There's a great fashion across the world for apologising right now for things that went wrong in the past, so I wasn't too surprised to see writer Chris Dolan suggesting it's time Scotland apologised for its role in the 3-way traffic that took people - black people - as slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and the southern US states and brought sugar and tobacco from there to Bristol, London, Liverpool and Glasgow. With these, the UK got rich. Very rich. It was able to expand its empire across 4 continents and made unbelievable amounts of money for a small number of people.
My family comes from a long line of people who were basically little more than slaves themselves: indentured servants working on farms and in other people's houses, miners who could only spend their wages at the company store, labourers in factories across Scotland, who chased work to England, Northern Ireland and then to Canada, the US and finally Australia and New Zealand. As far from home as you could get and with little hope of ever returning to your family - or even of keeping in contact with them.
Any chance any of them will get an apology? Maybe for their early deaths in shipyards, rope factories and locomotive works, where they inhaled asbestos, got 'white finger' which meant their hands didn't work so they couldn't work, developed miners' lung, lived in overcrowded slum housing, got the minimum of education and less opportunity, gave up their lives in two world wars, went hungry in the bad times, and thought they'd gone to heaven when the Welfare State and comprehensive education came in.
Just as black people are still paying the price of slavery, the working class in the UK are paying for the British Empire: early death is common in the former industrial areas like Belfast, Liverpool, Corby, Teesside and central Scotland. And the people are all being treated just as badly: as if they are poor because they are shiftless, lazy skivers, not survivors of an awful inheritance.
I for one don't want apologies. Prof Tom Devine is right when he says you can't apply 21st century rules to 18th century morals. In any case, that's not going to put bread on the plate, as the French say. I want us all - especially the Tories currently in government - to understand that there's no such thing as a 'self-made millionaire' and start redistributing wealth - and we still produce plenty of it in the UK - a bit more fairly.
Sunday 28 April 2013
Saturday 27 April 2013
Ghastly Asda
The sister is relentless. It doesn't matter that my ankles are swollen from an allergy to Imodium or that I haven't done an ironing for weeks. 'Just put on a top and a perra troosers,' she says. And off we jolly well go to Asda in Govan. The sister is after trousers, shoes - and, well, frankly, anything else that catches her eye in the clothes line, her being a slave to fashion - and Asda being the place to find it. I'm after nothing except maybe 5 x 7 photographic paper. She ends up with 3 pairs of trousers, a pair of jeans, 2 pairs of shoes and a top. I end up with 2 tops and a cardigan. No photographic paper, of course. I'll have to go to Tesco for that next week.
We decide we hate Asda Govan. Myself I just hate Asda. Cheap, nasty food, mostly processed, badly displayed. A poor range of fruit and veg. A cafe that only sells stuff cellophone-wrapped: mostly factory-made muffins and millionaire's shortbread. As far from fresh as you can get. Toilets even I try to avoid (and when I gotta go, I gotta go). Not that Tesco in Silverburn is any better but at least the staff in Asda Govan are civil.
Afterwards, the sister and I repair to Whole Foods in Giffnock for a coffee, just because we can. Yes, I know I'm not allowed coffee at the moment (see Imodium allergy above) but hey, as my mate Jim says: live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse - even if nowadays I can only manage the first of the three.
Why, we wondered, are Asda Govan and Tesco Silverburn so horrible? Is it where they are? Govan? Pollok? Could there really be some kind of postcode thing going on here?
Many years ago when I joined the Children's Panel in Glasgow - Southside Division - I was delighted to find that the reception rooms for parents and young people in Albion Street were nicely furnished with decent seats, subdued lighting and nice toilets. Bad enough your wean is in trouble but at least you still deserve to be treated like a human being. And it seemed to work. People respected their surroundings.
Maybe there's a hint here for Asda and Tesco. Asda has a huge clothes department upstairs. Mainly the people shopping are women. The men and weans trail after them. I heard one guy today ask plaintively: 'What am ah here fur?' Only to be told: 'Tae push the trolley. Stoap moanin.' There are a few seats in the shoe section, all taken by elderly women (including me) and pissed-off looking men - and none of us are trying on shoes, I have to admit. In the changing rooms, where the sister is trying on at least a dozen different items, not a seat to be seen. I would bag the disabled changing room but a woman comes in in a wheelchair and it would seem churlish to refuse her entry.
Tesco Silverburn is beyond belief. I can see exactly why Tesco's profits are dropping. Nothing in the store is correctly signposted, so you get the impression some madman has decided if they can make you walk round more you'll buy more. Stuff is moved - often - and for no reason that I can see. Things run out and you can never find out when they'll get them in again. And there are never any customer liaison staff to help you - the poor buggers are all stacking shelves. Would I buy clothes in Tesco? Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to be seen in them. Weird colours, odd patterns, utterly random sizes. The mark-up in clothes is fantastic so why do Asda and Tesco both have a problem with their websites where the clothes shown often can't be found in their shops?
When I'm running things, it'll all be different, as I told the sister. She laughed. She does that a lot.
