A Warning from History???

We have a world-wide recession and all the expected sort of shit has begun to energe from the mouths of the vicious and the stupid. We have so-called social commentators and half-baked economists talking about the UK being the worst placed of the Western Democracies to cope with the recession, and some are even blaming the government. That is cheap, underhand and nasty, and fails to mention that for 15 years the UK was the fasted growing economy in Europe. We need a much more responsible opposition that Wavy Davy's bunch of half-baked nobodies. I mean, honestly, what on earth do Dave or Georgie know about anything. Sadly, about as much as Adolf and Hermann knew, and look what happened there.

The utter bilge that these people spout is now having serious ramifications. The working-class, on the surface at least, appears to be lurching to the far-right. The workers at Killingholme, may their souls rot, are actively blaming foreign (Italian and thus EU) workers for taking their jobs, (jobs that were recently created by an American company and not already existing jobs). They appear to have support up and down the country and even seem to have the support of Amicus (to their eternal shame).

I was brought up as a Trades Unionist and a socialist and always believed that the Unions' role was to fight for the rights of the workers, not to set one group of workers against another. That is surely the role of the Tories.

Let us hope this appalling right-wing tub-thumping ends soon, or people losing their jobs or their houses will be the least of our troubles.

Workers of all countries unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains!!!

Celebrity Arrogance

Over the weekend I have thinking about how arrogant some so called celebreties are. One always a misplaced level of self-confidence from the telentles little oiks that appear on those ridiculous 'famous for five minutes' type TV shows and other associated 'reality' crap. But they can be dismissed as simple oxygen wasters, and thus happily ignored. I mean who would care if Gareth Gates or Jade Goody or any of the other inconsequential half wits died tomorrow. Not that I wish them any ill will; its just that who cares?

My concern comes far more from the arrogance exhibited by celebreties who DO have a discernible talent. My assumption had always been that they might be a little big-headed but that they had something to be big-headed about. Think David Beckham or Paul McCartney. Not everyone's cup of tea perhaps but not without some talent and you could forgive a slightly inflated ego. But this week I was shocked to discover the sheer arrogance of two very different 'entertainers'; one an egomaniac footballer, the other an up-his-own-arse wobbleboard player. I refer of course to William Gallas and Rolf Harris; the dream team in only our worst ever nightmares (or in Rolf's case the dreamtime team).

Firstly Gallas; he appears to have set his heart on completely derailing any opportunitiy for his club, Arsenal, acheiving anything this season by attempting to undermine the younger players in the squad, regularly citing 'lack of fight' in matches and 'lack of respect' for senior players. He has also written that the French international squad failed at Euro 2008 due to a lack of respect for senior players. He sees himself as an important senior player. He needs to examine himself. He is a decent centre half or full back, and is good enough to play premier league football, but he is not a great star. In terms of French defenders he will never ever compare favourably with, for example, Marcel Desailly or Lillian Thuram. He is not an all time great, yet his ego is the size of a small country.

Then there's Rolf. What he is is a a personable entertainer and TV presenter who is art school trained, with a passable talent in mimicing different styles of painting. What he thinks he is is an artist and a songwriter, with opinions that people will be interested in. Oh Rolf, how wrong can one man be. You are a lightweight, frothy TV personna. Nothing more, nothing less. Being a youth swimming chanmpion, going on stage with three legs, singing songs about kangaroos and boy soldiers and painting a soulless portrait of Brenda does not make you a star. Yet you really think that what you do is important. And what do you mean when you say you don't understand the words of 'Blowin in the Wind'? What is there to understand?

The shame of both these individuals is that they do have talent, a lot of talent. Yet they seem to feel thay have so much more than they really have and that what they do is significant and important. For goodness sake; once we think that TV entertainers and footballers are important (as opposed to TV entertainment and football which are important) we have plost the plot. they are simply the hired hands, and all are dispensible, and thus their over-inflated egos are seriously foolish.

