u

we hated margaret thatcher when she told us that the ‘lady is not for turning’. for some her conviction politics was a sign of strength to the rest of us it was a sign of dogmatic certainty in the face of the suffering she was causing.
there are times when you expect politicians to stick to their guns, even if you don’t agree with them. blair and the iraq war springs to mind; even the coalition and their deficit reduction schemes. it might be something we don’t like but we can see what it is they are doing and we can even understand why they are doing.

we elected politicians to make laws and make the big decisions – no one ever agrees 100& of the time with everything the party they voted for says (often the members of parliament do not fully agree with their parties). that is part and parcel of politics.

we also expect politicians, and the government, to listen to us. we moan when they don’t heed what we say (think of the anti war marches). yet when they do listen and change their stance they are quickly accused of u-turns and weakness. david cameron is suffering that today with the announcement that the prison term discount plan had been dropped because it was ‘too lenient’. to most people the plan had some advantages but it quickly became obvious that in order to make sure that ‘bad’ criminals didn’t get the discount that it would have too many caveats as to be workable; that plus public (well media) opinion meant it was dead in the water.

the coalition withdrew the plan. they responded to the public. they did their job. yay them. or so you would think.

nope the labour party is quick to call it a u-turn when really it is part of government: they come up with ideas; we let them know how we feel.

i don’t see them changing their minds as one of weakness but of good government.

i do see the labour parties approach to calling it a u-turn as short sighted, they should be pointing out how they helped persuade the government to review and change their plans: except that isn’t an interesting sound bite. so you have ed miliband saying: "the prime minister has to ask how did he get himself into the position of making a proposal which wasn't thought through. it is yet another example of this government not being in touch with people and making proposals which they then have to abandon."

cameron and co. would argue that the fact they had changed their view demonstrates that they are indeed in touch with the people. where miliband is right is that this is another example of a half-thought through idea launched into the public domain without much consideration to the outcry it would cause. miliband’s attack shouldn’t have been on the fact that the government has changed its stance but that it had changed its stance once again, that this is a government that doesn’t know what it is trying to do, that it doesn’t think things through and just shoots from the political strategy hip.

ed, just for you, i give you this suggestion: don’t bother telling us about the u-turns as such, we don’t really care as often we have to do such things each day. instead keep reminding us that it is yet another half-baked idea and that the changes have come because you, the labour party, have convinced the government of the error of their ways. otherwise the constant sniping from the sidelines just comes across as ‘told you so’ but without you having offered something in return. because if all you have to offer is letting us know where cameron has slipped up you are not getting back into power.

slogan

the tories gave us "get on your bike".
won't be long before they start chanting "cripples work for free".
just got to love them.

panic

had a situation at work that had me breaking out in a cold sweat and coming close to shitting myself.
i am pretty sure i have a few more white hairs now.
left me pooped with worry. so tired now i can just about stay awake to write this - which is upsetting as i have just seen something where my pals at the cbi have wittered on about the government being afraid of union attacks and public backlashes.
this has meant that the coalition has 'lost its way' on public sector reforms.
it might also be that with each of the promised 'reforms' it looks as if the coalition (well the tories) have rushed headlong into without actually thinking it through only to discover that oooops the only people who really agree with the 'reforms' are those who are going to make money out of them.
here's hoping the leaders of the cbi are choking on their nightcaps.

promises

do you remember when the conservatives were banging on about no more top-down initiatives, no more targets driven from the centre. localism and let those who do make the choices.
this move away from central diktat framed in the talk of the market, of the free-spirit. unchain the slumbering beast of initiative and see how it can do the job so much better than central government. a lovely thought - one that ignores the fact that most very large companies are centrally run - sure the local branches may have a say in some small minor detail or two but they are no calling the shots, they are operating by central command. back in my past life i couldn't get  changes made unless i managed to persuade a vice-president an ocean away.
for all that we hate bureaucracy and red tape we also know that it is necessary. frankly i don't want the police to be free to pull over someone they suspect without having to fill out the paperwork. nor do i want to see hospitals run on the memory and whim of a few of the people working in the admin section. i want to know that they all know what they are supposed to be doing and who is supposed to be doing it.
at the same time i quite like the idea that everyone is, in theory, able to get access to the same service in schools, hospitals, social service etc. that policy is set by those we elect to run the country - after all it is why we voted them in.

so it will come as no surprise that i support michael (evil ventriloquist doll) gove's move to proscribe an ambitious target of gcse passes in secondary schools.
admittedly i am sure that there is an agenda attached to the move (the cynic in me reckons he is hoping local education services schools fail to meet this target and they all get taken over by chris woodhead and other private providers of education), but national recognisable targets are, in and of themselves, not something to be feared.

though if you remember all the blather and jibber jabber of david cameron et al such things are to be feared.
perhaps the tories are discovering that you do need targets and performance indicators when you are running a country and that when you run a country you have to set national standards from the centre.
i would like to think that they are all breaking out in hives having to do it, but we all know they are loving being in charge.

proof

isn't the situation with southern cross care homes a perfect example of just why the profit motive can't work when it comes to basic care of people?

meanwhile the 'evening standard' reveals that some commuters into london face fares approaching £10,000 a year. philip hammond, transport secretary (and someone who gets free transport and claimed almost the maximum amount possible for his second home, even though he lived in the commuter belt - hey it is a good way to help pay for those rail fares. he has said he would pay any profits he made on his second home into the public purse. oh in case you are wondering mr. hammond is minted) defends what could be double digit rises for some fares because they are needed to fund key improvements to the rail network.

so where are the benefits of privatisation? for years there has been subsidies to most of the rail companies, but prices have risen, services have declined (or been restructured so that they appear to be on target). now that there are to be 'key improvements' (with less government money) the rail companies use that entreprenurial know-how, that can-do approach, that efficiency driven method that we need in public services and ... oh they just put the prices up.
fuck me ragged with a railway siding, but if that is all that is needed to be seen as some gung-ho cheif executive where do i sign up.
after all how hard can it be to solve your problems with a simple 'raise the fares'. see i did it just there.
look i will do it again 'raise the fares'. simple.

in a way we should be happy that cameron has had a serious rethink on he national health service (showing for once that he is a serious politician - not that i think the nhs is safe in his hands if he gets a mandate for a second term), at least we won't be subjected to having to see prices escalate in hospitals just because the only way to make them profitable will be to squeeze the patien... sorry the customer dry.

eulogy

like most people i have a lot of pals, mates, muckers and chums.


i do not have many friends, i have been blessed with a group of friends i don’t really deserve, but sometimes you get lucky.

the last fortnight has been a very mixed one. i got to spend time with one of my oldest friends, adam, someone i haven’t seen for a very long time. he was visiting the country for the first time in 17 years. we chewed the breeze, we shot the shit, and we put the world to rights. part of the reason for him being here was a school reunion. it won’t surprise people to know i am not big on school reunions. why? because i am a miserable bastard.

surprise surprise, i had a good time. i only talked to a few people, but it was enough. anjuna looked as lovely as she did all those years ago. aside from much less hair andy could have been the same teenager who built his own synthesiser. janet looked even more gorgeous than when she was in the 6th form and i felt the pangs of unrequited love i had for her back then (ah the joy of angst ridden 6th form poetry from a broken heart – don’t worry i won’t repeat any of it). as we talked the years slipped away and i could remember being back in the sixth form telling jokes, making up wild stories, planning a band (well several in fact – even though i had no musical talent).

the evening ended. i was sad to see them go, best of all there were no false promises to keep in touch. the evening was what it was: a small reminder of what it was like to be a teenager with no cares in the world.

a few days later adam has to return to the states.

all is back to normal.

a few days later i am trying to contact another friend, emma woods, in order to get her to contact an old colleague as he needs some information from her. the number he has for her doesn’t work. the number i have for her just gets a ‘please try again message’. in the end i contact someone else to see if he has another number for her. a day or so later i get a message from him to phone him.

i do.

i get the news that emma is dead. no one is sure how. we are still waiting to know.

i don’t have a coherent picture of my friendship with emma. we met through work. it was a fiery relationship – full of rows and arguments. we loved each other in the way only friends can do. we shared ups and downs. we talked about serious stuff, we talked about silly stuff. we loved comics and movies. we hated each other’s music. she was there when i developed my man crush on bruce willis: the night we went to see die hard 2 in the prince charles cinema, just before she flew out to los angeles to work. we called each other late at night just to swap burps and swear words. she was one of the creators of the ‘geppi heads’ an event that still makes me smile, but it can’t be explained to anyone who wasn’t there.

as with many things we grew apart and as friends are wont came back together again. things had changed for both of us, but it didn’t matter we could still swear, we could still burp, we could still talk shit.

emma was intelligent, talented, outspoken, infuriating, passionate, argumentative and annoying. most of all, most importantly, she was my friend, and i was lucky to know her.

i will miss her.

amazon

i have a love hate relationship with amazon. in a previous life i hated having to deal with amazon, they made the life of a supplier a misery – for all their sophistication they could get their orders spectacularly wrong and we would have to bear the cost of that.


