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Casey & the Surfmen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

329. Extinction Reality

OK – I’m putting the blog into hibernation for December – and prior to the general election. Large swathes of the ordinary British working class public, voting for Boris Johnson, a man who openly despises them, is more than I can stomach.

So – turning to the subject which should be occupying our minds every minute of every day – the environment – I’ll leave you with this thought, something I’ve pushed many times in my writing –

As we trash our planet like a bunch of rabid, delinquent, spoiled brat teenagers whose parents have stupidly gone away and left them in charge of an exquisite home full of priceless possessions, we should remind ourselves that the significant species least likely to survive or recover is us. Humans.

This idea is the driver for my dystopian novella  Zero One Zero Two (see ref in last week's post) and the poem, below, is one which features in that story. (Yes I’ve chucked a bit of poetry in a dystopian novella – get over it.) In this piece, in the penultimate chapter, the main protagonist is considering what may be left of the earth.

Does the Sun Still Shine

by Amanda Baker

Does the sun still shine

Do rivers still dance

Do breezes caress the trees

Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere

Do flowers still flirt with bees

Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears

Does the Okavango delta still

Wash with Africa’s tears

Do elephant bones lie bleached and broken

Are shorelines kissed by the sea

Are dead cities shadowed with ghosts and regret

The great whales just a memory

Is there a footprint left by me

Does a white moon glow where nobody sees

Could cathedral sunsets

Still bring me to my knees

Does the kestrel cruise with a predator’s grace

While a vole marks his shadow, beware

Are the turrets and towers toppled and gone

Are the Great Plains stripped and bare

Is there anything there

Does rippling heat flatten the desert dust

Where scorpions arch and cacti pose

And camels have wanderlust

Are mountains still dappled by giddy cloud

Is my memory only a dusty store

Pale pretty pictures of paradise

Images of things that are no more

An empty room without a door

Our plundering and ravaging bore malformed fruit

Are the oceans and skies forlorn

Are forests blind and mute

Or

Does the sun still shine

Do rivers still dance

Do breezes caress the trees

Does an apple still blush on a branch somewhere

Do flowers still flirt with bees

Does a waterfall crash where nobody hears

Does the Okavango delta still

Wash with Africa’s tears

*

Happy Christmas with an old doodle from 2013

See you in January 2020

328. Black Fridays will wipe us out before climate change…

Consumerism will wipe us out before we've made the planet entirely uninhabitable for humans. We now live in a permanent state of Black Friday.

I've railed against this on a global level and on a local level (here in Edinburgh, like a lot of cities, cutting down trees and hedges seems to be an addiction). I have written about it on this blog as well as in my fiction Casey & the Surfmen and Zero One Zero Two

But there is a dark race going on as a background to the more obvious self-harm of Brexit and societal conflict. Consumerism – the very comfortable bed-fellow of rampant Capitalism.

Consumerism is killing us directly at a startling rate, exponentially, efficiently and globally far faster even than climate devastation.

Right on your very doorstep there are people killing themselves by consuming shit for the financial gain of other human beings and we don’t seem to be able to get enough of it.

Car use is one of our favourite cancers – the one we hug to our bosom while chanting and fist waving about beating bodily cancers. As recently as the 1970s it was not the norm for most families to own a car (or two). We know car usage contributes both to obesity and poisons the air we breathe in a very immediate way and that is if you exclude the carnage that happens on our roads daily. We even seem to have gone soft on the more recent scourge of phone use during driving which is – as I pointed out to one driver when I knocked on his car window yesterday ‘dangerous, selfish and illegal’ (Yes, I’m one of THOSE women…)

Yet car over-usage has ceased to be a regular topic of conversation because we’ve collectively given up on the idea of reducing it, falsely mollifying ourselves with the dummy idea that electric cars are going to solve the problems. We are obsessed with the idea that we can carry on as normal and science will dig us out of this mess. Presumably we also think there is no environmental impact to producing new cars? Will they magically not run people over or keep them from exercise... Ditto air travel. We know it is a significant polluter and the tourist traffic it dumps on now- tourist-dependent poorer countries is an abomination, disenfranchising and reducing the local populous to tourist slaves. But you only have to spout about the ‘opportunity’ for everyone to have cheaper holidays and any environmental or social argument evaporates. Ditto the vile and ocean-polluting cruises ships. Because it all makes money – for someone.

