The Garden Girl`s Tale

Mr. Brown’s peculiar personality yields much to trouble us . The persistent rumours that he behaves with Blairite arrogance to the civil service bubble from furtive off record lunches with Journalists . The sight of his physical revulsion at facing criticism at PMQ`s and the slimy way he was ready to dump Harriet Harman for example .Peter Oborne in this weeks Spectator has obviously got hold of something however that in its way , is rather more unpleasant .
The Secretaries at Number 10 are known as “Garden Girls” for some reason. I watched Winston Churchill’s now elderly assistant recalling his humour and determination her eyes still shining with affection only last year. All the recent PM`s were adored by the Garden Girls . John Major , of course , but equally Tony Blair and most of all Margaret Thatcher. None of theses PM`s were ever other than courteous and considerate even under enormous pressure . .Only Gordon Brown has vented his frustration on his secretaries . He has often shouted humiliating abuse and physically turfed a girl out of a chair to use the keyboard himself . I believe this account of intemperate conduct . I believe it because the theory that is true and it was honestly told to the Mail columnist is infinitely the most likely explanation I can come up with .

Winston Churchill had the Second World War to worry about and yet ., with a little champagne and Brandy was able to “Keep buggering on” and show the humblest worker respect. In fact his relations with the war cabinet at times of life and death for the nation were a balance of the collegiate and the decisive. What a good way of conducting the nations affairs …

Mr. Brown is consumed by the wish to be great man , but whatever power he clings onto that is something a bully can never be .

Labour`s Pants Aflame

In the Telegraph this morning Denis McShane ,who I sometimes quite like is forcing himself to squeak out the pitiful suggestion that corruption is a cross Party issue related to funding. Bimbo Flint was spinning the same unconvincing line on QT this week. They are lying .

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/12/01/do0103.xml



The supposed sleaze of the Major period to which Mchane refers involved cash for questions .A few MPs and a few thousand . Actually cash for questions is still going on and Emily Thornberry was recently caught (see Private Eye ). Admittedly it was campaign funds rather than beer money but it’s a rain drop in an ocean now ... .

In our modern world of super sleaze such minor indiscretions barely rate a mention. Major`s travails were nothing to do with funding the Party which Denis is hoping we have forgotten .It is a shame to see him reduced to fibbery to protect his bankrupt Party ,Thus corruption spreads like ink in the Goldfish bowl.

Cash for peerages and Poulson style bungs for planning permission are of a different order. Cash for Private equity in return for favourable tax treatment and cash for Bernie Ecclestone are again millions not hundreds .Have we forgotten the cash for mortgages emanating from off shore sources ? Maybe so with the Augean stables assailing the collective nostril now one gets confused .The main stay of Labour Party fundning is Union cash , itself an absurd anachronism whereby many Conservatives are obliged to paying for Labour and in fact a money Laundering exercise whereby £10 million of ‘modernising’ quids are taken from the tax Payer and returned as a donation.Hard to corrupt you might think ...not if you try hard enough

Whether Gordon brown knew anything or not ,and if he did not know about cash for peerages he must be a co congenital idiot , he was running the election campaign , he presides over a Party emerded to use Boris`s favourite terms ,so far ,that there are no clean patches left to wipe the foulness away. Complaints about Lord Ashcroft are a red herring.The Conservartive Part remain more than willing to do without such large contributors as they have many small ones . It is the Labour Party who stalled negotiations by their ravenous need for Union washed tax Payers money to add to the misuse of communications budgets there sitting MP`s habitually engage in The use of Union clerical staff and ...well you could go on foever .

Their problem is this . Labour was a mass Socilaist movement for the working classes . It is now a Frankenstein stitched together from interest groups like immigrants , welfare scroungers Unions and public sector gaping beaks . Ordinary people loathe it and when it dropped socialism at Blackpool half the old Party left. It has no bona fide source of support only bribed votes . Like the slave armies of the Persians these hirelings will not put themselves out and they do not put their hands in their pockets . SME owners detest the anti business Labour Party but are generous in small chunks to the Conservatives .

