Look Back In Languor

Don’t know if I `ll do this regularly or not, but at all events ,welcome to a more than usually aimless meander around the silly stories I `ve enjoyed lately. It seems the police share my manyana attitude judging from the BBC News Headline

“Another schoolboy shot dead in London- Police to hold urgent talks” ……..well lets have a chat shall we then………

PINKY MASSACRE

You might think , “OAP bit off neighbour’s little finger in row over geraniums “,would be hard to top . It is a goody , apparently Pamela Fox , 65,spat the severed digit into Maija Andric`s face . It was a two year simmer which started over guess what ? Parking spaces. The very same issue that got me into politics so keep you hands well away from my mouth lefties.!

FRAUDS GET FILM

There is hope for Blair after all . The famously lip synching Milli Vanilli are about to be recipients of the full Hollywood treatment. Jeff Nathanson, who was the screen writer for ,“Catch Me If You Can “, explained that he had always be fascinated by frauds and phoneys. So I’m sure we can all suggest his next subject .
The intriguing thing about Milli Vanilli is that while they were actually involved in the whole silly game they began to believe they could sing themselves . The German producer Frank Farian got so frustrated with them that he outed them and the ensuing scandal lead eventually to depression drugs a death for Rob Pilatus . Isn’t it peculiar how fame warps people’s minds . That name Rob …hmmmm

ROBBIE

Similarly Robbie Williams was given fictitious song writing credits for Guy Chamber`s sometimes excellent material. This was a Royalty sharing ruse that is common in the Music biz , but then he began to think he could write his own stuff. The resulting melange of risible doodling has nearly sunk EMI and is commonly reckoned to be the worst record ever made. Poor old Robbie ,faced with the truth that he is and always will be no more than a fat tap dancer from Stockport , he`s gone druggy to. Where do these grandiose delusions come from though.

MORE FILM NEWS

Incidentally there is also a film in the pipe line to tell the story of Charles De Menzes. .I wonder whose story they are going to tell exactly . I will be curious as to how the scene at Stockwell Tube Station is played and looking out for the word . Oops

TIM RICE FEELS IGNORED

Poor Tim Rice just feels utterly spent and empty darling . The Tories just don’t love him anymore. ”Dave and his dynamic thrusting team are simply not interested in me or my Neanderthal views. They couldn’t give a stuff what I think” (Speccie). Well I do know how he feels perhaps he can write a song or the ribbon of many colours that is due to replace my beloved Blue Rosette. What Colour will it be Tim ? Altogether…
……. red and yellow and green and brown
And scarlet and black and ocher and peach
And ruby and olive and violet and fawn
And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve
And cream and crimson and silver and rose
And azure and lemon and russet and grey
And purple and white ….and so on infinitum

( Newmania fact . I played Joseph in the Primary School production and had a goodish Treble voice .)

TODDLER FIGHTING

A really nasty story this about a group of women forcing their 2 and 3 year olds to fight each other . It was filmed and the footage “shocked and stunned all who saw it “. Its the details . The little boy repeatedly cries “I don’t want to “and is called a “wimp and a faggot”. There are some things that I just do not understand at all and this is one of them . Perhaps with all this banging on about the how wonderful the family is we should bear in mind it isn`t always .As I recently mentioned the most likely people to steal from the old are their own relatives and the people torturing these children were their own mothers .

IT GETS WORSE

Then a new born girl was discovered in a bin having been dumped there by her 19 year old mother Samantha Robertson The baby may be returned to the mother who claims she was to scared to tell her parents she was pregnant. Does that justify attempted murder then ? Not for me ; but with pro abortionist women seeking the right to pursue their unwanted teenagers down the street with a baseball bat , I may be not with the zeitgeist here.

BACK TO THE 70s

Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels no longer contain artery clogging trans fats announced Burton’s foods .Ahhh Wagon Wheels that takes me back to the 70s . I actually had one of the first Choppers in the Street because Newmania Senior worked in the States and was the coolest thing in the playground , I thought .
I bought K-tel Top of the Pops records and my favourite band were Sweet. In fact I `m not at all sure that you can top Ballroom Blitz to this day .