We decide we hate Asda Govan. Myself I just hate Asda. Cheap, nasty food, mostly processed, badly displayed. A poor range of fruit and veg. A cafe that only sells stuff cellophone-wrapped: mostly factory-made muffins and millionaire's shortbread. As far from fresh as you can get. Toilets even I try to avoid (and when I gotta go, I gotta go). Not that Tesco in Silverburn is any better but at least the staff in Asda Govan are civil.
Afterwards, the sister and I repair to Whole Foods in Giffnock for a coffee, just because we can. Yes, I know I'm not allowed coffee at the moment (see Imodium allergy above) but hey, as my mate Jim says: live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse - even if nowadays I can only manage the first of the three.
Why, we wondered, are Asda Govan and Tesco Silverburn so horrible? Is it where they are? Govan? Pollok? Could there really be some kind of postcode thing going on here?
Many years ago when I joined the Children's Panel in Glasgow - Southside Division - I was delighted to find that the reception rooms for parents and young people in Albion Street were nicely furnished with decent seats, subdued lighting and nice toilets. Bad enough your wean is in trouble but at least you still deserve to be treated like a human being. And it seemed to work. People respected their surroundings.
Maybe there's a hint here for Asda and Tesco. Asda has a huge clothes department upstairs. Mainly the people shopping are women. The men and weans trail after them. I heard one guy today ask plaintively: 'What am ah here fur?' Only to be told: 'Tae push the trolley. Stoap moanin.' There are a few seats in the shoe section, all taken by elderly women (including me) and pissed-off looking men - and none of us are trying on shoes, I have to admit. In the changing rooms, where the sister is trying on at least a dozen different items, not a seat to be seen. I would bag the disabled changing room but a woman comes in in a wheelchair and it would seem churlish to refuse her entry.
Tesco Silverburn is beyond belief. I can see exactly why Tesco's profits are dropping. Nothing in the store is correctly signposted, so you get the impression some madman has decided if they can make you walk round more you'll buy more. Stuff is moved - often - and for no reason that I can see. Things run out and you can never find out when they'll get them in again. And there are never any customer liaison staff to help you - the poor buggers are all stacking shelves. Would I buy clothes in Tesco? Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to be seen in them. Weird colours, odd patterns, utterly random sizes. The mark-up in clothes is fantastic so why do Asda and Tesco both have a problem with their websites where the clothes shown often can't be found in their shops?
When I'm running things, it'll all be different, as I told the sister. She laughed. She does that a lot.
Thursday 25 April 2013
Southside of Glasgow - a no go area?
I know I've ranted about this before but I'm going to have another go at it.
Today I tried to drop my library buddy Alex off at a friend's house near Craigton Primary School just off Paisley Road West in Bellahouston. Alex has Parkinson's and is to be admired for how he just gets out there and gets on with his life. He has good days and bad. Today he was tired, so I really wanted to get him as close to where he was going as possible. We're both locals and know most of the south west of Glasgow pretty well so we thought we knew where we were going.
It didn't take us long to work out that some mad person in Glasgow City Council has made it near enough impossible to get into the streets near Craigton school - and, once you're in, it's just about impossible to get out. In fact, you're more or less unable to turn off Paisley Road anywhere between Cardonald and Paisley Road Toll. So round and round we went, stopped by bollards and no entry signs at every turn. At one point I thought I'd knackered the chassis of my car on a speed bump.
This ridiculous arrangement is obviously meant to deter people going to games at Ibrox Park from leaving their cars outside people's houses. Footie fans park on the streets of the Southside because there's no real parking provided. In fact, the place where car parks could have been built is Helen Street. Car parks there could have serviced both Ibrox and - with the addition of a bus service - the national stadium at Hampden. They could even have picked up some income from people leaving their cars and car-sharing to get into the city centre and out to Paisley and Inverclyde. But no, instead of car parking, we have the largest police station outside Central London and a bloody great Asda supermarket. The City Fathers need a swift kick up the arse for that one. There is still some waste land available near Ibrox stadium but no sign of anything sensible - like car parking - being built on it.
I wonder if anyone has carried out a survey of not just local residents but local road users. How much time is wasted by emergency services trying to find their way in to residential areas through this maze of obstructions? And I'd love to hear what my friends who live in Bellahouston Drive make of the decision by Glasgow City Council to - not block off their street, which was being used as a rat-run by speeding motorists - but as a legitimate short-cut serviced by a set of traffic lights at the Mosspark Boulevard end.
All of the above, in my opinion, involves turning the local area into a traffic maze: a playground for cars. The quality of life is diminished as a result. Shameful.
Today I tried to drop my library buddy Alex off at a friend's house near Craigton Primary School just off Paisley Road West in Bellahouston. Alex has Parkinson's and is to be admired for how he just gets out there and gets on with his life. He has good days and bad. Today he was tired, so I really wanted to get him as close to where he was going as possible. We're both locals and know most of the south west of Glasgow pretty well so we thought we knew where we were going.