i love getting books cheap. i love getting books delivered to me.

there is something wonderful about having a package turn up at work, ripping it open and seeing a book you have ordered all new and waiting to be read. it makes the day.

what i hate about amazon is that something so simple can be so irritating.

i can order books that are in stock on a sunday night and not see them until the following week. meanwhile one of my work colleagues can order on a monday and get it tuesday! so it seems can my pal paul! why am i singled out for such poor treatment? i have no idea.

ok i will cheat the system. i will order on a saturday. ha! that will fool them. that will confuse them and i will have the books monday or tuesday. reeeeeeesult.

it was a nice plan. i made the cardinal error of ordering a books that wasn’t in stock and not due into stock for a week or so. both books i have ordered are sitting there. staring at me.

i needed cheering up so i decided i would place a second order on sunday. this time i have made sure all the books are in stock. they have them all and soon i will have them. oh yeah. i instruct amazon that i want them to go cheapest delivery and i want them to go in the fewest parcels (i care about the environment you see).

three books, all in stock. one delivery. midweek. sorted. happy pat.

a simple plan.

i look at the progress of my order. all three books are in stock. one is being processed. the other two are like the earlier books i have ordered just sitting there waiting.

i look again. no change. one book being processed. the other two still waiting.

i look again. one book has been despatched – by royal mail and no tracking to it. the other two books still sitting there. so that is 3 books in stock just sat there doing nothing, and one book waiting for a restock to arrive. one book on its way to me.

so much for the smallest number of packages.

i have no idea why they have sent just one book of an order of 3, when all are in stock. i have no idea why they take so long to deliver to me.

it is like amazon is out there persecuting me, they are picking on me, making my life a misery.

it is not fair.

i call on amazon to free the three books they have of mine and deliver them now. now i say.

amazon doesn’t care. they know i will be back.

the bastards.

pickles

it seems every government has to have one. new labour had prescott, the coalition has eric pickles.
mr. pickles is the communities secretary who is very keen on pushing 'localism' at people except in circumstances where the local people disagree and then it is all about the power of central government.
mr. pickles has a new wheeze - he wants to rent out the foyer of his office block to a well respected (and well heeled) chain retailer. he says it will bring money into the state's coffers, and as all good supporters of the coalition know we are in the middle of the worst deficit ever all caused by blah blah bloody fucking blah blah and we are all in it toblahblah.
some retail guru's have poured cold water over the idea (those simple naysayers) claiming that there isn't enough floor space to make it worthwhile.
they have no vision - mr. pickles does. he knows if it can work in his foyer then he can launch a range of starbucks (or such like) in everyone of the jobcentres in the country. not only can you sign on, not only can you get a coffee but you can also train for a career in the food industry.
once they have been cracked expect all the royal palaces to sport a coffee shop and supermarket or two.
think how much they could get if each of the members of parliament were sponsored - something like a cross-between a snooker player with one logo on the waistcoat and a formula 1 driver with lots plastered all over. you can see it now clegg stepping up to give his deputy leader speech festooned with the sponsorshp logos of the various universities who have raised their fees to £9k a year.
the house of commons would be brightened up by hanging large advertising banners from the roof. it would make money and let the country know who is really in charge.
once you have done that mr. pickles open up buck house to a retail chain - they must have enough space in there to have a small mall there.

however if you have seen mr. pickles you know there is one reason and one reason alone why he has decided to get a chain food store in there and it has nothing to do with deficit busting,
mr, pickles has decided that it is too far to walk in order to get a nice cheap sarnie, so he has decided to let the sandwiches and cakes come to him. after all it takes a great deal of work to get a body like mr. pickles.
just remember to make sure you don't have crumbs on your chin before your next appearance on local tv.

tickets

i didn't get any of the olympic tickets i ordered. boo hoo.
me and a million others.
while a pal of mine got all that he ordered and he is as happy as larry.
the outpouring of whinging from the people who didn't get their tickets was pretty amazing. 'oh i didn't get what i ordered - i am no longer interested in the olympics' 'i ordered lots of tickets and i didn't get any: it's a fix' 'i don't know anyone who got tickets' and on and on and on.
even boris johnson got in on the act bleating on about how disappointed that he didn't get any of the tickets he ordered.
yes boris, how i feel for you. i might have had more sympathy for you if it wasn't for the fact that as the mayor you will be getting to be there. now that you have told us all that you didn't get any tickets for the olympics, you might make sure that you don't go to any of the events that you have mayoral tickets for. of course that won't happen.
still you have given the impression you are just like us, so don't feel too guilty when you squat in those best in the house seats that you no doubt have.
or you could prove me wrong.

back

had a bit of a break. an old friend was over from the states so we spent time hanging out, chewing the breeze and shooting the shit. didn't leave much time for doing this.
while away from this went to a school reunion. normally i wouldn't go to such a thing but my friend had arranged it so i was honour bound to go.
i was glad i went.
it wasn't the borefest i thought it might be.
the old stomping grounds were pretty much as you expected them to be with changes thrown in to make it feel like it was fresh.
there were even a few people i was pleased to see. odd how you won't see someone for thiry-years or so and yet you can remember their gestures and quirks from when you knew them at school: that familiarity reminding you why you liked them in the first place.
for something i didn't want to go to i had a good time. i think i even learnt a few things about myself: some good, some bad.
best of all there was no 'let's keep in touch, let's exchange contact details' type of thing (which probably tells you all you need to know about how popular i was at school...), it was just a brief meeting and remembering of a shared past.

reunion done and dusted.
friend has gone back to the states.
things are almost back to normal, albeit with some thoughts about some changes that i need to make.

enough of that.
all you need to know is that i am back and i will be ranting and raving in a much ado about nothing kind of style.

go on admit - you have missed it.  

surprise

there are somethings in life which come as no shock.
we know bears shit in the woods.
we know the pope is catholic.
and we now know that sepp blatter is innocent.

no surprise there then.

disaster

in a new low in laziness - even for me - i decided to order a pizza online.
why? i had no cash and i couldn't be bothered to go out.
i like the pizzas that rocket pizza do.
i order online by a company called hungryhouse.
all is well and good.
although i live in a flat i am still hungry.
order is placed.
confirmation is received.
i sit back and play on the computer a bit more.
pop out to get the paper and some pop (not a long journey - i live above a newsagents).
i wait.
i am hungry.
i wait.
i am hungry.
i wait.
i am still hungry.
i wait.
even hungrier.
i phone them.
ooops they had the order - they just hadn't done anything with it.
be twenty minutes.
it wasn't.
it arrived.
i scoffed.
i am at bursting point.

the idea of being able to place an online order is a nice one.
a little like the big society - great idea, just doesn't seem to work in practice.

next time i want a pizza i am just going to call them.

pooped

i am super-pooped.
lot on my mind.
lot of things to do.
need to make lists, need to make plans.
too tired right now, too tired to go to the bog.
sleep that is about all i can do, maybe i will read a page or two of the new james bond book while the chorus of drunks drone on.
interesting dreams for me tonight.

yummy

we've been shown photos of cameron and obama dishing out the grub at one of those 'look at us we are just like you' photo-oppurtunities so beloved of politicians.
as nice as the food might have been i am betting it wasn't as gorgeous as the most recent treat i discovered at the local supermarket. i have to admit that i am a man of limited likes when it comes to food. i am not adventurous. i know what i like and i stick to it. if i could i would have extra large deep pan veggie pizza every night, and follow that by a cream cake, coffee and a few cans of fizzy pop. a little slice of heaven.
now i can add to that with the recent discover of the custard and jam pastry horn. delicious, delightful, divine.
true very fattening - but i can blame my wobbliness on any number of things that have nothing to do with me eating too much and too much of the wrong things.

so remember custard and jam pastry horn - awesomeness.

noble

obama addressed the british parliament today - the bbc described how the house fell silent when he began to speak, as if won over by his aura as opposed to them just being polite.

during his speech obama said: "we are the nations most willing to stand up for the values of tolerance and self-determination that lead to peace and dignity."
these are wonderful words.
words to live by.
words to be proud of.
yet somehow they don't ring true - they are tarnished by their frequent misuse and the way they are often ignored. that is why there is often confusion about how the two governments want or do. libya is a somewhere they believe they can go, but burma or zimbabwe are not.
add in the implict claim that democracy is the best system in the world, and it is 'our' democracy that is the model that others should adopt (yeah it gave us dubya for two terms and looks to be supporting david cameron: proof positive that it may not be such a good system.
no thought is given to the fact that some people want to live under a monachy, or a theocracy, or under military rule or any other system. no, we assume that they want to, and that they must, live under 'our' version of democracy.
perhaps the lead that obama and cameron need to give the world is an extended period of non-interference with other countries.
it would be a novel foreign policy.
it won't happen - because regardless of the noble words most of the west's foreign policy is not about promoting equality but about securing economic or military advantage.

