Blog 88 Cut off their Eds...

And do it now.

I don’t like to repeat myself BUT... here we are again. Ed proves once more that the Sun most definitely does not shine out of his derriere.

For heaven’s sake. When are the labour party going to get it?  Most people got it about a week after Ed was elected leader.

Those who cling on to the fantasy that it’s just an image problem, are living in lala land. Ed has that absolute knack for always getting it wrong. It’s ingrained. And this is at the point where not many people are paying attention to him. Getting the new Axelrod was a waste of time, money and effort. True the wheels are off but the engine is also knackered.

The only answer is OFF with their Eds.

That has been the answer to the unasked question for many months. A new spray job may fit in this world of superficiality and gloss but it won’t make the carburettor run. We are suffering from a whole generation of politicians who think policy doesn’t matter as much as PR.

The electorate don’t ‘get’ Ed because he doesn't ‘get’ them.

The fiasco of lil ol’ Ed posing with the Sun newspaper (part of Axelrod’s attempt to ‘people-ise’ ED?) just reeks of not getting it on a cosmic level. Put it in the sack along with eating bacon butties in public, going into Greggs or posing with a pint to try and look normal. Thus emphasising his inability to do just that.

But posing with the Sun newspaper?

Re the Brazil footy stunt - put to one side that I have no interest in football. Disregard the fact that I actually think it’s an abomination to have spent sick amounts of money so that rich boys can have a kick around in a poor country and even richer boys can make money on the air play and poor people can lose even more money on-line gambling etc etc etc. Ignore all that and you still have a PR disaster. The Sun is a rag. The Sun is a rag with a reading age of (about) 10 which still thinks it’s ok to have boobs on page 3.

There is little point re-writing the many ways that Ed is un-electable – instead I refer you to blog 50 - Ed Milliband – political semolina.

I think the folk of Liverpool have shown admirable staying power in maintaining their moral disdain for a tat tabloid that libeled the dead of Hillsborough for the sake of attention grabbing headlines.

But then there is side-kick Ed, fumbling and thugging his way through parliamentary question time with as much finesse as a drunken rhino.

I don’t want to care. It is many years since I parted company with the Labour party (see blog 39 - What is the point of Newcastle City Council). Blair’s presidential style repulsed me though it was the illegal invasion that was the final straw – and boy oh BOY the size of those chickens that are coming home to roost!

But I digress.

Watching the party’s abysmal efforts is more painful than it should be. I can’t help it, I just don’t want them to be that crap.

When are the upper echelons of the Labour machine going to realise that they have to win this election. Even with the coalition in the state it’s in they just can’t sit back and hope the other side will lose. Because that is what is happening. And that is why even those who realise that Ed is an all-time liability don’t want to rock the boat, upset the apple cart, create waves. Well listen up – the boat is leaking and listing, the apples are rotten and there is a tsunami of shite coming labour’s way if it doesn’t wake up and smell the coffee (…even for me I think that is complete OD on the analogies).

It is time (as previously stated on this blog) for Harriet Harmon to shake off the cobwebs, step forward and tell the boys to go play with themselves while she sorts things out.Yes she was associated with Blair – all-time toxic monster BUT when Ed did the only worthwhile thing he has done since he came to prominence – i.e. apologise for the illegal Iraq invasion – she went along with it – to the public chagrin of the elder Miliband. Some credit there.

What a combo. Frauline Angela, Madame President Hilary and Mrs PM Harriet.

The time is now. Once we hit September in about 10 weeks and there is nowt on BUT the 2015 election, it will be too late.

More importantly, I will make a prediction (I would bet but us Methodists don’t) - if the Labour party do not rock the boat, make waves, upset the apple cart, turn over a new leaf, shake a leg, take the bull by the horns, grasp the nettle, use a new broom, ring the changes yada yada yada - they will not convince a substance hungry electorate they are fit for office.

This week’s recommended blog from the archives is

Blog 21 Save the Emperor’s Genitals...