It didn't take us long to work out that some mad person in Glasgow City Council has made it near enough impossible to get into the streets near Craigton school - and, once you're in, it's just about impossible to get out. In fact, you're more or less unable to turn off Paisley Road anywhere between Cardonald and Paisley Road Toll. So round and round we went, stopped by bollards and no entry signs at every turn. At one point I thought I'd knackered the chassis of my car on a speed bump.
This ridiculous arrangement is obviously meant to deter people going to games at Ibrox Park from leaving their cars outside people's houses. Footie fans park on the streets of the Southside because there's no real parking provided. In fact, the place where car parks could have been built is Helen Street. Car parks there could have serviced both Ibrox and - with the addition of a bus service - the national stadium at Hampden. They could even have picked up some income from people leaving their cars and car-sharing to get into the city centre and out to Paisley and Inverclyde. But no, instead of car parking, we have the largest police station outside Central London and a bloody great Asda supermarket. The City Fathers need a swift kick up the arse for that one. There is still some waste land available near Ibrox stadium but no sign of anything sensible - like car parking - being built on it.
I wonder if anyone has carried out a survey of not just local residents but local road users. How much time is wasted by emergency services trying to find their way in to residential areas through this maze of obstructions? And I'd love to hear what my friends who live in Bellahouston Drive make of the decision by Glasgow City Council to - not block off their street, which was being used as a rat-run by speeding motorists - but as a legitimate short-cut serviced by a set of traffic lights at the Mosspark Boulevard end.
All of the above, in my opinion, involves turning the local area into a traffic maze: a playground for cars. The quality of life is diminished as a result. Shameful.
Tuesday 23 April 2013
TV Drama
Did you watch Broadchurch? Just about everybody I know was either watching it live or recording it to watch later. People who gave up on it or never started watching it are now trying to catch up on the iPlayer.
The first of its 8 episodes aired in the same week as a thriller got underway on BBC1 and the first of a post-apocalypse action series started on Sky 1. Neither of these got the same audience or had the same effect as Broadchurch.
So why did Broadchurch catch on? First of all, it was shown on a mainstream channel that everybody could see. It was made in the UK in a seaside setting most of us would recognise. The characters were totally believable. There were no super-powers and no zombies. The script was first rate. The acting was excellent. If there was one magic ingredient, it was David Tennant whose screen presence is tremendous, even if he's a bit longer in the tooth than Robert Pattinson. But, above all else, Broadchurch had time to develop: despite being on ITV and therefore with ad breaks, it was a bit like an old-fashioned TV thriller, with new characters revealed and the pieces of the jigsaw gradually coming together.
To be fair, the ending didn't really matter (my money was on Olivia Coleman, Tennant's detective colleague, obviously a twist too far). If I was Pauline Quirk, now that we know there's to be a second series, I'd have my agent parked in the producers' office demanding a major part for her: does she do sinister or what?
At times, I despair of UK telly but then two things happen: I remember trying to watch TV in the US where everything is fitted into 10 minute segments round 'our sponsors' and a series like this comes along - or a documentary like Keeping Britain Alive - the NHS in a Day - on tonight at 9pm on BBC2.
The first of its 8 episodes aired in the same week as a thriller got underway on BBC1 and the first of a post-apocalypse action series started on Sky 1. Neither of these got the same audience or had the same effect as Broadchurch.
So why did Broadchurch catch on? First of all, it was shown on a mainstream channel that everybody could see. It was made in the UK in a seaside setting most of us would recognise. The characters were totally believable. There were no super-powers and no zombies. The script was first rate. The acting was excellent. If there was one magic ingredient, it was David Tennant whose screen presence is tremendous, even if he's a bit longer in the tooth than Robert Pattinson. But, above all else, Broadchurch had time to develop: despite being on ITV and therefore with ad breaks, it was a bit like an old-fashioned TV thriller, with new characters revealed and the pieces of the jigsaw gradually coming together.
To be fair, the ending didn't really matter (my money was on Olivia Coleman, Tennant's detective colleague, obviously a twist too far). If I was Pauline Quirk, now that we know there's to be a second series, I'd have my agent parked in the producers' office demanding a major part for her: does she do sinister or what?
At times, I despair of UK telly but then two things happen: I remember trying to watch TV in the US where everything is fitted into 10 minute segments round 'our sponsors' and a series like this comes along - or a documentary like Keeping Britain Alive - the NHS in a Day - on tonight at 9pm on BBC2.
Saturday 20 April 2013
Old, not dead!
Today's Herald Scotland includes a wee extra magazine called '50 plus'. I have a feeling whoever put it together isn't 50+ and hasn't really got much idea what to make of that age group.
For a start, there are a helluva lot of us in the 50+ age group these days. I'm even alarmed to see that some of my former students will shortly be joining this group (you know who you are!). Some of us are in excellent health. Some are active and outgoing. Some expect to be working for another 20-30 years. Some have already had their health ruined by hard physical labour and by bad habits (as my friend TT used to put it when reading statistics, some of us are 'broken down by age and sex.') A lot of us are drawing a state pension these days and I'll take this opportunity to point out yet again that us pensioners are the biggest charge on the state's Social Security bill, not the unemployed. Some of us feel the need to put back a bit of what we're getting out.