drunks

i don't drink.
i have little tolerance for drunks.
i live near a costcutters although that is handy for the emergency can of pop there are times when it is the bane of my life.
the local drunks love the costcutter - it carries a lot of cheap booze, most of which is better suited to stripping paint from the hulls of ocean liner's than being imbied. the local booze hounds don't care.
i also live quite close to a small green. in summer it would be nice ot go and sit in it and read a book and relax. it is home to the boozers. as i have never sat out in the sun to read a book the fact they are there doesn't bother.
summer nights mean they can stay out longer.
means they can drink for longer.

so for the last few hours i have had several of them arguing about who should have been able to eat the chicken and chips - this became a debate about respect and integrity. it was a very loud debate about respct and integrity. whatever harm booze does it obviously gives people strong loud voices.
as with so many drunken debates violence was bubbling away.
nothing happned - it rarely does - but once the respect and integrity card has been played you have to move on to the 'i'll deck you' phase where each person claims to be able to knock the other one out quciker, harder and better than the others. this is followed by the 'my mate' phase where the losers of the 'i'll deck you' talk about how they know someone who is better and who will knock out the winner of the 'decking' phase if they were to call on them.
about now comes the sobbing moment when one of them will talk about something that happened to them years ago (or even minutes) which justifies their current attitude or actions.

once every aspect of the chicken and chips argument had been aired, countered, weighed up and judged they decided to go through it all again. loudly.

now they are discussing parenthood.
i am shuddering at the thought.

street theatre at its best.

ooops

it may seem odd, but i do like the idea of 'the big society'. david camerson is right to promote it, he is right to bang his chest about it. it is a big idea, it is a powerful idea.
there is nothing new with the idea - we all get misty eyed with ideas of community and social responsibility.
what makes cameron's 'big society' such a 'big' idea is that it is closely tied to his political philosophy of vastly shrinking the state. in the hands of cameron and the conservatives 'the big society' is just another way of going back the the paternalistic attitudes of the victorians (the dukes know best...)
most of us know that when cameron talks of the 'big society' he also means 'big cuts in public spending' - still it will be alright as there are always going to be a few nice rich people who will fund a local library or two; a few nice old biddies who will run it (and perhaps we will give a stipend to a few of the local urchins to keep the place clean).
see you already love the idea.
schools, hospitals, doctors, social workers, police everything and anything can be turned over to the big society (or big business if you need competition).

it is because we can all see behind the curtain that 'the big society' idea hasn't gained the traction mr. cameron had hoped it would, perhaps we are not as easily lead by toffs as some of them say we are?
the various relaunches of 'the big society' are about as successful and believable as a promise from nick clegg.
so spare a thought for mr. cameron has his latest push on the idea has hit a snag as his 'big society' tsar, lord wei of shoreditch, has decided to stand down and do his own thing. ooops.
tessa jowell, a member of the shadow cabinet, has said that once again the big society has descended into farce.
perhaps a little harsh and perhaps a little unfair.
but it can't be denied that at the moment the big society is comedy gold.

wtf

not sure what i am more surprised by - that the olympic ticketing ballot has gone so horribly wrong: people who went through the official 2012 site, still don't know what tickets they have. while other sites are offering tickets to events on a first come first served basis.
i guess the only people who know they have tickets are the 2 million or so who are getting them from the 'olympic family'. so seb knows where he is sitting. that makes it a-ok in my book.

or maybe it is the relaunch (did it ever take off) of the big society. david cameron is out and about trying to persuade us all to give more of our time and our money to charity. to make it easier for us we will soon be able to give charitable donations at the cashpoint or via mobile phone.
of course this seems to ignore that for a large chunk of us money is, as the song says, too tight to mention. while time isn't all that easy to give as more and more have to work longer hours or travel longer to work.
so david - here is an idea don't try to sell the big society to the little people, sell it to those whose bonuses are more than most of us earn in a year or three. ask them to give up the newest car and donate to charity; ask them to write a cheque to the local good cause. after all we are all in it together.
even better why not ask those companies who go out of their way to dodge tax to actually pay their taxes so that the money is there in the first place to make sure that the good works can continue.
after all we are all in it together.
or was that just a cynical soundbite?
oh silly me of course it was.

choice

they say you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family.
so spare a thought for poor old david cameron. there is mr. cameron (or 'call me dave' as littlejohn likes to refer to him) trying so hard to show us all that the conservative party is a changed animal - no longer is it the nasty party, no longer is it the party of the rich, no longer is it the party of big business. now it is the party for us all - just look at it all big society, localism - hey they even love the national health service.
the conservatives have changed.
they are the caring party - look at mr. cameron out and about without a tie. there he is with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up - just like us ordinary people.

just when you think you have sold the lie up pops mr. cameron's uncle to declare:
"‘the thing is, and the labour party underestimate it, but if you ask the working classes who they want to lead them, they prefer to be led by a duke."
of course we do.

david cameron is probably squirming that it has been said so publicly and by someone so close to him. the tory party are never going to say anything like this - probably becuase they know it isn't true, besides it is not in the conservatives dna to ask - they just assume that they are the right people to lead, it is their right to lead.
remember that when george osborn begins his attacks on trade unions, there will be lots of talk about the freedom of choice all of which is just a way to hide the fact that the one choice they don't want is that of workers to choose to improve their lot.

remember doff those caps.

ryan

oh ryan you naughty naughty boy.
i may have confessed that i have little interest for celebrity gossip and scandal. i realise that we live in a society where the peccadillos of vaguely famous people rate more highly than news, where knowing that footballer 'g' is seeing minor celeb 't' is seen to be in the national interest (for national interest read sales figures). we seem to revel in celebrity misfortune - perhaps we believe it makes them more like us (or us like them).
i don't know.
mostly i don't care.
all the fuss and bother over this latest super-injunction has meant, ironically, that it is quite hard not to know who is at the centre of it all.
twitteratti have taken it upon themselves to 'fight' for the freedom of speech, ignoring the irony of the web allowing such freedom fighters to remain anonymous. in the end this isn't wikileaks this is just a bloke who has been a naughty boy and will have to deal with the consequences with his family. it isn't our business. it doesn't change our world. we haven't learnt anything new: people cheat - wow revelation.

actually i take that back if it wasn't for his dick i would never have learnt about the 'streisand effect'.
so thanks for that ryan.

andrew

it is funny how people can surprise you.
i am not a fan of andrew lloyd-weber, which isn't to say i don't like some of the things he has done.
i remember a terrible period when 'phantom of the opera' was released. i was in the middle of my master's degree; the usual stress between me and the girlfriend; flat was flooded and i was trying to write a paper on something to do with anthony giddens and the theoretical underpinnings of modes of production. so while the girlfriend and the kid slept i was in the kitchen trying to write this paper. the kettle was rarely off the gas oven, the coffee strong and hot. from the front room was the dull hum of the dehumidifier the council had given us to dry out the soaked room and from the radio in the kitchen the pleasing tones of radio 2 (chosen because the reception was clear). the witching hour had come and gone and i was now in the deep dark night. too much coffee and too little sleep. some odd light operatic show was on - the two presenters would talk a little and then burst into song and once the duet had finished they would be back to chit and chat. they were not helping me get my head around transitional forms of capitalism, the agency of change and the superstructure.
as if i were not suffering the dueting presenters moved into 'phantom of the opera' mode.
they talked about it, they played some of it, they talked about it some more, played some more of it and they may have even sung a song from it.
i wouldn't know - i was delirious at the time. i was trying to deide if weber and parsons would have been lloyd-weber fans and whether or not marx, althussar and giddens would have laughed him off of the radio.
my paper was shit.
my performance in class was such that i am still embarrassed by it today.

a few months later i was on the train to coventry to see my girlfriend while she was doing her masters at warwick university. i was going up for the weekend. i was knackered from a long week at work (ah the days of overtime - the money it brought in). some bastard on the train had his discman with him and decided to play 'phantom of the opera' very loudly and very often. i hated him.
i tried to sleep through it.
i may have done. i think i still have nightmares about it.
it turned out to be a very very shit weekend (but that is a tale for another night).

fast forward to the times of the con/dems.
in a way to get us all to be happy (because david cameron is very keen to make sure we are all happy) the con/dems decided to cut funding to varios art councils and groups (not necessarily a bad thing - again a debate for another night) but it seems an odd thing to do when you want people to be happy and to have access to culture.
but we are all in it together so we all have to have cuts together and besides the rich can still afford the opera so there is nothing to worry about.

some big names of the cultural world have stepped forward to complain about the cuts they have said that the government should maintain spending on the arts. most of these noble complainers are successful in their own fields. none of them short of a few bob or two and none of them seem to have anything to say other than: 'no cuts'.

stepforward andrew lloyd-weber.
now andrew isn't short of a few million, he has often featured on the sunday times' 'rich list'.
recently he sold a picasso painting and he has turned over the proceeds from the sale to his arts foundation. so some cultural organisatons in the uk will benefit from some of the £32 million pounds he has raised.
if ever david cameron wanted something that shows his 'big society' in a good light then andrew lloyd-weber is a perfect example. perhaps a few of the moaners can take a leaf out of his book?

