Apologies for not writing sooner - rather a hectic time at work.
I've spent the past few weeks trying to make out what I think of the Con-Dem coalition, and how far they should be rated on the Thatcher Hatred Scale. Today, David Cameron announced his 'Big Society' idea, calling it the 'greatest devolution of power' to the people ever. This largely seems to involve volunteering to run the soup kitchens the soon-to-increase numbers of jobless and homeless will need.
Is it a devolution of power? Of course it isn't. Centralised governments have absolutely no interest in actually giving real, tangible power to Joe Public. Instead, they are far keener on giving people more work for less money. By calling it 'volunteering', they're hoping to appeal to people's better side.
In fact, this sums up the profoundly cosmetic nature of the policies announced by this government so far. On the face of it, they all seem pretty good - seemingly communitarian, seeking to involve people at grass roots level in a variety of activities. However, they all rely on goodwill and require people to assume responsibility without wielding any real authority. The Conservative party is playing a long, careful game, hiding under the face of social concern, while getting on with what it likes doing best - saving the wealthy and not giving a damn for the weak, the poor, the ignorant, the unschooled.
However, it isn't entirely fair to solely blame the Tories. Fault lies also with the Labour party. The problem with the left wing is its desire to totally control and nanny everything. This was shown way back in '97, where every message and every speech by even the lowliest parliamentary activist was ruthlessly controlled. This need to have overarching power backfires spectacularly once things start to go wrong - the party falls apart in recriminations and in-fighting. The current leadership race is somewhat ridiculous, particularly the sight of the Milliband brothers trying to point out idealogical differences between each other, which mainly come down to which comic each one read as a kid (Beano or Dandy?). And once the Labour machine has broken down, it tends to stay broken for quite a while.
The Tories, by contrast, seek to minimise apparent government involvement while focusing power and control on select social groups. As long as they breathe gentle, acceptable polite words, they will stay in control. If you're middle class and slightly, but not too, worried about your income and the future, the siren call of Big Society, and the chance to (forgive the capitals) Control Your Destiny is rather appealing. In fact, it will be a case of I'm alright Jack. People who set up their own schools and schools that becoime academies will divert money away from other schools. This will exacerbate, not alleviate, the problem of failing schools. In other words, whole areas of towns and cities will become more or less educationally arid zones, where any child unfortunate enough to be born in the wring postcode zone will stand little chance of accessing a decent education. And if someone doesn't get an education, how can he or she be expected to understand their choices, rights, powers and responsibilities?
And so on to the Big Society. The main problem is that David Cameron seems to think that the whole of the UK is comprised of genteel villagers all eager to lend a hand at the village fete, erecting marquees, selling jam, running the tombola and whatnot. Running libraries, education services, housing services and so forth requires expertise, no matter how willing and eager the help. It comes down to power, basically. Now, don't get me wrong - volunteering is a good thing, and has a clear and valuable place. Unfortunately, this volunteering looks like it will be at the expense of people who be being paid for it. And what will happen to those areas where no-one wants to volunteer? What will happen to those areas of towns where people who have not had a good education or access to decent services decline to participate in the Big Society? Are we facing a situation where there are islands of happy participation floating in an ocean of no-go zones where people are left to drift helpless, bereft of direction and assistance?
If David Cameron (or the next Labour leader, or Nick Clegg, if he has the courage to break free from what is slowly proving to be a toxic coalition) is sincere about devolving power, then it should be genuinely so, not some cosmetic, patronising handing-down of a few paltry gobbets of central authority control. That would be a genuinely brave and almost unprecedented action in British politics. The problem is that real, local democracy is a long, tortuous and difficult process, but one that ends up yielding genuinely democratic decisions. Central government doesn't like this, simply because it's on a tight five-year timetable. All goverments have a vested interest in keeping people at least slightly anxious, if not downright afraid, in order to control the electorate and pursue their own agendas with little interruption. British democracy is, in reality, probably better described as an elective dictatorship, in that we willingly abrogate our own democratic voices in the cause of the speedy and convenient expidition of political decisions. So, if we do not engage locally in politics, if we do not raise our voices to question, if we do not involve ourselves with our schools, our communities, our councils, our neighbours, how then can we say that we are particularly democratic or even social?