Blog 87 My Richard Branson date. (Plus – Vodophone are stalking me!)

Today – Tuesday 10^th June - yikes!

Well – to be exact – I am meeting a sales rep at the virgin media shop in Edinburgh to discuss the hitherto unheard of possibility of yours truly – PANTS sufferer (see blog 53) getting home internet access.

If truth be told the pressure is on from daughter no.3. Said teenager has done happily without TV for the whole of her life and much other modernity that her contemporaries feel are essentials – but lack of internet is becoming a bug bear. Plus she seems to think I promised this as a sop to uprooting her to a new home (I do not recall!)

My worries are many; microwaves all around me for one. Possible invasion of mind altering viruses via said waves. Alien attack through my laptop. Though I half suspect my little third-hand Toshiba would implode if such thing were attempted. It sometimes packs up if I type too quickly – as if in protest at the unseemly haste. I think I have a computer with a Jane Austen complex!

But add to my internet-less-ness my soon to be mobile phone-less-ness and things start to get tricky.

A couple of weeks ago I cancelled my Vodophone contract. To be honest – it was an awful contract taken out in haste at phones-4-u. Many an ear-bashing have I suffered at the hands of daughter no.1. Much tut-tutting and sighing and rolling of eyes and ‘why didn’t you let me sort it out-ness’ was endured by me, leading to a feeling of a certain lack of dignity. Anyway – after months of dreadful bills I rang to cancel. The effect – as I am sure you will know if you ever did such a thing – was that suddenly everyone who worked at Vodophone wanted to be my bestist friend. They still do. I keep getting phone calls from zesty young people who insist of chatting to me as if we are bosom buddies – all first names and smiley voices and howz-the-weather-where-you-are?? It’s a bit crazy in a not nice way. And all they want to know – by the way – is why I am leaving. When I say it’s because the contract’s been rubbish they try to sell me a contract MORE expensive than the one I am trying to escape from, on the basis that they are doing me a favour and it’s a much better deal. At which point I wake up screaming – or wish I could.

SO anyway – I cancelled - though I am still getting Vodophone phone calls and texts like a really horrible stalking ex-boyfriend situation.

My new flat has Virgin wiring. SO – thinks me – maybe I should check this out. I’d even heard rumours that one could get a land line without the horribleness of having to have anything at all to do with BT (see the BT [and other]cartoons by going to the posts in ‘view my profile’ in the right hand column).

So I hauled my techno-phobic butt into the shop on Hanover Street, with some trepidation I might add and also with a sore shoulder. I was lugging a cheap self-assembly bathroom cabinet I’d just bought from Argos in a bag that was made originally to carry a dragon egg (ok that’s a loooong story for another time). There I met a very nice sales rep – though I am aware that they are always nice at point of sale. It’s what happens afterwards that counts.

But the deal sounds do-able. The broadband / mobile phone package seems suitable for a penniless writer though I may have to forgo the landline for now – albeit that it was a fraction of what BT charged and if owt went wrong they fix it for free. Free mending stuff sounded like the most marvellous idea to me until I recalled that that’s how it should be and how it was BEFORE BT was privatised and started putting huge charges on for doing things they used to do as part of the service.

Anyway – I digress – as almost always.

So – back to the shop, undaunted by the really embarrassing RBran ad that seemed to be constantly playing. Surely SURELY someone at Virgin is going to tell Rich that starring in ads for your own company is like doing the dad dance at weddings or loudly singing along with Away in a Manger at your grandchild’s school nativity play!

I’m very nervous. The 21^st century does not suit me. I’m not sure the 20^th did either. Anyway, let’s see how this brown girl encounter with technology turns out...

This week’s recommended blog from the archives is;

Blog 49 Dog Pooh in Scented Bags!

Blog 86 Edinburgh is Tram-endous

OK – if half a dozen newspapers haven’t used that one a. why not? b. they have unexpected levels of diffidence and self-control.