so doff a cap to andrew lloyd-weber who has put his money where his mouth is.
it is a gesture that makes up for 'phantom of the opera'.
only just mind you; only just.

bloated

have a bloated feeling.
think i need a very big dump.
just thought i would share.

injunctions

i had no strong feelings about the current spate of injunctions and super-injunctions which allow the rich to, possibly, gag the press when it comes to revelations of their indescretions.
true the whole thing is lopsided in that the weaker of the two parties (normally the woman) is left out in the open and unable to defend herself. 
the reason i had no strong feelings about it all was simply because i don't care if some celebrity is sticking his dick where the sun don't shine while lying to his wife. it is none of my business what the son of the former leader of the british union of fascists gets up to in privacy of his spare time (i might be envious, but that is a different matter altogether).
no matter how you slice and dice it the only reason some of these revelations are in the 'public interest' is because the public have learnt to love salicious gossip masquerading as news.
the public believes it own celebrity and there must have the right to know everything about them. the press encourage this; their justification being that the public has a right to know what these public figures get up because they are famous and that somehow or another makes you a role model of some sort. thus when you have tarnished your image then you have to suffer the slings and arrows.
frankly just let them get on with the extra marital shagging or the visits to the local whore. who really cares? not i.
why do i say that?
mostly because these are people who, in the main, i wouldn't want to be a role model to any children (or adults), they become 'role models' because the press want something to beat them over the head with. we can't just be happy with whatever it is that makes them celebrities - we have to be able to tear them down.

it is safe to say i am no lover of celebrity (that of course will change when i am rich and famous). nor did i care much about the injnctions.
so what has changed i can hear you ask?
simple i head read that jeremy clarkson was for super injunctions and that swunf me around. it was bad enough being on the side of the tories during the av debate there is just no way i am going to appear on the same side as clarkson.

so i am now against injunctions and super injunctions being used to hide the fact that someone rich and famous did nothing very wrong, did something that most people do or have done. it is wrong to cheat on your wife or girlfriend but if they do it should be no one else's business.
it appears the rumours of mr. clarkson cheating on his wife are no more than that.
my advice to clarkson is: save the money: spend it wisely  and next time keep your dick in your trousers. then no one has to worry.

consistency

a simple word. a simple idea.

most people want consistency in their lives.

when i was being a step-parent one of the things i quickly learnt was that you had to be consistent with the kid. you couldn’t tell him not to do something one day and allow him to do it the next day. that just creates confusion and it creates problems.

consistency is important in when it comes to debate and thought. it isn’t that change is bad it is to be taken seriously there has to be a reason for the change. anything else is flip flopping which means you might as well be a liberal democrat.

logic isn’t my forte yet i try to keep as much as possible straight when i argue, perhaps i should give lessons to the nick clegg?

there i was reading an article about wind farms in wales. the author makes an impassioned argument against these mechanistic monstrosities on the gorgeous welsh landscape. as a bit of a diversion her argument is also a perfect example of why localism isn’t the great powerful social movement that cameron and co believe because all it really leads to is a series of non in my backyardism.

right back to the argument: on the one hand the author claims that wind farms are no good because when they produce excess electricity it is too much for the national grid to absorb. later the author claims when talking to an engineer working on the wind farm turbines they revealed that each one would just generate enough power for one light bulb per house in the local city. so from overpowering the national grid to just doing a light bulb – something not right in the state of denmark methinks.

or take alex salmond he has said that if scotland was independent then he is not adverse to sharing their military facilities with its neighbours (well they would be empty otherwise as you can bet that if independence became even a sniffing reality that various ships, subs and planes would be relocated in double quick time). only he goes on to say that an independent nation has to have an independent foreign policy and that scotland would not have agreed to the illegal war in iraq. oh well those two positions hold well together, though i am prepared to give mr. salmond the benefit of the doubt being deliberately contradictory.

but then he is a politician so that is alright.

support

i am not a fan of the uk independence party, and i have no love of their leader nigel farage. yet they are a legitimate political party who go out and campaign to get votes (though i do find it ironic that they have a voice only because they have representation in europe where their elected members get paid to sit in a parliament they want abolished).
however i hate the taxpayer's alliance - those arch, and somewhat shadowy, right-wingers who purport to speak for all taxpayers, when really all they are doing is speaking for the very rich and very powerful who are already doing all they can not to pay tax. quite why their rent-a-quote outfit gets any coverage on sensible news platforms is beyond me, but they do.
(as an aside both nigel farage and matthew sinclair, of the taxpayer's alliance, look like they could be characters from the simpsons.)

you may not have heard of it, but both uk independence party and the taxpayer's alliance were involved in a march and demonstration in support of the con/dems programme of spending cuts.
a bbc correspondent (one of the evils of the world as far as the taxpayer's alliance is concerned) said it is not often you hear people chanting 'we want more cuts' (unless of course it is outside a plastic surgeon's clinic - that bit was me and not the bbc).
lots of placards proclaiming "stop spending money we don't have" and even a banner that said 'taxes = slaves' (of course we won't see the taxpayer's alliance or ukip out supporting a living wage because companies would prefer to pay as little as possible thus making them economic slaves).
the news camera panned across the gathered throng trying to capture them all in one panoramic shot. it wasn't hard. what was hard was trying to disguise the gaps that allowed you to see bored pedestrians walking by and wondering what was going on.
the support that this demonstration got was counted in the low hundreds. some of the more lunatic speakers at hyde park probably get more each sunday to listen to them.

don't let the poor turnout bother you, it didn't bother mr. sinclair - because those few hundred represented the normally silent majority.
oh that is ok then.

i am guessing that the stop the cuts organisers could claim exactly the same thing- only more so.

i know which side i am on and it is not the chinless wonders of messrs sinclair and farage.

shard

the shard is going to be a very impressive and very impossing building on the south bank of the thames. not only will it be london's tallest building but it will be the tallest in the european union.
the developers are keen to make sure that they give back to the local economy. so they are going to make sure that some 150 jobs go to the residents of southwark.

when the shard is fully occupied it will be home to upto 12,000 workers.
still take heart a 150 of them will be local.

result

today it was announced by the institue of fiscal studies that household incomes may return to the levels of 2004 (which for me would be an improvement), which in case you are wondering means they are going to decline.
earlier in the week we heard that for those who reside on the sunday times rich list there was a recovery in their earnings and holdings.

the rich get richer and the poor gets poorer.
was ever thus.

pedestrian

i was at a talk given by ken livingstone the other night. ostensibly it was about art, mostly it was about how ken was a nice chap and should be mayor of london, and nothing wrong with that. it was the first time that i have seen ken live - he is a comfortable public speaker who gets his point across very well and knows how to keep an audience listening. there is a nice level of self-deprecating humour mixed in the serious political message.
as with most of these sorts of 'self-interested' meetings there is a level of bollocks (to use a word ken is fond of) spoken. so you have the argument that art should not be elitist - but everyone was quick to deride the music/tv of simon cowell or the movies of large hollywood studios. or that artists are there to challenge and, if needs be offend, though not if that challenge/offensive is towards a group that needs to be 'protected'. art should be free of control or censorship but should be funded by the state (not by big corporations because they are bad, they are very bad, no in fact they are scum - until they start buying my work).
the contradictions didn't seem to bother people there.

mr. livingstone was making a point about access to art and ethnic miniorities he did it in terms of economic prosperit/security. his wider point was that when we are comfortable and secure we are more likely to be progressive in our outlook. when we are trying to make ends meet we just concentrate on the necessities (it is only when we have nothing to lose that we become revolutionary). so he went on because the black community is very poor art is not high on the list of priorities. i guess it depends on how you define art (and mr. livingstone had a very wide definition), but it is true go to any major art gallery in london and the proportion of ethnic faces you see is small. go to the smaller commercial galleries and seeing an ethnic gallery goer is rarer than seeing a decent piece of work by bob and roberta smith.
yet poverty can't be held up as the cause as the national gallery, the national portrait gallery, tate modern and tate britain are free to enter and there are enough works in them all to keep people busy for quite awhile.
it may just be that some people depending on their age or cultural background are just not interested in gallery art. or it may just be that they are not aware that this stuff is there and it is free to them to go and view.

mr. livingstone said he was keen to keep museums and galleries in london free to enter. yay him.
yet there was an animator in the audience who wanted to know what ken was going to do for their animation company. the question i wanted to ask was: why should anyone do anything to help your company? most of us who work in the more mundane world of offices don't get subsidies to do the things we like - so i am not sure that just because you can't make an adequate living (though the expensive blinged branded jeans the questioner was wearing implied they were not short of a bob or two) doing the job you have decided is arty enough for you that you should be able to dip into the public purse.
subsidy is good if a mass of people can appreciate or enjoy the benefits of it.
subsidy is a waste of money if it just means a minority group gets to enjoy a minority interest art form while the rest of us scratch our heads and look on.