In the end, if we do not seek to create our own Big Society, we will have some mellow-faced man with a shark's hunger impose his Big Society on us.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Dusty.
70+ miles of road crap. This is what happens if you cycle without a front mudguard, on dusty towpaths in 30 deg.C heat. This is on the way to Bradford-on-Avon
Devizes!
The bag Julie is holding is actually her pannier bag. She cycled the entire 90-mile distance with it tied to her handlebar.
Lunch
This is a roadside ditch somewhere north of Pewsey. There were sheep behind us, but I guess Rob freaked them out.
Doughnut!
Rob waves his doughnut at Great Bedwyn. The reason for his triumphant baked confectionary gesture is that the baker's shop was actually open at midday. Apparently, it tends to close at exactly the times you would most expect a baker's to be busy. That's small town English shops for you.
Newbury!
10.00 am - not a bad time on a towpath that was so-so. I seem to have my 'camp pose photo' dial stuck at about 3-4 these days.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Angus and Harry.
A.A.M.G. Wylie (b. 1910, d. 1992) and H.M.Gallantry (b. 1922, d. 2004) were my grandfathers. Angus Alastair (or possibly Alastair Angus) McGregor Grey was born in Fort William, lived in Perth, and came south just after the second world war. Harold Montague, or Harry, was born in Southampton and moved north. Both of them ended up in Reading. Both of them served in the R.A.F.; The former as a weather observer at an airfield in Scotland, the latter as a fitness instructor, having been a carpenter (a retained trade, and vital for the construction of aircraft parts) prior to that. Following the war, Angus worked in the Post Office, while Harry went on to work in his own carpet shop. Angus had seven children, two of whom died in infancy, and Harry had four, and thence numerous grandchildren.
What a bald, dull summary of two lives. Two lives that I knew, two real people who lived, breathed, loved, did the right thing and made mistakes, who filled an unmistakable space, who were missed when they went - indeed, still are. Grandpa Angus, to me, was a strange mix of warmth and distance. He smoked pipes, played golf, and talked in a loud, warm Perth accent that could rise into sudden storms of power - a voice not to be crossed. Once he took me on a visit to the Science museum, and, on a stop in a cafe, grimly showed me the variety of pills he was forced to take for various ailments, the most grievous of which was the arthritis that cut short his sporting prowess - as a young man, he had been a champion rower, amongst other things. Later, indeed, the last time I saw him, when he had lost all sense of time and space just before he died, he sent my mother out of the room after she'd fussed over getting him a cup of tea ('You and your damn cups of tea!'), then asked me to help him get his socks on. I helped move him round so that he could sit on his bed, then, bending down, I pulled socks over feet and calves that seemed to have been withered by time and fire. The skin from knee to toe was a bruised, tired brown. As I pulled up the socks up, our eyes locked, and he gave me the look of a man who has suddenly understood the joke after a long, long, time. We smiled; we both knew that this would be the last time we would see each other, but strangely this was suddenly alright and nothing to fret about, nothing at all. There was no need to say a thing. My mother and my aunt then came in, and the moment was lost. Grandpa died two days later.
While both my grandfathers seemed old to me, Grandad Harry was, in my young eyes, younger, despite having less hair. He was a warm, booming presence, with a truly distinct Hampshire dialect that years of living in Reading never leavened. He always seemed much more approachable than Grandpa. Whenever I saw him, he seemed to have a smile like a split melon and would always say 'Hello!' with a heavily aspirated H, as though he were genuinely greeting you with a breath taken from the deepest parts of his soul. I loved rooting around in his shed and greenhouse, or among his books, or, when he still had the carpet shop, going into the basement. He'd also take me and my sister upwards; He told us that the shop had once been a police station and that they'd used to execute people there, pointing to what I can now recall as a rather frail looking pulley anchor point.