Monday again already

Firstly, many apologies for not writing anything for a few days; I have been ridiculously busy. We had to get a questionnaire agreed and 2000 copies printed within a very short timespan (due in part to the client taking ages to agree the script). This meant a working weekend last weekend and a a busy week to follow. A busy week made more stressful by the fact that City Link lost our questionnaires and then took them to the wrong part of the country. They were supposed to go to Dover and eneded up in Manchester. Still, it eventually got sorted and I am sure everything will be fine. It did mean that I was pretty knackered by the weekend and am only just getting back to normal now.

It was a sad weekend. As well as York City's customary defeat, the Arsenal suffered a shock defeat to Aston Villa, and, to add insult to injury, West London Russian Blood Money, and the Trafford Red B******s managed to scrape lucky wins. It all seems very unfair. For example, referees should be firmer with Cristiano Ronaldo and send him off every time he plays for being an obnoxious object with an offensive face, whilst on the West London front, one hopes that Frank Lumpolard can be given some help to improve his face that he may be enabled to smile, and possibly even learn to speak a language that at least approximates to English. Perhaps I am being unfair, the Premiership was never about 'the beautiful game' but always about lining the pockets of football mercenaries, but one can always hope that the Wenger way will prevail over hackeyed outdated attributes like 'workrate', 'aggression' and 'no-nonsense defending'; and, where there is life there is hope.

But I digress. I have a couple of significant events before Christmas; I am going to a Leonard Cohen concert in Manchester on November 30th, and it is Catherine's birthday on December 1st. Then the countdown to Christmas can really begin. I always look forward to Christmas with almost childish enthusiasm and almost always end up at least slightly disappointed. It is always a family time and I have never not had my family around me at Christmas; that is not a disappointment. But it always seems to come and go before I realise; that is the disappointment. Anyway here's hoping, and here's hoping that this week at work will be a little less hectic than last week.

Living with War

I don't know if any of you saw the Documentary on the CSNY Living With War Today Tour in 2006 on BBC4 last night. It was exceptionally uplifting. At a time when the common denominator amongst popular musicians of all genres is to be quiescent and compliant, it is left to an effete Mancunian, an obssesive from Winnipeg, and two old-style American hippies with an average age of 63, to remind America that it can have a conscience and that to be a left-leaning pacifist is neither criminal nor unpatriotic. Neil Young has kept the associated website up to date and it really is well worth a visit http://www.neilyoung.com/lwwtoday/index.html with the sound turned on. 'Let's impeach the president' plays in the background and there are loads of interesting articles and downloads.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young won't change the world (and never intended to), but, even at their advancing age, they still retain the ability to promote the alternative point of view. God bless 'em

Solvency at last (for a while)

Well, my pension has eventually come through. some reward for those pre-university days of toil in former life as a railway clerk. The lumnp some won't pay off the all the debts but it will keep the wolf from the door for a couple of months in these unusual 'credit crunch' times.

It also means that we shall eat this Christmas, and, bonus of bonuses, I may even be able to afford a new sofa and tickets to see Leonard Cohen.

My next step is to see if as a 'pensioner' I am entitled to any railway travel facilities as my service with the railways was before all this privatisation nonsense, when, at least some elements of our public transport system were actually owned by the public, rather than the Richard Bransons (and the rest of the ragbag army of 'entrepreneurs') got their grubby hands on our trains. Then again, when I worked for the railway, the midget roadbuilder Ernest Marples had already got his hatchet man, the incredibly non-telegenic Dr Beeching, to close most of the lines, with little regard to the communities and businesses they served.

Still, self-seeking scheisters are nothing new in politics; we have had the Church of England in its present form since 1689 and the Tories for just as long. Renaming them the Conservative Party in 1848 changed nothing. Now, just as then; still the enemy of the people.

SAGA

My brothers have asked me to go out for a drink this evening but I feel I may have to politely decline. I have just paid my credit card bills and am scraping the bits and pieces together for next month's mortgage payment, so I dare not really spend any money as frivolously as on alcohol. Not that I mind too much as I am not much of a drinker.