Ich bin ein Edinburger - most definitely now because I travelled on the new trams on operation day 1. Yes it was slow and crowded and Saturday was too hot and it messed up the buses but it was good to try the thing out.

Justifiably, it seems, there has been much grumbling and scepticism about the tram system.

But if you put to one side that the whole thing is three years late and horribly over budget it is still odd. Then ignore that the disruption put businesses out of business and caused strain on others during development. Even if you bypass the issue of the tram not going to the places it was feted to go to, it’s possible you are still missing the central nuttiness of this scheme.

Surely everyone gets that public projects of this kind attract dodgy financial intricacies. Companies bid at a level to get the contract and then behave as if they have a licence to print money. Thus has it ever been. What is surprising is that the public bodies commissioning the work haven’t worked that out yet and put, for example, rigorous penalty clauses in place or prosecuted companies for willfully misleading the contracting party. But something always seems to go weird with common sense when public money is involved.

Also timescales. Apart from the Olympics (which also had that escalating budget kookiness) how often does a contractor state that – such-and-such a job will be done on Monday 10^th June and it’s all done by midnight on Sunday 9^th??? I mean apart from NEVER.

And small businesses? When the local dignitaries get a sniff of a prestigious project with the sweet hum of ‘legacy’ and kudos and all that jazz, are they really going to be bothered if Mr sandwich shop or Miss boutique can’t pay the rental because no one can get to their door due to years of excavations? I think not.

No – what is really bizarre and truly strange about the tram system, the thing that leaves me goggle eyed and scratching my head, is that Edinburgh didn't need it.

Of all the places on the planet that had public transport sussed it seemed to me to be Edinburgh. And I should know. I lived in Northumberland for about a decade where the buses are shit and expensive and turn up when they well feel like it. Buses in Edinburgh are (were) absolutely bloody marvelous. There is that bus tracker system which is brill. In Northumberland you found out a bus wasn't coming when rigor-mortis set in. Edinburgh buses are cheap, reliable and clean; they go to everywhere you could possibly want to go and they are usually on time. It’s a veritable BUS HEAVEN.

Tomorrow – at The Persevere in Leith I hope to dust off an old performance poem about just how crap travelling by bus south of the border was. In a piece called ‘I’m a survivor’ – I will pay back-handed homage to the new trams and the lunacy of public transport mentality in what is (still) the UK.

So yes – I had a go on the tram. I can’t say it wasn't a pleasant, fun experience and novel. Everything was new and gleaming though it was slightly nerve-wracking going uphill. In fact, toiling uphill I felt the urge to get out and push! Then it was odd going slowly slowly down. And that bell! I got off at my stop, Balgreen, and it was all jolly pleasant. But what I still don’t get is...

WHY?

This week’s recommended blog from the archives is;

Blog 38. I Did It!

Blog 85. Scary Scotland!

Almost too tired to blog after last week’s house move, I find myself quaking with alarm surrounded by boxes and a ferocious unbelievable assault of all-encompassing noise.

It would be too far a stretch to suggest that the last few weeks were an adventure. Adventure to me suggests fun, anticipation, nervous excitement. I’ve moved houses a few times, possibly more than average. This has been the most harrowing, energy draining and sleep-depriving bar none.

Scotland (Edinburgh especially) is where I wanted to be and where I now am. I moved here for, among other things, new creative opportunities. That box seemed to be getting ticked when I was offered two performance opportunities before the removal guys had even dumped my stuff in the wrong rooms and spilt the pot plant. (Looking forward to doing a short set for 10 Red at The Persevere in Leith next Wed 4^th June). And I already have myself entangled in a slam – a kind of a poetry blood sport I promised myself I would avoid – but hey – I also promised myself I would do the first 10 things I was offered up here, so that trumps the earlier decision.

Something however is amiss. Something is scary. Something is wrong.