Drugs – legal or illegal are wiping out thousands of us every single year and the figure is growing. But drugs are making money for someone somewhere and the ones that aren’t cooked up in factories are grown on land that could be used to grow food.

The stress of non-essential spending-related debt is taking its toll on people’s health. The scourge of of gambling has eaten it’s away into the epicentre of many families like a new form of heart disease.

Try challenging rampant capitalism or destructive consumerism and the ready mantra of CHOICE is screamed in your face. Choice is party of the holy trinity of this death cult.

Fast/processed/unhealthy food! How many, many ways is that killing us? Directly of course as the exponential rise in obesity continues – heart attacks – cancers related to poor diet but also because land clearance to grow meat and grain to feed cattle is devastating huge swathes of land leading to more floods and soil erosion. It is routine to pump cattle with antibiotics and this is helping medicine resistant strains of truly devastating diseases develop at a rate we cannot possibly keep up with in our disjointed fractured world.

Plastic surgery has become ‘normal’ for ordinary people where it used to be the preserve of aging Hollywood actors. Every few days another story hits the media (I won’t say headlines as it’s too regular for that) of a young woman being butchered at her own expense to have larger breasts or a larger bottom or a smaller waste or a different shaped nose or mouth. It's body consumerism. No, plastic surgery is not killing humans at as significant rate as other things but its increase is another symptom of the unspoken acceptance of any harm if it is lucrative. We have completely lost the plot on this one.

Every moment of every day someone somewhere is making a decision that money is more important than human life (Grenfell Tower?) The two Western democracies that could and should be leading the way on these vital issues are in socio-political meltdown.

Environmentalists I applaud you. As a non-car owning, non-smartphone owning – non dishwasher/microwave (etc) owning, non-tourist wierdo, I consider myself one. However, another human self-destruct mechanism is beating a path to Armageddon and I think it will get there first.

Sad Saturday...

What happened to progress? 
And as I'm lost for words this random post is in old doodles.

Victim blaming is still so popular...

and these are the types who brought us Brexit

The world's wealthiest democracy!

Re Trump, Johnson, Prince Andrew (etc) will this be known as the era of the privileged, creepy rich white bloke?

And when are working class people going to reject the xenophobia and wake up and smell the coffee?

Oh - and international shit

'Stupidity wrecked our futures' discuss...

327. Prince Andrew/ Flooding / Train Fights - basket case Britain laid bare!

Andrew Prince of Pervs is just one unpleasant symptom of the disconnect between the fantasy of Britain and reality.

Even the blessed state of being TV-free for two decades didn’t allow me to entirely avoid the hideous staring-eyed bollocks being babbled by Britain’s dimmest royal (and that’s saying something). Did he learn that blank-faced fibbing from Tony Blair? The bigger the lie the emptier the look?

My take from the snippets I picked up while scanning for real news on the internet and listening to one friend who was genuinely mesmerised by the appalling performance, was that – no - our Prince of Pervs couldn’t remember anything about ever having met the 17 yr old pimped to him by the known paedophile Epstein, but he had vivid memory of taking his kids to a very specific fast food joint at that time.

Then there is the flooding. After nearly a week of claiming there was no national emergency, Boris Johnson finally took a load of troops to Yorkshire and attempted to show some synthetic sympathy for the non-Etonians suffering more environmental carnage or at least generate some damage limitation TV footage. Whether the troops were there to help the flood effort or protect posh pig man from angry victims was unclear. And as more housing estates are built on floodplains and developers are allowed to simply plug into already over-used infrastructure and more land is denuded of natural vegetation, directly increasing the chances of future flooding, there seems no plan to deal with what is going to be an increasingly regular feature of UK life.

Meanwhile – babysitting in Bramley for my grandchildren, we had our own mini drama when my daughter was delayed getting home because there was a serious fight on the commuter train from Leeds train station. As with a lot of local train routes there are never enough carriages. Rush hour rolls around every day but that seems to come as a huge surprise to the privatised, profiteering train companies whose local trains regularly have just two carriages despite there being at least four carriage loads of passengers. This time it was too much for one angry man who sadly took it out on the hapless guard and a nasty brawl ensued.