MONEY ..what is it worth eh ?

A Los Angeles Zoo paid a feng shui expert £2300 so three golden monkeys from China will feel at home ( In their swinging pad!)…Amazing. Meanwhile a Peckham Preacher who took money from clients whose fertility he assisted by the power of prayer has been refused legal aid to battle against his extradition to Kenya. Less amazing . Inevitable ..there seems to be about one of these a month.



INTERNET CASANOVA

Hey turn down the light as and put some soft music on . Welcome to my love salon. Casanova con men (like me ), are targeting the lonely so says the Office of Fair Trading ..(actually anyone will do .) they befriend them , before starting to mention an urgent operation or being stranded abroad. So what’s the harm in that then , everyone gets something out of the deal . Don’t be put off send me your money ,and if you are a women …I love you.

BEEN THERE

The number of Drivers advertising their gas guzzlers on E bay has gone up 23 percent since July says the auction website and there’s a seventy five percent increase in people buying motorbikes. Of course Red Ken is to blame for this but I `m alright I already have a motor bike, when I need a Pizza delivery job I come with my own kit.

ROUND ONE

A gang of happy slappers got more than they bargained for when they picked on ex amateur boxer Curtis Mulcare 31. Mr . Mulcare put two of them in hospital and a further four were arrested .One of them had approached him at a bus stop and slapped in this face I do hope it was one of the ones in hospital.


In the world of silly otherwise there was the discovery that Cleopatra was ugly .So what was it that first attracted you to the Queen of the wealthiest grain basket in the Ancient world Mark Anthony ?Some things are pretty constant aren’t they. A lethal pink bunny was recalled by Fisher Price and Pubs are closing at five a week say CAMRA

HAGUE THE SOT

The best thing to do is to start drinking early and often. Ask William Hague who said this in an interview with a lad`s Mag years ago “ My holiday job was as a drivers mate , delivering the bottles and beer around South Yorkshire. We used to have a pint at every stop and we had ten stops a day …Then go out in the evening to the pub.”
Impressive but when GQ questioned the veracity of the boastful Yorkshireman staff at Conservative Central Office , no less, squealed” We can get you firm evidence he drank 14 pints , he used to come home completely plastered”. Should have stuck to the skunk really . Less trouble


Next up . Scottish Local elections and the end of the|Union

Who is the Villain ..remind me ?

I have to admit I`ve never been much of Daily Mail fan, it always seems so shrill as to undermine its position, and in any case I `m a crashing snob at heart . The Telegraph has the same stories with slightly longer words and that seems to do the trick for me. So; I am far better acquainted with the fake Peter Hitchens than the real one . It was only whilst browsing around the subject of the Loss of the English culture that I first read anything by him ,this weekend . What do I find , but that I rather like the chap. His output is huge but the "World Socialist Web Site " hated, "The Abolition of Britain " which Roger Scruton, my new best friend , mentioned in "England an Elegy " .He cannot be all bad. This is what World Socialism had to say.

.”WHEN TWO TRIBES GO TO WAR….dubba dubba dum,,………..

" Hitchens ramblings echo those of the right wing of the Republican Party".says WORLD SOCIALISM..now why do the left always make an American link? ..."His nationalism and xenophobia"....Hoorah we got an phobia ,no sane man should be without one.., "his paean to the family and traditional values, and horror at the impact of the radical 1960s "...just to remind you this is all supposed to be a bad thing..." Even his portrayal of Blair as a pseudo revolutionary mirrors the demonisation of Clinton by the Republican right "..again off we go to America why ?.."In essence"....wait for it "Hitchens is testing the water for a formation of a fascist movement in Britain !"
.Well of course he is, isn’t he . Anyone who has any doubt about the received wisdom of the liberal elite must be a fascist. Anyone who feel the massive social experiment going since the 1960s ,for example Comprehensive education , has failed , must , of course , no question , be a fascist. Quite a few in the Labour party nowadays then .
All of this makes me wonder why certain friends of mine seem to so dislike the Hitch . Pending further evidence I do not . He seems well worth further reading and lets and lets not forget this was back in 1999 when the Blair project was only starting to smell bad..

