All the President’s blogs....
When I awake, crusty eyed, breath reeking like 3 day old road kill that’s been kept in the greenhouse, eyes moving independently of each other like a goggle eyed lizard, what I crave is routine, order and clarity. In the morning I lack the apparatus to cope with surprises, uncertainty and the last of the milk smelling a bit ripe. Once I get up, after a quick rum and coke, I’m usually going to spend the next half an hour or so trying to resurrect the sensation in the left side of my face by weakly prodding it with my finger and pouring half of Columbia’s export quota of coffee into my gullet at Norris McWhirter bothering speed.
This morning I woke seeking comfort and assurances from my telly box that we had a clear winner, with a mandate, a will and a giant shit-eating grin on his mush, ready to get on with driving this country into the ground. Oh. Wait... What’s all these graphs? What’s going on? Why’s HE still in there???? Nothing like clarity to start the day.
The news outlets political correspondents probably spent the night leaping from buttock to buttock in moist excitement at the prospect of the election coverage rumbling on during the melee of a hung Parliament and the amusing prospect of covering Brown as he takes up a squat in Downing Street. However, this excitement began to recede in the cold light of day as everyone conceded that they hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on, who was in charge and what the bloody hell we were going to do about it. Journalist and commentator alike were rounded up like cattle and shovelled in front of the cameras to give us incisive reporting, such as “the prevailing mood is confusion”. Mostly this confusion seemed to be happening between the reporters themselves, whilst the population at large produced a collective shrug of the shoulders (probably large enough to be seen from space) got off their arses and went to work.
So with parliament hanging like a piñata waiting for a college student with bleary vision to take a ruddy great stick to it, I frankly have had just about enough of it all. While Gord spends the morning checking his lease at number 10 to see if he can get planning permission to bring a hoard of gypsy caravans onto Downing Street to blockade himself in, leaving Cameron outside the gates trying to rouse a posse and holding up placards reading “Not In My Back Yard”, the rest of us wonder what the bloody point of it all was.
The media seemed to be telling us we were surplus to the requirements of the political process after the expenses scandal by dabbling in self-fulfilling prophecy reporting, running stories telling us that nobody was interested in voting, leading to people to watch these reports, and tell each other they weren’t interested in voting. Despite this, and perhaps helped by the grandstanding, Clegg-over, love in of the live debates people turned out in veritable droves to either see off old misery guts or keep out Eaton-y Blair, only to be locked out of the polling stations or find their wasn’t enough ballot papers to begin with. To be fair to them, I hear that the current head of the Electoral Commission was only doing this job because incompetence forced them out of their previous position as Head of Ad-hoc Refreshment at the Carlsberg factory, but this is only a rumour.
So, a nation told that ‘their vote counts’ and implored to ‘engage’ find that it’s pointless and worthless turning up at all. Good work all round then. Of course, it seems the Lib Dem voters didn’t bother anyway, finding it all a bit tough going when it came to the crunch and having to lie under a duvet and hoping it all went away. Either that or their liberal nature meant that they let more bombastic Tory’s jump the queue, only to find that once inside they locked the door behind them and blew raspberries through the window.
So all in all, it’s an unmitigated success to rank right up there with the Millennium Tent-o-tron, Iraq-tung Baby and Gordon Brown’s entire life. We have no leader, no ruling party, no new opposition, no competence, no engagement and no no, no no no no, no no no no, no no, there’s no limit. I miss it already. Can’t wait for the next one.
Gotapictureofyoubesidemeyourlipstickmarkstillonmycoffeecup xx
Friday, 7 May 2010
Thursday, 6 May 2010
I is proper gonna vote and 'dat
The Blog of the Titans...
I’ve been an interested observer of this election and especially the tactics involved to woo us in the post-collapse, post-expenses era, as usually elections are fought on the “bottom line” battleground: Who can save us the most cash as family, as a business person, as a claimant, as a student? Who can provide jobs and cut taxes? Who can avoid looking like a total plum for long enough for us to actually get up off our fat surpluses and but a shaky X in a box with a big felt pen?
In this election a number of factors has meant that, rather than a fiscal campaign (and as much as Gordon Brown would hate to admit it) this has been an ideological campaign waged on concepts rather than strategy, on ideas rather than policy. This seems a perverse paradox at a time when our financial security is at its most vulnerable, but it does make some sense when you look deeper. The opposition parties have lobbied on the “change” vote and the focus of the leaders debates have been for the Conservatives and the Lib Dems to wage war over their credentials as the true reform party.
How is it, that in the midst of a recession, this election ends up being remembered as the campaign where Labour’s focus on fiscal security could be so easily undermined by the ideological reform focused strategy of the Lib Dems and the Tory's?
1. Obama’s successful Presidential campaign pointed the way for change agendas to transform into votes, especially when pitted against embattled incumbent parties with aging, futile leadership. British politicians are all snuggling up in their cosy beds with visions of mass global support rallies and Nobel Peace Prizes landing on their doorstep just because they represent an ideological opposite to an insane southern oil baron wielding a pointy stick in the general direction of the middle east and make some pretty cool posters.
2. The 13 year ruling party is running out of ideas faster than... errr.... a thing that runs out of ideas.
3. The lack of vote winning financial bumper giveaway’s. Traditionally we get pre-election ‘good timey’ budgets, electioneering bumfights over who can dish up the most tax cuts and moon tinted ‘boom’ promises. In this election, promises like that simply don’t make sense. In the wake of the collapse of the banking system, voters are more likely to view such promises as either fanciful whimsy or downright lies. Better not to mention it at all and distract everyone with fascinating words like ‘change’ and calling each other by their first name.
4. The expenses scandal means that the idea of politicians claiming to be the ones who will look after you financially seems almost sarcastic. The electorate don’t buy them telling us that they are the party to steady the ship, when the ship is itself awash with more dirty money and kickbacks than a prohibition era Chicago gin joint.
5. Gordon Brown = fiscal security = tax inspector dull = Labour. The opposition parties are so keen to put as much distance between themselves and Labour they’re practically falling over themselves to avoid Storming Gordon’s dour realism and trying to throw up jazz hands to distract us from the dizzying craphole we’re really in.
6. Rupert Murdoch is directing the entire election strategy of one of the main parties, ensuring that they keep hush about inevitable cuts and make preparations for all party donations to be siphoned off into the special Volcano Lair project.
All of this spells trouble for Labour, who at first tried to present themselves as a war cabinet: perhaps not the most glamorous option, but the safe one for the recovery. Then they tried “Agreeing with Nick” in a sorry attempt to woo Lib Dem tactical voters from behind the bushes by waving a Curly Whirly and blowing kisses. Finally they reverted to an original strategy of insulting their bigoted lifelong voters and amusing themselves by becoming a laughing stock, probably as preparation for the inevitable standing-down of Gordon Brown tomorrow and 10 years of unelectable infighting.
So with none of the parties focusing too heavily on the, not exactly joyous, spectre of the inevitable cuts each is looking to present themselves as ideological saviours, either as the party of “Fairness”, the party of “Change” or the party “for one” depending on their chances of success. One thing is sure, even though they’re trying not to talk about it, there’s a hell of a bill been left by the last lot. If I were them, I’d get out quick while everyone else is in the toilet.
As for today, whatever you do, make sure you vote. Especially if you want to be able to criticise, satirise, smirk at, throw eggs and kick your foot through the telly whenever one of their hideous smirking visages is vomited onto the screen, because if you don’t, the only goon to hate is yourself.