What these three things tell us loudly and extremely clearly – in case anyone hadn’t noticed – is that Britain isn’t working. Britain is currently the basket case of Europe; like a slobbering, senile, incontinent pensioner grabbing at a nurse’s bum, still under the impression he is no end of a devil.

The Brexit nutters who keep banging on about how Britain used to rule the waves and can again, are not only wrong, not only dangerous, not only deluded, not only dragging the whole country down the sewer with them they are completely insane.

The first story tells us that our archaic institutions and ‘traditions’ are a sham. The second story tells us that there is one enormous issue that could finish us all while the most mediocre bunch of English politicians we’ve ever had the misfortune to see in high office piss about staggering blindly from one catastrophe and waste of time to the next. The Third story tells us that the people are at the end of their tether.

It is not going to end well and the saddest thing of all is that it didn’t need to happen. We could have spent the last three and a half years dealing with the things that matter and make people’s lives better…

*

If you don’t read The Independent here are two more of my letters they published – one yesterday and one the day before.

Sunday 17^th The Independent

(re; the ludicrous electioneering)

Dear Editor,

As a mother and granny, watching the myriad of political mediocrities wreck Britain and our families’ futures has depressed and worried me.

The added irony of knowing that those doing the damage will, due to their positions and income and in some cases inherited wealth, be cushioned from the catastrophic effects, rubs much salt into that wound.

Imagine my joy as the electioneering gets into full swing.

If I’ve followed things correctly then, apparently, come December 13th, regardless of the acknowledged economically disastrous effects of Brexit (with or without a deal), we will all be given a free tree, a free foot massage once a week and gold unicorns for breakfast every Sunday.

Monday 18^th The Independent

(re Priti Patel [a resignation due to scandal in 2017 no bar to her serving as home secretary in this government...] boasting about abandoning British Children in the Middle East)

Dear Editor,

We are increasingly gripped by the fear saying the wrong things – while constantly doing them.

So, if anyone is wondering whether they dare say that it’s worse to have a woman with brown skin – Priti Patel - bragging about abandoning British children caught up in the middle east conflict we helped fuel – the answer – from a woman with brown skin is – YES – it is worse.

*

And remember for my books check out my author pages

main author page UK

main author page US

326. Extreme Brexit coping strategy… (do not try this at home)

I thought Lib Dem leader Swinson erred badly in pushing the other opposition parties to an election.

Then, since a pact between the two nasty parties was ruled out by Johnson, things looked a little different and I fantasised about the possibilities of a hung parliament leading to a genuine alliance of all Remain MPs from Remain constituencies – including Labour – finally lancing the suppurating Brexit boil.

Sadly, if no one else – some Brexiters may have read my blog last week and my fantasy was short lived. Farage again proved that he is as adept at swivelling on a stick and ignoring anything he may have said three minutes previously as the leaders of the two major parties. His democracy botherers will now not stand – he says – in direct challenge to Tory seats in Leave voting areas.

Plus, you only have to note the stepping down of Green candidate for Filton as he near fainted like a Gothic heroine in a bad Victorian novel at the prospect of the Leave alliance “rank opportunism” to see why the right almost always get their way in these circumstances. Opportunity is EXACTLY what sane folk need right now.

So – incredibly weary and lost for words as I am – here is an old doodle. It pencils the way the elite have crapped on ordinary people since 1983 when Thatcher began selling off what had been retrieved for us after WWII. And yet still the nasties enjoy the votes of huge swathes of the very people they are screwing.

And here is my extreme granny’s coping mechanism which I recommend if you are truly truly as desperate as I am. The water is Loch Long - Ardentinny. That is me (you can just see my head in the first pic) at the weekend – and yes I am swimming in a loch  here in Scotland in NOVEMBER…

I was so cold when I got out, my skin felt as if it was on fire but at least I could not form a coherent thought about Brexit - or anything else for that matter…

*

For light relief check out my new (to be launched early 2020) comedy novel Sex Violence & the Wrong Mobility Scooter or if you fancy a dystopian peek at where we are headed try Zero One Zero Two or if you want a fantasy adventure for your young reader that actually stars a girl hero all the way through – one who doesn’t fade out – check out the Eleanor trilogy starting with Eleanor & Dread Mortensa by visiting my author page -

main author page UK

main author page US

325. Brexit - The Great Escape. At a polling station near you - December 12th

Reclaiming NORMAL on 12^th December is doable thanks to the delinquency of Johnson and the ego of Corbyn and the stagnant mediocrity endemic at the top of our political system.

