the brilliantly leaping gazelle

September 8, 2015

Why the Labour leadership contest reminds me of the Scottish Referendum…

I know. It does on the face of it seem farfetched. But suspend your disbelief for just enough time as it takes for you read this post. This post won’t be a long one because instead of typing this, I should be re-editing a radio play I’m submitting to the BBC’s Writers Room, the deadline for which has the all of the approaching imminence of old age. In two weeks in fact. Also, with time being of the essence and all that, there are no links that you can click on to verify my claims. This is because a) I can see from my stats that hardly anyone clicks on them and b) much more importantly, I can’t be rsed.

Anyway. One thing that the Scottish Referendum proved was that young people aren’t apathetic about politics; it’s just that they don’t see it as having any real relevance to their lives. The political class and the media were agog at this seemingly sudden transformation, proclaiming that in order to capitalize on this activism by the young that there couldn’t, there mustn’t be a return to the old way of doing things. Young voters engaged with the political process was a good thing – as long as the engagement didn’t lead to a marriage.

Fortunately the ‘yes’ campaign lost, and by that I mean it’s all well and good people being enthused in large numbers, but only if they have the good manners to be on the losing side. And then the politics that could never go back to how it was, went back to how it was. The promises that were made at the last minute resembled nothing more than a panic stricken husband, who seeing his wife’s suitcase packed at the door promises to change, to give up this, to start that, anything to stop her leaving. Knowing even as he makes them he has no intention of carrying them out.

Another similarity between the Labour leadership vote and the Scottish referendum was the overwhelmingly negative campaign orchestrated by those who wanted to maintain the status quo. The ‘better together’ campaign might as well have had the funeral march as their campaign theme song; so unrelenting were the dire warnings of the terrible consequences of a ‘yes’ vote. Or at any rate, that’s what the media in England were feeding us.

The Labour leadership campaign has been run in a way that firmly embeds in the electorates mind that not only that here is a party at loggerheads with it’s founding principles, but more worryingly that three of the four candidates will say anything to cravenly appeal to them. That’s if the electorate can work out what they’re saying in the first place, as this clip demonstrates giving a simple answer to a simple question is somehow beyond three of them.

The Labour leadership has also demonstrated a quite breathtaking contempt for people – mainly young, who’ve never felt enthused by politics before – in claiming that people are only joining the Labour party to undermine it. If anyone is guilty of undermining the Labour party it’s the existing Labour leadership, Labour MP’s and grandees who are helpfully given media exposure to spread fear and uncertainty.

Tony Blair advising people not to vote for Jeremy Corbyn is a de facto endorsement to many who feel that under Blair, Labour saw winning as more important than doing and therefore moved so far the right they became wrong. Mandelson? Campbell? Their egotism in thinking they have any credibility with anyone is matched only by the platform they given in the media. If one were cynical one might think that an almost exclusively right wing press has a vested interest in running these stories with such prominence.

If you haven’t already guessed, I joined the Labour party as a supporter specifically to vote for Jeremy Corbyn. And I immediately got bombarded with emails from all of the other candidates asking me if I’d voted for them. Keen to do the very thing that the leadership and media verbwhores have been banging on about, I told them all I’d voted for them. In a way, this typifies why I’ve never joined a political party before, mainly because of what politicians say when they want your vote is watered down when they win. At least with Corbyn, any watering down he will make, will still make him more of a socialist than the other three.

And in what universe is Corbyn a radical? He’s only radical when compared to his rival candidates, who, lest we forget, all voted for the governments’ welfare cuts. This in itself proves how unfit they are to lead a party which champions – in theory – social justice, not just because they voted for it in the first place, which is unforgiveable. But also for the contempt inherent in such an act, contempt for the people whose vote they would later rely on. They knew a leadership contest was in the offing and still they did it?

One more thing before I get back to what I should be doing. Is it possible that young and old people have joined the Labour party because they finally hear someone articulating thoughts they knew they had and thoughts they never knew they had? And furthermore, is it possible that if Corbyn wins the Labour leadership and after five more years of toiling under the Conservative yoke, that the electorate might see things in a different light, and replace the farmer?

So much for this being a short post…..

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September 4, 2015

Here’s the link to my post with all the music pasted in…..

I’m busy polishing a turd to a lustrous finish, so here are yet more of my musical favourites…

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September 4, 2015

I’m busy polishing a turd to a lustrous finish, so here are yet more of my musical favourites…

I know last time I promised you some show tunes and other musical treats, but then this morning I was beleaguered by the combined ineptitude by my bank and mobile phone provider.