on the one hand we hear about the democratisation of creativity due to the internet - we can all be singers, dancers, actors, directors, artists now - the web frees us. on the other hand we are still being told that it only matters when it is in the 'defined' space for it.
the problem is artists want to be 'different' from the rest of us - they are elitists because only they have the vision to turn the squiggles or blurred images into art, when the rest of us do it is is just doodling or taking snaps. at the same time artists want to be of the people - they want us to accept that they speak to us through shared emotions and experiences that really we are the same just they have found a way to express what we all feel.
like any club the creative world wants to exlude the mass - it develops its own language and if you do not understand that language you are not part of the fraternity. woe betide anyone who just happens to say something along the lines of 'i don't know much about art but i know what i like' because it isn't about what you like it is about using polysyllabic words and dense concepts to explain why it is worthy of attention.

yet none of this was why i started writing this - it has been one long digression.
one of ken's techniques is to appear to be one of the people. we are just alike me and him.
he was keen to piont out that politics was not exciting, that is was really just a series of long dull meetings going over the minutia of plans. how we all giggled to discover that politicians had to do mundane work like the rest of us.
ken: just like us.
ken who has a pedestrian life: just like you and i.

except he undercut it a little by his regular references to his trips to shanghai and beijing as guest of the chinese government.
or how he had just finished his autobiography. something very few of us will ever do.
or how his autobiography had been offered up in a bidding war. something that is going to happen to even fewer of us (though rumour has it that the 'good english society' is getting a fund together in pay jay to stop writing a hobbit's journal).

still ken is a good speaker, isn't a tory and isn't boris so he should be the next mayor of london and you can sign up for his campaign website here. go on you know it makes sense.

hot

was too hot today.
it will get worse.
i will suffer. i will moan. i will be miserable.

oh nothing new there then.

recovery

the confederation of british industry says that britain's growth will be patchy and slow, but hey growth is growth. (they have revised their figures down from 1.8 to 1.7% growth, once again proving that economics is pretty much a guessing game.)
house prices have fallen.
centrica, owners of british gas, are warning that fuel prices will rise meaning they will be putting up the price of energy (again).
policy exchange, a right wing think tank, are on about the gap between public sector and private sector pay. they imply it is a bad thing that the public sector get paid more than the private sector - odd how they don't say that minimum wage is bad or that the money that ceo's pay themselves is too much for what they do. much easier to blame stuff on the public sector.

still it is not all bad.
it is not all doom and gloom.
there is a ray of sunshine out there for us all to latch onto.
according to the sunday times' rich list for 2011 it appears that for the richest in britain funds are booming and it is like they never had the recession (so they won't be too worried about the increase in the cost of gas). it just proves the old saw: money goes to money.
like i say this is a good thing.
according to the mantra of the camerons and osbornes of the world that the rich have become even rich is a benefit to the rest of us because as they spend money we all benefit. i is the trickle down effect. to be honest i am still waiting for my cut of the sale of hyde park 1 (the most expensive flat in london) though i am sure when it arrives it will be a life changer for me. also if the rich have gotten richer it probably means they are not actually spending money they are keeping it to themselves - sort of like the banks.
so don't worry about rising prices or squeezed wages - just thank your lucky stars that there are a few very rich people out there who might trickle some of their wealth to you.

difference

they say a week is a long time in politics.

sometimes you hear people say 'what a difference a day makes'.
for nick clegg and the liberal democrats the sands of time are running out.

we know it.
they know it.
nick knows it.
so what do they do?

on the one hand you have vince cable calling the conservative party a bunch of names - but saying that the coalition has to go on, only now it will be with a more business style relationship.
too late vince.

on the other hand nick clegg has decided that the liberal democrats are the ones to protect the national health service. really?
today he was telling us that 'no bill is better than a bad bill'; that he wants to protect the nhs, he wants an evolution not a disruptive revolution. perhaps nick clegg really does mean what he says, but like vince it is all too little and it is all too late.

here is a question for you nick (i know nick reads this - he needs something to brighten up his miserable days - imagine what it must be like to go into the office each day knowing that no one really likes you or trusts you and that you get all the blame for everything), sorry i digressed there. back on track.
here is a question for you nick: what is suddenly so different about the proposed nhs changes that this week you are a staunch defender of the nhs faith, when last week you weren't saying much about it?
is the answer that you got so trounced in the local elections you are trying to show that you are not the tory lapdogs and that this is your attempt to show that liberal democrats are still a party worth voting for?
or is the answer that you really do believe in the national health service?

nick i would give you the benefit of the doubt - but really all this posturing about you standing up for the nhs, you weren't doing it a week ago, this is just you playing politics with the health of the population.
come what may i doubt you will do the one thing that could make a difference, now that you have tasted power you are not going to give it up too easily. shame it looks like that if you want to keep it you will have to become a conservative.
oh you pretty much are one now.

danger

it seems the more we know the more we worry.
it seems that the point of most health research is to throw a bit of a scare into people.
i know i do not have a healthly lifestyle, but at least i can justify it by claiming that i have an addictive personality (which isn't to say that when people get a hit of pat that they have o come back for more the next day, just that i am easily addicted to stuff, luckily for me i am not adventurous so i seem to be addicted to coffee, cola and chocolate... oh and pizza, doughnuts and cream cakes).
yet even if i had a healthy lifestyle reading about what causes this or that, or leads to one thing or another would be enough to make you wrap yourself in cotton wool and never leave the flat.
the question of a stroke never occurred to me and so never played part of those modern worries we all have. then i saw the result of some research (which is never quite as comprehensive as it should be before being quoted all over the place).
the ten greatest risk factors for a stroke are:

coffee - well i am truly screwed on this one.

vigorous exercise - phew saved here, although i had planned to go out running again, now maybe not.
nose blowing - this has to be  worry during winter, perhaps i should go back to cuffing the snot like i did when i was a kid.
sex - these days chance would be a fine thing - does wanking count?
straining to defecate - now this does worry me, there are few pleasures that are free that mach a good squeeze when you are on the bog.
drinking cola - luckily it is not as high a risk as drinking coffee as i seem to drink more cola.
being startled - just need to stop reading this sort of research.
being angry - can't see how i can stop being angry when cameron and his camerloons are in power.

just got to hope i never have a combination going on at the same time - like drinking a pot of coffee while i have a cold and watching gove and hague explain their latest policies on the tv when something bangs against a window.
no more reading the newspapers when i am having a shit either - who knows what might happen.

no to av.
no to liberal democrats.
no to nick clegg.

poor old nick from hero to zero. from the kingmaker to hanging on by the skin of his teeth.
find it in your heart to feel sorry for nick, he is sitting there crying in the dark and wailing "why? why? why?"

cynical

i thought i was cynical, but there are times when even i have to bow my head and acknowledge that compared to some i am a bundle of happy fluffy joy.

5live was trying to get some interest into the av debate this morning.
they asked one of their callers how they were going to vote. the reply was that they were not going to vote, it was a waste of time, nothing changes. the presenter made some attempts to question this line of thought only to be met with: "if voting was effective then the ruling elite would have banned it a long time ago".

compared to that i am just in the foothills of the mountains of cynicism.

vote

don't forget to get out there and vote.
some of you have local elections to wade through.
i just have the almost interesting yes/no on the alternative voting system.

nick clegg is for it.
i am against it.
in this you can all say 'i agree with pat'.

the one thing the av debate has done is once again give free publicity to the british national party. it is odd how we only really hear about the danger of the bnp when elections come around and then it isn't to debate the ideas (misconceptions) they have but to scare monger that a vote for them might lead to the end of western civilization.
no surprise that the whole alternative vote debate seems to have been couched in terms that elevate the bnp to the status of a serious political party (oh how the greens must wish that they were discussed in such a manner).
so those who are for av say that such a system prevents the chances of the rise of parties such as the bnp - ignoring the fact that their two members of the european parliament are there because of proportional representation, while the houses of commons are free from the bnp.
those who are for first past the post claim that under their system the chances of the bnp winning power are slight to impossible (not that they will stop casting the bnp in the role of the monster under the bed each time an election comes around) but even worse if you go to an av system you give the votes of parties such as the bnp even more say in how the country is run. how? well not only do their votes count for their main choice but because the bnp will never get into power their second (and perhaps third) choices are counted. oh no they have gotten more bites of the cherry than voters of the mainstream parties. terrible.

trust good old nick clegg to want his cake and eat it: "nick griffin knows that av will make it harder for extremist parties to win because they cannot get the support of a majority of their constituents." (i can't find where i copied this from - so who knows this might just be a bad dream).
nick c was talking in the context of why nick g was supporting 'first past the post' (just like the tory party and those horrid radicals the communist party).
so the bnp are for the first past the post system because in mr. clegg's words they canno get the support of the majority of their constituents. yup i am following that.

stop reading this - go and vote.
you know it makes sense.