The front cover of the Herald magazine has Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue still working but looking, I'm afraid, like 90+ or me on a bad day with the gut problems (still going on, thank you for asking). Inside the magazine there are the usual ads for fashion, easy-rise chairs, mobility scooters, holidays, home helps, lawyers who want to make your will, retirement villages - all the things someone at the Herald thinks us well-heeled pensioners are interested in. But also, mirabile dictu: a couple of pages on volunteering.
About time, I thought! There needs to be more space given in the media to opportunities for older people to give their time and expertise back to the community. A lot of us 50+s have the time. I volunteer with the very elderly (mostly 85+ in age) and have pals who give their time to work with the Parkinson's Society, Glasgow libraries, Age Concern, as computing tutors in East Ren, in charity shops and museums, etc. We love it. If I have a reservation, it's really the continuing lack of recognition that there are a lot of very isolated elderly and disabled people in our community - and a lot of other people well placed to befriend them if they are given the chance.
But the Herald only had space for two items about volunteering, neither of them of much appeal to most of us: Voluntary Service Overseas and the WRI. So just in case you fancy volunteering and wonder what else is available, have a look at the Volunteer Scotland website:
http://www.volunteerscotland.org.uk/
Excellent website. It's hard to believe how many cracking opportunities there are out there. Volunteering keeps you young and gets you meeting fabulous people. Try it!
For a start, there are a helluva lot of us in the 50+ age group these days. I'm even alarmed to see that some of my former students will shortly be joining this group (you know who you are!). Some of us are in excellent health. Some are active and outgoing. Some expect to be working for another 20-30 years. Some have already had their health ruined by hard physical labour and by bad habits (as my friend TT used to put it when reading statistics, some of us are 'broken down by age and sex.') A lot of us are drawing a state pension these days and I'll take this opportunity to point out yet again that us pensioners are the biggest charge on the state's Social Security bill, not the unemployed. Some of us feel the need to put back a bit of what we're getting out.
The front cover of the Herald magazine has Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue still working but looking, I'm afraid, like 90+ or me on a bad day with the gut problems (still going on, thank you for asking). Inside the magazine there are the usual ads for fashion, easy-rise chairs, mobility scooters, holidays, home helps, lawyers who want to make your will, retirement villages - all the things someone at the Herald thinks us well-heeled pensioners are interested in. But also, mirabile dictu: a couple of pages on volunteering.
About time, I thought! There needs to be more space given in the media to opportunities for older people to give their time and expertise back to the community. A lot of us 50+s have the time. I volunteer with the very elderly (mostly 85+ in age) and have pals who give their time to work with the Parkinson's Society, Glasgow libraries, Age Concern, as computing tutors in East Ren, in charity shops and museums, etc. We love it. If I have a reservation, it's really the continuing lack of recognition that there are a lot of very isolated elderly and disabled people in our community - and a lot of other people well placed to befriend them if they are given the chance.
But the Herald only had space for two items about volunteering, neither of them of much appeal to most of us: Voluntary Service Overseas and the WRI. So just in case you fancy volunteering and wonder what else is available, have a look at the Volunteer Scotland website:
http://www.volunteerscotland.org.uk/
Excellent website. It's hard to believe how many cracking opportunities there are out there. Volunteering keeps you young and gets you meeting fabulous people. Try it!
Monday 15 April 2013
There's Nothing On the Telly!
I've been ill for a few weeks. I brought back some nasty little bacteria from my holiday in the Canaries and they ran riot in my gut. I got to know my toilet very well - too well, in fact - since I seemed to spend a lot of time cleaning it. Not to mention washing my hands, which are now a nice red colour - not suntanned, just scrubbed raw by anti-bacterial wash.
The advice from my GP was to drink plenty fluids, eat toast and clear soup (I'm Scottish - I don't do clear soup) and avoid dairy. I spent a fortune on Imodium which, I was shocked to learn, retails at 60p for one tablet. No volunteering (my clients are very aged and all have underlying health conditions), no family visits in case I passed anything on (they're all ill now - that has nothing to do with me but is a result of a winter that just goes on and on), no trips to the shops, no lunches or coffees. I even missed a wee wine session with an old friend. Also missed a trip to the dentist for a filling - well, nothing is all bad - and have had to put off my hair appointment for so long I'll soon need kirby grips if I'm to see anything at all.
To start with I was too ill to worry about how to pass the time. Doing a Homer Simpson, I found myself saying out loud at 5 one morning: 'Just let me sleep - why won't you let me sleep?' But then I began to get better. I still had no concentration so reading was a challenge. New Statesman took an Easter break - luckily - and I got very annoyed with Time magazine's obsession with China and its insistance on regarding South America as its backyard, denying that Salvador Allende's death had owt to do with the US or that Hugo Chavez might have been acting in the interests of the people of Venezuela, so much so I threw my copy across the room and phoned to cancel my subscription. Don't mess with me, USA.