I was going to post a long and rambling post all about it – which would’ve been a digital version of a whinge and no fun to write let alone read – but then I remembered my show tunes promise. And if anything is guaranteed to put one in a good mood it’s a musical!

I love musicals, always have done. I can’t see what people have against them. Musicals – in my opinion – represent the creative pinnacle of what cinema can achieve. In no other art form can two characters spend most of the time despising each other and then in the space of a song lasting four minutes discover that they are in fact madly in love with each other! Musicals are unabashedly cheerful aside of course from the ‘Fiddler On The Roof’, which is set against a backdrop of the Russian pogroms and virulent anti Semitism. But then ‘Fiddler On The Roof’ gets away with this precisely because musicals are not like that.

Musicals also contain some of the most lyrically inventive songs ever written. If you don’t believe me have a listen to some of my favourites.

(If you are receiving an email notification of a new blog post then you won’t get the songs mentioned if you visit this website containing my blog then you will)

First off we have perhaps a song from one of the greatest musicals ever written. I refer of course to West Side Story. It’s hard to overstate how great this musical is. ‘Gee Officer Krupke’ highlights the magnificent lyrical skills of Stephen Sondheim. (And if you don’t know who Stephen Sondheim and why he is a legend in musical theatre then I despair of you!). This is taken from the Original Broadway Cast recording and not the film. Trainspotter alert! Somdheim drastically rewrote the lyrics to ‘America’ and some other songs for the film adaptation. How do I know this? Because I’ve got two vinyl versions of the Original Broadway Cast recording and also a CD copy as well.

Next up we have one of the two greatest songs from the Sound of Music. I know what you are thinking ‘I’ve every song from ‘The Sound of Music’ ‘, whereas actually, you probably haven’t.

Two of the best songs were not included in the film. This is one of them. The Captain is advised by his friends to capitulate, like they have done, to the Nazi’s.

That sentiment expressed above is also expressed in this next offering. Buried deep within ‘South Pacific’ is this gem. If I was a cynic I might suggest that this neatly sums up everything ISIS is against and why the hate any form of recorded music. Listen to the lyrics and decide for yourselves.

Next up, we have the second song from ‘The Sound Of Music’ not to have been included in the film. Again this is from the Original Broadway Cast recording, of which I have three vinyl copies – all worn out – and a CD copy. This is in my opinion one of the wittiest songs ever put to music. Coming as it does from the standpoint of two very wealthy people bemoaning the fact that the majority of love songs never have as it’s love struck protagonists the wealthy.

And for a completely different change of tone we have this little gem from ‘Hello Dolly’. It positively flies in the face of feminism but it is still a very funny song. Even though you know you shouldn’t laugh, when you hear it for the first time I defy you not to guffaw.


Next up, we have the superlative Pet Shop Boys and ‘Shameless’, from their musical ‘Closer to Heaven’. When the idea of a musical with music written by the Pet Shop Boys was first mooted, I was understandable ecstatic. Partly because the Pet Shop Boys were one of my favourite bands but also because they’d expressed contempt for jukebox musicals such as ‘Mama Mia’ and ‘We Will Rock You’. (A jukebox musical is the lowest common denominator of musicals and just plays the bands greatest hits – or not, in the case of ‘Viva Forever’ the Spice Girls musical – all held together by a thin narrative.) But the Pet Shop Boys did something different. They wrote completely new songs that hadn’t been heard before that propelled to story forward.

This is one such. Remember this was written over twenty years ago and is even more pertinent now than it was then.

Next up, we have this classic from ‘Gigi’. In which an old man gives thanks that he’s no longer encumbered by the mental torment that goes with love. Again quite possibly one of my favourite musical numbers.

And finally, we have this treat from ‘My Fair Lady’. In which Rex Harrison bemoans the rather baleful influence that a woman has on a mans’ life., and foolishly asserts that he will always be a bachelor. This being a musical we know that it isn’t going to turn out that way! He’s merely setting himself up to gloriously fall in love.


See. I was in a thoroughly bad mood earlier and just thinking about these songs has lifted my spirits. I hope it does the same for yours.

Right now though, I have a pressing appointment with Captain Malbec.

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August 22, 2015

If you got my previous post by email, I apologise, because…

…I’d embedded the video’s into the blog so all you had to do was click play. My blog has them, the email delivered to you, sadly does not. The link below will take you there.