If we play our cards right.

Yes – suddenly there is a break for the sane people. The tunnel hasn’t come out in the grounds of Stalag Luft III. Instead, it may have come out in the woods with the sweet air of freedom already wafting down the dank dirty tunnel of what has been our lives since June 2016.

The combined entitled lunacy and uselessness of posh pig Johnson and spineless, fence-sitting useless Corbyn has led each to plump for the election that could put both parties in solitary for some time while releasing the rest of us from Brexit incarceration on one single day on 12^th December.

In case you haven’t worked it out yet, if you want to be free of the ruinous right-wing populists and the dithering Corbyn idiots and have a future, voting could not be simpler on Dec 12^th.

Votes for the SNP up here in Scotland are likely to go up significantly so no issue there.

Many of those unlucky enough to live closer to the Westminster sewer, if they think it through, will hold their noses and vote Lib Dem or, if Remainers actually organise themselves this time and are canny with placement of Remain candidates – the Remain alternative.

We can worry about everything else when we have regained NORMAL.

It may have seemed that, with another snap election, we were being served a rancid, cold, stale tripe sandwich but, for decent folk, this could be the warm, wholesome Christmas dish of delights of all time.

Bring on the BRUSSELS sprouts…

*

NB - and - yes - I see the irony of using a metaphor of a German prisoner of war camp but if you want to go down that path (or tunnel) its s triple irony because the Brexit headbangers have clearly forgotten ALL the lessons of a divided, xenophobic Europe.

324. Boris Johnson and Donald Trump escape the consequences of their actions but Michelle Obama and Meghan Markle can’t escape racism…

… in the civilised West.

Trump and Johnson prove that with enough power, a man of even the most limited ability and entirely lacking in admirable qualities can rise above the law, above human decency and above any moral or ethical code.

Michelle Obama and Meghan Markle prove that a woman can never get high enough to avoid being targets of racism.

I’ve written extensively on the hideous Trump and odious Johnson and also on how the vile Trump family have shown in even sharper focus just how admirable the Obamas were in office. But if you missed my letter re MM  in The Independent last week which partially covers the subject – here is the text

24^th October 2019

Dear Editor,

I would describe myself as anti-royalist but as a mixed race woman living through some of the most intolerant, jingoistic times in UK history I have sympathy for Meghan Markle on a human level.

If the ignorant, rich white folk sniggering at the black minister who married her didn’t give her a clue to how things were going to go down, I don’t know what would.

She is the most beautiful royal we’ve had and yet is regularly slated for her looks. She has the most poise but is slated for her demeanour. The family she has married into makes her own look like the Waltons and yet any family dirt the press can ignite is fanned by the greedy media inferno.

There is one simple way to explain all this – it is an utterly toxic mix of snobbery and racism.

*

No funnies this week. If you want some humour check out my new comedy novel

Sex, Violence & the Wrong Mobility Scooter (UK)

Sex, Violence & the Wrong Mobility Scooter (US)

323. Is Brexit a symptom of our contact-less society?

One of the wilder ideas that occurred to me over the weekend was that Brexit is the result of losing our sense of humour and humanity. More than that it is a sign that we – here in the UK at least – have lost our ability to enjoy the company of other human beings. And I’m not talking about the false hysterical screeching and gurning that passes for ‘fun’ on the TV and the ‘look at my amazing life’ pictures on social media.

The clarion call of the fascist frog Farage is ‘reclaim our borders’ while he and his ilk do very well thank you from a world where – as far as making money is concerned – there are no borders. It belies a state of affairs that is very global for the rich and very insular for a majority. It is a world – as I’ve pointed out many times on this blog – where everything that used to be owned by the British people has been sold off and often to wealthy individuals in other countries. None of this reality seems to have bothered the wealthy public school boys who lied and wheedled to get this falsehood through. Many of the mob conned by the Leave campaign can be heard banging on about the ‘not-so-long-ago’ when ‘WE’ ruled the waves. Well not me obviously. As someone with Caribbean ascendants my lot would have been the ones they were happy to rule. I.e. the slaves of the empire that were kidnapped, starved, raped, murdered and exploited for profit.