For the first time ever, my Lovefilm subscription went bad: I spent 2 weeks without a film over the Easter weekend. I turned to the telly. Usually, I record programmes I like the look of and watch them at my leisure. Sky Arts is good, as are BBC4. C4 and Nat Geo. The only programmes I watch 'live' are the news and quizzes - and my guilty pleasure, Doctors. Now I was watching whatever was on.
Seriously, has it always been this bad? I seem to remember my bro-in-law once saying: 800 channels on Sky - all crap. You can include Virgin in that assessment.
I tried Criminal Minds. Stupid. CSI - also stupid and the various franchises seem to be swapping storylines and even characters. Does Ted Danson dye his hair? - that colour is surely not one found in nature. NCIS - that Tony guy needs a good slap. In despair, I turned to new series. Revolution took American paranoia to new heights. Stereotype characters, bad acting. Psych, Warehouse 13, Special Victims' Unit - oh, come on, be serious.
On UK tv - let's not kid ourselves: the only programme I'm still watching after a month is Broadchurch.
I've caught up with Shaun the Sheep series 1-3 and Japanese animated movies from the Gible studio. A movie connoisseur of my acquaintance has passed me documentaries and British films I've never heard of, let alone seen. So far so good.
But I can see why people go for illegal downloads of new movies. And I'm lucky: I don't have to rely on terrestrial telly and I can supplement cable with Lovefilm and swops with mates.
A relative once told me there are people in Glasgow (and no doubt elsewhere) who spend money they can't really afford on satellite tv because they don't feel safe going out at night. Poor quality tv is an issue for them. If they're on 'benefits', they may be feeling the squeeze even more at the moment.
Things I learned during my illness:
- the Canaries have nothing to do with wee burds.
- everything in the supermarket contains either cheese or milk. If I thought a gluten-free diet was bad,
dairy-free is nearly impossible. Soya milk is disgusting. It also clogs the drain when you try to pour it away.
- the quickest way to lose 22lbs in a month is to get some rogue bacteria in your gut. You won't die of it but you'll wish you could.
- there is something worse than New Statesman's Easter break: the New Statesman centenary edition. 180 pages with just 2 things worth reading: a short story by Ali Smith and the story of the tapestry depicting the history of Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith. Spot the link.
Finally, a test: whose catchphrase (admittedly, he had a lot) was 'There's nothing on the telly!'
The advice from my GP was to drink plenty fluids, eat toast and clear soup (I'm Scottish - I don't do clear soup) and avoid dairy. I spent a fortune on Imodium which, I was shocked to learn, retails at 60p for one tablet. No volunteering (my clients are very aged and all have underlying health conditions), no family visits in case I passed anything on (they're all ill now - that has nothing to do with me but is a result of a winter that just goes on and on), no trips to the shops, no lunches or coffees. I even missed a wee wine session with an old friend. Also missed a trip to the dentist for a filling - well, nothing is all bad - and have had to put off my hair appointment for so long I'll soon need kirby grips if I'm to see anything at all.
To start with I was too ill to worry about how to pass the time. Doing a Homer Simpson, I found myself saying out loud at 5 one morning: 'Just let me sleep - why won't you let me sleep?' But then I began to get better. I still had no concentration so reading was a challenge. New Statesman took an Easter break - luckily - and I got very annoyed with Time magazine's obsession with China and its insistance on regarding South America as its backyard, denying that Salvador Allende's death had owt to do with the US or that Hugo Chavez might have been acting in the interests of the people of Venezuela, so much so I threw my copy across the room and phoned to cancel my subscription. Don't mess with me, USA.
For the first time ever, my Lovefilm subscription went bad: I spent 2 weeks without a film over the Easter weekend. I turned to the telly. Usually, I record programmes I like the look of and watch them at my leisure. Sky Arts is good, as are BBC4. C4 and Nat Geo. The only programmes I watch 'live' are the news and quizzes - and my guilty pleasure, Doctors. Now I was watching whatever was on.
Seriously, has it always been this bad? I seem to remember my bro-in-law once saying: 800 channels on Sky - all crap. You can include Virgin in that assessment.
I tried Criminal Minds. Stupid. CSI - also stupid and the various franchises seem to be swapping storylines and even characters. Does Ted Danson dye his hair? - that colour is surely not one found in nature. NCIS - that Tony guy needs a good slap. In despair, I turned to new series. Revolution took American paranoia to new heights. Stereotype characters, bad acting. Psych, Warehouse 13, Special Victims' Unit - oh, come on, be serious.
On UK tv - let's not kid ourselves: the only programme I'm still watching after a month is Broadchurch.
I've caught up with Shaun the Sheep series 1-3 and Japanese animated movies from the Gible studio. A movie connoisseur of my acquaintance has passed me documentaries and British films I've never heard of, let alone seen. So far so good.
But I can see why people go for illegal downloads of new movies. And I'm lucky: I don't have to rely on terrestrial telly and I can supplement cable with Lovefilm and swops with mates.