And there was I thinking it was the easy way to do things.

I could re-do the whole thing, but frankly a) my blog looks much better as it is and b) much more importantly, I can’t be a*sed.

A deadline looms, so here for your aural delectation are some of my favourite cover versions….

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August 22, 2015

A deadline looms, so here for your aural delectation are some of my favourite cover versions….

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I do not own the copyright pertaining to any of the music, and no infringement is intended.

(Just in case you were thinking that I did.)

As the title explains, I’m taking the lazy way out again this week. Although it was disheartening for a cookery recipe I put up a couple of weeks ago to get well above my average number of post views.

NB – If you like the original and are worried that hearing a cover version will besmirch your enjoyment of it evermore, then don’t. Which is kind of obvious really, but still. But if you love any of the the originals, and want to hear them recreated in a different style, then you’re in for an eargasm. (Which is a word I thought I’d never use and won’t again.)

So we begin with a cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance’ performed by twin sisters Camille and Kennerly on harps.

Next up the Sabres of Paradise classic ‘Smokebelch II’ performed by Maxence Cyrin on a piano. Simply beautiful, this one.

Staying with the dance theme, here’s Daft Punks ‘Around The World’ given a latin makeover by Señor Coconut. Bizarre yet brilliant.

Find Aphex Twin’s status as some kind of musical wunderkid baffling? Does it all sound like a gunfight in an underground car park, constant beeps and loud noises? Here’s Phillip Glass with his interpretation of ‘Icct Hedral’. Glorious violin action!

Being a teenager at the time when acid house was in the middle of it’s drug fuelled party, I loved 808 States’ ‘Pacific 202’. So imagine my joy upon hearing this live at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s acid house, but done by a brass band. Perfection. A ‘Desert Island Disc’ for me, this one. Sort of. This version is from the second release of the epic ‘Acid Brass’ album and is a tad slower than the one on the first. Did you need to know that? No. But I am a trainspotter when it comes to music I love and that just proved it.

One of my many contentions is that the measure of how good a song is, is how well it lends itself to a brass band interpretation. As I write this, and as if to underline the point, the neighbores have inflicted the noise of a thumping bassline, some beats and what sounds like a woman being violently assaulted. My ears know how she feels.

Here’s something altogether much better, ‘You Only Live Twice’ performed by Ray Davies and the Button Down Brass.

Here’s Garbages’ ‘Only Happy When It Rains’ by Richard Cheese. A cover far and away superior to the original, methinks. You may not.

A male choir performing New Orders ‘Blue Monday’? Okay then!

The law against promoting homosexuality in Russia isn’t strictly enforced, as this police choir show, whilst performing Daft Punks’ ‘Get Lucky’. (It isn’t your computer. The sound quality improves after 10 seconds.)

Much as I loathe U2, this version of ‘With or Without You’ by the Scala female choir, is ace

And we end on some disco magic, courtesy of Inner Life and their take on Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrells”Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’.

Next week I might inflict upon you my favourite show tunes and brass band covers. You lucky people!

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August 15, 2015

As I’ve got other things to be getting on with, here are some one-liners…

He wasn’t so much pushing the boat out as launching an armada.

It is said that Helen of Troy was so beautiful that she launched a thousand ships. You’re so beautiful you could launch a yacht.

I wouldn’t say she’s fat but she’s certainly no stranger to the light of the fridge at midnight.

Anyone can be wise after the event, but the trick is to be wise before the event.

The things that were sent to try him always found him guilty.

Her rags had never been glad.

When he was apportioning blame, he gave her seconds.

He had a face not even his mother could love.

She looked like offal dressed as mutton.

An I.Q smaller than the radius of his kneecap.

If he hit every branch of the ugly tree on the way down, then the tree in question must’ve been a Giant Redwood.

Of course he’s bisexual; the only way he gets any sex is by paying for it.

The biggest sexual favour she could do you was not to have any sex with you.

I need some chains to contain my excitement.

As much use as a glass trampoline.

As much use as a sponge hosepipe.

As much use as pair of chopsticks in a sugar bowl.

As much use as a marshmallow axe.

As much use as brick lifejacket.

As much use as porcelain football.

Rock music is actually well named because when you hear it, you immediately want to cave your skull in with one.

Isn’t it odd that if disco music has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and rock music positively abounds with them, that no one ever listens to a disco record and hears voices telling them to commit suicide?

She had a chest like melon smuggler.

A definition of child cruelty? If she had triplets and you were bottle-fed.

