19. Merry Christmas

Thanks to all bleaders (blog readers) for reading this blog. I’ll leave sycophancy and a whole load of other stuff for the New Year.

The next blog will be Tuesday 8^th January 2013. If you'd like a peek through the blog archive – favourites have been;

Dinosaurs Cured my Performance Angst (blog 4 – 4^th Aug 2012)

‘Concretized’ (blog 8 - 2^nd Oct 2012)

My One Night Stand with the Ghost of Bill Farrell (blog 10 – 16^th Oct 2012)

Merry Christmas

18. Elitism for All

I’m confused. Isn’t sex equality for royalty like giving the flu jab to someone who just had their leg blown off? Isn’t it like making car fumes smell nice? Isn’t it like passing a law to make looters wipe their feet? Isn’t it just mad? I mean isn’t it just totally missing the issue by about three galaxies and a black hole? If you are going to continue to support ultimate elitism in all its ridiculous glory and preposterous silliness – why get squeamish all of a sudden about fairness for one woman? Though of course with all the fanfare, political time, energy, international chat, news air-play and righteous posturing, it’s clearly me that is out of step. Passing a law that will affect one body out of xxxbillion is clearly a priority even if that person is less in need of legislative or any other support than any other child ever to be born anywhere at any time ever. And it must, must be rushed through because at some time way into the future when the royal great grandmother, grandfather and father have all had their turns with the dressing up clothes on the gold seat, it’s clearly going to matter! It certainly isn’t just something else that’s being waved around to distract us from the mess that the others of the privileged minority got us into. Oh no it isn’t.

Ever the optimist – I realised there must be a positive side to this and – glory be - I think I found it. Maybe – just maybe – it will lead to other strange, anachronistic, elitist organisations or individuals also deciding to introduce random egalitarian or lefty flavoured incongruities into their repertoire of bonkersness. This will liven things up a bit and keep us entertained. I name this new phenomenon,

Elitism for All

Royals finally get gender equality so…

White Supremacists, they’re supporting equal pay

Neo Cons make tree hugging compulsory

Racists think it’s fine if you are gay

The Gun Lobby have gone macrobiotic

Klu Klux Klansmen want the poor to have fair rent

Donald Trump got yoga for the homeless

Sarah Palin backs Chris Rock for president

Fascists endorse co-operatives for Lesbians

Free biodegradable coffins for the sick

And all because upon the throne of Eng-er-land

A Liz can be a queen before a Dick

Hurrah!

Next week – sycophancy – a very English sickness… unless I’m sick of that subject.

17. How to Make Monopoly More Interesting

Sick of the same old Chance and Community Chest cards in Monopoly? Try spicing things up by introducing some new surprise options. How about the ‘Harry Redknapp’ card? You can play this like the ‘get out of jail free’ card only it’s called the ‘I’m too thick to go to jail’ card. The HR card can be kept then used in the face of apparent financial malfeasance. There’s the X-factor card too. A player picking up this card can sing a whiny version of a crap 80s ditty then whizz round to Go, collect a wad of money, pay a huge commission to the person running the game then plop onto the Free Parking slot. The player then stays there while the others pass them by saying – wasn’t she…? Nah.

Perhaps you’ve had enough of Monopoly. It may be that you are sick to your stomach of what passes for competition in the current climate.

Recently my heart sank when yet another school project arrived home masquerading as a cheap TV winners-take-all type contest. Small groups were to compete to make money with their own business schemes. True to real life, some took it seriously, some did not, the playing field was bumpy and skewed, some made a lot of effort, some made none and the results bore no resemblance to the amount of blood sweat and tears invested.  One or two had a leg up from competitive parents while others used whatever rules suited themselves. At the end of the day one group gets a treat and the majority who took part will not see any direct reward for all the hard work they put in. Stressed and bickering and non-the-wiser as to what they were supposed to achieve or learn, the debacle ended as a less than a damp squib. Maybe that was the lesson? A couple of parents who were all for the scrap, reckoned it was preparing kids for life. I can only assume they were imagining their little darlings smarming round a futuristic office in a wet dream of ‘The Apprentice’, ordering minions to stir their skinny latte to the left and hold all calls.

This is ironic when I think of the son of a friend of mine with his M.A, now stacking shelves for a living or a friend’s daughter with a B.A hons first class from a redbrick university (who wanted to and should have done an MA but couldn’t afford it) depressed and miserable on her first teaching placement. She’s been set the kind of work load – including nightly marking - that is currently giving her sleepless nights and she’s been told to ‘tone down’ because people find intelligence intimidating.

 I wonder what lessons she’ll want to teach her pupils to ‘prepare them for life’.

Perhaps another card we should insert in to the Monopoly game is the ‘child of the banking crisis era’ card. For ‘crisis’ read – ‘unpunished criminal activity’. The recipient of this card would be told - do not pass Go, do not collect £200, do not get a house, do not start a family until you’ve paid off your student debt, do not hope to be out of this crap any time soon.

What about the Russian oligarch / Arab royalty / Old Etonian card? Proceed to Mayfair, or anywhere else for that matter – it’s all yours.