Respect.

Mid son mouse has a masters in maths and took the GovBribe to be a maths teacher. He did two and a half years and has now left to set up his own business. Thankfully he didn’t get to the point of attacking a pupil with a dumbbell requesting his immediate demise, but anyone with experience of schools will empathise with the teacher who did. Playing up in lessons is fun. Watching the teacher’s face turn from pink to red to white apoplectic heart attack inducing rage is a laugh. He’s easy meat, trapped and powerless; we’re like a cat playing with a mouse. And lets face it, there’s no consequences, we can’t get done for it but he can, and if push comes to shove it’s just his word against ours. You see adults are stupid and teachers are all wankers so it’s sort of right to fuck them up. They’re a waste of time, try to teach us useless things. What do I need that shit for anyway? What right have they to tell us what to do? All this ‘when you grow up’ shit is bollocks. I’ve got all I need, what do I need a job for? My parents both got dead end jobs till they’re like a hundred and I’m not fucking doing that. They don’t seem to realise I learn all I need from television; you know, get pissed, have a laugh and all that. I’m not like my parents at all; I’m like them on television. They don’t have jobs do they, and they got loads of money. Honest my parents must be thick or something to do shit jobs. I think the older generation just don’t have a clue about the real world, you know, like it is now. The younger generation know about shit; they can’t even use the fucking Sky remote, have to ask me. And now we’ve got rights we can tell the tossers to fuck off, right. Respect, that’s what it’s about. 

Gordon’s Gaff.

Oh come on, we’ve all done it. I remember going to dinner at a neighbours house eating venison around a big oak table, chittery chattering about the finer points of life and then slagging our hosts off something rotten on the way home for their filthy kitchen, avalanche levels of clutter and pretentious talk. Then having to go back for my house keys, all smiles and, “I loved your views about Hulkenburg’s thesis on how photography changed art in the early twentieth century.” “Oh thanks. You must come again.” “Yeh right, what and die of salmonella from eating Yugoslavian ostrich meat you pompous git. I don’t know how your pathetic wimp of a wife puts up with you, you arrogant public school twat.” Oh, did I say that out loud? Sorry I’m having trouble with my speech marks. “Big smile.” No, Gordon not only proved he was human; he proved he was British to the core. For us British closing a door is like entering a decompression chamber, poof and all the pent up secret thoughts come out, eager to see the light of day. He could have said, “Why didn’t one of you fuckers cull that stupid cow before she got to me. You know I can’t talk to these northern retards. I hate going north of Watford.” That’s fine, it’s par for the course, but the weeklong repentant Haj he’s embarking on is a worrying sign of un-British-ness. Gone are the days of singing about our adversary’s uni- testicular condition and calling a spade a spade. Oh my God, did I just type that! Sorry, gone are the days of calling a digging implement a digging implement. It’s no use, it’s out there, done. News at Ten will be interviewing me, “Did you or did you not type bla bla and intend to suggest unfortunate smiley black people should in your estimation be stamped into the earth and are only good for shovelling shit, or do you deny it, thus proving the truth behind our assertions? Or would you rather try to talk about something important in a vain attempt to divert us from getting to the truth, that you think these squalid, ignorant people of inferior races should not be allowed into our wonderful country of high standards and superior Britishness?” Well I, you know, I was just joking. JOKING? WHAT IS THIS JOKING? DOES NOT COMPUTE. 

Who Rules Rules.

Lets say the rules of football state that if you’re wearing a red shirt you can punch the opposing team in the face. And that the referee must not run, only walk slowly, as might a monk to his place of reflection. Oh oh, and also that said red team can, when they consider it necessary, slip a blindfold on said ref. No arguing now, these are the rules, and as good and noble sportsmen we must play by them. The game begins and immediately the red team show their quality. Their first goal comes from a penalty that the ref was told about by the red captain because he didn’t see it due to experiencing a mysterious blackout. Their second went past the goalkeeper out cold by the striker’s right uppercut. Their third, …and so on. The blue team had two goals disallowed and were down to seven men by the final whistle. A resounding victory. Oh did I mention that the winning team could also introduce new rules as part of their winnings. Well as the season went on the red team went from strength to strength and won the league. They were revered as intelligent, insightful, tough but fair. They had played the game by the rules and won. From every game they took away their winnings leaving the rest to count their losses. Clubs became destitute, their players redundant, grounds sold as managers scrambled to deal with mountains of debt. But as whole national leagues were decimated all had to agree that the red team played by the rules. Until, that is, one day a man asked, “Shouldn’t the game of football be fair?” the red manager said, “I don’t understand the question. Don’t we always play by the rules?”

Wealth Wars.