She looked like an oil painting. By Picasso.

I’m as tolerant as the next man. As long, that is, that the next man is Alf Garnett.

I believe in equality. I hate everybody, equally.

I wouldn’t say she’s fat but when she has a mud bath it looks like a nature documentary

He’s not fat but when he jogs it reminds me of a jelly in an earthquake.

She was as deep as a puddle.

If manners maketh the man then he is positively Neanderthal.

He was a practicing homosexual in the sense he hadn’t got the hang of it yet.

If cleanliness was indeed next to Godliness he was an atheist.

I do value your friendship. The value being £5.

He’s so stupid that if he owned a flower shop, he’d close on Valentine’s Day.

For her it wasn’t so much the menopause but the menofullstop.

As much fun as sharing a thin bed with a fat woman.

You wouldn’t be wanted even if there was a poster offering a reward.

If you lived by your principles, you’d be a zombie.

If you were a voucher who would bother redeeming you?

All he amounted to was loose change.

He was a self made man, one that hadn’t bothered to read the instructions.

She didn’t have emotional baggage as much as a walk in wardrobe

If talk is indeed cheap then he got his at a jumble sale

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Unless, of course the word is “fire” and given to your firing squad.

If his mind took a flight of fancy, then it wouldn’t be long haul one.

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August 8, 2015

I’m on holiday, so for one week only, and in the best tradition of ‘Blue Peter’ – here’s one I made earlier – you get an easy to follow recipe for a warm bacon, prawn and feta cheese salad. With croutons…

Warm Tasty Salad

Quantities depend on how many you’re feeding. Obviously.

You will need for the salad:

Bags of mixed salad leaf
Cucumber
Assorted peppers (red, yellow or orange to add colour)
Cherry tomatoes
Capers
Prawns
Bacon
Feta Cheese
Garlic

And for the croutons

French Bread
Rosemary
Pumpkin seeds
Olive Oil

And for yourself, as you create this feast:

A bottle of agreeable Red Wine

Preparation:

So much more time efficient if you do this first, as everything is to hand and, much more importantly, ready at the critical juncture. Or you could always just fanny about. It’s up to you.

But make sure you’ve at least six receptacles to hand for this!

– First things first. Open the bottle of red wine and pour yourself a glass of it.
Check that you’ve got all the ingredients and the kitchen area where you’ll work is
clear of any unnecessary detritus. Drink some wine and congratulate yourself that
you’re going to create a tasty masterpiece. Finish the glass of wine.

– Cut the cherry tomatoes into quarters and decant into a receptacle.

– Cut the assorted peppers into then thin strips. Length-ways or not, it’s up to you!
Again, decant into a separate receptacle.

– Cut the cucumber lengthways into quarters, re-assemble and dice into quarters,
about half an inch or less thick and then decant into yet another receptacle.

– Pour yourself another generous glass of that very agreeable red wine. Have a sip or
two.

– Remove the fat from the bacon and cut the bacon into two-inch wide horizontal
strips. (A pair of kitchen scissors helps immeasurably with this bit.) Decant into
yet another receptacle.

– Roughly tear up the French stick into generous strips width ways. Tear the strips
open. Bung them in a large deep baking tray.

– Finely dice the garlic. How much to dice is up to you, obviously, but I tend to use
a whole clove. But that’s just me.

CLEAN UP THE MESS YOU MADE PREPPING. TRUST ME, THERE’S MORE MESS ON THE WAY.

Assembly:

– Open the bags of salad. Bung into salad bowls and bung in the cucumber.

– The strips of French bread. In the large deep baking tray? Bung in some rosemary,
pumpkin seeds and liberally douse in olive oil. Give it all a thorough stir. The
strips should be well saturated, but not sodden, by the oil, and generously
covered by the seeds and herbs. Bung in the oven at something like 180 degrees.
(Gas mark who the f*ck cares.)

– Heat a frying pan with a small amount of olive oil. On a lowish heat bung in the
chopped tomatoes and gently stir until they are softened but still have their
shape. Decant back into a small bowl.

– Using a thin baking tray, artfully place the pepper strips on it and season with
salt and pepper. Bung in oven, checking on the bread as you do so. If the bread
is drying to a crisp, add more olive oil. Actually, add some more anyway, then
stir and return.