Seeyouontheothersideray. xx
I’ve been an interested observer of this election and especially the tactics involved to woo us in the post-collapse, post-expenses era, as usually elections are fought on the “bottom line” battleground: Who can save us the most cash as family, as a business person, as a claimant, as a student? Who can provide jobs and cut taxes? Who can avoid looking like a total plum for long enough for us to actually get up off our fat surpluses and but a shaky X in a box with a big felt pen?
In this election a number of factors has meant that, rather than a fiscal campaign (and as much as Gordon Brown would hate to admit it) this has been an ideological campaign waged on concepts rather than strategy, on ideas rather than policy. This seems a perverse paradox at a time when our financial security is at its most vulnerable, but it does make some sense when you look deeper. The opposition parties have lobbied on the “change” vote and the focus of the leaders debates have been for the Conservatives and the Lib Dems to wage war over their credentials as the true reform party.
How is it, that in the midst of a recession, this election ends up being remembered as the campaign where Labour’s focus on fiscal security could be so easily undermined by the ideological reform focused strategy of the Lib Dems and the Tory's?
1. Obama’s successful Presidential campaign pointed the way for change agendas to transform into votes, especially when pitted against embattled incumbent parties with aging, futile leadership. British politicians are all snuggling up in their cosy beds with visions of mass global support rallies and Nobel Peace Prizes landing on their doorstep just because they represent an ideological opposite to an insane southern oil baron wielding a pointy stick in the general direction of the middle east and make some pretty cool posters.
2. The 13 year ruling party is running out of ideas faster than... errr.... a thing that runs out of ideas.
3. The lack of vote winning financial bumper giveaway’s. Traditionally we get pre-election ‘good timey’ budgets, electioneering bumfights over who can dish up the most tax cuts and moon tinted ‘boom’ promises. In this election, promises like that simply don’t make sense. In the wake of the collapse of the banking system, voters are more likely to view such promises as either fanciful whimsy or downright lies. Better not to mention it at all and distract everyone with fascinating words like ‘change’ and calling each other by their first name.
4. The expenses scandal means that the idea of politicians claiming to be the ones who will look after you financially seems almost sarcastic. The electorate don’t buy them telling us that they are the party to steady the ship, when the ship is itself awash with more dirty money and kickbacks than a prohibition era Chicago gin joint.
5. Gordon Brown = fiscal security = tax inspector dull = Labour. The opposition parties are so keen to put as much distance between themselves and Labour they’re practically falling over themselves to avoid Storming Gordon’s dour realism and trying to throw up jazz hands to distract us from the dizzying craphole we’re really in.
6. Rupert Murdoch is directing the entire election strategy of one of the main parties, ensuring that they keep hush about inevitable cuts and make preparations for all party donations to be siphoned off into the special Volcano Lair project.
All of this spells trouble for Labour, who at first tried to present themselves as a war cabinet: perhaps not the most glamorous option, but the safe one for the recovery. Then they tried “Agreeing with Nick” in a sorry attempt to woo Lib Dem tactical voters from behind the bushes by waving a Curly Whirly and blowing kisses. Finally they reverted to an original strategy of insulting their bigoted lifelong voters and amusing themselves by becoming a laughing stock, probably as preparation for the inevitable standing-down of Gordon Brown tomorrow and 10 years of unelectable infighting.
So with none of the parties focusing too heavily on the, not exactly joyous, spectre of the inevitable cuts each is looking to present themselves as ideological saviours, either as the party of “Fairness”, the party of “Change” or the party “for one” depending on their chances of success. One thing is sure, even though they’re trying not to talk about it, there’s a hell of a bill been left by the last lot. If I were them, I’d get out quick while everyone else is in the toilet.
As for today, whatever you do, make sure you vote. Especially if you want to be able to criticise, satirise, smirk at, throw eggs and kick your foot through the telly whenever one of their hideous smirking visages is vomited onto the screen, because if you don’t, the only goon to hate is yourself.
Seeyouontheothersideray. xx
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Car-tharsis
The Blog that Shakes the Barley....
I've never exactly been the world's most confident driver. To say that I was a bit fearful to get behind the wheel of a car is an understatement to rank alongside Captain Birdseye's prosecution claiming the gaggle of underage boys locked inside the hull of his ship might look a bit fishy. It took me so long to finally take and pass my test that, while my peers would wind down the window of their brand new Audi Skirtlifter9000 to wink in a semi-threatening manner at passing honeys, I was relegated to waiting in the bus queue with wheezing grannies, shadow-eyed chavs and the criminally insane.
So leaving my flat to make the short yet terrifying journey into work, normally provides few surprises, just another 30 minutes in my never ending gigglesome highlight reel of almost-stalls, white knuckle gripping of the steering wheel and Chris Evans. I've come to terms with the fact that my daily foray into traffic raises my heart rate to rodent levels and as such probably counts as a workout and is perhaps the only thing keeping me out of the warm, juicy clutches of heart disease.
Today though was a special day. It seemed as though I had woken up on the day of the bi-annual festival that is "Optional Indicator" day, celebrated particularly vigorously on the outskirts of Coventry. I swear, it was like the frigging circus out there: car doors opening into heavy oncoming traffic, buses pulling into the middle of duel carriage ways, goons starring at me like zombies as they trundled the wrong way up one-way streets. All it needed was for Penelope Pitstop's garish pink motor to pull up alongside me at the lights, wind her window down and beg me to "heylp, heylp" her escape from Dick Dastardly. Dick bleedin Heads more like.
I admit that occasionally I drift off when waiting at a red (probably singing along to INXS, 10cc or other stock anthems from my cassette player which I refuse to update on account of its historical value - my car is like an episode of Time Team waiting to happen, only with fewer tedious small walls and more gummy bears) so that I might be a second or two slower to get away. I am a big enough man not to deny that I have occasionally flicked on the hazard lights when I'm undecided which way to turn. I can happily state for the record that I have once or twice been up past midnight smashing bits of jawbone free from the front bumper of my Polo with a broom, before heading to a local woodland with a shovel and a copy of "Home Eviscerater" (but that was only one school crossing and they really should have been quicker). However, no one can really say that I'm a bad driver. Even the so-called "victims" that have managed to retain speech wouldn't call me a bad driver.
Why is it then that day after day I find myself frowning deep gullies into my forehead and turning pale when out and about on my roads? All I want is a bit of fairness. Someone to let me out when I'm waiting, for people to remember that letting me know which way they're going might be useful information prior to me having to break so hard, blood flows through my tear ducts and my eyeballs splash against the inside of the windscreen like frogs popping in a microwave.
So when you're out and about tomorrow, pootling from point A to point B in your swanky Gogetamobile, occasionally turning your head to laugh at the peasants on the streets, please try to remember to take your eyes off them long enough to break in time, or flick on the indicator, or stop for a funeral procession, or slow down for wild geese, or not enter a yellow box if you can't get out, or indicate to switch lanes. Please try, or the next time you look in your mirror, you might find you're treated to the view of me, weeping whilst trying to maintain control of a tin box travelling at 70 miles per hour. As final sights go, it can't possibly be a good one.
Takecareandpleasedon'thavenightmares. xxx
I've never exactly been the world's most confident driver. To say that I was a bit fearful to get behind the wheel of a car is an understatement to rank alongside Captain Birdseye's prosecution claiming the gaggle of underage boys locked inside the hull of his ship might look a bit fishy. It took me so long to finally take and pass my test that, while my peers would wind down the window of their brand new Audi Skirtlifter9000 to wink in a semi-threatening manner at passing honeys, I was relegated to waiting in the bus queue with wheezing grannies, shadow-eyed chavs and the criminally insane.