Sunday, Imperial War Museum north. Well worth a visit, especially prescient in these days of impending ration books. Hitler was just sooo obvious! His, “I’m coming to get you” tactics was like so old school. Of course the people of Britain would turn on the searchlights, beat aluminium pans into fuselages and protect London by hundreds of giant floating condoms. Of course the Americans would see it as a wonderful business opportunity. We’re plucky, we’re up for a post match punch up with Borussia Mönchengladbach, even if it does mean eating less and growing potatoes in the bath. Seeing the museum reminded me of our wonderful spirit “to do something” individually and cooperatively when needs must. But today the battlegrounds have changed fundamentally. We have moved to a time of covert challenges. Why invade a country when you can quietly take over the ownership of it? The fifteen wealthiest individuals have a joint wealth of $450 billion, which is about the same as the current deficits of the UK, Greece, Spain and Portugal put together. It would seem that the mechanisms of money flow have allowed it to collect in pockets. This time we didn’t turn on the searchlights; we didn’t see this invasion of our wealth happening. Thousands of troops are one thing but thousands of constantly evolving mechanisms in markets to deviate money flow is very different. It is based on a never-ending loop. Money brings power, power gives the ability to make the rules of money flow, which provides more money, which gives more power, and so on. It is the ultimate triumph of the intellectual realm over physical reality. When the last fruit grower in Africa is made destitute by the wealthiest man in Christendom, the wealthiest man in Christendom has no fruit to eat. But who needs fruit when you’re the wealthiest man in Christendom? So bear in mind in this election when they offer you a ration book to help pay off the deficit, there’s a war on.

Weekend with Mothermouse.

Mothermouse Donkey Poo Wed. Aniv. Pres. A weekend adventure to Old Trafford to see Man U play Tottenham. I love football on TV but to get into Old Trafford after my abysmal two games in sixty years was like being smuggled into Bohemian Grove. Google it, you’ll see what I mean. 75,000 wealthy aficionados congregate to feel emotion. On TV football is a fast moving game full of incident closely examined, slowed down and replayed from multiple angles from which one can form a considered judgment. From Block NW3435, row 27, seat 109 it’s 22 men running about on a field. Make that 19 as the two goalies and Berbatov rarely broke into a trot. In fact Berba’s whole technique revolves around being so slow and incapable that on the one or two occasions he does make an effort the other team are completely flummoxed. Maiming tackles that make me wince on TV, when viewed from seat 109, look like men simply falling over. And if you happen to be dipping into your crisps packet at the wrong moment you miss the goal that wins the match. When Tottenham scored their only goal, their supporters being half a mile away in the opposite corner, there was so little noise compared with the drink spilling crisps dropping jubilation of Man U’s three, I was left genuinely wondering why they were all trotting back to the centre circle. But being there with Mothermouse was an amazing experience; the atmosphere, the wonderful stadium, the stunning view and the emotion of the crowd. The man next to me had brought his seven-year-old daughter. It was lovely to see until he opened his mouth and I realised the poor girl will be left with permanent ear damage. In fact the emotion of the crowd made me realise why the game refuses to use video evidence when resolving fouls and penalty disputes. The game is all about emotion and there’s nothing that rouses emotions more than unfair decisions. A good half of the heated post match debates would be lost if the ref wasn’t visually impaired and the linesmen could see no lack of straightness in a donkeys hind leg. But Man U won by two penalties, which were obviously correct. A pint in the Kit Room bar, several overlooking the Manchester Ship Canal, a carvery and off to bed to watch the slow motion replays, which we missed because MOTD started early.   

The Sky Debate.

First has anyone got an answer to a sticky keyboard? I sprayed mine with WD40 yesterday and it’s even worse. Anyway nice to see the old adversarial politics returning. Three men saying ‘I have all the answers and this is how it is.’ It’s like three men seeing an object on a table and arguing over whether it’s a TV, a bucket of lard or a small stoat. Surely if they find so much divergence there must be still more questions that need to be asked, like ‘does it have a tail?’ or ‘what happens when you plug it into the mains?’ By being so positive they are only indicating their confusion, like three Y9’s arguing that 3, 7 and 9 are the correct answer to the same maths problem. One can only assume either their parents did their homework or they were absent for that topic. In contrast there are no acrimonious debates on Gardeners Question Time. The panel of experts are usually in agreement and only differ by their choice of extra morsels of information they feel like contributing. One only has to imagine taking one’s car into a garage and being faced with three mechanics arguing over whether it’s the carburettor, the gearbox or the steering wheel. “But I brought it in because the brakes weren’t working.” “Please shush, we’re the experts.” No, there are two sorts of people. Ones that know all the answers and ones that keeps asking questions till they know what they’re talking about. But under our system we’re unlikely to vote for a leader who just says, “I’m not sure, but I’ll try my best” or “your camellias would do better in a sunnier spot.” We would feel short changed by anything less than absolute certainty. But rather like the clock that’s only right twice a day, absolute certainty is tantamount to perpetual ignorance that is wrong most of the time. We are though creaking slowly towards consensus politics as the traditional left/right political ground becomes meaningless. Today the ground is micro versus macro, you and me versus Toyota and Tesco. Not forgetting Goldman Sachs and RBS et al. 