I never got to say goodbye to him. Before I could go to the hospital, he'd died, several hours after my birthday.
There is still too much to say about both of them, but perhaps for now I should explain why I'm writing about them. Apart from both being my grandparents, apart from both having served in the RAF, apart from both having ended up in Reading, one other thing connected them. They both had prostate cancer. In Grandpa's case, it was an illness he died with; In Grandad's case, it was a disease he died of.
In both their names, I'm doing this cycle ride to Bath on saturday. If you can sponsor me, please do - the link is in the right sidebar, or just click on this - http://www.justgiving.com/kennetpc
What a bald, dull summary of two lives. Two lives that I knew, two real people who lived, breathed, loved, did the right thing and made mistakes, who filled an unmistakable space, who were missed when they went - indeed, still are. Grandpa Angus, to me, was a strange mix of warmth and distance. He smoked pipes, played golf, and talked in a loud, warm Perth accent that could rise into sudden storms of power - a voice not to be crossed. Once he took me on a visit to the Science museum, and, on a stop in a cafe, grimly showed me the variety of pills he was forced to take for various ailments, the most grievous of which was the arthritis that cut short his sporting prowess - as a young man, he had been a champion rower, amongst other things. Later, indeed, the last time I saw him, when he had lost all sense of time and space just before he died, he sent my mother out of the room after she'd fussed over getting him a cup of tea ('You and your damn cups of tea!'), then asked me to help him get his socks on. I helped move him round so that he could sit on his bed, then, bending down, I pulled socks over feet and calves that seemed to have been withered by time and fire. The skin from knee to toe was a bruised, tired brown. As I pulled up the socks up, our eyes locked, and he gave me the look of a man who has suddenly understood the joke after a long, long, time. We smiled; we both knew that this would be the last time we would see each other, but strangely this was suddenly alright and nothing to fret about, nothing at all. There was no need to say a thing. My mother and my aunt then came in, and the moment was lost. Grandpa died two days later.
While both my grandfathers seemed old to me, Grandad Harry was, in my young eyes, younger, despite having less hair. He was a warm, booming presence, with a truly distinct Hampshire dialect that years of living in Reading never leavened. He always seemed much more approachable than Grandpa. Whenever I saw him, he seemed to have a smile like a split melon and would always say 'Hello!' with a heavily aspirated H, as though he were genuinely greeting you with a breath taken from the deepest parts of his soul. I loved rooting around in his shed and greenhouse, or among his books, or, when he still had the carpet shop, going into the basement. He'd also take me and my sister upwards; He told us that the shop had once been a police station and that they'd used to execute people there, pointing to what I can now recall as a rather frail looking pulley anchor point.
I never got to say goodbye to him. Before I could go to the hospital, he'd died, several hours after my birthday.
There is still too much to say about both of them, but perhaps for now I should explain why I'm writing about them. Apart from both being my grandparents, apart from both having served in the RAF, apart from both having ended up in Reading, one other thing connected them. They both had prostate cancer. In Grandpa's case, it was an illness he died with; In Grandad's case, it was a disease he died of.
In both their names, I'm doing this cycle ride to Bath on saturday. If you can sponsor me, please do - the link is in the right sidebar, or just click on this - http://www.justgiving.com/kennetpc
Monday, June 14, 2010
More cycling and the joy of views
Just a brief one, because it's already late and I've a heavy day tomorrow. Went for another ride on sunday, again up to Oxford with Rob - a good steady rate of just under 15mph all the way. The one difference was our route. Last time, we took a more direct road to Ipsden, involving a spectacular downhill. This time, we took the official NCN route 5 road from Stoke Row to Ipsden. All that can be said is
woooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww
the view! I would put a photo up, but it simply would not, could not, do it justice. It just has to be seen. From our vantage point, we could see the whole of the Thames Valley up to Oxford and beyond, a magnificent, marvellous view taking in Wallingford, Abingdon, the Wittenham Clumps, and, of course, Didcot. Didcot, with its bloody huge power station cooling towers slap bang in the middle of everything.
