Blog v Life

Sadly life has wrestled blog to the ground and forced a submission for a bit so a " Period of Silence " shall be observed. Last time I recommended the excellent Raedwald, this time I would direct your attention to the erudite musings of Hatfield Girl....and don`t leave Mutley alone he`ll howl

( and Phillipa on Fortean Times is very good well , as is Jungle Jane Ed and everyone else , Men sana is unsual and most interesting at the moment )

Hip Hop Hip Hop Splat !

'A man died while trying to outdo a rival with an acrobatic move while "battle dancing," police said. Robert Stitt, 48, and his rival were competing in a parking lot on Monday night when he tried a forward flip and landed on his head. "It was just two guys dancing. Everybody was laughing," Stitt's friend John Boxley said. Boxley said James Brown was on the radio and Stitt wanted to outdo a rival dancer, `- AP

...If it turned out to be the prat who stole the VW from my Golf then I would know there is a god after all

Busy

Busy today and once again blogger have removed a set of functions . Why me ?

'This is the worst.'

Reading this about the latest government project to fall into ruinous chaos I found myself intoning the words “ No worse , there is none”. You really despair don’t you

'The cost of widening the M1, Britain's biggest road-building project, is spiralling out of control with each mile costing more than £21m. The National Audit Office was called on last night to investigate why the price of the project has risen from £3.7bn to £5.1bn. The latest estimate makes the 240-mile project bigger than the annual economies of a third of the world's nations' - The Observer.

Sometimes I `m angry but at times a deep weariness overtakes me and I feel I am falling into madness

DESPAIR

Gerard Manley Hopkins was a poet who , for most of his life was obliged to slave at an unforgiving job which at time lead him to near suicide , his health was broken and he dies a failure . he was ‘discovered’ only after his death thanks to the efforts of Robert Southey and taken up by the moderns who were awed by his radical use of phonetic techniques and vocabulary. He is passionate poet and one with whom all we undiscovered geniuses can sympathiseJ. Noone has ever written so eloquently of despair …..

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief’


NO worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing—
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked

‘No ling-ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief’.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne’er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

"The worst is not, So long as we can say, 'This is the worst.' " King Lear

One Nation of Opportunity

The question of social mobility has crept up on us as perhaps the most abject failure if President Blair’s ten squalid years of presentation . In the Speccie today Anne McElvoy quotes the now famous study showing that children born in 1958 were more likely to extricate themselves from disadvantaged beginnings than those born in 1970 . The New statesman in one of its many retrospectives sadly observes that the promise of Education education education “, turned into a reality of ,“Location location location”. This is an apt description of the false hopes some had for the super funded comprehensive system and the selection by wealth that it has become . I was pleased to see Chris Skidmore a friend and fellow North Islington Conservative in the Telegraph with at least one tremendous factoid . More Etonian boys gain five good GCSE`s including English and maths than the entire Borough of Hackney. Not good enough Britain ..see me ! Just as important are the half of students that do not achieve a working competence in English and Maths . How tragic that Labour have buoyed up their figures with the coarsest social selection leaving the working classes with nothing. How typical of the betrayal and cynicism of Blair
Conservatives sometimes see the answer to this in terms of voucher schemes Grammar schools and various other doctrinaire or nostalgic approaches none of which I am, certain will work today. Certainly the existing grammars offer no clues . The educational charity “ the Sutton Trust “ studied an area with 12% on free school meals and found that in the Grammar only 2 % were fed by the state . Hardly a motor for opportunity. Sadly it is the Labour Party that are considering following up the Brighton experiment with a lottery while Willets and Boris on team Tory are keeping their powder dry for now . I believe Conservatives must be bold here if they are to attract the working class support that thus far eludes them. Without it they cannot form a Government and they will not be truly national Party
Many years ago a red bearded Trotskyite teacher of “ Social studies “ explained the difference between the Capitalist and the Socialist ideas of society to me . The capitalists ,he said, see class as a ladder whereas the Socialist see class as opposing armies. Without the ladder operating tolerably well the moral case for Conservatism, is merely selfish and “ Libertarian” only in a nihilistic and inhuman way . The case for redistributive taxation is commensurately strong.
Cameron has been hazy and passionless here , and for all his achievements I believe he is making an error of judgement. To camp firmly in the centre he has to show he cares about the whole country and is offering a better way to achieve meritocracy and fairness Educational policy must be used as a tool for Social engineering and Cameron must take on the backward looking elements of the Party. He might start by not saying anything else like this….” One of the great things about this country is that it matters more where you are going than where you came from “
Yeah right Dave , we noticed . It isn’t only the working classes who are left behind , almost anyone who cannot afford Public school is increasingly excluded from top end employment especially in prestigious fields like Journalism and even acting .Judie Burchill trenchantly observed such glamorous milieus are “ .. full of middleclass Prats “ . She went on to say , “And they all have dyslexia which is another word for stupid “..I `m detecting resentment .
The phrase “ One Nation “ has physically repellent connotations of Edward Heath and whole statist consensus of post war politics in both Parties. Nonetheless One Nation we must be and as the problems of social division mount Mr. Cameron`s dalliance with Folly Toynbee`s caravan looks like a theme he must risk developing to me . I would like to see an explicit redefinition of the One Nation ideal for our time .