To give you an inkling of how things are getting better, lets remind our selves of what “Observer Columnist” Andrew Marr had to say . He was nervous because behind Blair’s “Britain at Peace with itself “” Reactionary forces are gathering …he doesn’t say “Counter Revolutionary “ but its close. He went on (in 1999) ,as follows:

“ There is forming in this country a the beginnings of a broad anti labour coalition, it may be ragged but it looks angry and determined. It stretches from the pro sterling campaigners, to farmers , fox hunters , grammar school enthusiasts and supporters of the Lords “

Yes and no Marr . You completely misunderstood the nature of the right wing challenge to the Blair “consensus?” which is more along modern libertarian and Neo Con economic lines ,than the traditional resistance you mention, but you sensed a wiff of smoke on the breeze back then ,didn’t you .Angry and determined , you got right. Moving forward a few years and he is one of the first to run for cover

“Political pundit Andrew Marr said( this year) 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.”

Andrew Marr is now Telegraph columnist….. When a vacillating media weathervane like that ,starts pointing your way you know you’re winning . Andrew Marr has shown himself to be unprincipled but clever. Peter Hitchens seems to me to have shown some character and consistency.

Miss Smack is Rotting The Fabric of Society

I have a day off work and I am still recuperating from what feels like the worst Flu ever known to man or beast. I was plotting a long boring political diatribe but instead found myself wandering into the scented garden of Miss Smack, who appears to be a very naughty young lady indeed from Adelaide.
As I explained to Miss Smack , Conservatives are respectable people with well controlled libidos and are unlikely to be tempted into her absinthe soaked world a sherbet and sensual pleasure . I therefore feel confident that I can rely on the self control of anyone who might have been hoping for some comment on current affairs not to be enchanted by the strange languorous music calling ..calling softly and insistently , from the world of Miss Smack. Not tempted at all.
As Blogger have kindly removed links you will have to express your lack of temptation by visiting the comments on the previous post. So called Miss Smack has a rather arresting avatar …if you like that sort of thing . Which I don’t .I disapprove of her , her lascivious ways her immoral thoughts , her cunning wiles her womanly snares and her long legs , her bright eyes , her ……any way; I disapprove.

Blog Goes Big Time

"The Charity Commission has warned an online blogger he could go to jail unless he submits information he has gathered about the activities of the Smith Institute, the left-wing think tank under investigation for links to the Labour Party.

The formal direction was issued to Paul Staines, who runs the Guido Fawkes political website, ordering him to release documents relating to the institute by Friday.

Chancellor Gordon Brown has admitted that his policies are shaped and influenced by the think tank. " DT

Well..... superfluous I know but cooo!!

Small Fish seeks Teeny Weeny Pond

See that "top Local Tory" ....that me that is .Good Old Gazette a terrific local Paper doing its job of winding the Coucil up. They are furious about this.


Council job ad sparks racism row
nlnews@archant.co.uk
14 February 2007
A JOB advert on Islington Council's website asking for 40 Afro-Caribbean men to become teaching assistants has been branded a disgrace by a top local Tory.

Paul Newman, vice-chairman of Islington North Conservatives, says the advert for the roles in Islington's Ethnic Minority Achievement Service (EMAS) is insulting and could encourage support for right-wing parties such as the BNP.

He said: "Do we need divisive special treatment for newcomers? Absolutely not, there is already growing suspicion and mistrust. This will add to it.

"Black children and white children should be treated the same and so should their teachers. Simple."
The advert, entitled African-Caribbean Men Wanted in School to Make a Difference to Children's Lives, offers applicants "an all expenses paid training package" and the support to "develop a rewarding career in education".

But many other jobhunters feel discriminated against.

A 21-year-old from Essex Road, who only wanted to be named as Victoria, was so furious when she saw the advert she began a petition objecting to it.

She said: "I find it racist and sexist and there are a lot of people who feel the same. I've already got 36 signatures, and some work in Islington schools."