A relative once told me there are people in Glasgow (and no doubt elsewhere) who spend money they can't really afford on satellite tv because they don't feel safe going out at night. Poor quality tv is an issue for them. If they're on 'benefits', they may be feeling the squeeze even more at the moment.
Things I learned during my illness:
- the Canaries have nothing to do with wee burds.
- everything in the supermarket contains either cheese or milk. If I thought a gluten-free diet was bad,
dairy-free is nearly impossible. Soya milk is disgusting. It also clogs the drain when you try to pour it away.
- the quickest way to lose 22lbs in a month is to get some rogue bacteria in your gut. You won't die of it but you'll wish you could.
- there is something worse than New Statesman's Easter break: the New Statesman centenary edition. 180 pages with just 2 things worth reading: a short story by Ali Smith and the story of the tapestry depicting the history of Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith. Spot the link.
Finally, a test: whose catchphrase (admittedly, he had a lot) was 'There's nothing on the telly!'
Tuesday 9 April 2013
Phoney-baloney
First of all there's the phoney respect: Margaret Thatcher dies and the entire TV front-of-camera workforce is kitted out in black. Quite something to see, especially since even families don't go in for that kind of thing any more. And it takes the London-based TV companies all day to realise the rest of the country may not be okay with the heroine worship.
Then there's the phoney deference. You know the kind: 'you may not have liked what she did but you have to admit she was a great prime minister.' No, I didn't and no, I don't. It's particularly galling that Tony Blair is one of the people urging us to be respectful. She was the worst kind of PM. Imagine working for her. Alexei Sayle got it right when he said she was an example of the 'psychopath boss': always right, prepared to hear no argument but her own, happy to dump people from her cabinet if they weren't ' one of us' - that is, agreed with her - stuck in her own little path which in the end led to her downfall and created the Tory party we have now.
And there's the glossing over of history: her adventure in the Falklands solved nothing. We still have the same situation there 40 years later. She may have been the first female PM but she was certainly not a supporter of other women. She even managed to persuade British entrepreneurs she was one of them, rather than a lab rat who married an entrepreneur. In her time, there were two recessions and her government handled them badly. Two and a half million people lost their jobs, a situation said at the time by one of her ministers to be 'a price worth paying.' Who by, I wonder. And a huge swathe of the UK's industrial base - which might have helped us in the current recession - was dismantled. And if we want to see when and where casino banking took hold, we need look no further.
So you'll excuse me if I decide not to watch the funeral next week. I'll be doing aomething else - anything else.
Then there's the phoney deference. You know the kind: 'you may not have liked what she did but you have to admit she was a great prime minister.' No, I didn't and no, I don't. It's particularly galling that Tony Blair is one of the people urging us to be respectful. She was the worst kind of PM. Imagine working for her. Alexei Sayle got it right when he said she was an example of the 'psychopath boss': always right, prepared to hear no argument but her own, happy to dump people from her cabinet if they weren't ' one of us' - that is, agreed with her - stuck in her own little path which in the end led to her downfall and created the Tory party we have now.
And there's the glossing over of history: her adventure in the Falklands solved nothing. We still have the same situation there 40 years later. She may have been the first female PM but she was certainly not a supporter of other women. She even managed to persuade British entrepreneurs she was one of them, rather than a lab rat who married an entrepreneur. In her time, there were two recessions and her government handled them badly. Two and a half million people lost their jobs, a situation said at the time by one of her ministers to be 'a price worth paying.' Who by, I wonder. And a huge swathe of the UK's industrial base - which might have helped us in the current recession - was dismantled. And if we want to see when and where casino banking took hold, we need look no further.
So you'll excuse me if I decide not to watch the funeral next week. I'll be doing aomething else - anything else.
Sunday 7 April 2013
It's all about the spin
You have to hand it to the Tories. There was a wee blip when they let Cameron speak for himself in Scotland. There was a certain exaggeration to his 'buy Trident because otherwise the North Koreans will nuke us' and definite uncertainty to 'giving up Trident will cost Scotland 400 or 4000 or - well - a helluva lotta jobs.' As far as I can see, the Yes Campaign only has to make sure there's a few more visits from Cameron before the referendum and we're home and dry.
But otherwise the Tproes have got the spin-doctoring dead right the past few weeks and their spokesmen (no women that I can see, but hey, that's just one feature in which the Tory party resembles the Bullingdon Club) were bang on message.
I especially appreciated the well-briefed Tory spokeman on C4 news who blamed Balls, Brown and Blair for the current state of the economy but refused point blank to recognise the role the Tories played in getting us where we are now. Tory deregulation of the finance markets in the late 70s and 80s - ancient history! Osborne's willingness to agree with Brown that regulation was not acceptable in 2006 - irrelevant. Takes selective memory to a new level.