– Using the same frying pan you used for the tomatoes, add a dash of olive oil and
a third of chopped garlic and under a low to medium heat, bung in half the bacon,
stirring as needed so it doesn’t stick to the pan, until it goes nice and crispy.
(This will take a while, so have another sip or three of that wine and don’t
worry if you need to pour the contents into a sieve over a sink at least once to
drain off fluid. This is wholly expected!). Decant crispy yumness into a bowl.

– Check on the French bread. If needed add olive oil and stir thoroughly. Don’t
scrimp. Also check the peppers. Don’t let them shrivel to a Quentin. When they’re
nicely blackened, yet still have colour, decant.

– Repeat the process you used to such great effect with the bacon with the other
half of the bacon and another third of the garlic. Decant into the same
receptacle where the other half of the bacon is, and while you’re at it, have
another sip or three of that very agreeable red wine with a small handful of the
bacon. You know you want to! After all, who is immune to the smell of fried
bacon?
A demented wrongcock, that’s who.

– Using the same pan, add a small amount of olive oil and some garlic. On a
moderate heat, warm – WARM – the prawns through (if you need to repeat the
drainage a la the bacon, do so- hey you knew it might happen). Decant into a….

– Check on the French bread again. The French bread should be golden and crispy.
If not, add more olive oil and give it a stir, and use the time to clear up

Because…..

NOW IT ALL HAPPENS AT ONCE, SO I WOULD SUGGEST YOU HAVING SOME
MORE WINE, BUT YOU NEED YOUR WITS ABOUT YOU. SO I WON’T.

– Get the salad bowls ready. Drain and add the capers and the peppers to the salad
bowls.

– Heat the largest frying pan you have and with a small amount of olive oil and the
rest of the garlic, On a moderate heat bung in all of the bacon until nice and
tasty. (You’re cooking, so you decide when its tasty)

– Then add the tomatoes to the bacon, warm them, stirring carefully to
keep their shape and then add the prawns.

– When the prawns are cooked, give the whole thing a gentle stir and a minute, then
add the whole lot into the salad bowls.

– Now things get messy. Crumble the feta cheese into the chaos that is the salad
bowls. the heat from the tomatoes, bacon and prawns will melt the feta and
negate any need for dressing. Give the salad a thorough stir to ensure equal
distribution of tasty yumness .

– Take out the French bread strips from the oven, which by dint of olive oil,
herbs, heat and your above all, your careful ministration, have become croutons.
Bung in a serving dish.

SERVE AT ONCE WITH THE CROUTONS

These instructions whilst comprehensive, are informed by my own experience of recipe instructions whereby they’d be vague to the first timer, who needs clear guidance. And also advising one to do something one should really have done earlier.

It really is quite simple, honestly, depending as it does on that well known martial art,ti ming.

By the way, this was all nicely formatted until the WordPress editor f*cked the whole thing up. I’ve tried twice to rectify it, but to no avail. And, as the sun is shining..

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August 1, 2015

A couple of weeks ago I visited Moorfields eye hospital, ostensibly to have my eye checked but in reality more to satisfy the concern of my housemate, Old Blue Eyes, who was concerned for my eye health. The cause for this concern was a faint red line that was either a burst blood vessel or something indicative of a more serious problem. Initially skeptical about the whole enterprise, looking back on the results I’m bloody glad I did so.

Now I will admit that everyone has their own experience of the National Health Service but I have to say this experience was outstanding. From the initial check in assessment, cursory eye examination and then being seen by a doctor, took less than two hours. Which in anyone’s book is very good going and a worthwhile investment of one’s time, especially when eye health is concerned. The examination of my eye revealed that there was no major problem but what was really interesting and of use was what followed next.

In the course of outlining the procedure for taping up the eye at night – a lubricant applied to the eye, then taping it shut, then carefully affixing cotton pads to the closed eye to keep it closed before firmly fixing the whole thing in place with plasters – the doctor was mystified. Had I not considered using a moisture chamber? Given that this was the first time anyone had mentioned moisture chambers to me I was both ignorant of what they were and how they might be of use to me.

Given also that I’ve been to Moorfields numerous times since my Bells Palsy diagnosis and repeatedly explained this Heath-Robinson approach to taping the eye shut at night to them, I was astounded. Especially as on one occasion my secondary goal was to outline the whole rigmarole to a doctor, who would then send us a letter setting out the procedure as medically authorised so as we could present to a district nurse. Who as individuals – in their personal lives – may be bastions of common sense, but as a collective –in their working environment -they’re just bast*rds.