Thought for the Day.

Many years ago I remember a very dear friend popping his head round the door of my office as if it were yesterday. He asked me gently for a stapler which I gladly gave him. It’s in these small moments of friendship that we come together, as it were. Small ordinary moments in our everyday lives of kindness, of sharing what we have. God is like that; a friend who will gladly lend you his stapler to help you join together parts of your life that have somehow come apart. He doesn’t try and fob you off with a paper clip or a hole punch, he gives you a stapler. It doesn’t sound much does it, but, well I mean how many staplers does God have? And do we return them? Think about it. If we don’t might he run out? You see God has as many staplers as we need even if we don’t return them, but when we do he is grateful. It probably means just one less trip to office supplies. And if we don’t he will forgive us if we ask him. That’s the beauty of God; he lends and he doesn’t get angry or upset even if we go back time and time again. But that was a long time ago and God changes as all things change. In these days of e-mails and Facebook we don’t go to him for staplers anymore. Somehow we’ve forgotten how useful they are, how central they were to us. People laugh, we think we’re modern, we don’t need them anymore but there comes a time in all our lives where nothing else will do. And it’s then that God is there for us holding in his gentle outstretched hand. A stapler. 

More technical Difficulties.

Chris and Andrae are walking two young Highland heifers round the children’s farmyard practicing to show them. One lets go and Chris asks me to clean it up. No problem, I’m used to this by now. I go for brush, spade and barrow. You’re probably aware of Indonesian elephant Gamelan Orchestras, well this cow had similar artistic aspirations but for her it was the art of Jackson Pollock. With the effortless unconcern that only cows can achieve when shitting she had splattered a fifteen-foot canvas in green. The central high-energy trail was surrounded on all sides by a firework display of splats radiating hither and dither. I set to work. The brush was immediately gummed up with green slurry and using it just spread green all over. The spade scraped it up but due to the liquid consistency it just slid off again, and what was left on gummed up the spade in a sticky emerald mess. In desperation I scraped then pushed it on the spade with my boot and slung what little I collected in the barrow. By this point the barrow, brush, spade and my boot were all covered in sticky green. I was dealing with the excrement equivalent of printers ink. I got a bucket of water. In my imagination the water would wash the yard clean. It didn’t. It simply diluted the green so it could go further. I brushed it, but that just added the slime on the brush and thickened the colour. But it did make the coverage more even. I got another bucket of water and swilled it all over. This only produced numerous rivers of green that trickled across the yard towards the chicken hutches. By now much of my life had been devoted to this task and I was still being defeated by cow shit. Break time. Phew! I left never to return. I did though collect a sack full of donkey poo to give to Mothermouse on the occasion of our Donkey Poo wedding anniversary, which is eight years by the way. The veg will be delighted, evidence, if it were needed, that the shit chain of creation travels in the opposite direction to the food chain. 

Deficit for All.

So our deficit is £2,500 per person, around £10,000 per average household. Say we pay 10% per annum, that’s £1,000 a year for 10 to 15 years depending on interest rates, or 7% of average income, or 8.5% on minimum wage, or 0.1% if you’re on £1 mill. Daunting how to collect all that tax fairly. Now this is apparently an old idea of Milton Freedman’s, and one I invented only a few years ago. A tax system where there is no unemployment benefit. The poor starve, end of. No sorry, it’s not that. There is no unemployment benefit so everyone has to find work of some sort to not starve. But this will only work if there is full employment. OK but that won’t happen unless low-end wages are very low, well below subsistence level. So make the minimum wage £1 per hour. At that level there will be millions of new jobs. Even I could employ someone to scrub my back in the bath. But £37.50 a week isn’t sufficient to live on. So agree a living wage, say £6 per hour and supplement my back scrubber to the tune of £5 per hour to make up the difference. After a while she will leave for £2 per hour and only need £4 supplement or get a better job for £6 and need no supplement, and so on. When she’s on £6 to £10 per hour she pays no tax and higher than £10 she begins to pay tax and can progress through several bands. It’s a simple system that overcomes the cut off point of the minimum wage that forces people into idleness and the government into paying for it. Idleness and the accompanying loss of self-respect doesn’t benefit anyone, and natural avarice will provoke the desire to advance. Employers won’t rely on supplements because they will want better quality workers, and it would give government greater flexibility in taxing. And then there’s the ‘Fare Tax’ system where we abolish all income tax, nice, and replace it with VAT. Interestingly this has gained a fair amount of support in the US Congress from around 2000. All the administration of income tax replaced by a simple tax administered by the shop till. Amazingly the US calculated VAT at only 23% would raise the same revenue as the current income based system. So come on Nick or Dave or Gordon, strap on a pair and lets have some fresh ideas.