The spin doctors have done an especially fine job on 'welfare'. Persuading the British public that people on benefits are scroungers rather than mostly people who've paid in and now need help. Spreading the word that £26,000 is the average payout on benefits instead of the maximum anyone can get. Not just implying (Osborne) but saying outright that Mick Phillpott killed his children because he was a 'welfare scrounger' (thanks, Daily Mail, friend of the Tory party) whose lifestyle was financed by us, quite overlooking the fact that he was a violent and controlling abuser who demanded the pathetic earnings his 'partners' got from cleaning.
All that's so masterly it has clearly caught the Lib Dems and Labour on the back foot, partly because a lot of it has happened in the Easter parliamentary recess. Apart from Danny Alexander, it seems no one from the Lib Dems has been available to be amazed at anything the Tories say - and let me remind us all the Lib Dems claim worse things would be happening if they weren't there to hold the Tories back.
At least the Lib Dems haven't fallen into the trap of the knee-jerk reaction, unlike Labour, who now want to talk about 'people getting back from welfare what they put in.' See, I might accept that approach if I thought the 5 million carers in this country who are currently saving the NHS and Social Work a fortune by keeping their disabled and elderly family members in their own home got rewarded for their efforts. Or if the employers who now depend on welfare funding to top up their employees' wages had to pay the living wage. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.
What is going to happen - unless the other parties get their act together - is that the Tories will be in for another term. After all, they can now claim they have a mandate from the electorate for a 'popular' root and branch reform of the welfare state. Heaven help us all. Is that enough to frighten the Lib Dems and Labour into action? I hope so.
But otherwise the Tproes have got the spin-doctoring dead right the past few weeks and their spokesmen (no women that I can see, but hey, that's just one feature in which the Tory party resembles the Bullingdon Club) were bang on message.
I especially appreciated the well-briefed Tory spokeman on C4 news who blamed Balls, Brown and Blair for the current state of the economy but refused point blank to recognise the role the Tories played in getting us where we are now. Tory deregulation of the finance markets in the late 70s and 80s - ancient history! Osborne's willingness to agree with Brown that regulation was not acceptable in 2006 - irrelevant. Takes selective memory to a new level.
The spin doctors have done an especially fine job on 'welfare'. Persuading the British public that people on benefits are scroungers rather than mostly people who've paid in and now need help. Spreading the word that £26,000 is the average payout on benefits instead of the maximum anyone can get. Not just implying (Osborne) but saying outright that Mick Phillpott killed his children because he was a 'welfare scrounger' (thanks, Daily Mail, friend of the Tory party) whose lifestyle was financed by us, quite overlooking the fact that he was a violent and controlling abuser who demanded the pathetic earnings his 'partners' got from cleaning.
All that's so masterly it has clearly caught the Lib Dems and Labour on the back foot, partly because a lot of it has happened in the Easter parliamentary recess. Apart from Danny Alexander, it seems no one from the Lib Dems has been available to be amazed at anything the Tories say - and let me remind us all the Lib Dems claim worse things would be happening if they weren't there to hold the Tories back.
At least the Lib Dems haven't fallen into the trap of the knee-jerk reaction, unlike Labour, who now want to talk about 'people getting back from welfare what they put in.' See, I might accept that approach if I thought the 5 million carers in this country who are currently saving the NHS and Social Work a fortune by keeping their disabled and elderly family members in their own home got rewarded for their efforts. Or if the employers who now depend on welfare funding to top up their employees' wages had to pay the living wage. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.
What is going to happen - unless the other parties get their act together - is that the Tories will be in for another term. After all, they can now claim they have a mandate from the electorate for a 'popular' root and branch reform of the welfare state. Heaven help us all. Is that enough to frighten the Lib Dems and Labour into action? I hope so.
Thursday 4 April 2013
Remember Hillsborough
What a sad, sad documentary on TV last night about the final report on the events at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield 23 years ago in which 96 Liverpool people lost their lives.
All sorts of pictures stay in my mind. There was the man who finished up the only surviving member of his family, knowing that not just his brother but his mother and sister were victims of the disaster. The mother who sent her 18 year old son off to his first ever away game that day and never got him back. The special constable who loved being part of the police family till she was bullied into changing her statement of events that day. The look on Andy Burnham's face (minister for media, culture and sport in 2010) as he realised the people of Liverpool were not going to give up their fight for a full and independent report. The decency and compassion of the Bishop of Liverpool who chaired the panel that wrote the final report.
And in the midst of these stories, the face of Sir Norman Bettinson who was in charge for the police that day and who at best colluded and at worst headed up a blatant cover-up of the incompetence of the emergency services at Hillsborough. Bettinson resigned last October, when the final Hillsborough Report made his position untenable, but by then he'd earned a lot of money, enjoyed a lot of power in the community and got a knighthood for his efforts. He still has his pension - and his knighthood. It seems Bettinson can't be charged with any crime relating to Hillsborough because he resigned. No, I don't understand that one either.
And, just in passing, the families will never get justice from the tabloid newspaper (You know who it was - I refuse to give them a mention) that accused Liverpool fans of picking the pockets of the dead and worse: the new legislation to force newspapers to apologise and pay compensation will not be retrospective.
