… and my belated ten-year blog birthday.
I forgot to celebrate my 10 yr. anniversary of
blogging. So – happy belated decade blogging and doodling to me.
I’d go into an extended piece here about the changes
I’ve observed over the last decade which encompasses my blog but
that can be summed up simply as DOWNHILL all the way for the UK.
The last decade has seen global catastrophes link
and merge in an as yet barely realistically acknowledged looming climate and
environment catastrophe.
Here in Brexit Britain – the privatisations begun
last century by Conservative icon and nemesis of the caring – Margaret Thatcher
- have come home to roost in truly dreadful ways. A defunct railway system, failing
energy provision at a time of energy crises and water unfit for humans around
the coast of Britain as the privatised water companies sold off reservoirs and
– like their counterparts in other privatised utilities – siphoned off billions
of public money to their shareholders. That has always been the point of
privatisation.
Many systems are hanging by a thread. The NHS –and
many others are in a fight for their lives. Schools. The care system. Mental health
services. Public infrastructure. And so on.
And yet still, still – we idolise and follow those
born to wealth and privilege with vast personal fortunes either inherited or
married into or gained – as per the Russian Oligarchs and those who profiteered
more recently from the pandemic - by literally selling their countries down the river.
Then there are others like Trump and Musk pedalling
a fake version of themselves so successfully that what we’d revile or ridicule
in those without their platforms is idolatrised and made godlike.
Like Trump and Boris Johnson, Musk has made
misstep after misstep. He, like Trump and Johnson, is a personal disaster, fathering
random children he appears to have little fatherly feeling for. For all the adulation he invokes, Musk like Trump and Johnson is also incredibly thin
skinned – taking on arguments more suited to a 7 year-old in a playground but
using the mega platforms of our era to amplify his infantilism.
On this blog years ago, I stated that Brexit would
bring Britain down to Greece 2.0 and it is. I pointed out that Labour’s Miliband
would not win the general election he was predicted to win – not because he
wasn’t the best candidate but because I looked at things those in the
Westminster bubble did not factor in – the soap-opera loving nation that would
not forgive him for stabbing his brother in the back. Also the bacon sandwich
fiasco! Looks are everything if you’re not a right wing lunatic in which case
you get away with literally having blood on your hands. And so on and so forth.
Johnson was allowed – years later – to ‘let the
bodies pile up’ during covid – lie and cheat and bluster and fail fail fail
again in office and appoint dreadful people – but he’s a Tory.
Longer more all-encompassing predictions are painted
in my novella Zero One Zero Two and also my audio story Casey & the Surfmen. Also
coming to sad dark fruition.
Though as we approach that point of no return we
thought was still far away at the turn of the century – these can hardly now be
labelled predictions. It would be like someone alluding to Orwell’s 1984 in
1982…
After last week’s post I sent out a letter to editors
on my usual list (my small number of regular readers will know my letters
appear in a number of papers in the UK and some abroad) stating that despite
his refusal, Sunak would indeed go to COP27. Not because I’m a seer but just
because it was 100% obvious and again – I simply do not understand the surprise
of media/Westminster commentators. From the point he said he wouldn’t go and
gave his pathetic reason, it was obvious he’d U-turn.
But it’s not a huge mind stretch to predict that
Chief Twat will cause more mayhem now he has control of Twitter. You do not
need a crystal ball to see that his ego, unchecked by self-awareness or human
decency or caring or maturity, will wreak mayhem on the weak-minded and
gullible. Mark the lack of real condemnation when he undermined the efforts of
Ukraine in its life or death struggle against Russia. A spoilt brat with a too big toy chucking a turd into an operating
theatre where exhausted, bloodied surgeons fight to save life – is the
image that comes to mind.
But there is lots of good stuff too in my last
decade. In that time my family has grown by two sons-in-law and three
grandchildren and more children to extended family. Not too many people I love have
died. I’ve written more books and read many. I’ve renovated more houses in
various states of dilapidation – which apart from my writing is something that
gives me immense satisfaction.
I watch with interest as fascism in its reinvented
forms again has its day – sadly scorching and burning – and leaving us with the
tired old questions left over from last century – what will be left and can we
rebuild?
So – I celebrate my little blog – albeit it’s more
an outlet for my anguish and frustration at times. But it keeps me sane and it
is sane. And Twitter is mad. And for all the folk who have told me over the
years that I ought to be on social media and definitely on Twitter – I continue
to say – thanks but no thanks…
As for what has happened in the decade since I began
this blog – I think its best summed up in a couple of old doodles from 2013
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In other words – things under the Tories and other right-wing administrations with their greed and short-termism and self-interest haven’t so much changed as got exponentially and unbelievably much worse…
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