bliss

the years hasn't started off as well as it should have.
for a start there has only been the one steven seagal movie (well direct to dvd release) so far this year. that is wrong. ever since appearing in the less than fun 'machete' seagal hasn't been delivering the goods. that is just bad news bears.
i could put up with that if the chirpy cockeny chappy that is danny dyer was appearing on the shelves of the dvd racks around the country - he seems to have gone from banging out a film every two weeks (every one a gem) to nothing for the first four months of the year. danny danny danny what are you doing to us - we need to see you, we need to have more movies where you play that chirpy cheeky cockney chappy while you have the look that says 'i am so much better than this'
with just one seagal and no dyer the world is not a happy place.

and it is moments like these that the bbc was invented.
it is moments like these when the bbc strides forth and sets the evils of the world to the swords and radiates joy, happiness and good will to all in teleland.
praise bbc3.
hoist bbc3 on your shoulders and carry it around town, sing out in wonder at the magnificence of bbc3.
why?
why? is that what you ask?
such a small word for such a big thing.
why?
i will tell you why.
'two pints of lager and a packet of crisps' is back on bbc3 - crude, lewd, smutty jokes a go go. fart and knob gags running rampant. what more do you need.
'two pints of lager' is what the funny bone was designed for.

the world is a brighter place now it is back.

olympic2

i confess i am quite excited about the fact i have ordered some olympic event tickets. it is pretty much a once in a lifetime happening (unlike getting a job working for the london olympics which turned out to be a you-won't-hear-from-us-at-all-ever experience).
even the bollocks spoken by officials of the london olympic committee about how some events can't have as many common people at them as others because they have to worry about 'the olympic family'.
nor do the moans from those who complain that they were not told that the olympic ticketing site would stay open for an hour longer on deadline night - if like me you are going to leave it till the very last hour then you only have yourself to blame it is not like you didn't have six weeks in whic to load your order for your tickets - take away from the glow of the chance that i might be off to see an olympic event sometime next year.

ok i am a tad irked by the fact that there is a handling charge on the tickets - which seems to just be there for the sake of it as it remains £6 regardless of me getting 1 or 100 tickets.
ok i am a bit annoyed to hear that there may be a second round of ticket sales because some events won't have sold out. while i am not against this because i want the olympics to be a success and i want as many people as possible to have the chance to share in the excitement. what gets my goat is that these events will be the minor events, they won't be the big events, the ones everyone knows about - the athletics, the cycling, the swimming, the diving and such like - oh no those ones will be full to the brim with people and in fact people will be turned away from those events as there will be more applicants than there are tickets. of course one of the reasons why this will be the case is that 'the olympic family' will be busy sitting its fat arses on the seats. when really what they should be doing is going to the lesser events to show their support of the sickly cousins of 'the olympic family' and freeing up more seats for the common people to see the events that they want to see.
it just won't happen because 'the olympic family' is all about being at the top table.

what has really lit the furious fire under my bottom is the email i received today from the olympics. it contained the following words of wisdom:
"please ensure you have sufficient funds available on your visa card to cover the total cost of your application between 10 may and 10 june 2011. please be aware that your application may be withdrawn if you do not have sufficient funds available.

the latest date by which you will be told whether you have been allocated tickets is 24 june 2011."
i get that i should have money in my account to cover the cost of the tickets - that is not a problem (well i hope not).
i get that if i don't have the money i don't get the tickets.
i even understand that because visa is a sponsor of the olympics that they are the only card you can use.
i am not sure why they have to have a month window in which they need to take the money from me - i am sure with a bit of work and organisation they have that down to a much smaller window.
what really yanks my crank is that the implication is that sometime between the 10th of may and the 10th of june money will be debited from my acccount to cover the tickets i have ordered. however i may not know what tickets i have gotten until june 24th!
so what can i expect to happen?
that the full amount is deducted from my account between may and june 10th. only to discover a few weeks later that i don't have all the tickets i ordered and my account is being credited?
that only the money for the tickets i am getting is being debited but i have to wait a few weeks for confirmation.
is it just a scam to transfer money from lots of accounts in order to make some money on the interest before they 'sell' us the tickets.

frankly if you are taking money out of my account then you should be able to tell me what you have taken it for on the day you are taking it - not a week or two later.
not very good work from seb coe and co.

wouldn't surprise me if i didn't get a ticket at all now.

strange

let me be upfront here i have no love, respect or regard for colonel muammar gaddafi.
the cynic in me can't help but feel the current conflict in libya has been brought on by the oppurtunism of several leaders who have low ratings at home and the need for oil, both easily hidden behind the 'concern' for the welfare of the libyan people.

recently a bomb strike has supposedly killed one of gaddafi's sons. the news of this death has caused crowds of libyans to target various foreign missions in the country.
now this could be read as support for gaddafi - in which case our support for the rebels/ insrugents/ provisional government (call them what you will) is a little bit misplaced.
or it could be read that our interference in an internal matter is creating support for gaddafi when there was none.

now slice and dice it any which way you want to but united nations resolution 1973 and the mission creep that has gone along with it is war by a different name.
we are bombing libya, we are talking about arming the rebels/insurgents/ provisional government we are telling colonel gaddafi to take a hike and don't look back.

yet for all of that the moment we decide to expel the libyan ambassador comes when our foreign mission there is ranshacked by crowds of angry libyans (ok they may have been 'encouraged'). why? simply because william hague, the foreign secretary, has said that the gaddafi regime had failed in its duty to protect it.
this would be the regime we are currently bombing.
this would be the regime we are saying does not have the legitimate will of its people.
this would be the regime that we are saying has no future.

only in the world of politics could someone say that and keep a straight face.
who would have thought that william hague would have be cast in the role of the straight man... (no i didn't mean it like that).

blocked

currently constipated at both ends.
nothing coming out from either orifice.
not a good situation - hoping that tomorrow the floodgates will open and out will spill lots (and lots) of stuff - some for your pleasure and some for my relief.

olympics

tonight's blog has been held up by the olympics.
i decided that i did indeed want a ticket or two to go see an event or two at the london olympics.
not an easy site to work your way around.
yet somehow i have managed to order 4 tickets for four different events - all at the lowest prices (of course). my chances of getting any of time are slim to none. not just because there is a lot of demand for the tickets but because a large chunk of tickets are going to 'the olympic family' (fuck 'em is what i say - it is not their taxes that are going to pay for the sodding games, so they should come right down the pecking order - but that is what happens in a fair world, not the one we live in).
unlike 'the olympic family' i don't know if i have actually got a ticket - i won't know for awhile - maybe by may 10th, or maybe by june 24th. big window there.
even so i have had to give over my card details - just in case i do get the tickets.
as with all these things there is a booking fee: £6. so if i get all four tickets it works out at £1.50 a ticket. i am sure there are many others like me who have tried for several events, not so much because they are ardent fans of them, just that they want to experience the olympic moment. now call me a cynic - but i would wager that the majority of people who ordered tickets for multiple events will just end up with one event.
why?
if different people get to go to events i have chosen then the booking fees are £24, if it is just me it is £6. as they say: you do the math.

still i am happy to know that my hard earned money (if they sell me the tickets) is going to keep seb and the rest of 'the olympic family' in the style they have become accustomed to.

trains

been a while since i last travelled on the train. i like being on trains. no idea why, i just do.
one of the things you quickly learn about trains is that they are not cheap to use, and that is quickly followed by just how complicated the fare structures are (best price will be on the third friday of the month that has an eclipse in it).
there is a leaked report that (surprise surprise) highlights the unions as a barrier to efficiency in the rail industry, but seems to be recommending that there be job cuts (fewer ticket offices open, fewer onboard staff) which is to be coupled with rising fares.
oh that is ok then. the service will go down but the price goes up! result. fantastic. capitalism works so well.

weather

it is not even summer and already i am cursing the sun and the heat.
bring back the wind and the rain.
fie on you summer and your fucking sunny bright blue skies.

i hate summer.

mates

mates are funny old things.
sometimes we take liberties with them, sometimes they take liberties with us.
we forgive them things we wouldn't forgive strangers.
they can hold views we don't agree with but we don't mind because they are our mates.
we can row and tiff with them to the cows come home, we will talk utter bollocks with them until the sun comes up.
mates are the oil that makes the engine of life purr.

though there are times when you wonder why you bother.
david cameron is probably thinking that just about now. there was leader of the conservative party already to stride into number 10 as leader of the country with his policies and meta-narrative all worked out. his bezzie mates william and george ready to stand either side of him with their smug grins all ready to tell us they had won and they were going to lead us out of the darkness.
when, would you believe it, we the public slapped them all in the face and said: not that simple chums.

david was not to be denied so he turned to his new best friend, nick clegg, and asked: "do you want to be in our gang?"
nick made a pretense of making up his mind but we all know that what he was thinking was: "yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! oh yes please david, can i come and play with the big boys."