After Blackpool the lie of new Labour began and it is since then that they have been a systemically corrupt cancer on the body Politic . The country has clearly had enough and I doubt that losing the useless cadavre they are lumbered with will help. I will not be at all surprised to see them try though.

Shame on youi Denis Mc Shane , you analysis is ignorant vapid and childish . You are now spending credibility and at this rate you will soon be stealing that from somewhere as well


Liar Liar pants on fire ! It deserves no better

Should I ?

I was thinking of sending this to the local paper , what do you think ?Too much ?



Three weeks ago we moved from Islington to Lewes and I thought the residents of this beautiful Town might like to hear how much we already love the place . Islington struggles to cope with 50% social housing 70% of whose occupants are on benefits. This toxic social mix in soulless estates hidden behind the Georgian façades meant that state schools were dumping grounds. Local Labour MP`s Emily Thornberry and neighbouring Dianne Abbot put their own children into Grammar or Private schools . Such elite establishments were not, of course, struggling to cope with eight languages, a consequence of the catastrophic multi-cultural myth they recommended for others.
To see abandoned Supermarket Trolleys and dog poo reported instead of ‘respect’ killings has made me blink with pleasurable disbelief .The walk I used to take to the Tube passed three recent murder scenes and offered a delightful view of Finsbury Park Mosque where a cache of arms was found some years ago. Efforts to monitor activities in the infamous terror magnet seem only to have dispersed the Islamic extremists .Several were attending the local college when they participated in the abortive on 7.7 to land 12 planes in populated US cities.
I have been mugged once had three bikes stolen and a scooter removed with industrial cutting equipment . My old and unremarkable car was vandalised countless times .I was lucky to avoid burglary but not so fortunate as to avoid the Police whose unflagging interest in harassing drivers was their only visible function.
The only bright spots were under threat. The new Academy , was being undermined by Gordon Brown`s quietly centralising policies and the right to buy Leaseholders , suffered vicious doctrinally motivated attack by the hard left London Housing establishment via Service charges amounting to aggravated theft. The best you could say about the arrogant busy bodying Liberal Council was that they were slightly less dreadful than the previous one lead by Margaret Hodge. That literally bankrupt Loony Labour Council flew the red flag over the Town Hall whilst the aristocratic socialist Mz Hodge let child care fall into the hands of Paedophiles and drugs pushers .

Lewes is Edenic by comparison . I look at the heroic Downs with a gasp of joy every day and the sense of a place where you can belong is palpable .One theme remains constant though. Despite the almost overwhelming problems of urban blight in London the parking scheme was all anyone ever talked about . Nothing changes

It was therefore with a wry smile that I read our anti Monarchy, animal rights enthusiast, MP, Mr. Baker , complaining about the local draconian Parking regime . Compared to the highway robbery perpetrated on Islington by his chameleon Party as a form of stealthy progressive taxation ;this is nothing. Mr. Baker is mysteriously supporting Euro fanatic but otherwise Cameron-esque Nick Clegg against the old lefty Huhne in his Party’s leadership election . This is odd given his membership of the high tax big government ‘beverage’ club. Can he explain? With the government visibly collapsing I for one would like to what exactly it is “this “ particular Liberal is claiming he believes in ;starting now. The marvellous people of Lewes have made a Town to be proud of . I cannot see that the slippery and nationally irrelevant Liberal Party is the right organisation to be entrusted with helping them keep it that way.

Just Get It Done

Just Get It Done !How often have I heard that in an office . I`ve had a thought about the increasingly slim barrier between Gordon Brown and the illegal finding his Party has been spending and hiding for so long . It really doesn`t matter if he knew literally or not . In Insurance what often happens is that company big cheeses will give an underwriter a target of Premium to write . They will also give him a set of sensible rating guidelines which will render his target impossible in the market . He therefore cheats by bending breaking and slithering around as many rules as possible .

Aforesaid grande fromages officially know nothing about it and if all goes well everyone is happy . If it goes tits up then it’s the fault of the underling . Except it isn’t.