The Liberal Answer To Gun Crime

Meral Ece a Liberal Coucillor is worrying in pusillanimous Liberal way about gun crime in the Gazette . I am drafting a reply but it needs editing . Not for my blog though…ha ha I can be as long a bloody dull as I like . Not bad looking really is she , come on for a Coucillor ?
nlnews@archant.co.uk02 May 2007

Families in fear as gun culture takes its toll( edited)

Meral Ece writes

YOU reported the latest incident of a street gunfight in Mildmay, the ward I represent ("Two men are shot in street gunfight", Gazette, April 19)…….I know as the mother of a 16-year-old, how difficult it has become to feel my son is safe while he's out or on his way home from school.………………………….. Being a responsible parent has got a whole lot harder! ………….a 13-year-old could get hold of a gun for the price of a pair of trainers, would have been science fiction! How are these guns coming into the hands of young people so easily?Introducing X-rays in schools has been cited as one solution, but I think we have to go back to what Tony Blair famously told us he would do, before he became Prime Minister - be "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". We have the highest prison population in Europe, so imprisonment is clearly not working. Little has been done to tackle the causes of crime.It's easy to dismiss this as "black on black" crimes, but they are British black children killing each other. Social deprivation and violent crime are clearly linked. Couple this with serious educational underachievement and unemployment. Black pupils are three times more likely to be excluded from school, more likely to be unemployed when they leave school, more likely to live in overcrowded housing.Given this backdrop, they are more likely to embrace the drugs and gang culture. Solutions do exist, but it means real targeted investment in education and employment. Black community leaders and families have answers in how to deal with this, but support is needed for this London-wide problem. - Councillor Meral Ece, Liberal Democrat Councillor for Mildmay Ward, Islington Council, and chairwoman, Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats.

The Liberals Should Face Their Guilt

Coucillor Meral Ece has suddenly noticed the terrifying rise in violent crime presided over by her and her colleagues. Well done . Violent crime in the UK has doubled in the last ten years and is now the worst Europe .We can ignore Superintendent Bob Carr`s suggestion that the rate in Islington dropped over the “financial year” 2006 -7. Half of the Met took an average of three weeks of sick last year , only one in 58 Policeman is on the street and 56 people deal with 128 bits of paper to bring simple case to court. I think we would all prefer this failing organisation to waste less time massaging their image and convert more of our mountainous taxes into bodies on the street . As we all know you are more likely to know the local traffic warden than the local Policeman.

Ms. Ece rehearses most of the failed left platitudes that have disappeared elsewhere. Firstly she says “ We have the highest prison population in Europe so prison is clearly not working “ What nonsense we haven’t tried it .Measured by crimes we incarcerate less criminals than anyone else . In Spain for example for every 1000 offences they imprison 48 here the number would be 12 . If you commit a crime here you are less like to go to prison which criminals know this if Coucillor Ece does not .They also know there are no cells so their sentences will be even shorter than they were . . Whilst banged up they will enjoy a higher standard of living inside than is found in most old peoples homes . Prisons do work and they provide justice

