the brilliantly leaping gazelle

A few minutes ago as I was about to post this, I must’ve pressed the wrong button. All my links vanished and I’ve been staring at a screen for to long for me to go back and put them all back. But they were there.

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If there’s one issue that neatly encapsulates the point I was trying to make in my post of a few days ago – that basically it isn’t Plonker or Labour MP’s who effectively wield the power in the Labour Party, it’s their grassroots activists who do – then its transgender rights.

Quite when this insidious strain of activist absolutism first started to manifest itself within the Labour Party I’m not sure of, but its certainly deeply embedded in it now.  I have neither the time nor the inclination to list the many ways in which this absurdity has been weaponised to silence critics of it within the Labour party. 

But all one really needs to know about how effective has its influence been in corrupting biological reality in pursuit of ideological idiocy was perhaps best expressed in 2023, when Plonker spouted the nonsense ‘that 99.9% of women don’t have a penis.’.

This is a man who wants us to trust enough him enough that we would confidently put his finger on the nuclear trigger yet he thought, up until a few days ago, that 0.01% – or one in a thousand women – had penises. And it’s only because another man, a man whom he respects contracted him, only then did he backtrack?  That’s a good look!

But do I believe him, do I now trust that this is now his firm belief? That it isn’t just a very short term election strategy, one to designed to reassure proper women that single sex spaces and activities will be protected under a Labour government? That when he first closes the door in Downing Street, he won’t also be closing the the door on them?

No. I believe that Plonker only has only one principle and that is that he should be Prime Minister and to that end will say or do anything to achieve it. And then unsay it if needed.

Remember when the Labour Party was a staunch defender of women’s rights, even going so far as putting its principles into practice by imposing all-women short lists on safe Labour constituencies? So the only possible candidate they choose could be a woman, and being a safe Labour seat, a successfully elected one. Technically, it was a form of gerrymandering, but one that was considered essential if the male to female ratio of MPs in parliament was to be redressed.

If Plonker can be so easily can have thought, even if he now professes otherwise, that some women can have penises, does that mean that now all the Labour Party has to do to improve the ratio of female to male MP’s in parliament, is to persuade some their MP’s to put on a dress, some make up and a wig?  

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Back in 2015, I wrote a post in which I lambasted the Glastonbury Festival for, among other things the cost, the crowds, and the constant rip-offs. These things have all increased.

Then ticket would’ve set you back £220. Now it’s £355. Then around 150,00 people bought tickets. Try 210,00 now. Then the cost of a licence to run a food stall food would’ve cost about £10,00.  I don’t know much it is now, but it’s hardly likely to have down in price, is it?  I do know that there are more than 300 food stalls, that the average cut that festival organisers take is between 25 – 30% of sales.

To make their money back, stall-holders charge exorbitant amounts for incredibly mean portions which in normal circumstances would’ve put them out of business quick smart. But with a captive market of that size, and with all the stall-holders doing the same thing, its capitalism at its most naked

And being one of those 210,000 isn’t going to be fun either.  There’s a terrible trade off to be made about where to pitch ones’ tent that a first timer will be totally unaware of, given that they combine a number of conflicting priorities. 

One can opt to be near to where the stages are, where the main food area is, but that’s still half an hours walk away – at least – and the nearer you are, the nearer to the bottom of the basin that Worthy Farm is in you’ll be. So if it rains, you’re fucked and not in a good way either.

But if you decide to go with a slightly reduced chance of having your stuff nicked and set up in what I knew as the Green Fields, its the best part of an hours walk back every evening, and when it’s dark and one is chemically refreshed, all tents look the same and guy ropes are just waiting to sprain your ankle

And even if you arrive early on the Wednesday, pitch up somewhere quite nice, others will soon have that very same thought and become your neighbours. Not neighbours in the lets-leave-some-space-for-your-privacy kind of a way but neighbours in the sod-it-this-is-as-good-a-place-as-any cheek by jowl kind of way.

So that’s the ticket costing £355 + the £5 booking fee, the cost of eating and drinking, say easily upward of £100 – given how a pint costs nearly £7 and a taco more than a tenner – and that’s before you’ve added in the costs of getting there and all the camping gear needed.

So essentially, a minimum of at least £500 per person for the dubious pleasure of attending a festival for which the line-up isn’t confirmed when you buy the ticket, being ripped off any time you want to eat, drink or buy anything when you’re there and to bring your own accommodation situated in scenes more in keeping with a humanitarian crisis with sanitary conditions to match.

Two people could buy a weeks holiday in Greece for that.  Beds. Sunshine. Sea. Space. Decent food. Toilets. It isn’t only the cows that are getting milked at Worthy Farm  

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This is not going to sound good, but we are nearing the end of the election campaign, and according to the polls at least, Farrago is giving Prada a run for his money. So only a cynic would point out that Prada has been handed a golden opportunity to scupper Farrago’s mobs’ carefully orchestrated media image in the form of one of his lot making racist comments about Prada’s family, he’d be a fool not to make the most of it.  

Back luck too for Farrago. He finally gets a place on a BBC1 ‘Question Time Leaders Special’ tonight and this bombshell happens mere hours before it starts. 

But seeing as you’re already here and you know how cynical I am, you know I’m going  to question exactly when these remarks were made because the timing of this revelation is fortuitous for Prada. Seeing as how it will dominate the news agenda, in the same way that the betting nonsense has, and will totally overshadow anything he says tonight.

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