But put all of the obvious – but studiously ignored - realities to one side. This new idea – that humans have just stopped realising how nice it is to be nice to each other, occurred to me because of something that happened at the end of last week.

I was treated to coffee and a bun by two very dear old friends of mine. We met in an Italian restaurant at 9am and were served by a friendly, efficient Italian waiter. When we left some 90 minutes later the waiter remarked to the friend who paid the bill how nice/unusual it was to have people in the café in the morning (presumably the alcohol oiled later clients were more vociferous) who talked and laughed and really seemed to be enjoying each other’s company.

It took a while to fathom what he meant. Then I realised that what passes for socialising these days often involves groups of people meeting up in places like that but with everyone permanently clutching their smart phones and not really fully engaging with the people they are actually ‘with’.

Of course, if my no-real-fun theory were in any way close to correct we might, for example, end up with some sort of faux clownish buffoon as Prime Minister…

Maybe if we still talked to each other and had real human interaction we’d remember just how little difference there really is between us. We all need oxygen, food, sleep, real contact and love. The first two are in danger and the last two rely on each other.

On the 28^th July 2015 I put up this blog post  More Less-Contact Is Making Us Horrible

And how much more horrible we seem to be…

322. Globalisation is a difficult devil; Normalisation is the devil's advocate…

Globalisation is a term thrown around so much it has lost its shape. It can even be used as a positive or a negative depending on who is doing the chucking. If you see a borderless world as one where the restraints of nationalist spite and dictates dissolve, you may rest easy in the first group and there are many things which require the co-operation of the whole globe if any good is to be done. An obvious example is our present climate disaster.

However, if you look at Globalisation as the realisation of the Capitalist wet dream where at the push of an app a small cabal with wealth that would make Midas sick – can exploit untold masses of poor people continents away, then you will fall into the latter category.

And like the monster itself – the sickness it spreads needs ever more subtle tentacles to invade our space. There is an aggressive alien presence in our midst that very much does the bidding of wholly exploitative Globalisation. We became infected with it, partly through the new breed of advertising and now it is endemic. It is so pervasive it’s hard to tell who the zombies are and who remains still human, sentient and with brain activity.

NORMALISATION is one of the successful viruses killing common sense.

Many years ago (when I was a child in the Neolithic era) much advertising was based around aspiration; keeping up with the neighbours and having a better life. Some time in the 90s it seemed to segue off the slip road of not being left behind. Early this century, the new push was Normalisation. It’s been so insidious it’s hard to pinpoint when Normalisation became the new drug of choice for rampant capitalism on a global scale.

By Normalisation I mean that things that we most certainly did not regard as normal even twenty years ago – in some cases only one decade ago – now pass as normal because they are promoted so persuasively that way.

Below is a short example list -

It is ‘normal’ for a significant number of Western children to still be in nappies full-time by their 3^rd birthday. If you are a young parent you may think this is normal but it wasn’t when my kids were little and when I was a child and the dreaded terry nappy was all harried mums could get, it was not unusual for parents (usually mothers) to aim to get their infants out of nappies starting at 12 months. However – if you look on the side of nappy packets you can see that advertisers are pushing people to think it’s normal because the kids they use to advertise nappies – or pull ups which actually hold kids back from being continent – look to me like they should be at university. The longer your kids are in nappies the more money the manufacturers make and fck the environment. But they need you to be comfortable with this retarded behaviour so it’s pushed as entirely the norm until that is what it becomes.

Plastic surgery. This was once the go to for aging Hollywood starlets. Then it came down the ladder to the Page 3 girls and IT girls and D-list celebrities. Now you can see disfigured teenagers in any city with lopsided lips that look like they’ve been punched in the mouth or middle aged women with paralysed foreheads looking like they’ve been lobotomised and some with bosoms that will be breaking down their chemical compounds decades after the body that is currently housing them is dust.

Needless to say it’s ‘normal’ for most everyone to have a mobile phone and with the exception of yours truly a smart phone and it is not unusual to see very young children in nappies in buggies entirely mesmerised by an i-pad.