But there it was - the view of the whole rolling green place, with ample evidence of human industry protruding like a strangely graceful lump in the middle of all. It was a view that said 'This is England!' as much as any view there is to be had here. Looking over it, I started hearing Vaughan Williams playing in my ears.
Then I told the annoying idiot in the car behind me to turn down Classic FM.
woooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww
the view! I would put a photo up, but it simply would not, could not, do it justice. It just has to be seen. From our vantage point, we could see the whole of the Thames Valley up to Oxford and beyond, a magnificent, marvellous view taking in Wallingford, Abingdon, the Wittenham Clumps, and, of course, Didcot. Didcot, with its bloody huge power station cooling towers slap bang in the middle of everything.
But there it was - the view of the whole rolling green place, with ample evidence of human industry protruding like a strangely graceful lump in the middle of all. It was a view that said 'This is England!' as much as any view there is to be had here. Looking over it, I started hearing Vaughan Williams playing in my ears.
Then I told the annoying idiot in the car behind me to turn down Classic FM.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Stretch Limousines - What goes on within?
I just saw one of those white stretch limousines pass by the college where I work, and, it being the idle stretch just before the evening classes start, I began to speculate about the inner workings of the thing. You can see these limos most friday and saturday evenings in and around Reading, usually booked for someone's birthday or a hen night or something. Once, one of these would have been seen as glamourous, a whiff of Hollywood on a rainy street; However, once they became more available to hire, they went instantly from Cool to Chav. Alongside the white vehicle, they are available in lurid shades of pink. You can also get a pink stretch Humvee, taking tacky excess to new extremes.
But what goes on within? Here are a few bits of speculation:
1) the inside is covered in easy-to-clean pink satin and pink leatherette seats
2) there are little twinkly lights and a very small disco glitter ball. Possibly there is also a tiny tiny dancefloor.
3) there is a loud sound system, playing stuff like 'all the single ladies' on an unremitting loop.
4) there is a fridge containing 'quality' drinks like bacardi breezer and lambrini
5) there are at least 6 women in various costumes, one of which involves wings. They are screeching with laughter.
6) there is some kind of floor show. I speculated it might involve Shetland Pony Horsejumping, but that's ridiculous. No,
7) They have midget strippers doing a reprise of the ending to 'The Full Monty'.
8) After 2 am, a little man (possibly one of the dwarf burlesque artists of earlier on)pops up at the back, ladling out doner kebabs with extra chili sauce to anyone still standing.
Sheer class.
But what goes on within? Here are a few bits of speculation:
1) the inside is covered in easy-to-clean pink satin and pink leatherette seats
2) there are little twinkly lights and a very small disco glitter ball. Possibly there is also a tiny tiny dancefloor.
3) there is a loud sound system, playing stuff like 'all the single ladies' on an unremitting loop.
4) there is a fridge containing 'quality' drinks like bacardi breezer and lambrini
5) there are at least 6 women in various costumes, one of which involves wings. They are screeching with laughter.
6) there is some kind of floor show. I speculated it might involve Shetland Pony Horsejumping, but that's ridiculous. No,
7) They have midget strippers doing a reprise of the ending to 'The Full Monty'.
8) After 2 am, a little man (possibly one of the dwarf burlesque artists of earlier on)pops up at the back, ladling out doner kebabs with extra chili sauce to anyone still standing.
Sheer class.
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Oh my God - You haven't changed a bit! (apart from the grey bits and the saggy bits) - and by that, I mean me.
No cycling this week, which was a bit bad of me, considering that there are now only 20 days to go till the Reading to Bath run. If you'd like to sponsor, please go to the link on the right. However, I had a perfectly good reason not to. Yesterday saw me go up to meet an old university mate of mine, Jo Halstead, though I suspect she'll object to the 'old' bit of that description. She'd come down to Oxford to stay with her sister (who's a Research Fellow at Christchurch) for a few days, and we arranged to meet for the first time in twenty years.
