Donate!

I laughed out loud at the cartoon in the new Private Eye - a man saying 'I can't remember being so indifferent since Diana died' and I have to say that I haven't been to a Thatcher is dead celebration street party or whatever at all.  Whole Sky Monitor did have a beer mind you...

But being serious, our man Billy Bragg who rarely says owt stupid did suggest this website.  I agree so I'm passing on the link  http://donthatedonate.com/  There is a certain callousness about celebrating anyone's death so you can go here and mark the death of Maggie by donating...

I'm going to give a few quid to the Tutu Foundation.  I'm not a Christian (far from it...) but when Des goes I will probably shed a tear...but hopefully that's a long time away...

Maggie Maggie Maggie!

One or two people who are too young to remember have asked me what all the fuss is about Margaret Thatcher...

Well, here's my tuppennyworth...

These are the things I remember most about Maggie.

• Awful patronising tone when talking to anyone at all
• Support for Apartheid South Africa
• Using the police to stop people legitimately using roads in coalfield areas during the miners strike (they'd arrest everyone who wouldn't turn back at road blocks and the courts would declare it illegal and let them go - then it'd happen again and again and again)
• Related to the above, using the police as a political tool
• Presiding over the conversion of the economy from manufacturing to 'services' which seems to mean moving money around from screen to screen and pocketing massive profits without actually doing anything useful (until it all went wrong)
• Her 'Victorian values' - not so much civic pride or public sewer building but a general prejudice against gay people and foreigners  
• The massive and deliberate shift of power away from trade unions and their members to multinational corporations
• Complete lack of sympathy bordering on contempt for workers, Northerners, working northerners and the unemployed (and more I'm sure)
• Social values based on promoting and rewarding selfishness and greed
• Holes in the road
• Selling Council houses off with no intention of building any new ones
• Oh yes, there's the massive hypocrisy of that Francis of Assisi quote about harmony!

The Thatcher government was the only time I can remember when the government seemed to actually be out to get me.  Not the same as not representing me or representing other interests - but actually out to get me personally for not toeing the line.

The sad fact is that she did win - greatest legacy being New Labour and the myth that only private enterprise works.  I give you German Railways as a quick example.  And British ones as another!

That's enough Thatcher...

Rough Little Mixes

Music!  Yes, I'm going to mention music.  I've been with Neil the top recording man today sorting out rough mixes of new recordings.  I think this is what it would look like if I tweeted...

I now have what I need to rehearse bass playing and singing.  Ah...work...Well, sort of...

Fifty three quid!

If you don't know what I'm talking about here don't worry.  Anyway, yes...any fool can live on £53 a week - for about a week.  Until you need toilet roll and shampoo and stamps and need to catch a bus and buy a bit of food and...

So if IDS is going to live on £53 a week it has to be for at least 6 months or it means nothing...

Here's a thought on the benefits bill...Part of the reason for it being so high is that wages are so low.  This is partly due to power being shifted from workers and unions to big international companies.  So...the way to decrease the benefits bill is to give more power to those demanding higher wages.  They then pay more in tax.  So basically we're talking about a shift of power and money from the rich and powerful to the poor and powerless.  Easy!  Bring back left of centre politics and trade unions!

There you go IDS, you can have that for a consultancy fee of oh, I dunno...fifty three quid.  Plus a bonus.  Call it a million quid...

The Spam Bots are winning!

I'm really sick of spam bots with their fake blog comments...

This is the kind of thing...

"I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here.
The sketch is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish.
nonetheless, you command get got an impatience over
that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again since exactly the
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It's knacking my stats for one thing.  I've had the odd chuckle at the near English but it is annoying

Here's another one...

"What a stuff of un-ambiguity and preserveness of precious know-how
about unexpected feelings".

I get dozens of these things.  To be fair I think Blogger is picking them up and removing them but I get the notifications y'see...

That's enough spam botting for now I think...

Too much to do...

Ooh, there should have been millions of posts recently but I haven't had time to do any.  I'm seriously considering Twittering so I can just do the odd line here and there, though I much prefer pontificating at length.  But here's some bits and pieces...

My old band from the 1980s, the Sinister Cleaners will be playing their first gig since er, 1987 at the Parish in Huddersfield on Saturday 13th April 2013.

I've been 'in the studio laying down some tracks' with Simon who used to be the Wedding Present's drummer back in the day - been recording some new songs, Neil from Chumbas at the controls...Andrew from the above mentioned Sinister Cleaners 'dropped by' and did some bits too.

My new album is all edited and mastered and ready to be manufactured.

I'm playing my first solo gig in ages at the White Rose Centre in Leeds on Saturday 9th March - I'm on at about 3.45 though there are top turns on all day - helping raise money for the MS Society.

And some brief music opinions...went to the NME tour thang at the O2 in Leeds recently - Miles Kane was incomprehensible - i.e. I saw no musical value whatsoever - though the drummer was good.  I just didn't get it at all...just dull.  Meanwhile Django Django unexpectedly put on a massive show and were ace.  In fact...I'll make time in another post for them...and for Jake Bugg...

Our friends the banks

I'd like to ask a question.  Why is it that the the profitable bits of the banks are going to be re-privatised first while we hang on to the 'toxic assets'? Why can't we, the owners of the banks (who nursed them back to health under public ownership it seems) get the profits and let the banks keep their toxic assets?

Why do we keep buying into the notion that private enterprise works while public ownership doesn't?  Bankers proved they weren't fit to be er, bankers so we took their banks off them, pumped in billions of pounds ground from the poor in extra VAT and whatnot and when they're looking a bit healthier under public ownership we're planning to give them back to the people who should now be on the street begging not to be kicked into the gutter?  Makes yer think though eh? 