So leaving my flat to make the short yet terrifying journey into work, normally provides few surprises, just another 30 minutes in my never ending gigglesome highlight reel of almost-stalls, white knuckle gripping of the steering wheel and Chris Evans. I've come to terms with the fact that my daily foray into traffic raises my heart rate to rodent levels and as such probably counts as a workout and is perhaps the only thing keeping me out of the warm, juicy clutches of heart disease.
Today though was a special day. It seemed as though I had woken up on the day of the bi-annual festival that is "Optional Indicator" day, celebrated particularly vigorously on the outskirts of Coventry. I swear, it was like the frigging circus out there: car doors opening into heavy oncoming traffic, buses pulling into the middle of duel carriage ways, goons starring at me like zombies as they trundled the wrong way up one-way streets. All it needed was for Penelope Pitstop's garish pink motor to pull up alongside me at the lights, wind her window down and beg me to "heylp, heylp" her escape from Dick Dastardly. Dick bleedin Heads more like.
I admit that occasionally I drift off when waiting at a red (probably singing along to INXS, 10cc or other stock anthems from my cassette player which I refuse to update on account of its historical value - my car is like an episode of Time Team waiting to happen, only with fewer tedious small walls and more gummy bears) so that I might be a second or two slower to get away. I am a big enough man not to deny that I have occasionally flicked on the hazard lights when I'm undecided which way to turn. I can happily state for the record that I have once or twice been up past midnight smashing bits of jawbone free from the front bumper of my Polo with a broom, before heading to a local woodland with a shovel and a copy of "Home Eviscerater" (but that was only one school crossing and they really should have been quicker). However, no one can really say that I'm a bad driver. Even the so-called "victims" that have managed to retain speech wouldn't call me a bad driver.
Why is it then that day after day I find myself frowning deep gullies into my forehead and turning pale when out and about on my roads? All I want is a bit of fairness. Someone to let me out when I'm waiting, for people to remember that letting me know which way they're going might be useful information prior to me having to break so hard, blood flows through my tear ducts and my eyeballs splash against the inside of the windscreen like frogs popping in a microwave.
So when you're out and about tomorrow, pootling from point A to point B in your swanky Gogetamobile, occasionally turning your head to laugh at the peasants on the streets, please try to remember to take your eyes off them long enough to break in time, or flick on the indicator, or stop for a funeral procession, or slow down for wild geese, or not enter a yellow box if you can't get out, or indicate to switch lanes. Please try, or the next time you look in your mirror, you might find you're treated to the view of me, weeping whilst trying to maintain control of a tin box travelling at 70 miles per hour. As final sights go, it can't possibly be a good one.
Takecareandpleasedon'thavenightmares. xxx
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
At (good) odds with myself...
I'd buy blog for a dollar...
I'm not used to hard work and that ain't no lie. I prefer to spend swathes of what would otherwise be productive time imagining a life spent on a chaise longue carved from unicorn horn, lying prone as hoards of fantasy bosomed wenches bring me dolphin kebabs, ambrosia smoothies and the TV guide.
Despite my imaginings seemingly limited to lounging about, indulging tedious misogynistic leer-a-thon's and watching the telly (perhaps I should become a Premier League footballer. As long as I didn't have to endure the twice weekly running about, all I need is a haircut and a lobotomy) recently, even this has proved to be a bridge too far in the "effort" stakes and I've been investing all my efforts into operating on a kind of sub-human level of inactivity where only my wild screams at the prod of the morticians scalpel can separate me from a cadaver.
This has the knock on effect of making me ever so slightly annoyed with myself whenever the daily grind of breathing, eating, hanging over and weeping silently at the futility of it all, threatens to raise my pulse rate above 'occasional'. Inactivity breeds laziness and therefore it becomes increasingly difficult to a) take the rubbish out before the council have to knock in the front door and hose me down with a mixture of sulphuric acid and Cillit Bang, and b) ensure that the one thing it's worth doing, still gets done. The "one thing" that I refer to is, obviously, feeding the blog monster, who I adore, loath, am obsessed with and avoid in equally futile measures.
To combat this, perhaps it's best to change tactics. Rather than weekly (kinda) updates on the weighty topics such as elections, iPods, watching telly, I could focus more regularly on the trivialities of my day: sweating, grunting, combing, murder. More regularly, but shorter. A bit like the children's version of the Bible, only with less fiction and more swearing.
For example, yesterday's trip to the races brought me, squinting, blinking out of the darkened catacombs of my room and into the real world, starring real people with slightly less regular ad breaks (I looked at an advertising hoarding occasionally to preserve the illusion that it was on telly). It had been quite a while since I'd been to the races, but I was genuinely sad that the weather was typically biblical for England and therefore most of the more eccentrically dressed racing crowd stayed away. By this, I'm of course referring to women dressed as cake decorations, having covered themselves in Bisto and wrapped up against the cold with a small piece of wedding dress material and 6 pints of Blue Nun. There was only really the occasional overdressed, multi-coiffured male to gawp at as he sported a V-neck, day old stubble and a suit jacket to indicate his sophistication, despite struggling to tame the twin demons of understanding betting odds and the concept of shame.
I wonder if he was able to comprehend the lack of willing, idiotic, awful people that he could impress, instead finding himself at an event populated by spit-fingered old men grasping their last betting slip, while their dignity is released fluttering into the breeze, and regular people, having a bit of a giggle with 2 pound bets and struggling to stay warm. Eventually even these walking clotheshorse chaps dropped their meaningless search for 'cool' and just decided to jump up and down and scoff profanities at losing ponies like the bloody rest of us.
There's nothing to be gained by trying to be cool at the races. Especially once you've reached the point where you are simply 'cold'. Still, better cold and living than warm and watching stuff do it inside the magical box in the corner of the room. Might be something in this 'doing things' lark after all.
Now budge up, Friends is on....
Seeyousoonerthanishealthy. xxx
I'm not used to hard work and that ain't no lie. I prefer to spend swathes of what would otherwise be productive time imagining a life spent on a chaise longue carved from unicorn horn, lying prone as hoards of fantasy bosomed wenches bring me dolphin kebabs, ambrosia smoothies and the TV guide.
Despite my imaginings seemingly limited to lounging about, indulging tedious misogynistic leer-a-thon's and watching the telly (perhaps I should become a Premier League footballer. As long as I didn't have to endure the twice weekly running about, all I need is a haircut and a lobotomy) recently, even this has proved to be a bridge too far in the "effort" stakes and I've been investing all my efforts into operating on a kind of sub-human level of inactivity where only my wild screams at the prod of the morticians scalpel can separate me from a cadaver.
This has the knock on effect of making me ever so slightly annoyed with myself whenever the daily grind of breathing, eating, hanging over and weeping silently at the futility of it all, threatens to raise my pulse rate above 'occasional'. Inactivity breeds laziness and therefore it becomes increasingly difficult to a) take the rubbish out before the council have to knock in the front door and hose me down with a mixture of sulphuric acid and Cillit Bang, and b) ensure that the one thing it's worth doing, still gets done. The "one thing" that I refer to is, obviously, feeding the blog monster, who I adore, loath, am obsessed with and avoid in equally futile measures.