Life is full of top people who say just go and get the money and I don`t want to know how and Gordon Brown , unless he is imbecilic beyond all comprehension ,must at least be one of those ..We instinctively know this and this is why we hold him resposnible for the serial debacles . His attempts to localise the pain are a fraud and sheer common sense is all that is required for him to be convicted in the court of public opinion

Elementary

Jon Mendelsohn is Gordon Brown's Lord Levy. He found out about Abrahams at the end of September when the Labour autumn election was building up a head of steam. He spoke endlessly to Douglas Alexander, the election coordinator about fundraising. Mr Alexander's office denies knowledge of the Abrahams system.

He is a liar.

Another case cleared up Watson

What Is This Strange Feeling ?

It was quiet on the yabobo river ....too quiet. Its one of those moments . Our move has been a spectacular succes . Our marriage feels in a happy phase and Master Newman is mastering skills ranging from eating nicely to using the potty.The Conservative Party are 11 % (60 Seats says clever Mr. Croydonian)ahead and I am watching Caroline Flint getting a roasting on Question time ,only able to bleat on about party funding which means Union money and more taxes. Work is getting better and I have got my broad band connection back .All in all I feel a strange thing I can only imagine is contentment.Nemesis is surely licking her dry lips even now .


Please give me just a few days before I am once again in a right pickle - Amen

The Hunters Hunted

Yesterday the judicial committee of the House of Lords has dismissed the challenge of the Countryside Alliance to the legality of the Hunting Act 2004. C`est fini for the hunting supporters in the domestic courts and I gather it is inconceivable that the European Courts will come to a different conclusion. I have certain interest in this because the sitting MP for my new home is one Norman Baker, who after a glittering career managing an Our Price record shop became the mystifyingly popular Liberal MP for Lewes. Mystifying because in a town with a clear pride in its country and its military past he hates the Royal family , drivels on about fluffy bunnies and their rights detests hunters and is a member of the beverage ( ok Beveridge ), group a far lefty tax and spend appeasing fidgety self righteous nuisance cabal .
On animal rights I am incredulous of the time wasted in Parliament. They taste nice as they are less likely to die surrounded with weeping relatives than with the salivating maugh of a predator . They are not furry people and opponents of it are driven by a bizarre pot-pourri of class resentment half baked pseudo religion and general wetness. Their strongest argument is that we have banned cock fighting, dog fighting, badger baiting, bear baiting and the like on grounds of cruelty. I would point out that we are tolerant of far crueller halal and kosher butchery as well as shooting and fishing . These are either popular and therefore immune from the busy bodies or enshrined in an ethnic tradition .I agree that the place of actions within a culture has a bearing on the way we judge them. We broadly accept that context is part of an acts meaning .We ban urban animal torture we did not ban immemorial country pursuits like hunting which take place where the life and death of animals is deeply written into its seasonal rhythms. Of course Blair’s interest in the ban was to appease the dogs on string nits that support the Labour Party
We have to kill foxes anyway and if some people like chasing them around what on earth is the problem The fox population in England and Wales is about 217,000. It doubles during the breeding season and reverts to its starting level . Foxes are a pest and the fox population has to be culled . In the period before the 2004 Act, some 21,000-25,000 foxes were killed by hunting each year (roughly 10% of those who died from all causes), up to 11,000 of these being dug out by terriers) Of those foxes which are not killed each year by hunting or on the road, the great majority, perhaps 80,000, are shot.

Would Norman Baker like to have law whereby animals are prevented from being cruel to each-other. Perhaps he would like them to come and live in his house ? We can assume they will not be allowed to smoke if they do for he failed, like a good Libertarian , to vote against the smoking ban inflicted on a sullen and bitter England by the “Party of the Working Man” aka photo-genic Nu-Lab media studies bimbo Caroline Flint .Don’t Liberals love banning things , unless of course they are ethnic customs ( every ethnicity except the English that is.)

In De `Nile

I have been teasing poor old David Boothroyd who said ....