Councillor Ursula Woolley, Islington's executive member for children and young people, said: "Islington Council and CEA would never condone any kind of racism.

"The advert is for a training course that is run regularly. It's not a job offer, but we hope the training will help unemployed residents to find a job.

"Giving our children positive role models they can identify with is an important way of helping them to succeed.

"Advertising that's targeted to attract underrepresented groups is not discrimination, it is specifically allowed under equalities law.

The Master Plan

OK , as of now ,this is the plan. I am going to do one or two longer pieces per week (boo) and in between fill in with short lighthearted stuff( Hoorah), if I can be bothered.
This will leave me time for commenting on other peoples blogs which I like to do.
The blogs I have linked to , all of which I really like ,contain many superb daily political posters, and I cannot see the point of another similiar one.



Thats the Plan.I know there will be many who will be desperately disappointed not to see more glutinous diatribes about the state of the nation but with luck I might have something original to say once or twice a week. Even that sounds like a tall order to me

Thanks for the comments recently.

"Its Absolute Bollocks" . C. George .( Artist .)

Football. The world of Pooter people seems odd to me in that sport is almost entirely absent. I have always loved it. My father gave me little choice .
I was a far more serious at rugby player than footballer, without being much good at anything really and Arsenal have been my team, right back to the days of Charlie George . I stood on the North bank on many occasions although I was usually playing , and recently went to the oddly quiet Emirates Stadium. I wouldn’t especially want to bore anyone but I thought this was such a good summary of the state of the game and the actions of the ruling body I couldn’t resist it. Well written to and with bitter passion.




Good Old FIFA Sort Out The Things That Matter

Diving is an endemic problem that seems to get more and more coverage every week. The offside law is a shambles; no-one knows what's happening, least of all the referees. Every corner or free-kick around the box sees defenders pulling shirts or holding attackers. Every game features players gesturing for their fellow professionals to be booked or sent off.

A policeman was killed in Italy less than two weeks ago by rioting fans. A French fireman lost his fingers trying to remove an explosive thrown into the pitch from the crowd. Hooliganism mars Dutch football. Black players are openly abused in Spain and Eastern Europe.

Third-party ownership of players has reduced any sort of control over transfers to a laughing stock. A bung culture apparently dominates the English game, covered up by a media scared to lose their special relationship with clubs. Small clubs are left to rot as big clubs get richer and richer. Television and money run the game. Men like Peter Ridsdale have free rein to bankrupt club after club. The FA Cup draw has been moved to Mondays.

International friendlies cripple squads at crucial parts of the season. The African Nations' Cup snatches away players from top divisions in Europe every two years, and no apparent attempt has been made to find a compromise. The next World Cup is likely to be marred by higher levels of crime than have ever been seen at the world's premier football tournament.

FIFA executives sell tickets on the black market for ridiculous profits. So do a hell of a lot of other people. Football shirts, shorts and boots are made for pennies in third-world sweatshops and flogged for vastly inflated prices. Peter Kenyon still exists.

And I can only applaud the FIFA delegates who have found time to bring in new laws for next season that will see a player celebrating a goal booked for such things as 'cupping his ear with his hand or holding a finger across his mouth in a 'Silence, please' gesture, Klinsmann-type dives or dancing round the corner flag.'
Seriously lads. Well done.”


Charlie George had this to say about it

'I've been a fan myself and I feel you're giving them something back. If you score and just run back to thr halfway line it's absolute bollocks' - Charlie George






How right he was.

Uninspired..thats me

You know what that last post was a load of balls. I feel as if I `m a mile underwater and I started writing before I had something to say. It was never going to be good . That’s the problem with this blogging thing sometimes you aren’t inspired. I am reading Ted Hughes at the moment , re reading I should say and the first pome in the collection( by Simon Armitage another good poet) is The Thought Fox. I was looking glumly at the last slab dullness and it reminded me that sometimes you have to wait. I `m sure almost everyone in the world knows this but in case anyone does not …


THE THOUGHT-FOX

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.