since getting to sit at the big table things have not been as much fun for nick as he thought that they would be. his one big policy, the one he sold his pals in the liberal democrats on, av, is faltering. for a long while no one really cared. now we only care because the politicians are making arses of themselves over it.

and this is what nick has had to say about the no to av campaign in the independent that it is the:
"death rattle of a right-wing elite, a right-wing clique who want to keep things the way they are".... i include all those, and of course it includes the conservative party, who like this nice little racket. they get a job for life and they waft into power and they don't even need to bother try to get a majority of people onside."

at least he didn't call the tories nasty or nazi, though i am sure he wanted to.
i am guessing that a few of them have taken him off their christmas card list.

but hold on what was that about wafting into power and not needing a majority... mmm perhaps someone should be remembering how they managed to get into power.
though if there is one thing that politics teaches us it is that when they are in power they will say anything to stay in power.

duck

over in hong kong the recent remake of sex and zen: extreme ecstacy has broken records and has taken more money than avatar.
i suspect that sex and zen has a rather more intelligent story (one hesitates to say adult in this context) than avatar had (though that wouldn't be too hard as most episodes of teletubbies were more complex than avatar), however i doubt that was the reason why people have flocked to see the movie.
i am pretty sure it wasn't just the erotic content.
i reckon it was the fact that the erotic content was being shown in glorious 3d.
the mind boggles at what was being pointed out from the screen at the watchers or what was being shot out from the actors into the audience.
all i know is that i wouldn't want any of it in my eye.

3d porn that should increase the number of people who stay in.
get shares in wrist supports and pizza delivery companies now. you have been told.

sam

samuel l. jackson is cool. hell he has even played shaft - that is how cool he is.
samuel l. jackson is one of the most famous actors of our times and one of the few black actors who can 'open' a movie (to use the parlance). sadly for sam he is not one of that elite group of black actors who are seen as being 'serious actors' that is for the likes of denzil washington, morgan freeman, will smith and most recently jamie foxx. while sam might be cursing the fact that he hardly gets a look in when it comes to the complex, sensitive caring type roles he knows he is never going to be short of work.
still now he gets his big chance. he is to appear on broadway playing martin luther king.
i can see it now.
"i have a dream muthafuckas."
(although it being samuel l. jackson it should be "i have a muthafucking dream you muthafucking ni......" oooh i nearly did it, but didn't. don't want spike lee on my case.)

good luck with it sam.
perhaps now you will get the film roles that have gravitas to them - rather than slick patter and sweary words that make a potty mouth blush - you deserve that chance of leading actor oscar glory.

creep

first it was about saving people.
now it is about getting rid of gaddafi.
cameron, obama and sarkozy have all up their rhetoric and in doing so have gone on the usual mission creep that is so popular of world leaders who are not going to be asked to put their lives on the line.
even better as they are making their proclamations they will also be saying that it is for the libyan people to decide - but only as long as they don't choose gaddafi.

i reckon that there has to be a worthwhile study (and an interesting one) in what drives national leaders to go into conflicts - do they see it as the validation of their leadership? do they sit down at gatherings and go 'my war was bigger than your war'?

just think poor old david cameron has been in power less than a year and already he has played the 'war card' and the 'immigration card' - it is looking like all he will have left for when the cuts really bite is a full on invasion of france - and that won't be easy given we are sharing military forces now.

old

if i needed a reminder that i am getting old i got it last night.
i expect to get it again tonight.
it is bad enough that i have trouble walking up stairs, that my back aches, or my knees creak when i crouch down.
old age is coming on, father time has his hand on my shoulder.
not only that it seems he is also squeezing my bladder. last night there i was awake at 3am to go to the toilet, and not for the first time have i had to stumble to the bog in the dark and i suspect it won't be the last time and it will become a regular event.
oh well at least it is something to look forward to each night.

i am getting old.

fat

add being the parent of a young child to the reasons you can use to blame other people/ causes to why you might be fat.
as a parent to a young child it is likely you choose the easy option of prepared meals and thus become fat. of course if they are eating them the chances are they are feeding them to their kids. so beginning the fat cycle.
the authors of the study are very quick to point out that this isn't about blame.
no these studies never are - they are about providing excuses.

the majority of fatties (like myself) are the way we are because we scoff far too much.
simple answer. eat less, exercise more.
problem is my planned book: "oi fatty" keeps gettting turned down by the publishers. they say there isn't enough in it, but i thought it would be better if it was a slim volume.

i thank you.
matinees on wednesday.

quote

‘I don’t want to try to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.’

so said david cameron (maggie would be turning in her grave, if only she would just die) in answer to a question from a student in pakistan.
yet there he is sending the military into libyia.
perhaps it is time for cameron and his ilk to not only accept that the colonial past was not always beneficial but that the power we had then has gone and it is time for us to sit back, ensure our own protection and let the rest of the world play at soldiers.
problem is once you are in the top seat you can't help but play commander in chief. so on the one hand we don't want to be involved on the other we want to get our hands dirty.
mr. cameron it really is time to make your mind up.
follow on with the logic of the military cuts you are planning to make and reforge the armed forces into something else other than a small fighting force that we seem to be prepared to waste in struggles that are not ours.

apology

news international and the news of the world are busy issuing apologies for their phone-tapping excesses. i am sure that all the taps were done in the name of 'the national interest', because we just have to know what some dull celebrity is planning. i am sure that such underhanded practices are also used by others in the news industry.

however i do feel that i am owed an apology by news international.
why haven't they tapped my phone? why haven't they tried to find out my secrets.
true i am not particularly famous. true i am not particularly interesting. true i do not have paticularly juicy secrets.
but that isn't the point.
i will just have to learn to live with my non-celebrity.

pooped

had a bunch of things i planned on gabbling on about tonight.
had a whole slew of things i needed to do.
turns out i am so tired that all i could manage to do is sit down and turn the computer.
that means you are getting nothing from me tonight. you have a night off from me. i know you are missing me already, but i will be back, so you can relax in that knowledge.
night.

encounters

i would be the first to admit that i am not an open welcoming person. my default mode could probably be described as “leave me the fuck alone”. mostly it just means people don’t bother me in the streets. that makes me happy.

it seems there are times when my factor 5 fuck off wears off and i suddenly attract all kinds of attention. tonight seemed to be one of those nights.

i was out and about looking at some art. i tried out a couple of new galleries, saw some great art and got the exercise of walking to and from the galleries. in the first i was approached by the gallery owner. he was interested in my thoughts on the show and the gallery and i gave them to him, while all the time wondering why the pretty girl who stomped about because she was wearing heavy shoes was put off by the factor 5 ‘f.o.’ and he wasn’t. i told the bloke i was glad that there was a new gallery to visit. he told me that i was a distinctive looking so he was bound to remember me.

thanks for that gallery guy.

i left him to deal with the new crowd of people who had streamed into the gallery.

i moved onto another gallery. a bunch of beer guzzling bohemians standing outside (it was a night where you could easily tell where the open galleries were – they had more people with bottles of beer standing outside of them than the local pubs – amazing what free drink will do) and no many in the gallery. i go in. look at the black and white photos on display (black and white means art doncha know).

i chin stroke my way through some ok photographs. some are very good, most are average a few are bland. even as i am studying the photos i have clocked the two pretty girls sitting on the settee that is in the gallery. they are stopping me from getting a good view of some of the photos – i don’t mind too much as they are not among the best in the show. time for me to go and make my way home. one of the girls asks me if i can take a photo of them (not an unusual request as i had my camera with me) and she hands me her iphone to do the deed. i do. head of both of them. (that may make it sound like i knew what i was doing but just trying to use the iphone to take photos was a challenge – there is certain technology i shouldn’t be let near. oh they didn’t just want head shots – they wanted the full body and they wanted to stick their long slender legs out for me to capture in digital form.

now that is the sort of challenge i like.

stupidly i didn’t faff over taking the photos. what the hell was i thinking…..

job done and i moved on, my only reward their smile of thanks. again what was i thinking?

time to go home. nice long walk. need the exercise it is a nice evening. i get to have a smile as i walk by the office building that houses chubb security only to notice that a place that is all about locks and safes has a security guard sitting on a stool to protect them. what does that say about their product?

getting late.

will go to sainsbury’s to get a snack.

walking down valance road. little old asian chap stops me; he is traditionally dressed and has a neatly trimmed snowy white beard. he points up the road and says ‘do you know?’ i jump to conclusions that he is asking for brick lane, he doesn’t want brick lane. something about ravi in bethnal green. i point him in the direction of bethnal green. no he says do i know ravi in bethanl green. his english is poor and my shyleti is worse. i shrug and say i don’t know ravi of bethnal green. he smiles at me and tells me i am a very good man, a nice man. i agree with him, give him the thumbs up, tell him to have a good evening and i move on.

in sainsbury’s now. looking at the yogurts. i have become a big fan of yogurts recently. i feel like a treat so i am going to go for a twekkelo farmhouse yogurt with black cherry. as i pick it up and put it in my basket a young bloke asks me if it is nice. i bite my tongue because like all sensible shoppers i only buy stuff that i don’t like, instead i tell him it is good and i also recommend that he try the apple and cinnamon version as well (see public service pat). he looks at me as if i had imparted great wisdom and in return he must reply with a more profound statement. and he does.