Anyway, a moisture chamber is a way of enclosing the eye, so that dry air doesn’t come into contact with the eyeball and thus the eye remains moist. In practice what this means is as I write this I’m now wearing a pair of swimming goggles. Not only do the suction cups on the goggles provide an airtight seal to trap the moisture in the goggles, they also have the benefit of having blue lenses that compliment perfectly any number of my outfits. I’ve also got a pair that not only have blue lenses, but a blue strap. And two with different shades of purple.

This point is of no little concern to me, as anyone who’s read any of my previous posts will no dobt be aware, I pride myself on my colour coordination. Therefore swimming goggles afford one a most excellent opportunity to do so. As with most things a little effort goes a long way. I was mindful of this when I was looking up moisture chambers on the interweb. A company in the U.K made moisture chambers in the form of ordinary blacked out glasses with suction cups on both eyes. Which were as ungainly as any pair of blacked out glasses would be. However the search also revealed that in the United States a manufacturer had made a moisture chamber eye patch that one could wear at night.

This neatly illustrates the difference between the respective healthcare systems in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United States healthcare provision is patchy at best, based primarily on your ability to pay for care. Whereas in the United Kingdom access to healthcare is free, based solely on need. Granted these are generalizations to make a point, but really, ask yourself, ‘Where would I rather have emergency surgery?’ But it is when one is looking for aids and devices that might assist in the recovery process that it really hits home. In America there seems to be a plethora of inventive products that imaginative solutions to every assistance, whereas in the United Kingdom there is a dearth of them.

However, the fact that incompetent bureaucracy knows no boundaries, was bought home to me – quite literally – when I to found my discharge sheet from my initial visit to hospital where my Bells Palsy had been diagnosed. The diagnosis was made by a specialist from the stroke team. As such she would have been well versed in all aspects of neurological care by the hospital, so it was with no little amazement that I learnt that the hospital was in fact a center of excellence with a specialist neurological unit for the South East of England. That further more one of the consultants had a specific interest in Bells Palsy. My flabber was well and truly gasted! Seemingly no one had seen it worth their while to impart this information to me.

However back at Moorfields, the doctor moved on to discuss possible future options for my eye. Observing that my current treatment regime of lubricating the eye throughout the day was unsustainable for much longer, he suggested that if no significant improvement had been made in three months then an internal eyelid weight would be fitted. An internal eyelid weight is much like the filling in a kebab, if you imagine that the eyelid is the pitta bread and the surgeon cuts the eyelid in the same way that the ‘chef’ slits open a pitta bread. This creates a cavity into which the greasy meat and derisory salad will go. The eyelid weight is the kebab meat! Only its very slim – less than a millimeter thick – and gently curved to the eyelid. Of course naturally my worry is that at the moment when the surgeon applies a scalpel to my eyelid he will have a coughing fit!

Next week..As I’m on holiday, you’ll get my recipe for my Warm Tasty Salad, you lucky people…!

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July 26, 2015

Introducing a new political concept – ‘daisanaid’..

In this week’s post I’m going to introduce you to a new political concept. Well, new insofar as I’ve just given a name to a concept that has had many practical and devastating consequences, both personal and political, since time immemorial. It’s the daisanaid philosophy, better known as the ‘Do as I say and not as I do’ principle. Or lack of one, given as it’s as foolproof as it is self-serving.

A textbook example of diasanaid in the political sphere is evident in the brazen hypocrisy of this government who, if they’d been subject to the same legislation they propose for trade unions, would be illegal. The government’s own press release announcing these plans stated, that in addition to 50% of union members voting, “there had to be an additional threshold of 40% of support to take industrial action from all members eligible to vote…this will ensure strikes are the result of a clear and positive democratic mandate.” This ‘democratic mandate’ they are so keen on only applies to others it seems. This was, after all, a government elected in an election in which, yes, more than 50% eligible to vote did so, but only 36.9% of those who did vote, voted for them. But what’s the point of controlling the legislative branch of government if you can’t make laws to suit your own political agenda?

And whilst it appears that public support for the principle of strikes is high, when that principle is effected, public support for a strike seems to be directly related to the affect on them – the amount of personal inconvienience that they themselves experience. But here’s the rub. It never occurs to them as they are crossing a picket line or denouncing strikes that they themselves might one day be on a picket line and striking themselves in pursuit of a grievance. This selective myopia – whereby people are seemingly incapable of looking beyond their own immediate needs and are unable to see how curtailing liberty for one ultimately curtails it for all – seemingly affects large swathes of the population.