UK Today.

OK I don’t mind admitting it, I was wrong. Coloured ties are not too obvious and shoes were visible. As for the silage it began quite well. Each participant had his own take on how to deal with the recent bank robbery, but as education, policing, troop equipment and the NHS moved the debate along a pattern emerged. Gordon will continue funding everything, paralysed by the thought of a second dip. He has learnt from the old Reagan/ Bush era of, “Deficit. What deficit? David wants to cut the lard. When we have more admirals than ships it time to make a cull. Nick says the other two are too old school. He has the appearance of a youth who’s reached the age of, “out of the way, it’s my go.” Gordon showed he has every intention of continuing to paddle up his own particular, ever narrowing working class creek, David continued to be the bright young face of his deeply sinister upper class family, and Nick, as if fresh from university, had surprisingly been let out on his own without his ever thoughtful, intelligent middle class father, Vince Cable. Watching it I was reminded of Gordon’s earlier call for a “gathering of all the talents.” I thought Nick, David and Vince would combine well as a team to make, not a hung parliament, but a talented rainbow front bench. Maybe even invite Dennis Skinner in on it too. So on the whole better than I expected but sorry Gordon, your silage is getting mouldy.

Djembi UK.

In an effort to get away from this bloody election let me take you to the magical multicultural extravaganza that is the Tribe of Doris. Once a year Doris assembles her people in England’s beautiful countryside to experience the creative arts of the world. Begin if you will by joining Dr. Olu Taiwo for some early morning Tai Chi before breakfast. Its gentle slow movements will set you up for the rest of the day. Breakfast is probably Tibetan muesli. In the morning you can choose between Seckou Keita, advanced djembi or, if you’re still holding some residual anger of being a city dweller, Alia Al Zougbi who will teach you Capoera, the ancient art of ghetto knife fighting without knives and accompanied by djembi. Sorry that should be Flavio Grillo; Alia Al Zougbi teaches belly dancing to a derbouka, which is like a djembi but smaller. Easy mistake. After a brief dinner of boiled Yaks milk against a background of distant djembi players it’s back to the culture. Why not form a circle around Binta Susso to learn some Madinka songs, or Felipe De Algeciras for some fiery flamenco. And to round off, in the evening there’s always Sheikh Dede to take you Sufi Whirling. Yes for one week a year us English sample the cultures of the world rather like non-smokers smoke a cigarette. The action is simple, they know what to do yet the result is utterly unconvincing. Now before you accuse me of being snide I’ve done African dancing and Raga singing etc and I have to say I’m just the same. In my hands a djembi is not a rhythmical instrument and my African dancing appears to stem from Woking. These teachers from around the world must take one look at us and think, well, they’re English! Multicultural my arse, we’re English, we can’t pick up a, what shall I choose, a djembi for example and play it just like that. Culture takes at least one or two generations to change, not five times in one day. We’re pathetic, we do Morris dancing for God sake! and sing ‘Oh come all ye faithful.’ And we’ve got Nick and Gordon and David tonight, not Alia Al Zougbi, Flavio Grilla and Olu Taiwo. God I’ll be glad when it’s over and I can get back to digging my allotment and go down’t pub int evening.

Political Silage.

Ruminants need silage every day. It comes in compressed bails, which come off in slices. The tendency is to put the slices in the feed racks still compressed on the assumption you’ll need to refill less often. The compressed silage though gets stale and goes mouldy because air can’t get to it, but it stays in the rack because the animals don’t like eating mouldy silage. So it looks like they’ve got loads to eat when they’re actually starving. But you’ve done your job because the racks are full. So tonight we’re going to get our first political debate live on television. The leaders of the three main parties are going to give us, yes you’ve guessed it, silage. Mouldy slices of compressed rhetoric will fill our rack and we won’t want to eat it because it’s of no nutritious value. But they’ve done their job of lazy husbandry. They will successfully stick to platitudinous verbiage or fall into some cognitive slippage, either way it will be a farce of Moliere like proportions. The thing about farce is its seriousity. People in a farce don’t play for laughs; they just get them. But apparently in the Nixon/ Kennedy debate Nixon won on the radio and Kennedy won on TV. Why? Because Nixon had pale makeup and Kennedy looked more healthy, which obviously doesn’t come across on radio. So we can’t really blame them for paying attention to inconsequential detail. Note to Gordon: ‘visit your local tanning salon; David’s been there every day this week, but don’t go the full Tony colour, he just looks like he’s been bathing in tinned tomatoes.’ Suit, smart but not shiny. Double breasted, hanky in top pocket and buttons with anchors on, dated. Tie not red or blue, too obvious. No tie shows vigour but loose tie indicates you’ve been drinking. Cravat, lush, don’t go there. Smile, practice practice practice. There’s nothing so sincere as a well practiced smile. Teeth, don’t eat anything with spinach in it for three days beforehand. Shoes, optional, no one will see them. And obviously don’t say anything of consequence; it’s not important. So like sheep we gaze at what we’re given, unable to say we’re starving. Did you know ruminants have no top front teeth? True; that’s why they could never be in politics.