To combat this, perhaps it's best to change tactics. Rather than weekly (kinda) updates on the weighty topics such as elections, iPods, watching telly, I could focus more regularly on the trivialities of my day: sweating, grunting, combing, murder. More regularly, but shorter. A bit like the children's version of the Bible, only with less fiction and more swearing.
For example, yesterday's trip to the races brought me, squinting, blinking out of the darkened catacombs of my room and into the real world, starring real people with slightly less regular ad breaks (I looked at an advertising hoarding occasionally to preserve the illusion that it was on telly). It had been quite a while since I'd been to the races, but I was genuinely sad that the weather was typically biblical for England and therefore most of the more eccentrically dressed racing crowd stayed away. By this, I'm of course referring to women dressed as cake decorations, having covered themselves in Bisto and wrapped up against the cold with a small piece of wedding dress material and 6 pints of Blue Nun. There was only really the occasional overdressed, multi-coiffured male to gawp at as he sported a V-neck, day old stubble and a suit jacket to indicate his sophistication, despite struggling to tame the twin demons of understanding betting odds and the concept of shame.
I wonder if he was able to comprehend the lack of willing, idiotic, awful people that he could impress, instead finding himself at an event populated by spit-fingered old men grasping their last betting slip, while their dignity is released fluttering into the breeze, and regular people, having a bit of a giggle with 2 pound bets and struggling to stay warm. Eventually even these walking clotheshorse chaps dropped their meaningless search for 'cool' and just decided to jump up and down and scoff profanities at losing ponies like the bloody rest of us.
There's nothing to be gained by trying to be cool at the races. Especially once you've reached the point where you are simply 'cold'. Still, better cold and living than warm and watching stuff do it inside the magical box in the corner of the room. Might be something in this 'doing things' lark after all.
Now budge up, Friends is on....
Seeyousoonerthanishealthy. xxx
Monday, 26 April 2010
Televisonandonandonandon
Back in Blog...
On my busier days, I find my time is taken up by at least 5 different activities (as long as I can count sleeping, weeping and trying to teach myself to be able to blink out of unison as 'activities') which I think probably counts as the third most dismal social life in the entire universe behind OJ Simpson and a disused fridge partially buried in a landfill. Entire weeks of my calendar are filled with tantalising 'To Do' lists, including items such as 'breathing', 'picking out new envelopes' and 'throwing away disused envelopes as the gum has perished after nine years sitting at the bottom of my bedside table'.
On my busier days, I find my time is taken up by at least 5 different activities (as long as I can count sleeping, weeping and trying to teach myself to be able to blink out of unison as 'activities') which I think probably counts as the third most dismal social life in the entire universe behind OJ Simpson and a disused fridge partially buried in a landfill. Entire weeks of my calendar are filled with tantalising 'To Do' lists, including items such as 'breathing', 'picking out new envelopes' and 'throwing away disused envelopes as the gum has perished after nine years sitting at the bottom of my bedside table'.
Luckily, I'm expecting my second cousin "Savagewithoutreservation" to come over tonight to catch up. We have such fun together. He normally starts the japery by playfully kicking my door off its hinges, jokingly punching me in the gut and hilariously picking through my wallet before pissing on the floor and leaving on the back of a motorbike driven by his girlfriend, Teela, who elegantly gives me the finger and drives off cackling as I'm bent double on the carpet trying to suck in wind and coughing up blood like a spitting cobra that's been cut in half with a rake. We have such fun...
Still, since moving into my new flat, I've found myself in the dangerous position of being back in control of every aspect of my life, leisure time and how I fill the hours between coming home from work and reporting to the parole board. This gives me a bit of a dilemma because, for the first time in nearly two and half years, I can pretty much please myself. Having lived with various landlords, my folks (stop snickering: I know... I know...) and in ratbag, metal grated, fear sodden hostels, located in the puddles that congeal secretly behind the backwaters of the USA, I've always had an agenda, or at the very least, been a guest. Now, suddenly, I'm the master of my own destiny. The freedom to explore the vistas of star sparkled excitement, glorious, thrilling challenge or character affirming, bleak and windswept defeats, are all open to me.
Or.... I can sit on my arse and watch the telly.
Yes, I have once again firmly grasped the remote from the sofa of life and am wearily flicking through the Sky menu, trying to work out if the gut-boilingly awful background music qualifies as some kind of human rights violation. It's been a long time since TV has played a significant part of my life and I was anxious to see how it had changed. Don't get me wrong, I have seen some telly in the last 2 years, but American TV is so awful, it seems as though it's been specifically designed to prevent you watching it, like some kind of perverse, Prisoner-esq social experiment, or a kind of oblique post-modern art form. After enduring that, when I've been in the UK and staying in houses not owned by me, politeness and common sense have meant that I have mainly watched whatever anyone else wanted to watch and picked up a book instead. Well, balls to that. Books.... I ask you...
However, I've begun to notice that things have changed in the digital era, and that something has gone badly wrong. On this, there are many, many far better blogs (hard to believe I know), dedicated to deriding TV's weakening output over the last 20 years, so I wont go into that too much. It is reaching a point where it no longer even pretends to be an outlet for cultural expression, more a declining and dying media slowly dragging on until it reaches it's inevitable event horizon, finally becoming a 32 hour a day rolling slide show of Simon Cowel's face altering imperceptibly apart from his ruby lips mouthing the word 'despair' over and over again. Meanwhile, across the bottom of the screen, a number flashes up so you can vote on which one out of Graeme Norton, Declan Donnolly or Thatfriggingmeercat you would like to come to your house and smash you over the head with a sledgehammer like a playful six year old hammering plastic shapes into the correctly shaped hole.
Although it's true that the overall quality of channels and shows has descended to sub-garbage levels, probably due to the proliferation of channels all desperate to leap up and down and distract you, I have noticed more and more just how little the schedules differ. When I come in from work, make my cup of steaming hot heroin and settle down for some hard core, remote prodding action, it's the same thing every single night, not ideologically, but literally. Every hour of every channel is exactly the same as that very same hour the previous evening, leaving you feeling drowsy and numb before you even settle into it. Now, I can understand the point of things like soaps having regular time slots, but they do it with the repeats as well, until you find yourself whispering 'Top Gear, Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Top Gear, Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Top Gear...' to yourself whilst slowly rocking backwards and forwards and waiting for Nurse Ratched to softly announce that it's 'medication time' and you can go for your tea.
The problem isn't the content, the problem is me. Why can't I break the cycle? Why am I trapped in this Groundhog inspired malaise, controlled by the 2 song visual jukebox pushing indifference into my skull until my entire sensory repertoire has been switched to a level below comatose and into the realms of Tess Daly-like zombification. The only thing approaching a response is chuckling sadistically at the pratfalls of the gormless interchangeable contestants on the inflatable, zero-budget, rat maze that is Total Wipeout. That show is on every day, at the same time and it's exactly the same show, every time and I still watch it despite the fact that it's totally awful. It's the TV equivalent of sitting on your arm long enough not to feel it when your second cousin's girlfriend starts bending your fingers backwards until they make a satisfying 'pop'.
I tell you what though, I've definately figured out the answer. If only I can track down this mysterious 'Dave' character... I mean, who is this guy, that we give so much of our free time over to his cheaply acquired re-runs of game shows and Ray Mears' woodland based, ruddy cheeked scuttling? I always assumed he looks like the Evil Emperor from Star Wars, wearing a dark cloak and whispering vaguely intelligible threats of world domination if he can't secure the rights to old episodes of Come Dine With Me before the end of the year.