I think that autumn is well and truly here now. I am not sure of mists and mellow fruitfulness, more grey skies and drizzle.

I was in a hospital waiting room yesterday - waiting, as you do in such rooms, when I happened upon the current copy of SAGA magazine. Now once I had got over the initial prejudice of even contemplating looking at an OAP magazine, which I felt belonged best in God's waiting room, and after I had waded through the 'why don't we all read the Daily Mail and denigrate young people' copy that was in truth scattered throughout the pages, I actually found a very funny comment. It was made by Spike Milligan (obviously at some time in the past I assume as even SAGA cannot interview dead people). He had once been heard to say:

"Anyone can be 52, but only a bus can be 52B"

Although that is strictly untrue on a number of levels such as people who die before attaining the age of 52, and specialist bras for fat, smallbreasted ladies, it is still very funny. It tickled me. Indeed it has set me up for the weekend to realise that the appreciation of the ridiculous is still alive and well even in SAGA magazine.

PS How insane would a 52B bra actually look, let alone the person inside it.

Modern life, the internet and gadgets

What is it with modern life? We live in the strangest of times. Apart from the small matter of global warming and economic meltdown, we have a world in which John McCain is meant to be a serious contender for the most powerful job on the planet, David Cameron is meant to be taken seriously, reality TV has got so mental now that there are pointless shows about God knows what starring the most awful and pointless people from amongst the general public, and the general attention span of human beings is treated by the media as being no greater than that of one year old chimpanzee. What passes for drama on Film and Television is embarrassing; no longer do we seem to let the plot develop and the characters slowly reveal themselves, rather we seem to have an explosion or a tidal wave every 90 seconds, with legions of ridiculous characters darting aimlessly around in the most frenetic ways. But this is not my gripe; serious and sad as these things may be they are not what drives me demented. Neither is it bank charges that appear to be made up on the back of a fag packet or a news and current affairs agenda that kowtows to the will of the establishment. No my gripe is with gadgets, gizmos, computers and the information society.

Firstly, let’s take the internet. Why, oh why, is there so much rubbish out there, all of which is desperately keen to make itself acquainted with us. Whenever you type a keyword or phrase into Google, at least some inappropriate (i.e. useless to the task in hand) sites show themselves on the first page. Clearly these sites have all the wrong keywords embedded and are just wasting everyone’s time. I actually think in general that there is too much use of the internet on pointless things such as pornography, gambling and online gaming to the point that it slows down and interferes with internet access for serious users (business people, students, and people with something constructive to say etc.).

Then there is spam email. Exactly how lucrative is the online market for penis extensions, high interest loans and Viagra. It baffles as well as annoys me. More annoying than spam, however, is the excruciating ‘broken connection’. In these days of superfast broadband (which should be faster and cheaper in the UK than it is) how do we get broken connections. When you sell something (e.g. a broadband connection) make sure that it is unlikely to break.

Then there are websites themselves. Despite the WC3 conventions on accessibility and standards that have existed and been constantly revised and updated for over a decade, the majority of websites are non-standard compliant and inaccessible to people with disabilities. Yet, it isn’t rocket science to build a standards compliant, accessible website; I do it every day. Internet explorer lets too many substandard web designers off the hook.

I also have a gripe about computers and their operating software. I realise that people more sensible than me use Macintosh, or better still, Linux operating systems, and therefore are not subject to the nonsense of Microsoft’s constant process of updating Windows. Why didn’t they get it right before releasing it? They have gone one further now and developed Vista, an operating system that requires a level computing power that would have been a top of the range desktop at the turn of the millennium just to make the computer work, before you actually open any programs.

And finally, gadgets: Why do all MP3 players that cost less than three weeks wages constantly break? And why do all the different types of earphone hurt my ears?

That’s the last of the moans for now. Tomorrow I am going to go into my garden and photograph one of my dogwood plants. The house may be a tip, and the garden may be messy. Winter may soon be upon us and shortage of cash is a constant problem, but that dogwood as it prepares to shed its leaves looks absolutely stunning. If I get a good photo I will put it on facebook.