You might ask why so long; well, it's a combination of work, life, happenstance and fortune - in other words, just normal everyday thingys. I couldn't quite believe how much time had passed since we'd go together for the UCNW Drama department reunion, an event recorded in my old diary, and I'm sure there may be some of you out there thinking, how is that possible?, but there it is. What seems like the work of moments is a thing of years - and, sometimes, vice versa.
Anyway, Jo and I met up and had what is best described as a Very Pleasant Time Indeed. I have to say, in reference to the title, that I mean me - it seemed to me that she really hadn't changed at all. Actually, this was one of the things we chatted about, along with what had happened to old university friends, who had died, old gossip, reminding each other of who said or did what and possibly with whom, families, and an awful lot about our respective teaching jobs and respective grumbles about said jobs.
In all, a really good day, and one that I hope to repeat sooner rather than later - and certainly sooner that another twenty years!
You might ask why so long; well, it's a combination of work, life, happenstance and fortune - in other words, just normal everyday thingys. I couldn't quite believe how much time had passed since we'd go together for the UCNW Drama department reunion, an event recorded in my old diary, and I'm sure there may be some of you out there thinking, how is that possible?, but there it is. What seems like the work of moments is a thing of years - and, sometimes, vice versa.
Anyway, Jo and I met up and had what is best described as a Very Pleasant Time Indeed. I have to say, in reference to the title, that I mean me - it seemed to me that she really hadn't changed at all. Actually, this was one of the things we chatted about, along with what had happened to old university friends, who had died, old gossip, reminding each other of who said or did what and possibly with whom, families, and an awful lot about our respective teaching jobs and respective grumbles about said jobs.
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
if in doubt, shoot.
As you might imagine, there has been some not inconsiderable anger in our house regarding the botched Israeli raid on the aid flotilla yesterday, and the subsequent fudging and flummery that Israel has stammered out since then. It's like watching a kid holding a bloodied hammer behind his back while standing next to the battered corpse of a kitten, yelping, 'I didn't do it! And anyway, it scratched me!'
There's a dramatic enough image. Honestly, why does the Israeli state do this kind of crap? It's hardly winning friends and influencing people. They could have waited till dawn and until the ships had entered territorial waters, after which they could have boarded entirely legitimately and with maximum visibility, thereby minimising risk for all. By abseiling from bloody helicopters in the middle of the night, they were clearly steaming for a fight. Imagine someone bursts into your house in the darkness - what would your reaction be? The Israeli authorities claim that the people on the ship beat the soldiers with poles, clubs and knives, and admittedly in the video released by them, it is clear that some people are waving and hitting with poles of some kind, but nothing else is evident. What hasn't been released is the moment when the soldiers opened fire and killed.
Now Israel has lost its one Muslim ally in the region, and the one that it really does not want to piss off - Turkey. Turkey, a country with over a million men under arms. Turkey, an important trade partner with Israel. Turkey, a NATO member and thereby a country that can call upon all other NATO members in times of crisis. Turkey, a country with a military hierarchy, gradually having its political influence and ability to interfere with the democratic system removed by the ruling AKP, that is absolutely gagging for a fight.
The best thing that could happen now is that the absolute idiot who was in charge of this operation is arrested and tried, along with a full inquiry. Better for cool heads to calm angry hearts. It would be better if the blockade of Gaza was lifted, but this being Israel, that's probably wishing for too much.When will these bloody-handed politicos realise that people only bite back when they've been pushed into a corner and have got nothing left but anger to keep them alive?
There's a dramatic enough image. Honestly, why does the Israeli state do this kind of crap? It's hardly winning friends and influencing people. They could have waited till dawn and until the ships had entered territorial waters, after which they could have boarded entirely legitimately and with maximum visibility, thereby minimising risk for all. By abseiling from bloody helicopters in the middle of the night, they were clearly steaming for a fight. Imagine someone bursts into your house in the darkness - what would your reaction be? The Israeli authorities claim that the people on the ship beat the soldiers with poles, clubs and knives, and admittedly in the video released by them, it is clear that some people are waving and hitting with poles of some kind, but nothing else is evident. What hasn't been released is the moment when the soldiers opened fire and killed.