I am not talking about a social political uncertainty created by the looming referendum (see blog 37). I am not referring to the unease we feel listening to the frankly, school playground pronouncements from both sides. And by the way, who or what is the ‘No’ side now that Alistair Darling is being sidelined and the No campaign have their hands full trying to keep at bay some elements they would rather not be associated with?

Nor – while we are on the subject – is my fear to do with the deeply depressing recent election results showing that parts of the UK have a taste for bigots in suits (see blog 82 Max Clifford, UKIP & all our yesterdays) – though that is unnerving. Unnerving that is unless you are an able bodied white bloke with a pint in one hand a fag in the other happy to be at the head of a bunch of chauvinist, homophobic, racist misogynists.

No. I am talking about the rain.

Good lord.

I went outdoors. I thought was going to be beaten to death by RAIN.

I am no stranger to torrential rain. I am not unfamiliar with the biblical deluge; I lived in the north of the North of England for heaven’s sake. I am no stranger to a fearsome downpour, even one that goes on and on. There is some rain that seems far too heavy to just go on and on and on but it does, then it rains some more.

Also, I have experienced Edinburgh rain – usually during the fringe in the height of what is laughably referred to as summer (see blog 2 Edinburgh). I have performed at the Edinburgh fringe with just my poetry between me and rain Armageddon. I have walked through the streets of this great city with the rain so heavy that as it hit the pavement it ricocheted up my trouser leg so that if felt as if it were raining from below as well as above.

But today I saw/felt/heard rain that would have made Noah weep – even Noah as played by Russell Crow.

For the record and in case it is brilliant sunshine this Tuesday 27^th May, I am typing this on Sunday 25^th May. It is impossible to hear the keyboard because the rain is battering the windows, guttering and the back boiler behind the gas fire. It is like being inside an amplified drum and I half expect a whale to go cruising by any minute.

On the streets cars and buses threw water 8 foot into the air as they slushed through the gutter water. Sometimes a driver would attempt a pointless hand wave that, I presume, was meant as a feeble apology. More often they just pretended they hadn’t noticed because wherever they were going in their car was far too important to slow down to prevent  a mere pedestrian getting soaked by the puddle tsunami. And anyway THEY are dry so WTF.

Surely the frail and elderly are warned about this phenomena? I hope so. I think there should be some sort of siren, like you would get if a nuclear device had been launched and you had to get to a shelter to die neatly rather than sprawled in the street or blasted to oblivion.

Folk often talk about a baptism of fire when they come into a new and challenging experience. This was simply a baptism.

Help!

This week’s recommended blog from the archive;

Blog 50 Ed Miliband – Political Semolina

Blog 84 STUFF!

I have railed against materialism on this blog. I have satirised consumerism, I've written poems and performed comedy sketches on these topics. Therefore, it is with a blush and a huge guilt complex that I reflect on the last three days.

I was packing to move house.

A few months ago when the idea of a move took shape and then solidified, I naturally felt an increase in my ongoing urge to clear out. My children learnt a long time ago that if something hadn't been used or worn or given a glance in – say – six months, the chances were, it would find its way into the bin or recycle bag unless they nailed it to the floor.

It became a comfortable habit of mine not to purchase a significant item of clothing (albeit from the charity shop) without a quick pre-chuck-out. On occasion I have had to be careful not to re-purchase something I’d previously donated. Sometimes when a thing looked familiar – instead of my brain saying ‘you feel warmly towards that thing because you used to wear it’ my grey matter sends the ‘you feel warmly towards that thing because you want to buy it’ message instead.

Fortunately for my bank balance I have always viewed shopping as a task rather than a form of entertainment. Generally, being surrounded by STUFF drags me down.

There are no gadgets in my kitchen other than those that seem, even to me, to be essential. No microwave, no dishwasher, no George Forman grill (!) Anyway you get the picture.

But once I started to pack, the sheer amount of stuff, the number of things, the crap, overwhelmed me.