I was going to go further with this point and suggest that the planned clampdown on strikes is in any way related to the governments plans to drastically curtail the working conditions of public sector employees. And so by putting the legislation in place they can greatly reduce the legal manoeuvres open to workers in pursuit of a grievance, the government has not so much changed the rules of the game, but limited the amount of players the opposition can field whilst increasing their own. I was worried that suggesting it was a calculated move by a government, aware that changes to the working conditions of many public sector workers would provoke fury and that by limiting the scope available to workers to legitimately pursue an industrial grievance, would greatly benefit them. However, since it was announced last week that George Osborne has instructed all government departments to slash their budgets by 40%, this is a moot point because a large amount will be ex public sector employees.

Again, I won’t point out the rather striking – no pun intended – dichotomy that the creator of the very conditions that caused the dispute in the first place, is then allowed to define what kind of protest is legitimate in response. It’s a bit like a publican serving someone drinks all night only to then complain when the drunk spectacularly projectile vomits everywhere. Like this guy. Nor will I draw your attention to The European Convention on Human Rights, which repeatedly asserts that restrictions may be permitted if they are in ‘accordance with the law’ or ‘necessary in a democratic society’.

Speaking of funding brings me neatly on to my main point concerning political party funding. The Labour Party has, for some wholly inexplicable reason, sought to distance itself from any financial link between it and the trade unions. The Conservative Party has made much of this, leveling the charge that somehow the Labour Party is in some way beholden to the unions. Bizarrely, the Labour Party is frightened that this charge will resonate with the voters and therefore the more frightened they seem, the more the Conservative Party bang on about it. Whereas – it seems to me at any rate – that the Labour Party should be proud and unashamed of its historic links to the trade unions. It emerged, after all out of the trade union movement and the expansion of the franchise to give the working man a political voice that had been hitherto denied them. Under government proposals ironically, union members will have to choose to pay the union levy that the union then passes on to the Labour Party.

Ironic, inasmuch as no mention is made of Conservative Party funding. If a political party is set up in order to promote and pursue an ideological agenda, one would presume that all of its funding would come from individuals and interest groups who either agreed with it or stood to benefit financially from it. Therefore, it won’t be that great a shock to learn that a sizeable proportion of Conservative Party funding comes from hedge funds. But there is no suggestion that their funding is in anyway related to a tax break given to them in 2013. Not least because as it’s worth under a £150 million. And hedge funds made a meagre $21.9 billion profit last year. Equally ironic is the omission from the proposals that shareholders are consulted before any such donation is made.

Yet another textbook example of daisanaid politics.

Next week…How my eyelid might resemble a kebab…

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July 18, 2015

All about my brother…

My last two blog posts have been necessarily serious, what with their subject matter demanding a more serious approach and all. For this I apologise. So in order to compensate somewhat, what follows will, I hope, be as diverting as I hope it is entertaining. And I know to be a successful blogger one needs to mine the shaft of one’s own personal history. But never having been overly concerned with being seen as a biscuit it’ll be on my terms. Therefore most of what follows will not portray me in a sympathetic light. But then I did tell you in the first line of my first post ‘that I put the me into mean.’ Didn’t I?

My brother is eighteen months younger than me, and so as I’ve always told him, there has only been nine months where he hasn’t been bothering me. Despite us growing up in a three-bedroom house, my brother and I shared a bedroom until I left home at eighteen. It was only when I told my nemesis about this, and she was speechless, that I thought it a tad unusual. ‘Didn’t you find it, well, odd, that two adolescent boys, coping with puberty and all that that entails, shared a room when there was a spare bedroom?’ was the gist of her argument. But that’s the thing. When you’re in a situation, you don’t think to yourself ‘Hang on!’; you’re too busy getting on with it to notice. And besides, the spare bedroom was used, mainly to drive me spare.

We both went to the same primary school, which was only ten minutes walk away from our house. We’d arrive home from school half an hour before Mum got back from work. So naturally we’d have a bundle. (A bundle is like a fight except no major injury is sustained.) And then minutes before Mum was due back, we’d stop, tidy up the mess we’d made, neaten our clothes and present a façade of sibling harmony, which I suspect never fooled her.