Now Israel has lost its one Muslim ally in the region, and the one that it really does not want to piss off - Turkey. Turkey, a country with over a million men under arms. Turkey, an important trade partner with Israel. Turkey, a NATO member and thereby a country that can call upon all other NATO members in times of crisis. Turkey, a country with a military hierarchy, gradually having its political influence and ability to interfere with the democratic system removed by the ruling AKP, that is absolutely gagging for a fight.
The best thing that could happen now is that the absolute idiot who was in charge of this operation is arrested and tried, along with a full inquiry. Better for cool heads to calm angry hearts. It would be better if the blockade of Gaza was lifted, but this being Israel, that's probably wishing for too much.When will these bloody-handed politicos realise that people only bite back when they've been pushed into a corner and have got nothing left but anger to keep them alive?
Sunday, May 30, 2010
short circuit.
No, I have't blown a fuse - I'm just referring to today's cycle trip, a very pleasant, but hilly twenty-mile ride. I started off from home, then headed towards Stoke Row, down to Highcliff, then Rotherfield Greys and Henley, followed by Harpsden and up to Binfield Heath, Emmer Green and back home - an hour and a half all told.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Bleary eyed
I'm feeling knackered. It's been a fraught week, and things, work-wise at least, are going to get fraughter. Yes, I know it should be 'more fraught', but if Lewis bloody Carroll can get away with 'Curiouser and curiouser', then I'll bloody do as I like. The trouble with this season is the exams: I'm responsible for organising the things for my department, and it all gets on top of me somewhat at this time of year. It is not helped by having to do two twelve and a half hour days. And, just to add to that, there is also the small matter of training for a 90-mile cycle ride to Bath at the end of June, hence the reason for the last post.
Last sunday saw me and my cycling partners (Rob Podolski and Julie Shepherd, plus her boyfriend) ride to Guildford via the Thames Path, route 4 and the Wey towpath route, all on the hottest day of the year so far - up to 29c. It started well, going along the Thames to Sonning, then turning off towards Charvil and the Wargrave, followed by a truly spectacular piece of riding through fields of bright yellow rapeseed overlooking where the Thames Valley descends towards Windsor, then a trip through the suburbs of Maidenhead and into Bray, past the Fat Duck and then deep into Becoming Lost. After recourse to a couple of maps, we got under way again, just in time to get lost once more. Finally we got to Windsor and into the Great Park, where we had a lunch of bananas and shortbread, before descending through Bishopsgate towards Egham and Shepperton, where we took an exorbitantly expensive ferry towards Weybridge, and thence onto the Wey Navigation Towpath, which also included an oportunity to get lost one more time, just before what I can only describe as a mostly HELLISH 20-mile ride over rutted, dusty, hard, knurled and knuckled and tree-root-twisted towpath, cycling against the flow of some kind of cross-country run and old people walking unfeasible numbers of small dogs that seemed to be fatally attracted to fast-moving cycle wheels.
Overall, I covered just about 100 kilometres, so I'm pretty pleased with that.
But the real reason I'm feeling bleary eyed is twofold: being woken up by birdsong at 4.30 and my bloody hayfever, which has reduced me to a red-eyed mess despite medication over the last week. bluh.
Last sunday saw me and my cycling partners (Rob Podolski and Julie Shepherd, plus her boyfriend) ride to Guildford via the Thames Path, route 4 and the Wey towpath route, all on the hottest day of the year so far - up to 29c. It started well, going along the Thames to Sonning, then turning off towards Charvil and the Wargrave, followed by a truly spectacular piece of riding through fields of bright yellow rapeseed overlooking where the Thames Valley descends towards Windsor, then a trip through the suburbs of Maidenhead and into Bray, past the Fat Duck and then deep into Becoming Lost. After recourse to a couple of maps, we got under way again, just in time to get lost once more. Finally we got to Windsor and into the Great Park, where we had a lunch of bananas and shortbread, before descending through Bishopsgate towards Egham and Shepperton, where we took an exorbitantly expensive ferry towards Weybridge, and thence onto the Wey Navigation Towpath, which also included an oportunity to get lost one more time, just before what I can only describe as a mostly HELLISH 20-mile ride over rutted, dusty, hard, knurled and knuckled and tree-root-twisted towpath, cycling against the flow of some kind of cross-country run and old people walking unfeasible numbers of small dogs that seemed to be fatally attracted to fast-moving cycle wheels.