Anxious, depressed? Nice.

Therapy Today article, toilet. Oh December 2007, oh well current enough. Psycho Therps in the NHS, £170 mil Gov-mum money for CBT, free at Gov point of delivery. Nice that NICE is thinking of us with its guidelines on anxiety and depression, though it seems to have had the unintended consequence of inducing anxiety and depression in the therapeutic profession. Lets recap. Anxiety is when one can’t, however much one tries, resolve some important life problem. Depression is when one gives up on being anxious. We may be born with a particular set of mental facilities but anxiety and depression aren’t two of them. They are the effect of later circumstances and our ability to cope with them. Anxiety arises, and I don’t think this is as simplistic as it sounds, from dishonesty. Whether it’s one’s own dishonesty of not finding and speaking one’s truth or someone else doing the same, in amongst those lies is the seed of the irresolvable. And the biggest lie we perpetrate is saying, “I am listening” when we’re not. Now for Gov-mum to shell out £170 mil must mean we’re dropping like flies. We can’t cope with this level of inter-social lying. Whether it’s advertising, the media, miss-selling, PC speak, malevolent expertise or overt self-centred control from parent right up to government many of us find ourselves battered in an uncontrollable sea of misrepresentation. However well meaning this Gov initiative is it’s tantamount to paying a large amount of money to have the stable door closed after the horse has left and shot itself in desperation. It may come as a surprise but we, like the horse, don’t want to become anxious and depressed in the first place. We want an honest, less controlled society that gives us the freedom to be, to learn to be capable, benevolent and self-aware. Gov-mum’s attempts to protect us from ourselves through threats, fear, control and restriction bring on the anxiety they are now hoping to alleviate with £170 mil of our own money, which probably won’t work because they’ve now made therapist just as anxious as everybody else. 

Gov-mum Neurosis.

Remember those awkward years of ’Mother knows best’ before you finally told her to sling her hook? It’s just the natural hand over of power to the next generation as you shakily plant your flag on the new, barely known territory of your own life. It doesn’t always happen though. Some mothers cling onto the upper hand and continue guiding, shaping, protecting, supporting and generally knowing best. It’s then a neurosis occurs; the unconscious knows this isn’t ‘my territory’ and can’t build on it, while the conscious builds flights of fancy, negotiating fallacies of safety and comfort as if they were your own. It takes the belligerence and tenacity of a chick in its shell to crack open what is protecting it to get to the rude, real world. And so to the forthcoming election of our new government ‘mother.’ Everything our gov-mum touches institutionalises this neurosis as it tries to guide, protect, support and shape our society. It’s hard for David and Gordon to believe we have the wherewithal to shape our own destiny without their constant intervention. How can teachers teach without directives? How can hospitals be efficient without targets? How can the public survive the slings and arrows without the protection of paedophile laws, CRB checks and speed cameras? As a society we do what mother says and keep our secret thoughts, aspirations and energies to ourselves. She wants us to be enthusiastic, educated and energetic but blocks our desire to follow our own growth at every turn. Our talents are killed in the regulation she has invented to protect us. Just like a protective parent gov-mum won’t tell us the truths we ‘can’t cope with’, won’t allow us entry to the adult world; the foster children of a perpetual divorce haggled over by parents of left and right, neither of which will crack their façade of adulthood and let us grow up. As a result we are in the constant turmoil of ludicrous strictures and rules, becoming ill and demoralised, devoid of initiative. So remember, when David asks us to help him run the country all he’s really saying is, “Put your cross in the blue box and fuck off.”

Approaching the Cliff.