I suppose that there is something slightly comforting about it all, knowing that every time you're bored, or life makes you feel like clamping your testicles between the hot irons of a sandwich toaster, or you can't afford to eat anything more expensive than previously sucked mints rescued from down the side of your elderly neighbour's sofa, you can always turn to the endless show reel of Friends / Scrubs / Hollyoaks that makes up E4's entire schedule. This in turn leaves you free to switch off the dwindling embers of your mind, lay back, and shower yourself with nothingness. I'm sure that bit of down time must be good for the brain? It must be enjoyable, mustn't it, to be totally oblivious to sense, reason or quality? If it wasn't, Avatar would never have made any money, would it?
As for me, well I'm discovering that there's a time for sitting on your arse watching the telly, but you can't do that forever. Luckily, I'm the creative type, so I sit on my arse writing crap that's added, regular as clockwork to a never ending cycle of mind dribble for you to pick over with scant regard. There's no way Dave's got me in his grip, he can take his schedule and shovel it right up his.... oooooo, I like Frankie Boyle...
OldmcrichiehadablogEeeeiiiiieeeeiiiioooooohhhhhhTheEnd xxxxx
Still, since moving into my new flat, I've found myself in the dangerous position of being back in control of every aspect of my life, leisure time and how I fill the hours between coming home from work and reporting to the parole board. This gives me a bit of a dilemma because, for the first time in nearly two and half years, I can pretty much please myself. Having lived with various landlords, my folks (stop snickering: I know... I know...) and in ratbag, metal grated, fear sodden hostels, located in the puddles that congeal secretly behind the backwaters of the USA, I've always had an agenda, or at the very least, been a guest. Now, suddenly, I'm the master of my own destiny. The freedom to explore the vistas of star sparkled excitement, glorious, thrilling challenge or character affirming, bleak and windswept defeats, are all open to me.
Or.... I can sit on my arse and watch the telly.
Yes, I have once again firmly grasped the remote from the sofa of life and am wearily flicking through the Sky menu, trying to work out if the gut-boilingly awful background music qualifies as some kind of human rights violation. It's been a long time since TV has played a significant part of my life and I was anxious to see how it had changed. Don't get me wrong, I have seen some telly in the last 2 years, but American TV is so awful, it seems as though it's been specifically designed to prevent you watching it, like some kind of perverse, Prisoner-esq social experiment, or a kind of oblique post-modern art form. After enduring that, when I've been in the UK and staying in houses not owned by me, politeness and common sense have meant that I have mainly watched whatever anyone else wanted to watch and picked up a book instead. Well, balls to that. Books.... I ask you...
However, I've begun to notice that things have changed in the digital era, and that something has gone badly wrong. On this, there are many, many far better blogs (hard to believe I know), dedicated to deriding TV's weakening output over the last 20 years, so I wont go into that too much. It is reaching a point where it no longer even pretends to be an outlet for cultural expression, more a declining and dying media slowly dragging on until it reaches it's inevitable event horizon, finally becoming a 32 hour a day rolling slide show of Simon Cowel's face altering imperceptibly apart from his ruby lips mouthing the word 'despair' over and over again. Meanwhile, across the bottom of the screen, a number flashes up so you can vote on which one out of Graeme Norton, Declan Donnolly or Thatfriggingmeercat you would like to come to your house and smash you over the head with a sledgehammer like a playful six year old hammering plastic shapes into the correctly shaped hole.
Although it's true that the overall quality of channels and shows has descended to sub-garbage levels, probably due to the proliferation of channels all desperate to leap up and down and distract you, I have noticed more and more just how little the schedules differ. When I come in from work, make my cup of steaming hot heroin and settle down for some hard core, remote prodding action, it's the same thing every single night, not ideologically, but literally. Every hour of every channel is exactly the same as that very same hour the previous evening, leaving you feeling drowsy and numb before you even settle into it. Now, I can understand the point of things like soaps having regular time slots, but they do it with the repeats as well, until you find yourself whispering 'Top Gear, Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Top Gear, Buzzcocks, Mock the Week, Top Gear...' to yourself whilst slowly rocking backwards and forwards and waiting for Nurse Ratched to softly announce that it's 'medication time' and you can go for your tea.
The problem isn't the content, the problem is me. Why can't I break the cycle? Why am I trapped in this Groundhog inspired malaise, controlled by the 2 song visual jukebox pushing indifference into my skull until my entire sensory repertoire has been switched to a level below comatose and into the realms of Tess Daly-like zombification. The only thing approaching a response is chuckling sadistically at the pratfalls of the gormless interchangeable contestants on the inflatable, zero-budget, rat maze that is Total Wipeout. That show is on every day, at the same time and it's exactly the same show, every time and I still watch it despite the fact that it's totally awful. It's the TV equivalent of sitting on your arm long enough not to feel it when your second cousin's girlfriend starts bending your fingers backwards until they make a satisfying 'pop'.
I tell you what though, I've definately figured out the answer. If only I can track down this mysterious 'Dave' character... I mean, who is this guy, that we give so much of our free time over to his cheaply acquired re-runs of game shows and Ray Mears' woodland based, ruddy cheeked scuttling? I always assumed he looks like the Evil Emperor from Star Wars, wearing a dark cloak and whispering vaguely intelligible threats of world domination if he can't secure the rights to old episodes of Come Dine With Me before the end of the year.
I suppose that there is something slightly comforting about it all, knowing that every time you're bored, or life makes you feel like clamping your testicles between the hot irons of a sandwich toaster, or you can't afford to eat anything more expensive than previously sucked mints rescued from down the side of your elderly neighbour's sofa, you can always turn to the endless show reel of Friends / Scrubs / Hollyoaks that makes up E4's entire schedule. This in turn leaves you free to switch off the dwindling embers of your mind, lay back, and shower yourself with nothingness. I'm sure that bit of down time must be good for the brain? It must be enjoyable, mustn't it, to be totally oblivious to sense, reason or quality? If it wasn't, Avatar would never have made any money, would it?
As for me, well I'm discovering that there's a time for sitting on your arse watching the telly, but you can't do that forever. Luckily, I'm the creative type, so I sit on my arse writing crap that's added, regular as clockwork to a never ending cycle of mind dribble for you to pick over with scant regard. There's no way Dave's got me in his grip, he can take his schedule and shovel it right up his.... oooooo, I like Frankie Boyle...
OldmcrichiehadablogEeeeiiiiieeeeiiiioooooohhhhhhTheEnd xxxxx
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Ash 2 life, ash 2 reality...
I agree with Blog...
So, I've taken a break from the Leaders Debate on SKY and the frankly astonishing sight of Gordon Brown trying to swarm up to the Twitter generation by grinning in a vaguely sinister manner out of the corner of his mouth like a cartoon pirate. It's almost sad watching him offering weak platitudes to the centre left and filling every silence by grumbling tediously about fiscal policy while flanked by NC/DC (Nick Clegg, apparently auditioning for the vacant 'jocular everyman' slot on the sofa of The One Show and David Cameron sweating nervously like a sixth former waiting on the results of the head boy elections) and batting back and forth sense and relevance while a comatose audience of mannequins wonder where Ant and Dec are and if there will be nibbles afterwards.