Overall, I covered just about 100 kilometres, so I'm pretty pleased with that.
But the real reason I'm feeling bleary eyed is twofold: being woken up by birdsong at 4.30 and my bloody hayfever, which has reduced me to a red-eyed mess despite medication over the last week. bluh.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Bloody Elections... and cycling
I've avoided posting anything for the past week simply because so many other would be posting on the subject of the General Election results. By and large, it's been rather depressing - actually, seeing David Cameron's posho smug face outside no.10 tonight, very depressing. As an aside, will it be a requirement of all future PMs to have a sprog born in the Prime Ministerial residence from now on? First Blair, then Brown, now Cameron; it's like the British version of porphyrogenita.
I don't know about you, but there is something utterly maddening about the current batch of Tories. The fact that three of them - Cameron, George Osborne (the newly-incumbent Chancellor), and Boris Johnson (Mayor of London)- were all in the Bullingdon Club at the same time seems suspect, but more irritatingly is their smug belief in their innate, almost god-given, right to govern others. Says bloody who? Cameron had only one or two short-term jobs prior to becoming a politician, selling advertising, and George has never held down a proper job in his whole life. What the hell makes them think they're bloody qualified to do a damn thing?
As for Nick Clegg - well, I think he was given a terrible choice, and he (and the Lib Dem leadership) chose terribly. Once the spending cuts and tax hikes that are inevitable are announced, they are hardly going to be popular. However, trying to be positive, if they are seen as full coalition members of goverment, they may provide a decent check on Tory policies.
Sorry, I thought I just saw a flying pig there.
OK, enough about politics for now. In other news, I cycled from Reading to Oxford via NCN route 5 (approx 40 miles) on sunday, doing it in three and a half hours. Far more enjoyable than trying to strangle a TV because David Cameron's face is on it. I will be atempting a 90-miler to Bath in June - I'll be whacking the link to a justgiving page on here soon.
I don't know about you, but there is something utterly maddening about the current batch of Tories. The fact that three of them - Cameron, George Osborne (the newly-incumbent Chancellor), and Boris Johnson (Mayor of London)- were all in the Bullingdon Club at the same time seems suspect, but more irritatingly is their smug belief in their innate, almost god-given, right to govern others. Says bloody who? Cameron had only one or two short-term jobs prior to becoming a politician, selling advertising, and George has never held down a proper job in his whole life. What the hell makes them think they're bloody qualified to do a damn thing?
As for Nick Clegg - well, I think he was given a terrible choice, and he (and the Lib Dem leadership) chose terribly. Once the spending cuts and tax hikes that are inevitable are announced, they are hardly going to be popular. However, trying to be positive, if they are seen as full coalition members of goverment, they may provide a decent check on Tory policies.
Sorry, I thought I just saw a flying pig there.
OK, enough about politics for now. In other news, I cycled from Reading to Oxford via NCN route 5 (approx 40 miles) on sunday, doing it in three and a half hours. Far more enjoyable than trying to strangle a TV because David Cameron's face is on it. I will be atempting a 90-miler to Bath in June - I'll be whacking the link to a justgiving page on here soon.
Sunday, May 02, 2010
It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.
You may be wondering,perhaps, why I haven't commented much on the General Election, considering that politics is a frequent subject of this blog. It's a combination of exhaustion, lethargy, geberally avoiding Doing Things and a degree of puzzlement. By nature, I'm more of a Labour supporter than anything else, but this election has thrown everything up in the air. I have the feeling that whoever gets into government come next thursday will decide the way this country is going for many, many years to come, far beyond the lifetime of a single Parliamentary cycle. Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, may well be right when he says 'whoever is the government this time around will be out of power for a generation after'. He says this because whoever gets in will have to make cuts and tax increases of such severity that they will not exactly be Mr. Popular with the electorate.