Sorry to break the bad news to you, but Gordon will be back in come 2010, with a bigger majority and a strong mandate for his vision, a vision that more people are buying into and uniting behind, every day up and down the country

In Denial

When the ship that could sink began a-sinking
Some of the Party simply started drinking
As the icy water lapped
Up their trouser legs and spats
The chance of playing bridge that night was shrinking

When Vesuvius disgorged it molten lavas
Some Pompeii-ans didn`t change from their pyjamas
They watched the others flee it
But they simply wouldn`t see it
To bad news they remained distinctly averse

To die by being eaten must be vile
So keep your distance from a crocodile
I knew a chap fell in
And while that gnawed at him
He said “ Its lovely “

He was in de `Nile


Bum bum

They Never Learn

A poet I love is Phillip Larkin and this terse and yet poignant evocation of a dead love that still cannot relinquish hope is a favourite .The small tragedy of knowing to ask is pointless and asking anyway uses a Parliamentary metaphor which must be a rarity .
It sprung into my mind when I read this on the Coffee House blog about a funereal PMQ`s today.

“It is becoming pitiful to hear Brown return to his bleat about Black Wednesday, minimum wage, low interest rates, yada, yada, yada. It is like R2D2 running into battle armed with nothing but a war cry. He later mentioned floods, foot and mouth and terrorism in his defence. How far away those days seemed now..................”( Fraser Nelson)

“Since the Majority of Me
(P Larkin)


Since the majority of me
Rejects the majority of you,
Debating ends forthwith, and we
Divide. And sure of what to do

We disinfect new blocks of days
For our majorities to rent
With unshared friends and unwalked ways.
But silence too is eloquent:

A silence of majorities
That, unopposed at last, return
Each night with cancelled promises
They want renewed. They never learn.”


Brown is becoming a pitiable figure for a Politician that is the end whether he admits it or not

Human beings of which they know nothing...

Doctors prescribe medicine of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of which they know nothing.

Voltaire (1694 - 1778)


As the black Cloud of what I will inelegantly call Abrahama-gate bulges ominously over Brown’s head , I feel we are in the eye the storm for the next day or so and , my attention is wandering . It has wandered , skipped and whistled o`er the meadow and eventually come to rest on a Civitas Survey entitled , “Quite Like heaven “ . Not a very catchy title * , but illuminating
It shows us that that middleclass people get a far better service out of the NHS. The poor and less educated visit their GP more often but rates of heart by pass operation are 30% lower in low income groups . By every other measure the articulate and educated nab the goodies.
I have suffered from poor health periodically and it was one of those “ Conditions “ which , like the majority, eludes easy diagnosis. Without going into details except to assure anyone reading that I manage the very slight difficulties involved ,what happens to you in the system is this . The GP will refer you to a set of checks and tests which will show negative . At this point the faint suggestion you might be a self dramatist is announced sotto voce by the clarinet and the motif gathers to full orchestral grandeur as you proceed. You are finally dumped out of the system and everyone is happy except you.
At this point the poorly educated or those cowed by “Doctors” go their way and die of avoidable heart attacks in Glasgow (Life expectancy is 54 in some areas ). Not me .

I recall exactly the letters I wrote . I did some research and made specific complaints in a measured way. I referred to the legal frame work ,the system for dealing with grievances and did so in a manner designed to accentuate my familarity and confidence in the system. With tedious predictability I was whisked though to an astonishingly posh Consultant and some progress was made . As I explained to my wife , what I aimed to achieve with these letters was to non-specific. I only wanted to show by my tone that I was capable of making serious personal difficulties and likely to do so .In a bureaucracy the squeaky wheel is the only weapon you have. I used it and the oil flowed

One mans money is a good another’s ;one man’s letter may not be . There is a democracy about the customer that the NHS lacks.. Part of the advantage of privatising the NHS by degree would be to attack the Kafka-esque clerical inhumanity whereby keeping your nose clean is all. Power must be returned to the patient.Labour have told us “Choice “ is no longer an objective because they do not understand the weasel’s people become in large bureaucracies without a threat.As Doctors to our broken society they .." prescribe medicine of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of which they know nothing "



* -Speaking of not catchy I think we might have hoped the screen writers currently on strike might have come up with a zinger. In fact it is “ We write the storia , for Eva Longoria” Ironic or just crap. I leave the judgement to you

PS anyone got the top female recording artiste yet . Thats in £ record sales adjusted to today’s money. It’s a suprise

Brown- Crook or Cretin...