Actually, I really wanted someone in the audience to ask if the collapse in the economy was responsible for Iceland claiming their revenge for their treatment at the hands of the British Government by inducing one of their volcano's to vomit ash into the air like a Geordie chav on a hen night spewing 14 Jagermiesters into a skip. Indeed, the unprecedented ban on air travel seemed to send the nation into a kind of existential crisis of confidence. News outlets couldn't decide if this was a story of tragedy; reporting the families stranded abroad and chaos at the airports whilst simultaneously showing gleeful weathermen, explaining tedious looking satellite pictures and looking smug at finally being on the "big" news rather than only being noticed for wearing quirky ties or predicting drizzle.
In fact most of the major news outlets accompanied the doom and gloom reporting of 200 million pounds a day being lost by the airlines in refunded tickets with slide shows of astonishing lightning storms taking place inside the ash cloud. The ethereal and other worldly pictures made my eyeballs sweat with glee whilst also leaving me with an odd sense that an apocalypse was coming. If I felt like that, with Google, newspapers and cuddly-wuddly weathermen to guide me through the science behind it all, it makes me wonder what people who saw Vesuvius erupt must have thought about it. They probably thought it best to bar the door and stay inside out of wrath's way "Oi, Claudius, come away from the door.... I don't care 'ow 'ot it is in here, there's no way you're going out in this.... what do you mean river of fire? Come away from that window you nosy boy and help me arrange pottery into useful places to be discovered easily in 2000 or so years...."
Yes, there was panic at the airports, panic in the stations, panic in hotels, panic in Majorca, panic on the ferries, panic on the beaches, panic in the fields and in the streets. There was panic in oceans, panic in the wood, panic in the schools, panic the homes, panic on the streets of London. I wonder to myself....
Yet, despite all this panic, there seemed to be precious little once it became clear that the cloud wasn't simply going to blow away and become just another minor irritant, like the snow or the Conservative party, but a fully fledged threat to the viability of Northern Europe's airlines. With a combination of the recession, increasing fuel bills and losses going back to 2001 still putting a strain on the industry, the collective might of the airlines finally upgraded the ash from "dangerous" to "safe" which is the kind of leap of faith that I would certainly trust to a large corporation struggling to find profits to appease their shareholders, right up there with footballers offering marriage counselling or Tim Lovejoy opening a charm school.
Still, not all of the newspapers were convinced but the assertions that flying a huge metal object into a plume of broken glass, sand and rock is a good idea. The Daily Star (that beacon of sense and rationality) ran a suitably sensitive headline: "TERROR AS PLANE HITS ASH CLOUD" which was incomprehensibly pulled from airport concession stands because some namby-pamby travellers were a tad upset. The fact that the accompanying pictures and story related to a TV drama based on an incident that occurred 28 years ago might have weakened the relevance of the headline slightly with the Star incredibly being accused of sensationalism. Luckily, on Pg 3, Katie (from Bristol) says "The cloud of ash has been a worry". Phew. That's cleared that one up, cheers Katie. Now put some clothes on love, you'll catch your death.
Other than semi-literal representations of terror in the skies, most of the news has been taken up with grumbling travellers bemoaning the lack of planes flying into said plumes of danger and telling their tales of barefooted, un-business classed pilgrimage without so much as a free hotel room to call their own. Obviously, I'm being a bit flippant, but who are these people? Shouldn't you be at work, instead of taking the children out of school to lounge about by a pool on the Costa-del-Boy? These people got exactly what they deserved... an extra 6 days of holiday.... damn them.
I for one have had to cancel my worldwide tour, despite having made my savagereservations months ago (6 months I've been waiting to crack that gem out) and therefore disappointing both the fans attending the live blogs in New York, Rome and Swansea. The Icelandic audience were weak though. Ashen faced throughout (HAHAHAAAAAAA)....
sorry...
Takecaremylittletulips. xx
So, I've taken a break from the Leaders Debate on SKY and the frankly astonishing sight of Gordon Brown trying to swarm up to the Twitter generation by grinning in a vaguely sinister manner out of the corner of his mouth like a cartoon pirate. It's almost sad watching him offering weak platitudes to the centre left and filling every silence by grumbling tediously about fiscal policy while flanked by NC/DC (Nick Clegg, apparently auditioning for the vacant 'jocular everyman' slot on the sofa of The One Show and David Cameron sweating nervously like a sixth former waiting on the results of the head boy elections) and batting back and forth sense and relevance while a comatose audience of mannequins wonder where Ant and Dec are and if there will be nibbles afterwards.
Actually, I really wanted someone in the audience to ask if the collapse in the economy was responsible for Iceland claiming their revenge for their treatment at the hands of the British Government by inducing one of their volcano's to vomit ash into the air like a Geordie chav on a hen night spewing 14 Jagermiesters into a skip. Indeed, the unprecedented ban on air travel seemed to send the nation into a kind of existential crisis of confidence. News outlets couldn't decide if this was a story of tragedy; reporting the families stranded abroad and chaos at the airports whilst simultaneously showing gleeful weathermen, explaining tedious looking satellite pictures and looking smug at finally being on the "big" news rather than only being noticed for wearing quirky ties or predicting drizzle.
In fact most of the major news outlets accompanied the doom and gloom reporting of 200 million pounds a day being lost by the airlines in refunded tickets with slide shows of astonishing lightning storms taking place inside the ash cloud. The ethereal and other worldly pictures made my eyeballs sweat with glee whilst also leaving me with an odd sense that an apocalypse was coming. If I felt like that, with Google, newspapers and cuddly-wuddly weathermen to guide me through the science behind it all, it makes me wonder what people who saw Vesuvius erupt must have thought about it. They probably thought it best to bar the door and stay inside out of wrath's way "Oi, Claudius, come away from the door.... I don't care 'ow 'ot it is in here, there's no way you're going out in this.... what do you mean river of fire? Come away from that window you nosy boy and help me arrange pottery into useful places to be discovered easily in 2000 or so years...."
Yes, there was panic at the airports, panic in the stations, panic in hotels, panic in Majorca, panic on the ferries, panic on the beaches, panic in the fields and in the streets. There was panic in oceans, panic in the wood, panic in the schools, panic the homes, panic on the streets of London. I wonder to myself....
Yet, despite all this panic, there seemed to be precious little once it became clear that the cloud wasn't simply going to blow away and become just another minor irritant, like the snow or the Conservative party, but a fully fledged threat to the viability of Northern Europe's airlines. With a combination of the recession, increasing fuel bills and losses going back to 2001 still putting a strain on the industry, the collective might of the airlines finally upgraded the ash from "dangerous" to "safe" which is the kind of leap of faith that I would certainly trust to a large corporation struggling to find profits to appease their shareholders, right up there with footballers offering marriage counselling or Tim Lovejoy opening a charm school.
Still, not all of the newspapers were convinced but the assertions that flying a huge metal object into a plume of broken glass, sand and rock is a good idea. The Daily Star (that beacon of sense and rationality) ran a suitably sensitive headline: "TERROR AS PLANE HITS ASH CLOUD" which was incomprehensibly pulled from airport concession stands because some namby-pamby travellers were a tad upset. The fact that the accompanying pictures and story related to a TV drama based on an incident that occurred 28 years ago might have weakened the relevance of the headline slightly with the Star incredibly being accused of sensationalism. Luckily, on Pg 3, Katie (from Bristol) says "The cloud of ash has been a worry". Phew. That's cleared that one up, cheers Katie. Now put some clothes on love, you'll catch your death.