My brother has asthma. What it meant to me, who had to share a room with him, was countless nights of interminable wheezing. So what if he couldn’t breathe? I couldn’t sleep! As a child consequences are the last thing on your mind. Had they been, I wouldn’t in the summer months when the pollen was high, have emptied his inhaler. Nor would I have deliberately engineered bundles whereby I’d drag him into the garden, hold him face down in the grass inducing an asthma attack, causing him to lurch indoors for his inhaler. And laugh like a drain when he found it empty, his difficulty breathing hampering his instant desire for violent revenge. As I write these words I know I should feel a sense of shame, but actually I feel only admiration for having had the foresight to think ahead and plan accordingly. The fact it worked so often gives a revealing insight into our characters.

If you’re feeling sorry for him, don’t. Whenever something deserving of a punishment for the guilty party was discovered, Mum would ask us both if we’d done it. He would always decry any knowledge of anything untoward whilst wearing a look of earnest honesty. Me, on the other hand, who knew full well he’d done it and had listened to his denials, would snigger throughout, enough evidence to convict me in the court of Mum. A bundle would then follow at the earliest opportunity. One of these stopped me partaking in the highlight of the whole primary school experience – the summer week away in Swanage.

Bear in mind that every year ALL of the fourth year at my primary school went away to Swanage. Even the children on free school meals went. (Hey – we were children!) It was a very big deal. For what seemed like all of the fourth year, all our lessons had a Swanage related theme. At the time I was also in the Scouts, and a few weeks before Swanage, Mum had bought me some steel toe-capped Doc Marten’s for camping. For some inexplicable reason, I was wearing these when we had a bundle. I kicked him, not very hard, but you’d think he’d been shot the way he screamed. Loud enough for Mum to hear, and loud enough for her to put the sand in my sandwiches (in other words, she said I couldn’t go. Which was after all, why he was screaming so loud in the first place!) She still claims to have no memory of doing so, he says I’ve got it all wrong and that it did hurt. All I know is that I’ve been to Swanage since – going again in a couple of weeks in fact – and as Old Harry’s Rock and Durdle Door are childhood memories I never had, they never can as an adult.

Every Saturday, Mum would do a weekly shop and as a treat for not wrecking the house, she’d make us crusty rolls filled with cheese, ham, tomatoes, etc.. We’d also get a large jam doughnut. Now I know this sounds sad, but this is how competitive we were with each other; we’d scoff the rolls and leave the doughnut. For ages. One of us would then crack and eat the doughnut whereupon the other would take the smallest possible bites out of their one, all the while making infuriatingly pleasurable noises as they did, interspersed with “Oh I’m too full, I can’t eat all of this, d’you want it?” Or else when one finally got to the jam groaning in a way that would be better suited to a more adult activity.

A few years ago my brother and I were playing tennis. Or to be exact, he was playing tennis whilst I was flailing my limbs around in an increasingly uncoordinated manner the longer my humiliation continued. His frankly patronizing comments only added insults to indignity. One shot, which I had no hope of returning, sent me crashing to the ground with a combination of dust and grazed knees. We played on, another two sets I think. I’d like to say he’s a gracious winner and I suppose if he’d beaten anyone else, he would’ve been. But he’d beaten me. Not actually beaten. More like thrashed. So he ‘phoned me the next day to gloat. He’d tried me earlier, where had I been? To the hospital said I. For what, he said? To have my wrist seen to, I answered, giving the receiver a bash to prove that the plaster on my wrist wasn’t a sticking one. There was a long pause. He knew that I knew what he was thinking. That even though he’d won on points, because I’d played on with a fractured wrist, and not said anything – in other words styled it out – I’d won, because that’s the sort of thing he’d pull on me.

(To anyone without a sibling a couple of years older or younger, that kind of thinking will make no sense whatsoever.)

Basically, my brother can wind me up and irritate me in a way that no-one else can but this fact is more than offset by the fact that he can also make me laugh like no-one else can. When people who know me meet him they’re perplexed. We don’t look alike, sound alike, have in any way a similar outlook on things, our values and our aspirations are so divergent, that in short if we weren’t related to each other, I don’t think we’d know each other. (I imagine that he thinks the same about me.)

But here’s the rub – and anyone with siblings will recognize this – that whilst you can and do slag them off, cast aspersions as to their character, motivations and lifestyle and much besides, if anyone else interprets that as an invitation to do likewise they quickly and with swearing realise it isn’t. It’s an ‘I’ve paid my dues, I’ve put the hours in, you haven’t.’ kind of thing. It’s weird how it’s the things that at the time seemed the most awful thing in the history of ever that had happened to you, but now with the passing years, you look back on them fondly.

Except for Swanage.

Next time…Is Sajid Javid the political equivalent of The Mekon…

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