Oh God No! No. My head, I can’t take it, no, make them stop. Beam me up Spotty. Spotty, are you there? No. God this is worse than Dr Who worsest worse fantasy. They just played Cliff Richard’s ‘Summer Holiday’ on the radio, and that’s it, that’s what’s happening. It was like a blinding flashing flash of realisation, seeing them in their hundred and thousands mindlessly following that banal skippy tune. “We’ve seen it on the Moo-vie show, now lets see if it’s true.” Skippy, skippy, skippety skip. Blank smiles and endless machine laughter as they follow Sir Cliff on his big red pleasure bus into the screen of endless illusion. The cinema is empty; the sofa has a fading presence. Where have all the children gone? Sucked off in glassy eyed contentment by some evil projectionist? Bribed into it by EMA, uni grants and Carlsberg? Unhindered by any necessity? So why stay when, “Fun and laughter on our Summer Holiday” beckons in perpetuity? But who will be left to carry on the arguments about politics, philosophy, art and religion till dawn when the only imperative is to agree on, “What shall we watch next?” No reason for learning just to get some meaningless exam pass. No reason to vote, to hurt with the creation of art, no reason to wonder the complexity of why we’re here or argue the merits of parables, because we’ve evolved into the screen. So Cliff please bring our children back after they’ve been, “on holiday for a week or two.” We need them.

CRB OK 4 CAPITA.

Well I’ve just had my CRB checked which, so long as my sexual relationships with piglets has remained un-reported to the authorities, should come back clean as a whistle. I noticed while dressing for the occasion my current T-shirt has emblazoned across the front “sinner, evildoer, malefactor, miscreant.” I don’t think the shapely young lady in snug black slacks, white T-shirt and black low cut 32B bra, which I imaginatively fondled while following her down the corridor, noticed. So I’m free to carry on thinking rude thoughts for another three years so long as I don’t do anything. That’s the strange thing about thoughts; they appear to not exist at all until you do something. You could dream of annexing Poland and Czechoslovakia and die a bitter and twisted old man but so long as you don’t co-opt the whole German nation into your plan for world domination you can die a free man, if somewhat disappointed. So here I am in the bowels of the HM Civil Service; well actually it’s been outsourced to a firm called CAPITA, the UK’s leading BPO company. Don’t ask. This is the new efficiency. Whilst the workers are the same as ever they now have two complete teams of executives above them overseeing their efficiency, ergo they are twice as efficient. It’s amazing something so simple hasn’t been done before. I leave and bump into a young lesbian footballer friend working in B&Q. She is bright, outgoing, enthusiastic and very capable, her talents thoroughly wasted in the gardening section. This sinner, evildoer, malefactor, miscreant is sad about that. 

Don’t Deny, Imply.

Implicit is an interesting word. Explicit in that sentence is that the word is interesting. Implicit in the sentence is that I know it is and you now know I know it is, and I also think you don’t know it is and need to be told, and I think I’m the right person to tell you. You get the picture. There’s a whole raft of implicit givens that, though they are not the object of some utterance are carried along with it un-noticed. Well not consciously. Have you ever had a conversation where you can do nothing but agree with the content yet also hold a deeper inclination to punch the person in the face? It’s usually the hidden iceberg if implicits rancouring your unconscious. Even the innocuous “Have a nice day” implies you might not if the other person doesn’t tell you to; that when their instruction wears off you need to come back for another coffee to perk up your meagre powers of enjoying life. I’m not talking about the explicit, “Lynx will get you laid”, but rather the implicit, “You are so unattractive without it you will spend your life alone with only internet porn to brighten your evenings. Or alcoholicly, “you are incapable of having a good time without being shit faced on Carlsberg.” Then there’s questions. “Have you ever thought of….” may be a helpful provocation to expand your cognitive processing but it might also hold an implicit, “Well I have and you haven’t. I win.” All rhetorical questions are implicit. “Is that the telephone?” is rarely an inquiry about inconclusive hearing, it’s a statement that, “I’m too lazy to get off my fat arse to answer it so you do it.” But beware. Implicitude also occurs in one’s hearing too. One can imply all manner of meanings that weren’t there in the first place. It’s rather like captaining the Titanic. How, when much of one’s own bulk is underwater, does one steam through icebergs, who’s bulk is also largely underwater, to successfully arrive in New York? Answers on a postcard. 

A Whitehall Farce.