Labour's embattled chief fundraiser, Jon Mendelsohn, has (Now) admitted that he knew that property developer David Abrahams was donating to the party through other people.
Mendelsohn said in a statement that he had noticed the names of Janet Kidd and Raymond Ruddick when researching gifts to the party, after he took up his job on September 3. Kidd and Ruddick were among the conduits who gave £600,000 on Abrahams' behalf, to help him avoid publicity.


Did Brown know ? As I have said ,if as the the man who ran Labour`s election campaign and whose ties to the Labour nachine are his power base , did not , he must be a congenital idiot . Either way he is not fit for purpose but I think even the Labour Part are realising that , not least by his willingness to let others shoulder the blame

Carlsberg don`t do creches , but..

'A Spanish shopping centre has set up a creche for husbands. The mall, in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat near Barcelona, wanted to provide a place for husbands to relax while their wives shop. The creche has comfortable chairs, newspapers and televisions. The Gran Via2 mall has named it the "husband parking area", reports Terra Noticias Populares. The mall's spokesman said: "Everyone is loving it. We were told that some men are loving it so much they are encouraging their wives to go shopping!" - Ananova


PS -who is the most succesful female recording artist ever ? No cheating . Top Prize not available. This is rated by money spent adjusted to todays prices but its pretty clear who the winner is . Madonna has sold 500,000,000 records but mostly singles.The mystery artiste is all albums really and it is a staggering number with 45o Gold and Platigbnum discs around the world .


...and who was the most succesful singles artist of the 1980s UK and Europe combined ( did I ask this one ?)

Fund Me Senseless Abe !

When a Property developer gives large anonymous contributions we are enititled to assume he was mixing business with political pleasure at the very least ,unless someone can show otherwise . At all events the fact Abraham`s £60 million scheme went through enabled him to give generously .We cannot go on confrotning each fresh evidence iof corruption like the double take brothers.It is more than serial coincidence

Ashes to Ashes

The truth behind all the Labour Party funding scandals ,and I include the £10 million modernisation bung recycled by the Unions, is what they would call systemic .
When it finally became clear that socialism had had its day Labour Part ditched it . After the Blackpool conference half (literally) the membership left and it ceased to be a Mass membership Party , it simply became a branch of the new Market consensus .It had been a political voice for Labour as against Capital, no more . Capital by its nature has more money but the Labour movermment mobilised numbers who together were able to compete sometimes via the Unions (,hence the anomaly of Union funding today). Ditching its past made the Party electable but it ditched its own source of grass roots support and became cut off from real people . It was also cut off from funding morphing into a Frankensteins monster stitched together from progressives , Public sector workers , Celtic and some Northern old Labour and Immigrants , welfare , etc. Working people are now lower middle class . They had the mass money and prefferred to keep it .This same social change made England naturally Conservative and Conservatives the Party of ordinary working people

It was exactly at this point that honours began to be sold for cash . A close association was formed with wealthy individuals in Russian style Ecclestone , Private Equity, it is pretty clear that the property developer Abrahams mixed business and political pleasure at least and this was of course , on Blair`s doorstep. Brown knows all about it . I would be more worried if he didn`t.He would have to be a congenital idiot. In short Labour cheated .
The Conservative Party was never a mass movement and always had to spice up the prospect of joining with dating agency activities . It retains a large number of middle sized contributors and the focus on Ashcroft is really a device to distract attention from Labour’s problems . That is why Cameron is happy for there to be a contribution limit but this must clearly include the Unions whose members may very well not be Labour voters and are no longer a political organisation themselves .

To be fair to Labour, I believe it was a heroic organisation for large parts of the 20th century . My family were all in Unions until about the 1960s and I cannot conceive of an England without an NHS in some form ,albeit with private provision and an enabling government role , for example .Its job is done though and the difficulty it now has attracting funds directly reflects its political bankruptcy. Ordinary people , who it claims to represent will not join it and they certainly will not give even a small amount of their own money to it .

