expectation has been heaped on him by all and sundry.
if you had to choose when to be president of the united states of america now would, probably, not be the time, and i am sure gordon brown knows the feeling of poison chalice. as if he needed a reminder of what was ahead the dow jones registered heavy losses on inauguration day, as if to say, “what do you say to that mr. president?”
in some ways it is very reminiscent of that day in 1997 when tony blair became the prime minister. that day was characterised by a tremendous feeling of hope and limitless potential.
as obama made his inauguration speech those same feelings were there.
for some of us this leads to a situation of once bitten twice shy, a cynicism that has us wondering have we been sold snake oil? part of the problem is that obama and his team have not managed expectations that well and now the world is expecting the moon on a stick. (true i am ignoring the fact that obama and his team maybe supremely confident that they can carry out all their promises.)

it is possible though that so much is expected that no matter what obama does people will expect more.

obama: i have solved the middle east crisis, jews and arabs will now walk hand in hand and sing songs of love together forever and ever.
jews and arabs: but where are our ponies?

obama: i have healed the rift between christians and muslims nevermore shall there be hate.
christians and muslims: where are the ponies?

obama: racism is a thing of the past thanks to me. the klan and panther are now brothers in arms.
klan and panthers: ponies!!!

obama: i have solved the financ…
markets: pony now

heathrow

i have to say i have not really being paying that much attention to the heathrow story, partly because it was inevitable that the third runway was sanctioned.
the debate is couched in terms of economy versus environment. on this i have some sympathy with george w. bush, in that it should be possible to have both a growing economy that does so within sensible environmentally friendly measures. bush was going to leave it to the free market to do it, when really it needs the intervention of the state to ensure that companies do the relevant research into reusable and clean energy.
in reality that means that the state has to fund the research while the private companies walk away with the profits. what gordon brown and labour should do is sink a load of money into research and development into new sources of energy, but keep the results and patents to themselves and use them for the benefit of the world. the finance for it could easily be found, dump id cards and trident and already you have several billions to play with.
but it won't happen so why even think it.

what has really gotten on my tits over the whole heathrow situation are the number of celebrities who have taken to the cause. oh no more flights, no more flights they cry. growth of flights cannot continue, they must be cut back is part of their mantra. i suppose for people like emma thompson and alistair mcgowan it won't be a problem for them to pay for the fewer, and more expensive flights when they want to travel abroad or they can use that old stand by: "i have to go because of work darling".
meanwhile boris, who flew to beijing, has gone on about how he will fight "this devastating plan", yet only recently he was talking about building a new airport in the thames, so quite how a new airport in the thames leads to less pollution i am at a loss to know.

it really hurts me that i am seem to be on the same side as confeferation of british industries and the british chamber of commerce. but i get in such a fume when i hear people who have enjoyed trips abroad saying that other people should not fly, or the wealthy implying that flying should be made more expensive so it once again becomes the exclusive province of the rich rather than the slightly chaotic democratic process that it is now. you would have thought that the steam coming off of their hypocrisy would be equal to all the carbon emissions coming from a country like kenya.

morning

another day where i am awake at silly o'clock, made worse because i seemed to have gone to sleep at an even sillier o'clock.
my sleep patterns is pretty much fubared.
i have not helped matters by starting to run late at night, which has now complicated my nodding off to sleep.
one of the things about being awake early in the morning is hearing idiots on the radio, or perhaps i am less tolerant when i wake up from a dream. (mmm that implies that i am tolerant at other times). still there is nothing like an angry shout of "shut up you imbecile" at the radio when someone from the british chamber of commerce is pontificating to clear the cobwebs and make for a good start to the day.

trek

it is cold outside. there is a lovely moon.
i am fat and full.
i am watching 'star trek: the motion picture". it is the first time i have watched it since seeing it in the cinema in 1979, was it so long ago?
i loved star trek when i was a kid. in junior school i played at being part of the enterprise crew (but then i also played being on the police force of hawaii five-o). i am pretty sure i am neither a trekker or a trekkie, but i did love the show.
i still do.
i remember being excited about going to see the film, back in the days when most cinemas only had one big screen and programmes were sold for the film. when my favourite treat while watching the movie would be a cheeseburger drenched in tomato ketchup. through the adverts the anticipation of the film would grow and grow, mounting as the trailers were shown. back then the screen would be covered by stage curtains, these would open and close for the adverts, the trailers and then for the film.
that final opening on the curtains would have seen me giddy with excitement.

such a shame that 'star trek: the motion picture' was very dull. long and boring.
there have been a few occasions when i have walked out of the cinema because the film was bad or dull, there have been a few times when i have fallen asleep and there have been times when i have prayed for the ending a movie to come before all desire of life had left me.
'star trek: the motion picture' left me with dead legs and a very numb bum when i saw it in 1979.

strangely it is still a dull film.
however now that i am older and wiser i can see that they were trying to make a worthy intelligent movie that would make the audience think. it was a pity they made a boring film in order to convey their point.
still at least now i can revel in william shatner's overacting and special effects wig. if ever there was an actor who needed to be playing hamlet on a london stage it is william shatner.

the film is still running, it seems like it has been on for days.
if only i had a cheeseburger it would be like it was back in 1979.

glory

take the sparse beauty of of hawksmoor's christ church add a touch of the music of monteverdi and you have a glimpse of beauty.
heart warming, spirit lifting reminder that there is great beauty in the world.
on this cold day it warmed the cockles of my heart, so it did.