Worst of all, families have to live with the knowledge that 41 people who died at Hillsborough were probably still alive after the 3.15pm cut-off when the emergency services gave up trying to rescue and rescucitate victims. The order to stop came from the police.
Next time you hear about a so-called conspiracy and react with disbelief, remember Hillsborough. It happened. And people are still suffering for it.
All sorts of pictures stay in my mind. There was the man who finished up the only surviving member of his family, knowing that not just his brother but his mother and sister were victims of the disaster. The mother who sent her 18 year old son off to his first ever away game that day and never got him back. The special constable who loved being part of the police family till she was bullied into changing her statement of events that day. The look on Andy Burnham's face (minister for media, culture and sport in 2010) as he realised the people of Liverpool were not going to give up their fight for a full and independent report. The decency and compassion of the Bishop of Liverpool who chaired the panel that wrote the final report.
And in the midst of these stories, the face of Sir Norman Bettinson who was in charge for the police that day and who at best colluded and at worst headed up a blatant cover-up of the incompetence of the emergency services at Hillsborough. Bettinson resigned last October, when the final Hillsborough Report made his position untenable, but by then he'd earned a lot of money, enjoyed a lot of power in the community and got a knighthood for his efforts. He still has his pension - and his knighthood. It seems Bettinson can't be charged with any crime relating to Hillsborough because he resigned. No, I don't understand that one either.
And, just in passing, the families will never get justice from the tabloid newspaper (You know who it was - I refuse to give them a mention) that accused Liverpool fans of picking the pockets of the dead and worse: the new legislation to force newspapers to apologise and pay compensation will not be retrospective.
Worst of all, families have to live with the knowledge that 41 people who died at Hillsborough were probably still alive after the 3.15pm cut-off when the emergency services gave up trying to rescue and rescucitate victims. The order to stop came from the police.
Next time you hear about a so-called conspiracy and react with disbelief, remember Hillsborough. It happened. And people are still suffering for it.
Monday 1 April 2013
Could you live on £53 a week?
£53 is what you've got left every week once your housing benefits has been docked to pay for the luxury of the extra bedroom you have in your council property. Never mind that you can't find a smaller place to move to because smaller places don't exist, or that you need the extra bedroom for when your kids come to stay on your access weekends, or is where the carer who helps you with your disabled child or demented elderly relative sleeps.
£53 is about half what I spent on a Tesco shop yesterday. That's a month's worth of kitchen and bathroom stuff, plus tins and packets and frozen stuff. It doesn't include fresh stuff like veg, salads and deli meat which I buy weekly.
£53 is a wee bit more than I pay in car and the house contents insurance for my flat each month. But, of course, building insurance is extra.
£53 is roughly what I pay for broadband, phone and TV, including phone calls.
£53 is half what I pay the shower of robbing b*st*rds who act as factors for my building.
I'm fortunate in having retired with a state and a private pension that cover all of this. My bus pass, fuel allowance, free presciptions and free eye test help too.
But I didn't always live in this haven in leafy suburbia and I try hard not to forget it: it's only the fickle finger of fate - call it luck if you like: I prefer to call it being blessed with good parents and a notion for hard work - that means I'm not still living in a council house in Pollok with only a state pension and an extra bedroom to be penalised for.
The whole point of the Welfare State - set up in the late 1940s when the UK had zilch in the bank and a lot of debts from a world war - was to make sure people didn't have to rely on luck and handouts but could count on having a decent life.
Today the Tory government started closing down the Welfare State. If you care, go to this link and sign the petition. It's time Ian Duncan Smith put his money where his mouth is.
http://www.change.org/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week?utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition
£53 is about half what I spent on a Tesco shop yesterday. That's a month's worth of kitchen and bathroom stuff, plus tins and packets and frozen stuff. It doesn't include fresh stuff like veg, salads and deli meat which I buy weekly.
£53 is a wee bit more than I pay in car and the house contents insurance for my flat each month. But, of course, building insurance is extra.
£53 is roughly what I pay for broadband, phone and TV, including phone calls.
£53 is half what I pay the shower of robbing b*st*rds who act as factors for my building.
I'm fortunate in having retired with a state and a private pension that cover all of this. My bus pass, fuel allowance, free presciptions and free eye test help too.
But I didn't always live in this haven in leafy suburbia and I try hard not to forget it: it's only the fickle finger of fate - call it luck if you like: I prefer to call it being blessed with good parents and a notion for hard work - that means I'm not still living in a council house in Pollok with only a state pension and an extra bedroom to be penalised for.
The whole point of the Welfare State - set up in the late 1940s when the UK had zilch in the bank and a lot of debts from a world war - was to make sure people didn't have to rely on luck and handouts but could count on having a decent life.
Today the Tory government started closing down the Welfare State. If you care, go to this link and sign the petition. It's time Ian Duncan Smith put his money where his mouth is.
http://www.change.org/petitions/iain-duncan-smith-iain-duncan-smith-to-live-on-53-a-week?utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition
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