Perhaps it's precisely this issue that is haunting all the three main parties to the extent that not a single one has a Big Idea - a single, defining thought for change. By and large, they come out almost sounding the same, bar one or two bits here and there. Having listened to and watched the Prime Ministerial debates over the last three weeks, I can't say that anyone come out on top - certainly not David Cameron. I really don't understand why opinion polls put him consistently ahead. He didn't say anything of substance, just anecdotes of dubious provenance and the phrase 'We've got to...' repeatedly. It's all very well saying that something has to be done, but how? that's the real question, and Cameron didn;t answer it. Gordon Brown was much better on facts, substance and method, but he has all the charisma of a sock full of thistles. Clegg was a revelation, only because he hadn't made any impression whatsoever beforehand. Some of his ideas were, I felt, on the naieve side, and he would certainly get a shock if he tried to implement them in the febrile, jumpy atmosphere of government.
There's only one idea worth going for that two parties have suggested - electoral reform. Both Labour and the Lib Dems have it in their manifestoes. Whether it would ever be put into law within a parliamentary cycle is debatable, to put it mildly, and it certainlt won't cure the economic woes of the country. What it may do, however, is open governement to a new democratic paradigm within the UK. It would also force the Big Three to alter, in some cases radically, and open them up to new ideas and policies, rather than have the Same Old Politics again and again, and which seem to end up getting all of us into the Same Old Mess eventually.
And as for the person who said to me that they wouldn't vote because it was against their beliefs, I say that making no choice is still a choice and often the worst one. When faced with a decision, avoiding it does not equate to a good thing. Vote, and vote according to what you have read, understood, want and need. Don't vote in a particular way just because you've always voted for this or that party, or your parents have, or someone's told you to. Vote and know you've done it for the right reasons.
Perhaps it's precisely this issue that is haunting all the three main parties to the extent that not a single one has a Big Idea - a single, defining thought for change. By and large, they come out almost sounding the same, bar one or two bits here and there. Having listened to and watched the Prime Ministerial debates over the last three weeks, I can't say that anyone come out on top - certainly not David Cameron. I really don't understand why opinion polls put him consistently ahead. He didn't say anything of substance, just anecdotes of dubious provenance and the phrase 'We've got to...' repeatedly. It's all very well saying that something has to be done, but how? that's the real question, and Cameron didn;t answer it. Gordon Brown was much better on facts, substance and method, but he has all the charisma of a sock full of thistles. Clegg was a revelation, only because he hadn't made any impression whatsoever beforehand. Some of his ideas were, I felt, on the naieve side, and he would certainly get a shock if he tried to implement them in the febrile, jumpy atmosphere of government.
There's only one idea worth going for that two parties have suggested - electoral reform. Both Labour and the Lib Dems have it in their manifestoes. Whether it would ever be put into law within a parliamentary cycle is debatable, to put it mildly, and it certainlt won't cure the economic woes of the country. What it may do, however, is open governement to a new democratic paradigm within the UK. It would also force the Big Three to alter, in some cases radically, and open them up to new ideas and policies, rather than have the Same Old Politics again and again, and which seem to end up getting all of us into the Same Old Mess eventually.
And as for the person who said to me that they wouldn't vote because it was against their beliefs, I say that making no choice is still a choice and often the worst one. When faced with a decision, avoiding it does not equate to a good thing. Vote, and vote according to what you have read, understood, want and need. Don't vote in a particular way just because you've always voted for this or that party, or your parents have, or someone's told you to. Vote and know you've done it for the right reasons.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
everyone has to start somewhere
Sean's splodges. Good, aren't they? In a blobby, Rorscharch ink blot test kind of way.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Above us only sky....
See that? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Just a perfect blue sky. Not a single contrail to be seen, thanks to the Volcanic Ash cloud currently floating over Europe.With the exception of a few small airplanes, the only sound of flying things is that of birdsong.
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