That being the case should be watching its coffin lowered with the dignity I admit it historically earned , into the ground . Instead it cavorts like reanimated copse and has discovered the perfect cadaverous leader for the role

Resquiat in Pace Labour .Please

20th Century Brown

When assessing his generals, Napoleon always asked “Is he lucky?”

Spectre “The goal of the organization is world domination. “



I hardly like to be so predictable as to launch into the many reasons why Brown is failing .From dark Courtier to Keystone Kop in a couple of months , I am enjoying the slapstick no end and as temptation has no other purpose off we go..

. I disagree with the various apologists, mad Hattersly for one, who have airily waived at the prevailing breeze and muttered, ‘ events dear boy, events “.
There is clearly the possibility that a Prime minister may be unfortunate but in the case of Mr. brown his share of luck over an inglorious career would satisfy Napoleon`s requirement more than somewhat. He was the inheritor of Thatcher’s reforms and Major`s judicious management already five years into the fifteen year period of growth. The plans for the centralisation of the Bank of England hanging behind the door when he moved in . Politically impossible for Major they were a hidey hole Brown jumped into. People forget the deep distrust the public had of Labour with the economy. He was saying , “ Look I won’t even touch it , I`ll tie my hands behind my back !.”Hardly a Brownite Policy.
With the explosion of the low tax new sector globally , he would have had been hard to out to play the hand badly and he had the even greater good fortune on not being there for black Wednesday which his Party would have hurled us into with far greater enthusiasm than the Conservatives. They were split over Europe and only beginning the long march from Business interest approval of the EU to nationalist loathing of it in a global economy .

Oh lucky man ! Now every paving stone hides a banana skin every hand a custard pie . It is not coincidence though it is because he is wrong and the good fortune of his early has allowed him to wallow in misconception. The good ship error has been on a wave or globally clement conditions and borrowing and this buoyancy has disguised the iceberg sticking out of its hull; . He believes the Big State project can work. He is a man of the Moon shot , or Concorde and all the rest of a grandiose impressive abut really pointless false starts of the 20th century . He is a 20th century boy .
Tax credits , his personal clown school , are typical. It was based on a US model which assumed familiarity with the tax system art low levels as Americans have . It also imagined that when you hand brake turn the civil service that there will not be squeaks . The dislocation directly lead to the multiple cock ups of disc gate and even more so to the billions lost in fraud and mistakes .This policy has not worked just as its recipients have not worked .

Enter one Sir David Varney , former O2 boss and “ adviser on public service transformation”. Previously he resigned over the intergalactic farrago of the tax credits but now overseeing a shift to a direct relationship between the state and the citizen. For this to happen he will need a new level of data , a centralised data base on which will be a “single source of truth “( shudder). Sir David wants a “ Joined up identity management as the foundation of service transformation”. This data we learn will be available to 26 countries and from NHS to Credits every computer based upgrade has been a disaster but still the order will be given. Gosh I feel good about that .....

Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,


Anyone who has ever been in the Commercial world knows what you are trying to ‘avoid’ is computers and what you are desperate for are people. No doubt there are savings to be made but it is folly to get away from the organisation of the most important bit , the people .David Cameron is trying to articulate a devolved country in which power is given to communities and small units . Privatisation of the NHS , dropped by Brown was a start . The Academies, dropped by Brown , were a start . Community schools will be a start. A country of myriad interrelated localisms and interactive units is a vision. This strikes me as 21st century thinking and ( details to follow ) the right instinct.
If I could summon one image to describe the difference it would be the history of the Computer. It was only when IBM`s encryption was cracked that the possibilities began to self replicate and the revolution of the PC began. Look back to the conceptions of Hal and the villain’s lair in Bond . The ranks of White washing machine sized differenc –engines were an attempt to make a billion-dollar Brain. The future lay in small units connecting up in unforeseen ways and that is our future. Not the stasis of Egypt, but the competitive cauldron of Classical Greece in which loosely allied city states vied for the best thoughts the greatest vision and in doing so made for us the world of today.
Are we to be new Greeks or Slaves abasing ourselves before the Great Pyramid of Brow`s huge and pointy headed state.? ....
That judgement I leave to you..( as good old Bill Deedes used to say)