"Everything happens for a reason"

I heard someone say 'I think everything happens for a reason' recently.  Well, I would like to say that that idea is offensive nonsense (I'm offended, call the police!)  The idea that some cosmic force is hurling children to their deaths in the road or making you redundant so you can learn something new about your inner self - I think the word HALFWIT was invented for this sort of talk.  The universe would be a truly scary place if reason had anything at all to do with all the bad stuff that happens.  Randomness is scary but the idea that something was organising it all would be truly horrible!

Fish know better (cod philosophy, geddit?!)

...and if anyone posts any more of those damned homilies on Facebook (or anywhere I can see them!) I will kill them (oop, it's the police again!)

You know the sort of thing - generally starts with "A true friend..."  I suggest A true friend "will tell you to shut the fuck up when you're talking like a halfwit"

Incidentally I do like the word halfwit.  So far I'm not aware of anyone bleating on about how offensive it is.

I just spellchecked this post - Blogger spellcheck suggests that 'offensive' is wrong!

It's all free I tell you...But only for me!

Vistaprint have been in touch again.  They like to stay in touch; in fact they contact me every day pretty much.  Everything is free at Vistaprint (and the sun always shines one presumes).  Then they send me exclusive offers and special deals (you won’t get them, no siree, they’re just for me – oh you have!?) – and they’re currently having a “Mega Sale”.  Thing is that everything is free – so how do you reduce your prices from free?  How do you improve on free from a customer perspective?! 

Here comes an analogy...Now I won’t need to tell you how annoying ‘booking fees’ are on concert tickets.  They tell you a ticket is, say, £20 but actually it costs £22.50 to get one – outrageous.  Now imagine that concerts are ‘free’ but you have no idea how much the ‘booking fee’ is until right at the end of the transaction.  Now imagine that you have to design your own concert tickets and upload logos and whatnot and basically do the artwork.  If you can be bothered you work through the process - to find that your free ticket costs about £22.50. 

 

That ladies and gentlemen is Vistaprint!  Oh, and they do free delivery on orders of over £10!  If only everything wasn’t free I might get my order up to a tenner.  I wonder when they tell you how much the free postage is going to cost you?

Travel chaos linked to Savile investigation

You may have noticed the phenomenon of the ‘news’ story written in advance.  Here’s an example from today...The Metro has a headline saying “Icy blast plunges Britain into travel chaos”.  Well not where I was - and for some reason I haven’t heard about this 'chaos'.  Tell me more Metro...”by mid afternoon 6cm of snow had fallen on Nottingham”.  6cm eh?  Well, clearly anyone 3 inches tall will have had a problem – presumably this is the most dramatic snowfall they could find? – not ‘up to 4mm which melted away almost instantly’ then?  However they also said “accumulations of up to 10cm were expected in many places” 10 feet?! Oh My God, no!  No,10cm.  Oh and a car skidded in Oxfordshire.  Clearly this piece was going in the paper anyway, even though the chaos failed to materialise in real life.  Someone I knew at school was killed on the road last week...didn’t make the Metro though...People more interested in minor inconvenience if weather related...

I know this is only the Metro but really...Any forecast of snow and the media re-run these tedious stories whatever the actual facts.

Oh, here’s another disingenuous story...Look North (the BBC ferflippsaxes...) reporting from outside St Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds recently – the story was of an assault by Jimmy Savile.  The reporter had his most serious grave / ashen face on too of course.  The clear implication was that Savile had stooped so low as to molest a dying person – so was this the story?  Actually no, it involved a visitor, not a patient.  But in all the hundreds of Jimmy Savile stories why pick on this one?  Presumably because the titillation / ‘horror’ factor was higher.  More drama, more moral outrage – ‘look, we’ve got a story that’s even more terrible than other people’s’.  They didn’t want to let go of the implication and the hospice was forced to issue a statement (they’re against this sort of thing, should you be wondering). Why should the hospice be singled out and forced to comment as the venue for an alleged assault when it seems hundreds of places were the venue for assaults?

 

Similarly there are people who may well be unpleasant law breakers and guilty of sexual assault but are clearly not paedophiles.  But the papers are able to link them to ‘Savile investigation’ and so by implication they are. 

In short I don’t think the concepts of ‘news’ and ‘implication’ should be mixed.  If Jimmy Savile assaulted a dying person say so, if someone is proved to be a paedophile say so – but don’t  tell the story in such a way as to imply something that you clearly can’t back up with facts. And of course they never sucked up to sir Jimmy on Look North did they?

 

I know, I know, best not to go on the internet or watch the telly or read the papers.  Note to self.  Get a life instead...

Shocked to the core...

Well people, MSN suggest we vote on 'the most shocking celebrity story of 2012' - apparently it might be one of these...

1. Tulisa 'sex tape' released
2. Kristen Stewart cheats on Robert Pattinson
3. Whitney Houston's death
4. Prince Harry nude picture revealed
5. Kate Middleton's topless picture published
6. Rihanna and Chris Brown rekindle their romance
7. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes split up
8. Stacey Solomon smokes while pregnant
9. Myleene Klass' husband leaves her after six months of marriage
10. Helen Flanagan poses with a gun to her head

Anyway, that's a big Merry Christmas to all Jimmy Savile's victims then!

PS - There are 13 people mentioned in that list - To my shame I've heard of no fewer than 8 of them.  They can't be proper 'celebrities' - if they were I wouldn't have heard of them at all right?