“once you have had a few mouthfuls you have to finish it all off.” this seemed to be a problem for him, while i just thought that was the done thing to do. i nodded sagely with him and walked away, backwards: just in case. i never saw if he took my advice.

i just kept thinking why me? these are the people that ems talks to not me.

tomorrow i am putting on factor 7 ‘piss off i don’t care what you have to say.’

liar

"i'm in politics not to take risks with the nhsbut to safeguard and improve the NHS for today and future generations. if we want to keep the nhs free at the point of use we have to make it more efficient - sticking with the status quo is not going to work."
so says david cameron.

you know what i have to say to that?
liar liar pants on fire.
see cutting edge politial satire and commentary are alive and kicking.

buzz

the coalition have a new buzz phrase.
a new frontier on which to show they are caring and compassionate.
a new way to show that they are not the nasty tories, but the cuddly loving conservatives who like us all.
welcome to the world of social mobility.
we have had a period where the answer to every question asked of the coalition government mentioned 'left with the biggest deficit ever in the whole wide world... if not the entire universe and beyond'.
now no matter what the question is it is looking likely that those wanting to make an impact in the coalition will have to shoe horn in 'social mobility'.
witness oliver letwin (who?)  (cabinet office minister - i know you knew that), mr. letwin is alledged to have made an off-hand comment/joke to boris johnson about not wanting people from sheffield to travel abroad. shock. horror. private conversation gets reported as news.
mr. letwin is neither denying, confirming or apologising for the alleged comments. instead he says he never knowinglt ever says anything offensive and continues with that he is "passionately behind" social mobility and "devoted to people being able to make the most of their own lives." which is a bit rich coming from a politician who is part of a coalition government that has hiked up the price of education (making it harder for the poorer in society to get ahead), cut education edicational maintenance allowance (making it harder for poor students to stay on at school), cutting public sector jobs (cutting down the number of jobs available and the prospects that people have) and this depresses the employment market which in turn means ...oh well you get the picture.

so expect over the next few months to hear a lot about social mobility.
every time you hear it remember they don't mean it, they don't care and if they were really honest they just want you to doff your caps.

same old tories.

listen

listen. what do you hear?

the sound of a coalition in reverse?

the sound of a coalition laughing at us?

the sound of confusion?

no it is none of those things.

andrew lansley tells us that the government will pause their plans for nhs change and would be listening to people’s concerns.

for the government (well the conservatives) the changes are needed in order to prepare the nhs for the challenges of the future - such as meeting international benchmarks (which in any other vocabulary would be the same as targets) on cancer or dealing with the growing question of an elderly population.

one of the ways of meeting these challenges is to let doctor’s consortia (managed by professional, private sector, managers – being private managers it means they are worth their salary no matter how high it is) buy ‘care’ from any ‘willing provider’. may as well call it privatisation and be done with it.

most sensible people are concerned about the whole thing; most sensible people know this is just the start to breaking the nhs up. several people have commented that the problem has been that the coalition haven’t ‘sold’ the idea well enough (perhaps they have done it well enough, it is just we don’t want the nhs sold down the river).

in response to this apathy cameron and clegg are off on a ‘listening exercise’ to reassure people, but there will be no substantial change to the plans, maybe a few tweaks; nothing more. not much listening then, more telling/

can you hear it?

listen.

it is the sound of private medical providers laughing all the way to the bank.

voting

yes to av?
no to av?

have to say i am a no to av person. it feels odd to be on the same same as david cameron. hoping there are not many more occasions where he and i agree.

still the yes vote lost a lot of respect when chris huhne described baroness warsi as acting like goebbels - thus falling foul of godwin's law in double quick time.
the yes vote is also undermined by the fact that nick clegg is for it - let's be honest he is not the poster boy he used to be.

unfortunately there are no london local elections this year so when i go to the polling booth all i will be doing is voting for (or against) alternative voting.
oddly the result will be decided by a first past the post vote.
you have to love irony.

nhs

safe in his hands - that is what david cameron told us.
he is the king of porky pies.
seems a few of the liberal democrats have grown a spine and the coalition has to look at its plans for the restructuring of the national health service. cameron, clegg et al are all a little worried that there isn't a ground swell of support for their changes.
they think it is because we don't understand the benefits of their plans.
sadly for cameron and clegg we are cleverer than that weunderstand perfectly what the plans mean - they mean the eventual privitisation of the national health service. it means lots of private companies making lots of profits from the ill and sick (soon to be: customers).

a while back the evening standard was praising the john lewis partnership for being able to give out bonuses to all its staff. why, they opined, can't john lewis take over the nhs? well perhaps it is because making profits from selling stuff to people who want to buy things is completely different from dealing with people who have to use a service because they are sick.
though it probably doesn't matter to the standard's leader writer they, no doubt, have access to private health care.
the rest of us are not quite so lucky, and given a recent report about how a large chunk of prescriptions are never collected because of the cost of them it seems a number of us can't even afford to deal with the national health service.

anticipation

anticipation.

waiting can be hell. waiting can be fun. waiting builds expectations. waiting creates jitters.

anticipation can be heaven, anticipation can be hell.

counting down the days.

watching the hours.

minding the minutes.

ticking. tocking. the ticking countdown as the clock gets to the moment you have been waiting for.

ticking.

tocking.

world cups? every four years: who cares?

general elections? why bother.

the olympics? not that special.

royal weddings? so what.

christmas? there’ll be another one next year.

the oscars? ho hum.

large hadron collider? not all that.

so what am i waiting for? simple wmxxvii: wrestlemania 27. a night of wrestling superstars, a night of action, a night of entertainment, a night passion, a night of drama.

wrestlemania has it all. glitz, glitter, blood and sweat.

orton versus punk, cena versus the miz, triple h versus the undertaker. if that wasn’t enough throw in edge, rey mysterio, vickie guerrero the rock and stone cold (what) austin and you have the event of the year, only to be matched by next year’s wrestlemania.

wrestlemania is bigger than sport.

wrestlemania is bigger than entertainment.

wrestlemania is sports entertainment.

and i can’t wait.

tick

tock.

tube

i love the tube system.
sadly i don't get to use it as much as i would like as i am a penny pinching bus user. so when i decide to use the tube for speed and convenience i sit back and enjoy it.

a recent addition to the london transport menu of services has been the east london overground line - and what a joy it is.
the current building programme involves the much talked about and expensive crossrail service. some people are for it, some are against it. slowly but surely it is beginning to take shape.
one of the places where this is most obvious is tottenham court road tube station. lots and lots of building going on aound there. it has meant the end and demolition of the astoria (boo hoo - saw one of the best gigs ever there), big diversions for buses and a new skyline where old buildings have been torn down and maybe new ones to go up.
part of this is going to be improvements to the northern line platforms at tottenham court road. the northern line is probably the runt of the london underground - it never seems to work properly. this isn't going to change that, but it will make the platform at tottenham court road better and that is no bad thing.
unsurprisingly this sort of work can't take place when the tube is running, nor is it practicalable to do the work overnight. so there is to be a planned closure of the nothern line between now and christmas. in theory that should mean that the work gets done and done well.

how does the evening standard react to such news?
"chaos" they cry. even though it won't be chaotic because everyone who uses the tube will know about it. i can only guess that the definition of 'chaos' (as used by the standard and daily mail) is it looks good in print and helps sells more papers, especially when it means nothing.
the standard goes on to point out that users of the northern line might have to get off at goodge street or leicester square and walk to tottenham court, they do it in tones of what hardship this is rather than the 5 minute walk it is.
i guess it is easier to report on 'chaos' than it is to write about a necessary closure in order to faciliate the building works that will benefit all the users of the station. while one of those stories is accurate the other one is sexier.

one of the things we seem to have gotten real good at over the last few years is the casual denigration of our abilities, our culture and our society. rather than highlight the importance of the works and the talents involved in such a building project - it is much more fun to bitch and moan rather to front up and say this is needed work and a brave decision has been made.

moaning is better than reporting it seems.

wtf

i am a portly sort of a chap.
cuddly.
well i was.
work it seems adds pounds and inches to you waist.
i know why, i have seen all those reports in the daily mail, and such like places that list a whole host of factors that lead to office workers piling on the pounds: that office workers are sedentary (me); that stress leads to eating more (me); that having to think leads to needing more calories (me) and all the others.
my situation is not helped by the fact that several of the people in the office are prodigious comsumers of sweets. they enable my eating of cakes. they are so naughty.
so i have gone from portly to paunchy and beginning to be hanging over the belt belly.

so as i step back to a cuddlesome size i have cut down on the chocolate and started back in on the fruit.
still fat.
but now i have zits. how does that work. when i was eating choc and doughnuts not a zit in sight. go on to fruit and i am a pimplehead.
there is no justice.