It has become normal for young children almost to never leave the house unless accompanied by – or worse – organised by their parents. The obesity crisis is always blamed on food – and while I do not disagree – we ate SHITE in the 70s. Tinned, packaged, neon colours with sugar and bizarre food colours and the whole of the time I was growing up there was only ever one fat kid in my secondary school class and none at all in my primary school. We didn’t have homework and if we weren’t at school we were out playing. Just yesterday in a radio ad, a TV company was promoting mental health, They suggest the best time to 'have a chat' was in front of the TV. In reality TV is what people 'do' instead of talking or playing out or, in fact, doing anything.

A few weeks ago I heard what to me was an horrific statement by a young go-getting entrepreneur. She said “we are never not shopping”. My gut reaction was – that is bollocks. Then my head got into gear and I realised that if you count actual shopping and all the time folk spend staring at their screens either scanning for something to consume or being sent info on consumer crap they didn’t know they wanted – she may have a point. That was not normal until even five years ago. It is ‘normal’ now.

I tried not to bang on about politics this week but it cannot be avoided so I’ll say it. Not so long ago, men as openly vile and morally malformed as Trump or Boris Johnson would never have been elected. The sorts of things one had to resign for years ago - they both had under their belts possibly before they left full-time education. Now – sensible humane folk are left scratching their heads wondering just how much shit these two have to mix before we can say bye bye. Hideous as they are they are good for corporate greed and many of their fellow politicians expend energy promoting them as entirely normal human beings.

I could go on but you get it.

If corporate Globalisation is the 21s Century’s devil incarnate, Normalisation is the Devil’s advocate.

Post-gig post...

Bit knackered after the launch gig last night albeit it was low-key because you always get strung out when its your baby.
Thanks to those who bought books and a massive thank you to the incredibly talented Joss Cameron and Amy Dudley of Shian who were even better than I imagined they would be and I will be standing in line to buy Shian's new album as soon as its out.
Along with funny, cheeky, instantly adorable 'Spike' Munro, raconteur, comedy poet +++, this was exactly the line up I'd like to be on stage with and was lucky enough to be with last night.

321. Without Facebook or Twitter am I cursed...

…with context?

Not much stops me in my tracks these days when it comes to the ongoing global self-harm of modern human existence but some stuff still does. Not necessarily the big things.

Just before I set the radio to search for something decent to listen to on Monday morning I caught a snippet of the BBC morning programme and a rather belated report  about the dreadful problems in Iraq and the violent, deadly protests currently accompanying that weary country’s troubles.

But that wasn’t what left me gaping like a fish on a bank.

Both the journalist reporting the disruption and the presenter soliciting the brief news clip had THAT tone. The one many of us came to know and loath when John Humphrys filled that slot for endless years and which we hoped had walked out the door with him. that weary – tut tut tut – how else can you expect foreigners to behave - tone.

Often I second guess myself on these reactions. I try to tell myself not to let my disgust at the decades of time the BBC has had to get its house in order in terms of representing places other than London, representing people other than middle class white people and coming up to date with style and content for the 21^st century when they are funded by almost everyone in the UK. Not me. As you know, I’ve not had TV since last century.

And then it came. The confirmation that what I’d heard was not a mistake.

I know it’s difficult in a world where people are bombarded through one screen or another with an unbearable volume of ‘news’ which can one minute be about who had sex with whom on TV to children dying in un-seaworthy migrant boats to what colour you should be wearing this autumn to political corruption and human/planetary devastation - all mixed up like news pigs’ swill.

But – if like me – you are one of the non-people. I.e. you don’t exist in the world of social media you have time for context. And trust me – when you have that it feels like a curse.

So – if like me you still do context – when the next couple of lines came – and they were - 

“so much corruption and violence” (in that tut tut voice)

And

“…the failure of [Iraqi] politicians to rebuild…”

You will have been as flabbergasted as I was. Because your first thought – and this context was not presented – will have been – who wrecked Iraq in the first place?

No smug, tut-tutty tone for Britain’s huge part in the mess, the UK’s illegal (formally declared) invasion.

The only parallel I could think of is the way the BBC currently reports on the rise in measles, the fall in the uptake of vaccines and the fact that the UK has lost its measles-free status in the wake of the hysteria and false information over vaccines which those in the health service have been unable to reverse since it began with Wakefield in the 1990s.