It’s not hard to point out the farce in the farcical; it’s like hitting a barn door the size of the Universe. Gordon’s just been to see the queen. His question usually reported as asking for the dissolution of parliament is in fact, “I’m going to dissolve parliament. Have you heard what I have just said?” to which the royal answer is, “Yes.” And that’s just the beginning. Half the population is reading newspapers extolling the need to “Save Britain!” A noble sentiment until you realise most of those newspapers are owned by a Russian oligarch presumably sponsored by a Russian think tank who have recognised war is not necessary if you can control what the opposing country thinks. And of course Rupert Murdoch, the Australian American universal friend of the powerful who supported New Labour’s move to the centre ground but has now found the centre ground a bit to leftish for his liking and thrown his coin behind David Cameron who, when Murdoch was asked what he thought of him, replied, “Not much”, confirming Obama’s view of, “Who’s that? (He’s a) Lightweight.” Still having the persona of a public school boy behind an aging face he has 0.1% of the credibility of Dr Who and 1% that of Jewels who plays bass on Sundays at Woodseats WMC. On the other hand Gordon has the gravitas of gravy. Take note MS Office 2000, ‘gravitas’ is word that your dictionary really should be aware of. So this is an election between light and heavy. Are we to drift off into outer space born up by the lighter than air froth of the Milky Bar Kid or sucked into the bowels of the earth by an overweight Bisto Kid? It’s not an enviable choice. And why? Because we have a professional political class who’ve been thinking politically since they were knee high to Aneurin Bevan and Robert Peel, notice not liberal warmonger Churchill who was only handy for special events. Their knowledge of the society the rest of us live in ended at seven when their nanny left to have a hysterectomy and live on her own in a basement flat in Kentish Town.

How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Six hundred and odd, but it won’t happen till after the next election. 

Silage for Men.

Oh the smell of silage. It lingers like Lynx, it’s shower proof, dries your hands to a crisp and even melts concrete. Honestly, if you’ve got a concrete patio you want up don’t bother with a road drill, just spread wet grass over it and leave it. It’ll be rubble in no time. But ruminants love it. Why they bother chewing it I don’t know because it’ll basically turn to shit on its own. We may be ashes to ashes but for farm animals it’s shit to shit, with shit in between. No wonder they need seven stomachs to get something out of it. How God makes cows and bulls out of this stuff is a miracle. It’s enough to make me vegetarian. Anyway the young heifers are now stroppy teenagers and having a horn up your backside while bending over to shovel their shit is not only worrying, it’s extreme bad manners. What with two trying to knock the barrow over, one chewing the scraper handle and the others rearing me it was a relief to get in with the sheep. They at least only spin round the yard like inveterate ever-watching Catherine wheels crapping peas all over the place. Honestly if farmers taught cows and sheep to use the toilet they could take the afternoons off. But no, it’s water, silage and shit in a perpetual merry-go-round of dealing with their ins and outs. And then an anxious woman tells us a swan has wrestled a goose to the ground and is now mercilessly trying to squash it. Andrea reassures her this is not inter-species death wrestling and it will be OK; he didn’t like to tell her it was simply a male trying to get his end away with anything with feathers, in a testosterone fuelled attempt to make a Swoose, or maybe a Goosan. They’re all at it. If you can’t eat it or shit on it, then shag it, “simple, tchiqx.” How we ever thought homosexuality was ‘un-natural’ when nature is constantly trying to do Darwin’s work in the most indiscriminate manner I’ll never know. If we ever opened all the gates we’d have rabbits with horns, geese that grunt and cows with wings. Forget Greek myths about Pegasus etc, they were all true; they just died out because they weren’t good at landing. So you can forget Kate Humble, I’ve got my eye on very attractive waste bin.

Relationships and toast.

Remember the last time you lost control of your toast and it landed jam-site-down on the floor. OK it has been scientifically proven that the time it takes to fall from the average worktop is equal to the time it take to rotate through 180*, but apart from that you notice it happening time and time again with saddening regularity according to the tenets of Sods Law. Sods Law is as reliable as gravity. If a nut can fall into the most inaccessible of places it will. If, after following a caravan for miles, a straight road appears, traffic will also appear travelling in the opposite direction. So why? Why does this universal phenomenon consistently happen?  It’s all to do with cave men. They were always on the look out for lions and tigers because they would make them go, “oh shit!” unlike squirrels, tortoisouses and ladybirds. We are programmed to notice what might eat us. OK toast won’t eat us but we still notice what we don’t want to happen just the same. When things swim along we don’t notice but when they don’t we do. So Sods Law is universal because we carry it our own perception. Now relationships can go swimmingly but the moment shit approaches the rotating blades your partner is toast. Well not toast in the vernacular, but Sod will most definitely point his accusatory finger just as he did at the oncoming traffic and the infirmed caravan. One becomes Sod himself laying down the rules of your own perception. This person is acting like the nut that knew the very place you didn’t want it to go, and went there. OK I can’t blame the nut, because it’s, well, metal, but I do, but I can blame a supposedly aware thinking, caring being, so it’s open season for partner shooting. How could they! They are of course as oblivious as the oncoming drivers, the nut and one’s toast of one’s invisible Sod governed perspective. They may continue to whistle a happy tune, which through spectacles the colour of Sod is an affront, positive proof if it were needed that they are clinging onto denial as protection from ‘The Truth’, brandishing their bum of defiance in your face of frustration. They may act unawareness as if there is no lion in the undergrowth, proof again they are ignorant, foolhardy and self-obsessed. As they react to this negative perspective Sod has got his way and his law, yet again is found to be true.