Other than semi-literal representations of terror in the skies, most of the news has been taken up with grumbling travellers bemoaning the lack of planes flying into said plumes of danger and telling their tales of barefooted, un-business classed pilgrimage without so much as a free hotel room to call their own. Obviously, I'm being a bit flippant, but who are these people? Shouldn't you be at work, instead of taking the children out of school to lounge about by a pool on the Costa-del-Boy? These people got exactly what they deserved... an extra 6 days of holiday.... damn them.
I for one have had to cancel my worldwide tour, despite having made my savagereservations months ago (6 months I've been waiting to crack that gem out) and therefore disappointing both the fans attending the live blogs in New York, Rome and Swansea. The Icelandic audience were weak though. Ashen faced throughout (HAHAHAAAAAAA)....
sorry...
Takecaremylittletulips. xx
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Vote.... or DIE! (not really petal)
Dear ballot blog,
Good evening my dears. Tonight is a night loaded with significance. A night that is crucial to the whole ruddy country. A night so exciting and thrilling that at least 12 percent of you will have the first clue what the devil I'm talking about. No, it's not all you can eat rib and taco night at TGI Heart Disease, it's the first meaningful political debate on these shores since Pitt the Younger offered Henry Addington out onto the cobbles for 'cocking a snook' in his general direction and they had a jolly good dust up.
It may not be the only form of political debate in this country (the entertainment o'rama otherwise known as PM's questions isn't exactly engaging, but, I swear it does actually happen. Actually, for all I know it could be hosted by Simon Cowell and takes place on the back of a live horse, but I've looked it up on Wikipedia, so it must be real), but tonight will be the first televised debate of it's kind in the history of this country, so it's importance in rescuing the country from the collective political malaise we're in, simply can't be overstated.... but dear Lord, I'm going to try.
As the debate is going on right now, I will refrain from commenting on it for now (it'll give my bile duct 24 hours to recover from the amount it had to pipe up to my throat to spew at the telly in furious, spine shattering rage). But as it's on ITV, I'm just pleased it wasn't interspersed with clips of Ant and Dec standing backstage and gurning at the camera the second Gordon Brown opened his hideous mouth only to discover he actually has a reasonable speaking voice.
For only the second time in my life, there is the real possibility of a change of government in this country, which fills me with a mixture of warm nostalgia for the last time and a blood thirsty, gurgling rage at what a wasted opportunity it was. The more I think about it, I lurch between these two conflicting ideologies like a pixel in a game of Pong, until I become a slobbering, gibbering mentalist, rocking backwards and forwards in my bath chair whispering something about being 'tough on crime...'
Actually, looking back at the above paragraph (I don't recommend it) it's actually the third time I can remember a 'very real chance' of a change in government. The first time, it was a fresh faced, ginger hued, Neil Kinnock who was challenging the ash faced, hair lipped, John Major in what was surely about to become a landslide victory for Labour. They were finally securing the advantage by means of harnessing the nation's collective exasperation over the Thatcher years and our desire to take it out on the whole bloody lot of them. It seemed like the tide had finally turned against the Tories, until Labour snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and lost in what was the finest hour of Major's career, just beating the day Norma put an extra Dairylea triangle into his lunchbox into second place.
In terms of unexpected victories, it was pretty well up there with the time David spotted Goliath off his line and chipped him from the halfway line. What seemed to swing the vote in Major's direction was the nation's collective fear to hand over the reigns to an un-tested, un-known opposition party and joy for the fact that he wasn't Margret Thatcher. The 'bounce' in popularity that the party experienced due to a change of leader was certainly similar to the one that Gordon Brown's takeover had on the Labour party, when he very nearly called a snap election within months of taking office and the Tories struggled to find their voice (As good decisions go, it was right up there with Hitler saying to Goering: "Let's have a pop at these Russians then...").
As a leader, Major seemed to bring a kind of post-apocalyptic serenity to the country, which quickly turned to numb acceptance, apathy, then ridicule. He was the last of the 'Spitting Image' generation, brought down by his depiction as a grey robot, obsessed by the quality of his peas, rather than an empowered world leader taking the country through the end of a dismal recession. The country had been ready for change, but bottled it at the last minute when Thatcher refused to lose an election to the nation, instead resigning to the will of her own party after they saw the writing on the wall. The Major years actually saw improvements - the inequalities gap reduced for the first time in a generation (and the last), inflation began to reduce, making business more competitive and Take That were only taking a minute, girl, to fall in love. To fall in luuu-uuve.
However, after years of greedy feeding at the trough of government and with a leader who didn't actually seem to have the fight to lead the party, the Tories began to tear themselves apart. The old dragons refused to leave behind the fun fair that Thatcher had bought them free candy floss at for two decades, so decided to stand by the tea cups, stomping their feet and making a spectacle of themselves. Infighting, backstabbing, undermining and a series of ridiculous sex scandals would dissect the party. It was to be a grizzly climbdown that would leave them unelectable for nearly 20 years leaving a political vacuum that was ready to be filled by two blokes with faces resembling the Joker and a wooden oar, who had a few beers in the pub and wrote 'New' in front of their party logo, eventually deciding to divide up power between them for a hundred glorious years.
Yes, 1997 was a glorious time. A time where left wing politically active singers larked about sipping champagne in Downing Street, where politics fell behind personality in the pecking order and the power of the media grew into a huge monster, threatening to swallow the system whole. The Sun won Blair an election, and we all rode off into the 'boom' years with a credit card in our pockets, listening to Mini-Disks and eating Sushi. People's lifestyles became more liberal and we became a generation of better educated, better travelled and ethnically aware gap year students. In the post Tory hype, we were distracted just long enough by suddenly having enough credit to make us happy, fat and bored.
I remember feeling, during my student years, that we didn't really have any great struggle to mobilise us. I wanted to be engaged, but felt less and less so. Tragedy in 2001 sparked a series of events which would lead us into a war we didn't want or need. I was afraid. I'm sure everyone was. I was affraid this could be a war on our doorsteps, fought by terrorist groups who's motivation I couldn't possibly understand from my own little white, middle class shell. So Tony and George took the war away from our shores and put it on theirs. It seemed like a clever political move, fighting "terror" and turning the whole thing into an insane, Orwellian perma-war movie broadcast from 'foreignland', keeping us afraid enough to stay politically immobile, without actually having to fight another country. A war against a noun can never be won. The adjectives are pushovers though. No spine.
It kind of backfired though, didn't it. We finally lost faith, and Blair himself found himself, like
Thatcher before him, essentially forced out of his own party rather than lose them an election. The Tories had bumbled from Dracula, to a Tax inspector, to a balding gnome in search of a leader who could unite them. One ring to unite them. One Camering.
So we get pretty much to where we are now. Apathetic, screwed over by a politics concerned by lining it's pockets, keeping us afraid, or pandering to our desire to spend money on crap, even when there's none of it about. Cameron hardly appears to be the 'new broom', with his sub-Blair smooching and terrifying face leering at us from posters. Brown might actually be gong insane, driven to grinning awkwardly from the corner of his mouth and dying behind the eyes. All he wanted was to lead us away from Tony's personality and drivel based politics. Now he finds himself appearing on Penis Morgan's chat show rambling on about his bizarre life while a confused public wonders when Ant and Dec got so old.
What to do about this bothersome election then? For years I was an advocate of spoiling your ballot if you hated all the candidates, if only to register your displeasure. The problem with that is the rise of far right, pork chop faced, Question Time celebrities, who prey on our apathy. There's got to be someone better than them to vote for... anyone... a piece of cheese... Boris Johnson... anyone.
