433. I know why Boris Johnson is still PM

I worked it out over the weekend. 

I’ve not had TV since last century as some of my readers will be aware (nor a smart phone or microwave or dishwasher EVER – or any of the absolute essentials! of modern life. No car, which of course means I don’t need gym membership or a fitbit. And so on and so on. But, I begin to wonder if telly abstention has kept my critical faculties working despite all the mind-mess of modern life..

Like many sentient Brits, I’ve wondered why enough of the UK (English ) public vote against their own best interests (see last post) and keep electing people who clearly hate them, don’t care about them at the very least, and do their utmost  to strip away every socio-economic gain made since the end of WWII. And I have the answer.

Last weekend my partner treated me to a wonderful weekend up the coast – despite the fact that my youngest daughter thinks you cannot ‘go on holiday in Scotland if you live in Scotland’. I can think of nothing better and have had many such breaks which have all been nothing short of wonderful. (see That Logged Off Feeling )

But in the single-room old fishing cottage we called ours for 4 days there was a TV. Inevitably it got switched on.

Every occasion I’ve spent time with a TV over the last couple decades I feel its somehow gone way lower than what we used to call dumbing down. I do not know what is lower than that but TV in 2022 is it.

I could literally feel my brain cells imploding.

Apart from the atrocious crap that passes for programming generally – in fact a bunch of boring freaks in highly staged natural settings talking uber shite about boring shite that would send you to sleep if you heard it at a bus stop on a wet Tuesday in November (the constant flotsam and jetsam of house-hunting, garden make-overs and competitive food prep)  – there seemed to be nothing but advertisements with a higher gloss content than the programmes. 

The shitter the product the shinier the ad and the more time had clearly been spent with very dedicated consumer psychologists. I could almost imagine NEEDING that new ‘individual’ sofa or that burger that – despite what the evidence around me in real life suggests – actually sends humans into paroxysms of fumbling ecstasy.

Just how many faces in TV world are botoxed and filled and lifted and stretched and caked in so much make-up it’s amazing they don’t simply cave in, is another wonder. Is anyone allowed to look normal? 

What is normal?

There is a gizmo that allow morons to put a sandwich together without having a nervous breakdown. I’d no idea putting more than one item between two bits of bread was so unbelievably challenging – I’ve been managing it all these years entirely on my own.

Apparently your daily life is massively enhanced if some complete stranger turns up at your door with a plastic holdall with food-in-bags cooked by someone in a kitchen in a venue you’ve never seen, filled with ingredients you cannot check – and probably shouldn’t. Everyone starts smiling inanely – that is literally all it takes. I had NO IDEA.

Other than that there are the game shows where cardboard cut-out men and women grin and joke while asking cretins to work out the answers to questions that wouldn’t tax a disabled hamster and everyone has orgasms when they get it right.

So when I returned home to read that Boris Johnson was not only still PM but was spouting about another Tory sleaze-ball being misogynistic – instead of collapsing under the weight of the irony – I got it. I just got it.

TV has wiped everyone’s minds clean out. Many h ave lost the ability to think independently or at all.

Of course my theory falls completely apart as I have a number of friends who have not given up on THE BOX and whose abilities to think coherently remain unimpaired…

If there is any other explanation as to why a privileged wanker who wouldn’t care (and clearly didn’t) if ordinary people live or die and treats his own families with the kind of disregard most of us wouldn’t show to a diseased rodent – I’m all ears…

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Oh - and - I will be doing a short comedy set as part of Icebreaker comedy at The Hunter S. Thompson pub Dundee next Tuesday 3rd May 8.30.

432. Will English voters dance to the xenophobic dog whistle – AGAIN?

As I’ve observed and been involved in politics since the days of Thatcher, I’ve noted with growing horror the way a significant – and seemingly growing – proportion of predominantly English voters will vote for their own destruction if fed the red meat of racism. Call it jingoism, xenophobia or race-related bigotry – call it what you like – at its core it’s an irrational knee-jerk reaction against ‘them’ (ME) and it has allowed their real enemy – the extremely privileged minority at the top of the pile to non-too subtly whittle away the post war socio-economic gains made by the ordinary majority of the UK. The clearest recent example is the nonsense of shipping migrants to Rwanda as a main distraction from this government’s disasters and ongoing failures in time for the upcoming May elections.

It’s what got us Brexit. Farage with his ‘floods’ of migrants reminiscent of the fascist Mosely and his rivers of blood - was only side-lined when the Tories stepped more openly into the sewer and handed the crown to Johnson – racist, misogynist, liar, chancer, populist political embarrassment and international buffoon.

But we had the hostile environment for immigrants prior to that – thanks to Theresa May when Home Secretary. We had her vile ‘go home’ vans driving the streets of the capitol. We’ve had the Windrush scandal where thousands of Caribbean people who came to the UK to re-build Britain after the war were in effect de-nationalised – many deported – some dead and many homeless and desperate as a result of this huge miscarriage of justice.