1100

as i sit here doing 1100th one of these i can't help wondering how ben affleck gets work as an action hero. it is not that he is a bad actor, he just can't do action.
having said that a more pertinent question might be: whatever happened to john woo? once a director of some of the most exciting action films made, yet ever since he has worked in the usa his films have steadily gotten worse.
those two clues should let you know i am suffering through "paycheck". a not so good film.
i should have watched "southern comfort" on the beeb at least then i would have seen something with a bit of class to it.
mmm culturally the year is off to a bad start.

litter

i can’t deny that i am a messy person, try as i might i cannot keep my space clean and tidy. i am the very definition of messy. i live with piles, stacks and heaps of stuff. no matter what i try to do to bring a bit of order into my life it soon descends into chaos.
i guess it is a case of love me love my junk.
yet there is a contradiction to this i can’t abide litter. it is a pet peeve. so many people just throw stuff on the ground with no respect to where they are. it annoys me,
it galls me, it aggravates.
stand tall, hackney council. stand proud.
in a move that is both faintly radical and faintly radical hackney council have a team
of eleven environmental enforcement officers patrolling the streets ready
to film and pounce on anyone they see dropping litter. they can issue
an on the spot fine of £80, failure to pay could lead to prosecution and
a fine of up £2,500. fiona fletcher smith, hackney’s corporate director
for neighbourhoods and regeneration describes the scheme as “bin it or
cop it”.
liberty have complained about the scheme seeing this as local
bureaucracy gone mad, while ‘keep britain tidy’ saw it as an unusual
measure.
you can see where liberty is coming from, we just don’t need more people with cameras snooping on us in the streets. hackney say that filming is necessary in order to provide an accurate record.
liberty ask why didn’t hackney think to put more litterbins out.
there is the rub, even when there is a bin a few paces away people will just throw rubbish in the ground. they don’t think about it, they just do it. people expect others to clean up after them, they don’t care that they have littered it is not an issue for them.
litter, it could be argued, is symptomatic of both the decline of standards in the uk and the growth of disposable consumerism. pretty much everything we buy is over packaged and that just leads to rubbish that needs to be thrown away.
so i have to side against liberty on this and with hackney council. it is not hard to hold onto rubbish until you find a bin, it just takes a certain amount of personal responsibility. if that personal responsibility is lacking then perhaps councils have to force it on miscreants who litter.
personally i don’t think they are going far enough. i wouldn’t bother with fines i would give them all community service and make them work as road sweepers (to be fair that was my second option, my first option involved a firing squad, and i felt that was a tad harsh).

150

so it is happy birthday to big ben 150 years old, and still keeping great time. not even the addition of an extra second to the year could fool it (this was the 23rd such leap second). engineers at the bbc had to add an extra pip at midnight, making it 7 pips (don’t fret about those engineers they pre-programmed it into the beeb’s atomic clock, so no need for them to be there, still if anything went wrong i am sure they had someone on hand to just go “pip” into a microphone).
the engineers working on big ben’s great clock didn’t have the luxury of pre-programming anything and they had to get the pendulum to add the extra second and this they did by adjusting the weight by removing some pre-decimal pennies. all very high tech. it worked.

oddly i have had close on 50 years to learn how to tell the time and thanks to the educational system of this fine country i can (and i can even use the 24-hour clock as well. impressed? i know you are). that said the one thing i have yet to grasp is the concept of being on time.
no matter what i do, no matter how i plan it the one thing that you can count on is me being late. it is almost like clockwork, except it would be a broken clock.
i appreciate that it is an irritating habit, but it is a constant one. so you would think that people would take that into account and factor my almost mutant like ability to arrive late into their calculations. they don’t and they can get a little smug at their own time keeping abilities while denigrating my own, which is a little like stealing candy from a baby.

still one thing you can always set your clocks by is start of a new year and the fares go up.
do you remember those heady days of nationalising the railways? do you remember those promises of better services, cheaper fares because that is what competition does? all the rail companies have asked for the maximum fare increases, all of them using the same excuse of “we need the extra cash so that we can improve the service”. perhaps it is time that they improved the service first and then charged people more money.
boris has put the fares up in london. thanks boris. he, of course, blames ken livingstone’s previous fare freeze for the need of the increase. others claim it is the scrapping of the western congestion zone.
not to worry though the extra money that goes on fares will make sure a few private companies, such as stagecoach, will have another bumper year of profits, and like me they will never be on time.

first

first day of the new year.
first coffee at coffee@ - very nice it was too. here is looking forward to many more of them to come.
first movie at the genesis cinema - not so nice, well it was "the spirit" so it was lucky i wasn't expecting much, and i didn't get much. still the year is bound bring many good films.

still the year starts off good and with lots of hope for the months to come. not making any special plans for it, just as long as it is better than 2008 then i will be happy, well as happy as i get.
as ever i will provide merriment, mirth. mystery, magic, plaudits, punditry, commentary and conversation.

welcome to 2009.