Are politicians more or less competent than in previous years? Are they more or less trustworthy? Are any of them worthy of your vote? Probably not, but give it to them anyway. If nothing else, you could watch the debate and pick the one you'd least like to hit with a broom. It's only action that will get us out of this mess. Either that or a bloody big cloud of ash bringing an apocalypse. Sorry... that's obviously an insane fiction. It could never happen.
Screamifyouwanttogofasterxxxx
Good evening my dears. Tonight is a night loaded with significance. A night that is crucial to the whole ruddy country. A night so exciting and thrilling that at least 12 percent of you will have the first clue what the devil I'm talking about. No, it's not all you can eat rib and taco night at TGI Heart Disease, it's the first meaningful political debate on these shores since Pitt the Younger offered Henry Addington out onto the cobbles for 'cocking a snook' in his general direction and they had a jolly good dust up.
It may not be the only form of political debate in this country (the entertainment o'rama otherwise known as PM's questions isn't exactly engaging, but, I swear it does actually happen. Actually, for all I know it could be hosted by Simon Cowell and takes place on the back of a live horse, but I've looked it up on Wikipedia, so it must be real), but tonight will be the first televised debate of it's kind in the history of this country, so it's importance in rescuing the country from the collective political malaise we're in, simply can't be overstated.... but dear Lord, I'm going to try.
As the debate is going on right now, I will refrain from commenting on it for now (it'll give my bile duct 24 hours to recover from the amount it had to pipe up to my throat to spew at the telly in furious, spine shattering rage). But as it's on ITV, I'm just pleased it wasn't interspersed with clips of Ant and Dec standing backstage and gurning at the camera the second Gordon Brown opened his hideous mouth only to discover he actually has a reasonable speaking voice.
For only the second time in my life, there is the real possibility of a change of government in this country, which fills me with a mixture of warm nostalgia for the last time and a blood thirsty, gurgling rage at what a wasted opportunity it was. The more I think about it, I lurch between these two conflicting ideologies like a pixel in a game of Pong, until I become a slobbering, gibbering mentalist, rocking backwards and forwards in my bath chair whispering something about being 'tough on crime...'
Actually, looking back at the above paragraph (I don't recommend it) it's actually the third time I can remember a 'very real chance' of a change in government. The first time, it was a fresh faced, ginger hued, Neil Kinnock who was challenging the ash faced, hair lipped, John Major in what was surely about to become a landslide victory for Labour. They were finally securing the advantage by means of harnessing the nation's collective exasperation over the Thatcher years and our desire to take it out on the whole bloody lot of them. It seemed like the tide had finally turned against the Tories, until Labour snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and lost in what was the finest hour of Major's career, just beating the day Norma put an extra Dairylea triangle into his lunchbox into second place.
In terms of unexpected victories, it was pretty well up there with the time David spotted Goliath off his line and chipped him from the halfway line. What seemed to swing the vote in Major's direction was the nation's collective fear to hand over the reigns to an un-tested, un-known opposition party and joy for the fact that he wasn't Margret Thatcher. The 'bounce' in popularity that the party experienced due to a change of leader was certainly similar to the one that Gordon Brown's takeover had on the Labour party, when he very nearly called a snap election within months of taking office and the Tories struggled to find their voice (As good decisions go, it was right up there with Hitler saying to Goering: "Let's have a pop at these Russians then...").
As a leader, Major seemed to bring a kind of post-apocalyptic serenity to the country, which quickly turned to numb acceptance, apathy, then ridicule. He was the last of the 'Spitting Image' generation, brought down by his depiction as a grey robot, obsessed by the quality of his peas, rather than an empowered world leader taking the country through the end of a dismal recession. The country had been ready for change, but bottled it at the last minute when Thatcher refused to lose an election to the nation, instead resigning to the will of her own party after they saw the writing on the wall. The Major years actually saw improvements - the inequalities gap reduced for the first time in a generation (and the last), inflation began to reduce, making business more competitive and Take That were only taking a minute, girl, to fall in love. To fall in luuu-uuve.
However, after years of greedy feeding at the trough of government and with a leader who didn't actually seem to have the fight to lead the party, the Tories began to tear themselves apart. The old dragons refused to leave behind the fun fair that Thatcher had bought them free candy floss at for two decades, so decided to stand by the tea cups, stomping their feet and making a spectacle of themselves. Infighting, backstabbing, undermining and a series of ridiculous sex scandals would dissect the party. It was to be a grizzly climbdown that would leave them unelectable for nearly 20 years leaving a political vacuum that was ready to be filled by two blokes with faces resembling the Joker and a wooden oar, who had a few beers in the pub and wrote 'New' in front of their party logo, eventually deciding to divide up power between them for a hundred glorious years.
Yes, 1997 was a glorious time. A time where left wing politically active singers larked about sipping champagne in Downing Street, where politics fell behind personality in the pecking order and the power of the media grew into a huge monster, threatening to swallow the system whole. The Sun won Blair an election, and we all rode off into the 'boom' years with a credit card in our pockets, listening to Mini-Disks and eating Sushi. People's lifestyles became more liberal and we became a generation of better educated, better travelled and ethnically aware gap year students. In the post Tory hype, we were distracted just long enough by suddenly having enough credit to make us happy, fat and bored.
I remember feeling, during my student years, that we didn't really have any great struggle to mobilise us. I wanted to be engaged, but felt less and less so. Tragedy in 2001 sparked a series of events which would lead us into a war we didn't want or need. I was afraid. I'm sure everyone was. I was affraid this could be a war on our doorsteps, fought by terrorist groups who's motivation I couldn't possibly understand from my own little white, middle class shell. So Tony and George took the war away from our shores and put it on theirs. It seemed like a clever political move, fighting "terror" and turning the whole thing into an insane, Orwellian perma-war movie broadcast from 'foreignland', keeping us afraid enough to stay politically immobile, without actually having to fight another country. A war against a noun can never be won. The adjectives are pushovers though. No spine.
It kind of backfired though, didn't it. We finally lost faith, and Blair himself found himself, like
Thatcher before him, essentially forced out of his own party rather than lose them an election. The Tories had bumbled from Dracula, to a Tax inspector, to a balding gnome in search of a leader who could unite them. One ring to unite them. One Camering.
So we get pretty much to where we are now. Apathetic, screwed over by a politics concerned by lining it's pockets, keeping us afraid, or pandering to our desire to spend money on crap, even when there's none of it about. Cameron hardly appears to be the 'new broom', with his sub-Blair smooching and terrifying face leering at us from posters. Brown might actually be gong insane, driven to grinning awkwardly from the corner of his mouth and dying behind the eyes. All he wanted was to lead us away from Tony's personality and drivel based politics. Now he finds himself appearing on Penis Morgan's chat show rambling on about his bizarre life while a confused public wonders when Ant and Dec got so old.
What to do about this bothersome election then? For years I was an advocate of spoiling your ballot if you hated all the candidates, if only to register your displeasure. The problem with that is the rise of far right, pork chop faced, Question Time celebrities, who prey on our apathy. There's got to be someone better than them to vote for... anyone... a piece of cheese... Boris Johnson... anyone.
Are politicians more or less competent than in previous years? Are they more or less trustworthy? Are any of them worthy of your vote? Probably not, but give it to them anyway. If nothing else, you could watch the debate and pick the one you'd least like to hit with a broom. It's only action that will get us out of this mess. Either that or a bloody big cloud of ash bringing an apocalypse. Sorry... that's obviously an insane fiction. It could never happen.
Screamifyouwanttogofasterxxxx
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