The key point of the poem is when the Fox appears not as distant , almost imagined but real and pungent .Ted Hughes suddenly switches to a surprising description of the olfactory sensation of Fox. The idea is in your head.
Now that would be nice.......

Update: as some people have bothered to post below feel abit mean about this remark. I`m afraid the truth of CU`s critique rather struck me .

"A ring of truth in some parts, nonesense in others; much like the source material." I was thinking you have to start with an idea not look at some information and hope it looks like one. Its odd isn`t how most people settle down to a niche and do their thing . I still haven`t decided exactly what I am going to do with this.No doubt the answer is creeping about in the darkness as I write.

Blimey I get dull when I have a cold

Happy Valentines Day I Don`t Think

Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270.….


Hmmm, perhaps there is more resonance for men in this Valentines day thing than I had thought. Seriously ,men have become sulky load of Primates picking their ears disconsolately behind a jungle shrub and the interweb is populated by more than its share of embittered divorced males. Lets try to be understanding just for once. Oh go on…

Some things never change , Jackie Collins advised Posh on her Hollywood adventure as follows ”I don’t think you can leave men in this town on their own. I really don’t . Not more than a day or two at the most”. There we go then ,problem one ;men aren’t changing . The fauxmosexual new man is a myth, and when it isn’t, its only because he has his own despicable agenda. That men remain as despicable as ever is evidenced by a recent survey on attitudes to internet pornography. Seventy five percent of men responded that it was natural outlet they needed for their excessive and unsatisfied desires, whereas ,two thirds of women pronounced themselves variously shocked , unhappy and so on….
Poor deluded things, but not only is the new man a myth but so is the new woman. For all you read about women juggling career baby ,man and a tarte fine aux pommes for tea ,the truth is this .The average woman will vacuum 7300 miles in her lifetime whereas the average man clocks up a feeble 850 miles . In other words life simply doesn’t do what it says on the tin ,for women .

No clearer evidence of this can be found than in the bizarre obsession women have with their bodies Tessa Jowell , never one to jump on a vacuous band wagon has “Joined forces” with ”Fashion leaders” to launch a crusade against size zero models . Meanwhile Ann Nicole Smith whose shape, in its day , was the cause of much male salivation , dies , apparently, of excessive boob jobs. What are we to make of women`s determination to become vastly thinner than men would prefer ? Is it some crazed competition they have amongst themselves or are they just unhappy . They have good reason to be .

Women remain seriously under-represented in senior positions ,often being sidelined to the ,“Mummy career track” They are 10% of the senior judiciary 14 % of Local authority leaders and only 17% of editors of national newspapers. Thanks to determined reverse discrimination , and political convenience, they are currently 20% of MP`s but the calibre of the Blair babes was so low as to set the cause of women’s rights back for decades . My hopes are not high for Priti Patel`s and Joanne Cash`s either . Both seem to be yes-women,a phrase soon to have wide currency. Anyway the figures are slipping and we are currently below the level of Rwanda , Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps we men should give the girls a go at being hunter gatherer ,and do the cave paintings and berries for a bit .No I `m sorry but that won’t work , women hate it. Lauren Booth confessed in the Mail that there are great problems for the 21 percent of couples where the woman earns more than the man ( Government stats ..seems high to me ). Her husband will be picking out a valentine present and she will be worrying about how much it costs her. He has to ask for more money when he runs out and faces a variety of humiliations one might not foresee . In many cases the wife loses respect for the husband who feels emasculated and sex disappears Guess what, women resent the fact they have to do all the work .Welcome to the club girls .

Inevitably men are ceasing to want to get married , there is less and less in it for them. In December last year the number of single women outnumbered married spouses for the first time. The decline in a marriage , says the centre for policy studies, has serious implications for children and women.

“ ..parents moving in and out of relationships ..A lot of women in the forties and fifties will be living alone ..with all sorts of emotional and financial implications” . while agonisingly modish females may go “Blonde with grief “,about their failed relationships, there is a vast well of unhappiness for ordinary , lonely middle aged ,“spinsters” ,stuck in low grade jobs or , more likely nowadays , on benefits.”