What is not mentioned in these ‘reports’ which focus on the bogus information on social media, is that the BBC were one of the first credible news organisations to promote Wakefield’s views giving that lone, discredited individual equal weight in many, many, many interviews – against almost every credible health professional in the service entirely opposed to him. But the BBC made it seem like a 50/50 debate. The huge damage done then is not mentioned. It’s as if it’s just too convenient to suggest this is a new phenomenon started by social media.

Context is everything and – occasionally – a little honest memory is also helpful.

*

And, swerving off the greasy highway and avoiding the horrific political pile-up remember – tomorrow is the book launch party.

320. Boris Johnson ate my hamster…

OF course he didn’t but it wouldn’t matter if he had would it. 

In 1986, that tabloid front page headline relating to a TV comedian - Freddie Starr was just the kind of nonsense we'd come to expect from the gutter press. Nowadays inappropriate behaviour from those at the top of society - real, or imagined to increase newspaper sales - seems to be barely blinked at. Here, as in the US - there is a hard core of people who - if they feel they are getting their own way by supporting a certain individual, however venal - will turn a blind eye to almost anything.

If recent years have taught us nothing else it is that Britain as the meritocracy former Tory Prime Minister John Major boasted about, is long gone, if it ever existed. A Britain of fairness, one where rules apply to all and everyone equally is a lunatic’s fantasy.

What the last few months have laid naked, is that if you are from an extremely privileged background, there are almost no rules you need to obey and no amount of ineptitude, no whiff of corruption, no personal or public scandal or gaff or bigoted behaviour will prevent you rising.

It won’t matter if the police are called to your mistress’s apartment in the dead of night because it sounds like what most people associate with the screeching howling dead-of night emittances of the worst inner city slum. The list of episodes which include lying and dishonesty to sheer poor judgement that would see any ordinary person turned down for the job of toilet cleaner (no offence to those who clean toilets) is clearly no bar if you went to Eton. In fact you can even end up with a widely held reputation for being a wit and raconteur when in fact you are a bumbling, babbling, self-serving arse with a personality disorder.

Meanwhile – the list of things that are broken in the UK gets ever longer as the posh boys play out their extended 6^th form common room squabbles against a complete lack of opposition.

But we need to think about those things because when we crash out of the EU, with or without a deal, there is no cushion for those at the bottom. So – here is a brief, but by no means exhaustive inventory;

The Railways. For most of us – whether longer distance social travellers or commuters, travelling by train has become an expensive game of roulette where if we get from A to B without a delay or not on an over-crowded train we feel as if we’ve won something.

Energy Suppliers - Just ask ANY customer of Scottish Power or Npower

The ombudsman service which is meant to represent the consumer in our fight to get a decent service from the energy suppliers is a joke. Just ask anyone [me] who has tried that recently and you’ll be told that the tale is very definitely wagging the flea infested fat drooling useless dog.

The student loans service. Ask those students left penniless by the loans service in England and Wales

NHS. Talk to those on growing waiting lists or who are being non-too-subtly pushed in the direction of the private sector or who cannot afford to get basics like asthma medication.

Government infrastructure services. Major government contractors like Carillion have gone under in recent months with huge projects such as the new Liverpool hospital left expensive and incomplete and KPG the huge accounting firm who audited them and other companies that have been shown to be obviously in a corroded state – continue shamelessly.

Plus formal and informal drugs dependency is through the roof

National debt through the floor

Personal debt through the ceiling

Homelessness a national disgrace

Damage to the environment (see last week)

And yet, the country remains in paralysis because one posh boy tried to sort out his party’s factions by holding an ill-conceived – poorly thought out – badly planned referendum and now the other posh boys are playing their stupid games while the rabbits-caught-in-the-headlights we call The Opposition, look on flaccid, pointless and bemused.

But when the shit really hits the fan – and if you think where we are now is bad – remember we are just in the approach to the car crash – we’ve not yet experienced the impact, had chance to survey the wreckage or start feeling the pain or the cost of the clear up – those like Johnson and his ilk, who helped steer the vehicle we call Britain off the dual carriage way will not be harmed. They will, however, have mown down a lot of ordinary people in the process.

Of course I did not title this post 'Jeremy Corbyn ate my hamster' because the idea of that man doing anything remotely remarkable or decisive is too, too ridiculous.

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And for the best break from it all – if you happen to be in Edinburgh next week – do come along to this.