Ms. Ece calls for resources for a “London wide problem” . It is not a London wide problem . This sort of crime is typically found amongst populations living on benefits housed by the rest of us ,usually in fatherless communities where employment is rare and 90% marginal rates of tax keeps it that way . The link between discipline work and reward has been fatally severed and the moral breakdown has ensued.Her Council is are conniving with Ken Livingstone to add a further 11000 units to this groaning Borough so Islington’s career as a magnet for problems internationally and nationally will continue . Uncontrolled immigration ,often illegal ,has flooded all the inner city areas ours included. Encouraged by the discredited and cancerous Liberal creed of Multi-culturalism ghettos form and the very patriarchal family values that sustained new comers are undermined and sneered at .Don’t blame everyone else Meral you stand accused of responsibility for the erupting violence.

Her prescription is “ targeted investment in education and employment”. That means robbing honest hardworking families of money to be squandered on criminals and their accomplices in the state for whom they provide jobs . Clearly she sees guns as chiefly as “ Black on black problem “ and thinks the answer is to treat black men as if they were not responsible for their actions . How dare she imply that certain groups are somehow incapable of moral behaviour because of their ‘income‘? White boys are in any case the poorest performing working class group educationally , so some of her ideas are plain wrong

Drugs Tsars , Respect areas , sixty meaningless criminal justice bills , re-habilitation and endless calls for more money but I `ll; tell you what you will not hear . Nothing about right and wrong. You can have ”X ray cameras in schools “, ID cards, helmet mounted cameras and microphones hidden in lamp posts all of which we are getting ,but no amount of state surveillance can replace the moral foundations of society . Prisons are for punishment and criminals are guilty not society . The cause of crime I would like to be tough on is Meral Ece and the rest who have made a living out of poisoning the spring from which the precious civility of this country and Borough flowed.

( newmania)

Vice Chairman Islington North Conservatives

You`ve Ruined Everything !

I `m a bit bored with Politics at the moment , this tea leaf reading of the locals leaves me a bit cold ,. ‘Looks promising , who knows , move on ?’ That does it for me anyway . I was looking at the dreadful news of the poor Mc Cann family and I `m sure parents in particular are horrified at the hell they must be in . I have nothing terribly new to say about it but to Mrs . N and I the aspect of it that immediately caught our attention was the fact that they had left three very young children alone . Perhaps it wasn’t` unreasonable , although I wouldn’t have done it myself , but that doesn’t matter now . If she is not returned what price the marriage. Which of them said it was “ alright”…… I wish them luck
By coincidence we had one of those days when you almost wonder if the little darling is worth the agony and I wrote this doggerel as it came out just now . It isn’t really autobiographical just a quick snap of one small part of the picture somewhat exaggerated The spectacle Maddie`s of Loss reminds me how happy I am with what I have . It isn’t always easy though..
………….

I love him of course, but just today
He always seemed to be in the way.
M and I were going to go ..
To the Sacre Coeur , which we used to know
.When joy peeped over the rim of a glass
And I couldn’t keep my hands off her a----
We were two ,and one , and just us ,
But last time we tried it , he made such a fuss…..
So instead we decided to go to the Zoo
“Look Lions ! “, we enthused , as you do.
With all of which he was unimpressed.
So for Thirty three pounds we came to rest
At the Postman Pat ride by the fish and chip place ,
We tried to explain why it wasn’t` a waste ..
which it was . Its just sometimes , I get so tired
He burns up our money so I `m working hard
M is just bored , being mummy all day
( And knows this is something you cannot say)
Then we treat each other so carelessly now
And battalions of grievances quietly grow ,
In readiness for the smallest of things .
Like whose turn it is to look after him
We love him we do , he holds our hearts
In his tight little fist but sometime he ‘starts ‘
When you’ve just had enough , and you say “ For god`s sake “
Don’t we ever , not ever
Deserve a break

And whenever you think you are paranoid and you could relax a bit , something like this happens and you promise inwardly never to let the vigilance slip , not even for a second .

Back to Politics tomorrow

Can I have that but in blue please

I ve been trying to buy a house and busy but I snitched this from the excellent Men Sana ( Men`s Sauna ). I do like large slabs of a single primary colour like blue.Mondrian is my inspiratio and ...oo look the political map of the country is just as I like it