PS on the Slavery.

I just want to say I’m only against State Sponsored Slavery. Doing things for fun, for heart, enthusiasm and compassion instead of money is still fine by me. That’s if the state allow you to and you can afford the state’s tax on doing so. CRB checks come in at £26 standard and £36 enhanced every 3 years, and from November 2010 the VBS, Vetting and Barring Scheme, will come in at £64. Of course if you’ve ever touched a child or vulnerable adult you’d be barred, though I’d imagine there’s a special “Reapplication under dubious circumstance” test you could take for a mere £127.50 plus VAT. This in a sense is state legislated bribery. Not in England the grubby outstretched hand waiting to be filled, we have a form to fill in and a bill in Parliament. And then there’s the state sponsorship of the volunteer sector. That’s where individuals eager to make a valuable contribution to their community spend most of their time and energy filling in forms to get a grant and worrying when it will be cut off. If you’re unsuccessful in your chosen pursuit your grant will be cut and if you are successful you won’t have time to fill in the forms, and your grant will be cut. If you fondle your grant administrator in pursuit of a better relationship you will fail your CRB check, and your grant will be cut. The whole system is organised to provide maximum depression to those with the outlandish desire to be useful. Then there’s un-sponsored volunteering where pirate radio and DJs, union reps, rave organisers and civic protesters doing their bit for the community are closed down. I get the feeling government doesn’t actually know the meaning of community other than it’s something scary because it’s outside their control. And volunteering, well that’s just stupid. Why can’t they be like normal people and just fiddle their expenses like we do. 

For free for David.

So David Cameron wants or at least hopes that every single one of us will volunteer for something out of our love of community, unlike his previous female conservative incumbent who didn’t think such a thing existed. Surprisingly these opposing views have one thing in common. In Maggie’s time the unions were all about community, sticking together etc, but Maggie’s problem was she wanted them to work for less and community was keeping wages up. Now though Dave recognises we love our friends and neighbours and will gladly spend our off time manning surveillance cameras, cleaning streets, maybe pedalling dynamos for street lighting and taking care of care in the community types. I’m thinking I might be a volunteer brain surgeon. No doubt his momentary beliefs, rather like you can never get a tennis court when Wimbledon’s on, have focused on all the things we recently did for free for Sport Relief. So rather than David having a different, warmer hearted view of community he has hit on a cracking wheeze, identical but even better than Maggie’s. Get them to work, ot for less but for nothing! It’s like asking us to believe that slaves weren’t slaves at all, they were just volunteering. Yes our black African brothers were so imbued with volunteering spirit they packed themselves by the hundred in VSO chartered sailing ships eager to pick cotton from morn till night for plantation owners who, equally community minded, didn’t let them starve. All pull together, that’s the spirit! If we all pull together we’ll be able to get our poor old George Osborn out of the fix he’ll be in if the Conservatives win the election. Don’t look at it as slave labour, look at it as helping the country pay for bankers bonuses by volunteering your time. For free.

The Arse Wipe Election.

As I remember no one taught me to wipe my arse. I’d been aware of it being done by my mum and then one day she probably just said, “Here now you do it, there’s some paper”, which incidentally was pre-torn squares of newspaper ‘up north in them days.’ I did not go on a government sponsored arse wiping training scheme or pass a SATS exam. There were no government guide lines or accredited arse wipe trainers. My ability to wipe my own arse is totally government free. Complete wagon rains and communities rolled across the US completely government free and thrived successfully. Yes, the Lone Ranger and me did it ourselves, we’re rugged individuals living on the wild frontier. Yet something tells me we’re getting close to video cameras in toilet bowls to gather information on the nations arse wiping ability. I don’t know whether it will be to reduce the rates of bowel cancer by cleaner bottoms or the effects of indulgent loo roll use on climate change but it’s coming. Some expert study will prove that only by government intervention can we as a society achieve efficient levels of bottom cleaning. Members of the middle classes will meet to agree standards, train in their implementation and counselling the failures. The more assiduous will rise through the ranks, raising standards, setting new targets and regulations. We will be required by law to install easy clean high def Toilet bowl cameras connected to the national gov-web to ensure these standards are met. The Prime Minister will point to the economic potential of this new technology. The opposition will say their standards would be higher and achieve large economic savings by greater efficiency. The individual, rather than musing gently through the Sunday colour supplement, relaxed and content, will be wracked with apprehension and possible guilt spending an inordinate amount of time worrying if they’re meeting the latest Ofstead arse wipe standards, while lowly surveillance operatives shout, “Fuck me, look at the size of that turd!”