Jingoism – as I said a couple of posts ago - is a tired old tune but with an ability to have a Pavlovian reaction from certain elements of the British – and especially the English working class. Remember, neither Scotland nor Ireland voted for Brexit or Johnson – though both nations are paying an extraordinarily heavy price.

Never mind that anything belonging to or benefitting Britain was sold off from Thatcher onwards – often to foreign investors. Never mind that much of the UK’s infrastructure is now controlled from abroad. Never mind that the NHS is on its knees – the state school system barely functioned through the pandemic and in poor areas of the UK, life expectancy actually fell (this before covid) for the first time since such records began. No matter the Tory indebtedness to a slew of Russian oligarchs. Despite all that –the curdling cry that the ills of the UK are somehow the fault of poor, desperate foreigners never fails to chime.

The Tories know it works.  No matter how vile their policies – how cruel – no matter how food banks have spread and spread under their mismanagement and how many families in work now rely on handouts. No matter the degradation – no matter the sleaze and the vileness of those in public office  – they know that as long as they can turn the spotlight on foreigners – preferably brown and black ones with inhumane policies – the dog whistle will work.

It would be nice if this May – for the first time – we saw some sign that jingoism has run out of energy – some sign that – for once the working class of England – the UK’s most populous nation – finally decided to act with complete self-interest and start the process of kicking these monsters out.

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431. ‘Society-supported sociopath’. Dangerous but no longer rare enough…

In his chilling 1979 story The Long Walk under the pen name Richard Bachman, Stephen king paints a picture of a nightmare right-wing America where an oppressed, militarised society invokes a Hunger Games type event annually for the horrified amusement of a degraded populous.

As I re-visited it last week one section struck me forcefully.

In describing the main character, Garraty and his first encounter with The Major (the military leader), we are told that –

“Garraty’s father, before the squads took him away, had been fond of calling The Major the rarest and most dangerous monster any nation can produce, a society supported sociopath.”

While we can all understand why such a monster is particularly dangerous what is worrying is that rarity can no longer be claimed.

America’s Trump was one such. Putin (Russia), Bolsonaro (Brazil). Erdogan (Turkey), Assad (Syria), Orban (Hungary). Then, of course, while he also juggles the international reputation of buffoon, the UK’s own Boris Johnson also fits the bill. Plus of course we have Le Pen in France, currently champing at the bit to join this expanding club of chaos makers.

Considering the parlous state of the world, socially, economically and environmentally, it is important to ask why a dark, divisive and destabilising phenomenon – the society supported sociopath - that could justifiably be regarded as rare in 1979 in the so-called civilised world – is now uncomfortably common.

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And – in a sort of split blog this week – I will just veer off for a quick comment about the underlying main issue of our time – climate catastrophe. As I pen quite a lot about it – and in particular the mad consumerism that drives much of the damage it is worth pointing out that one of the biggest monsters is the throw-away clothing industry. Here are some interesting figures

According to Clothes Aid UK more than 30% of our unwanted clothing currently goes to landfill. The UK puts 700,000 tonnes of clothing to recycling centres, textile banks, clothes collections and to charity each year. That's enough to fill 459 Olympic-size swimming pools. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 5% of landfill space is taken up with discarded clothing.

And – to prove that I try to put my opinions where my mouth is – below is a pic of my Mother of the Bride outfit for my middle daughter’s wedding a couple of weekends ago. All charity shop sourced. Additionally I got my eldest daughter’s outfit from a charity shop – also my eldest grandson’s fab trousers and funky braces, my mum’s super swish wedding hat. Plus my small silver backpack for storing snacks for the kids and my shawl. Additionally – though not items of clothing – all the cake storage boxes to get the cake to the venue in one piece, the cake decorations and the cake stand were from charity shops and a dozen of the eggs that went into the cake were from the 'no waste' box run by a neighbour.

Fingers crossed I have my first comedy gig in ages coming up. Remember I'm not on any social media (Mrs Obscure here) but i'll post details to the blog soon.  Meanwhile do check out My BOOKS

430. Brexit! WHY?

Below is an old doodle from 2016. It seems appropriate this week because even hard-line Brexiteers are no longer pretending Brexit was ever going to work / is nothing short of a catastrophe for the UK / was entirely an act of spite and self harm driven by jingoism (see last week's blog) and xenophobia driven by the worst of human instincts. 

With the pandemic, increasing global economic uncertainty, THE CLIMATE CRISIS and now the horrific Russian invasion of Ukraine - Brexit looks madder than ever. But for those trying to claim 'other' influences could not have been foreseen - it is important to understand the dishonesty and disingenuousness of that position.

No one - least of all me - is claiming that current calamities were predictable - though the climate crisis is/was and anyone with any brains knew that a pandemic was inevitable sooner or later. some countries (not us) even planned for one.

What was clear was that ditching our nearest and best and largest trading partners to seek out deals on the other side of the globe to sell - well - whisky to Australia at a slightly cheaper rate(!) was madness. Complete and utter madness. But once again - those at the top rang that jingo bell (see last post) and all sense went out of the window.

So - here is that 2016 doodle...