Tommy this, an' Tommy that

As mass-man and in a “ Complex society” we are attacked by ‘distance’ . A statement of the bleedin` obvious maybe but it is amenable to subtle application.
It has recently been discovered that less and less children are learning to play a musical instrument “ So what ?” Some would say , and you will guess I am not one of them The “So what “, is not ,as you might think to do with virtuosity and this gives me a chance to move seamlessly onto my favourite subject musically speaking ....DO RAY ME ME ME ME...and so on, which used to be called the singer’s scale.
I went through the trials and tribulations of Piano lessons not to say Cello lessons at which I had even less aptitude . Without ever having any exceptional ability I have got a lot of fun out of it over the years and our move to Lewes has allowed me to unpack the kit I once spent fortunes on in the so called “ Music Room”. I have a set of Keyboards mounted one above the other and various sound producing devices notable a superb Piano and some nice retro Organ tones .
Last night I watched “ Little Orphan Annie “and found it rather endearing . Certainly it has a couple of great shows songs , and I am also a bit of an amateur song writers as it happens . I immediately rushed of to the Piano to work out
how to play“Tomorrow “.It could equally have been any number of far groovier examples, I hasten to add , but I was struck by the architecture of the song . Its simple bodness you might say. Should anyone be interested in the key of C , from which I could easily transpose now , it goes like this as far as I can tell ( Oh I put the note in the bass in brackets )

The Sun`ll come out tomorrow bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow , there`ll be sun
C F maj A min D min7 Emin7 A min
F (G) G
Repeat with D ins bass at end
Chorus
Tomorrow Tomorrow I love ya’ tomorrow your only a day away
C Cmaj7 C7 F( A) C ( G) F(G) G C
Then there’s a minor middle eight with a modulated key which is satisfyingly traditional
C min Cmin7 A flat maj 7 B flat E flat E flat ( G) F (G) G..
And back into the chorus

Good bit of work that . Now the point is not my mercurial talent ( ho ho ) the point is that having grappled with song writing the rules , the difficulties the techniques I am able to appreciate those who are accomplished to a far greater degree . Remove the participation and you have a diminished experience. That part which goes though the process of creation and appreciates the achievement will die .
People, as Brecht observed, watch football in this understanding way , which is healthy but tend to watch drama in a docile empathetic way whereby you experience the emotion of the characters only . Our drama is therby coarsened. Most of our lives are similarly coarsened by having things served to us in handy sachet’s, in gloopy baby friendly easily digestible form. We cannot criticise because we do not develop the critical faculty crucially associated with real experience

In many other ways ,we are becoming Ipod listeners not players ., a cast of mind that will watch a film of a bonfire but not experience one as they did in Cornwall last year.

One of the ways we are detached is from the efforts of the fighting men and women who bankroll our safety. The recent ambush of Gordon Brown whose Government have treated the forces shamefully was widely reported but there is a scarcely the outrage that is due . This fighting is , after all ,a long way away and no-one has to look. We imagine that this land of peace and plenty is guaranteed by the Eurovision song contest. It is inconceivable we feel that you could have a war “Here” with such things to occupy us .


That’s why in its way I found the story of the wounded men at the Defence Services Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Hedley court as shocking a marker of our slither into infanthood as any. Two women complained about their presence at a local pool onthe basis that these men with mangled and missing limbs had not paid ..HAD NOT PAID !!!!! I think they have paid plenty. The depressed Servicemen say its difficult to fit in when everyone is talking about X factor and no-one cares what they have done .Perrhaps this will always be the way it certainly was in Rudyard Kipling’s day

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's ``Thank you, Mister Atkins,'' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's ``Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'' when the band begins to play.”...

.... but for these women to complain the sight of wounds was upsetting is surely a new refinement in coarseness of apprehension. As if neither the fighting nor the men were real at all . No more so than a Television programme they might complain about .

For the sake of cultural life we should play instruments , write poetry and get real experience . We cannot live every life but our imaginations must be re-awakened before we slip into brutish inertia. I do not mean pointless empathising I mean a critical understanding of different experience. The sort of reaction that does not make you cry but makes you do something !