The CSA has further alienated men whose sense of ill treatment is such that the law cannot operate . It costs 70p for them to acquire every pound they eventually get, and there is an outstanding £3.5 billion uncollected since 1993. With divorce courts blaming the man ,be his wife the scarlet whore of Babylon, men simply do not believe they owe anyone anything .

So its tough for women. They have got most of things they said they wanted ,and now they find noone wants them .The stark truth is that if a mans IQ rises by 16 points his his chances of marrying rise by 35% if a woman’s IQ rise as much, her chances slump by the same amount. Women, you see ,are not happy , generally with men that are lower achievers than them . As they are now 57% of University entrants and rising , there simply aren’t enough Alpha’s to go around. Forty percent of women born in 1970 are likely to enter their forties childless .Brutal isn’t it.
Most ordinary Eves fail to reach the mirage they glimpse shimmering in the magazine pages, and those who do find its just more sand when they get there.
So even for the “To posh to push” ,caesarean having , double degreeing, career achieving supergirls, life is not that great after all.


Happy Valentines girls …I`d go out buy yourself something nice if I were you! You deserve it and noone else is going to bother …probably.

I am Sick As a Bird (with Flu )

Pinched this from the C Hunt which is poor as I was only slagging her off yesterday.
I am sick and in bed feeling sorry for myself .Sorry Croydonian and PHITCH that I will be unable to attend the "Putting the world to rights" session.Can we please reschedule for later in the week ?


Back to bed , I am hoping to be back in the "Land of the living"


MISERY MISERY MISERY

Ellee -gaic Musings

I watched Ellee on Andrew Marr`s show this morning .I was hoping to see a bit more of her but it was worth the trouble .I spied Croydonian flashing onto the Screen and furiously pointed this out to the bemused Blog Virgins I was with. Anyway I have been thinking on matters Ellee -gaic and by means of an odious pun shall we segue to ,"A sense of Loss"



LOSS
I suppose the Blogger who more than anyone represents the sense I am looking for is Cranmer. A magnificent confection of course but I missed the real significance until this week. I have been reading ”England an Elegy “ by Roger Scruton and found it is one of those books, that takes unformed thoughts one had ,and gives them a home . Cohere would be the modern word.

This passage struck me as peculiarly apposite with reference to his Grace’s wraith presence.
“The world of the English was a world of rituals,uniforms, precedents and offices. In any serious business they would spontaneously , adopt another and higher tone, borrowing legal and biblical words, addressing their colleagues not directly but through some real or imaginary chairman and creating a mystical body out of mere gathering of people .”

A strong sense of the ironic and ridiculous is also in evidence which balances any suspicion of pretension but , as always , there is a message in the medium. I doubt his Grace would like that reference much , but isn’t mimicking an ancient English form on a web site an image of both the connection, and the dissociation we have from our culture and its quiet necessities. I find ,as I get older ,I increasingly want to reconnect myself , to recover what has been lost.

IMAGINED EDENS

Sometimes the sense of loss is for something that never truly existed but it is no less powerful for that
The first time my wife and I holidayed in England , we had enjoyed Italy and Egypt in particular but to go to a beach with our child and play in the rock pools was to recreate an imagined English Eden and I fell into the enchantment . In fact ,I never had such a holiday , as a child, but must have acquired the memory from books and , no doubt, the television.

THE GARDENERS

This weekend we have been staying at my friend David Gardener’s Hampshire “seat“. He is an lawyer specialising in international disputes and is often abroad . He and his wonderfully hospitable wife have made for themselves the sort of haven given to the Dickensian hero who ,having walked through the darkness of the Victorian underworld re attains middleclass financial security .It is a super sized rose covered cottage ,in a chocolate box village with Hardyesque church and rolling hills thrown in.. The cottage has about eight bedrooms and numerous en suite facilities .David is hardly connected to he land , and his wife’s background was quite underprivileged ,and yet this what they have done with their doubloons. In such blissful surroundings I was almost able to forget the horror one naturally feels at someone else’s success.
We walked up to the church and visited Montgomery’s Grave . It was raining and freezing and I asked David , pointedly if we had now finished the walk. He naturally replied

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning….” he always was a clever bastard.

THE ROYAL FAMILY

I have just watched “The Queen “it was on a knock off DVD purchased in a clandestine deal by Mrs. N at the Toddler group. Good quality though , and it reminded me of how alienated I felt at the time of Diana’s death. One by one people who one had felt were sane; “turned”. I vividly recall saying ,” Oh for god’s sake ,she was only a self besotted brainless clothes horse “..to a most sniffy response .I am still convinced that this country went badly wrong at about this time and the film brought that out. The queen did not like Diana , she did not like the cult of emotion , the soupy looks to camera , the celebrity friends and the way she placed her own childish needs before an enduring institution. She was right , and I responded to her fictionalised pain at a change in “The People “ . A rare British film worth watching and Phil the Greek gets some great lines.

“Elton John …well that’s a first for Westminster Abbey …mutter mutter,.. have you looked at the guest list….well don’t.” The Queen does not emote and she explains she thought quiet dignity duty and privacy were what was expected of her. Yes indeed and I for one like the change that came over this country , not a bit.

Oh how I wish I could implant in Croydonian a proper respect for this wonderful women the very embodiment of the nation. His cold flinty republican eyes see nothing but bombast and hypocrisy. It is so much more than that.

(I need hardly add that Blair`s despicable opportunism was treated a vast deal too kindly in my humble opinion.)


HEART and SOUL

Soul music has always been important to me . I was , like everyone else , enamoured by the anger of Punk , albeit a bit late. One night , however, working a late shift at a garage, I found another world , Kid Jensen played six of the best by Wilson Pickett . The first track was “I found a love” These are the words

I found a love
She `s everything I `m dreaming of
And oh if she leave me
I think I will dies ay ay ay

And sometimes in the midnight hour I wanna call I wanna say
Yoooooooohhoooo (scream) don`t leave me darlin`

That pure voice expressing the pain of loss over the simple piano accompaniment echoed over the forecourt, and I have never really recovered. I was reminded of this Damascene conversion by the death of Billy Henderson of the Detroit Spinners.”I `ve been working my way back to you”, was the sound of a summer long ago. Not much connection really.

If anyone has an experience of encountering a music that changed everything please share……

AND FINALLY ESTHER

I suppose at some time we must lose W F Deedes. Has anyone noticed what astonishingly good form he is on? For a man well into his nineties it is nothing short of miraculous,and combining a sharp mind with a unique long perspective he often slips a deceptively civilised blade into the rotten body politic.
In a recent article he contrasted Chamberlain`s exit with Blair`s grim limpet-like attachment to power. Chamberlain left to the bitter sound of Ronny Cartland shouting from the Tory back benches ,"Some of us are going to fight and some of us are going to die !"

The effective cause of his departure was not losjng a vote of confidence but the rebbellion of 41 supporters . Why is there no rebbellion against Blair .Perhaps the answer is simple



"Being a Member of Parliament is a better-rewarded occupation than it was in Neville Chamberlain's time. It was then more of a voluntary service than the paid profession it has become. The salary was nominal – £600 a year. There were no allowances for staff nor space for them, no private rooms for secretaries and filing cabinets, only a small oak cupboard. "Good place to keep cigars fresh," as a senior MP observed to me at the time.

Most Labour MPs were subsidised by their trade unions. Tory and Liberal MPs paid for the privilege of being MPs. My batch of candidates who entered the Commons in 1950 were the first to have their election expenses paid by their local association. We were forbidden to contribute anything.

Would such considerations weigh with Labour MPs called upon to vote on Blair's future? In short, is the House of Commons still fit for purpose? I cannot answer that question. I don't know the answer. It is a question the electors must ponder for themselves"


You know I think he does know the answer and so do we.I look at the efforts of the Home Office , not to solve problems but to hide them, at the corruption endemic in our already degraded police and the lying smug face of the millipede and I feel the way Dennis Potter once did about the way things are going.

"...everything is getting shittier and shittier and shittier"