I began to suspect I may have cut it fine in terms of time allowed. But – I told myself – you've been handing over little parcels and boxes and bags of things to charity shops for a while. When my Edinburgh conveyancer finally got his finger out and we confirmed the date (and before it turned out he hadn't done something vital he should have done and I thought the whole thing would be off) I upped the clearing-out considerably. I decided to be ruthless, even with my books and they have been thinned out on a regular basis because they breed when I am not looking.

Items I’d hmm’d and ha’d about were cast aside without a second thought or regret. Things I really thought I could not live without were revealed as an obvious waste of space.

Lord, after a day and a half of packing, the task still seemed daunting. Even taking into consideration that some of the stuff belongs to the two daughters who have not lived at home year, and a lot more belongs to the one that does - there still seemed to be too much.

Maybe my aversion to 'things' is connected to upbringing. My grandmother is a psychotic shopper and my mum loves to get-a-gadget. I've been amazed at just how many gadgets there are for things you never knew you needed a gadget for…

My friends may chortle as they already think my sensitivity to clutter is verging on abnormal but there is going to be a whole new level of clear as I go from small house to even smaller flat.

Putting all that to one side – and suspecting that there may be more chucking out when the boxes are opened (which seems kind of mad) I think I am going to have a new rule. If I look around me and feel that it would take my children more than a few hours to clear up after me when I die – I’ve got too much stuff.

On a massive positive note – I am really excited to now be a resident of Edinburgh.

This week’s recommended blog from the archive is;

Blog 23. What is Love! (philosophy of Wil-e-coyote)

Blog 83. Hospital deaths were a NICE surprise!

I hope you are sitting down.

I wasn't sitting down when the announcement came on the radio and the shock was awful. I cannot afford for you to injure yourself and sue me when you read this blog so hold on to something.

NICE have announced findings that under-staffing in hospitals can be dangerous.

OK breathe.

Yes, NICE the National Institute for health and Care Excellence (what happened to ‘f’, ‘h’ and ‘a’?) have made an important announcement, after much consideration and looking at information and reports and statistics and especially figures for preventable deaths in hospitals. Apparently under-staffing can harmfully affect numbers of adverse incidents and patient mortality.

OMG

Let us only hope they do a parallel and more specific study into whether if you are tired and over worked you become more likely to make mistakes. I wait with bated breath for the outcome of that investigation.

Don’t confuse the NICE mentioned above with that other organisation with the same acronym, the National Institute for Could-have-worked-that-out-for-ourselves Easily.

All I can say, once I get my breath back is, thank god we have clever people getting paid lots of tax-payers’ money to tell us these things.

Being just an ordinary Jo (or Amanda) I can only hazard a guess at some of the mysteries of life and wonder about things like – would drinking tractor engine oil make you poorly?

To be honest there was rather a lot to take in this week in terms of confusing information. Evidently it’s not ok to legally (but immorally) avoid tax if you are a comedian but it is ok to illegally avoid tax if you are a singer and a mate of David Cameron. And it’s not ok to play a record with the ‘N’ word in it if you are an old DJ but it is ok to say the ‘N’ word (and be a misogynistic git) if you present programmes about cars and are a friend of David Cameron. How confusing is life?

So I suppose – if the things that should be straightforward are complicated then it makes a kind of twisted sense if things that are utterly obvious are then presented to us as if they are full of mystery and require stats and reports and serious public statements.

But back to the findings that surprised NICE.

The weird thing was that just a couple of days before this stunning announcement, a friend of mine  told me about her elderly mother who died in hospital after being given the wrong dose of one of her medications. The lady in question was old and poorly but the mis-medication possibly hastened her death and in an unpleasant way. While I felt huge sympathy for my friend and her family, I have to admit, my gut reaction was to also wonder at the plight of the nurse. How many elderly patients was she caring for? How qualified was she? How much support did she have? Was there a senior clinician available at the relevant time? Because one thing I do know from contacts in the medical field is that when these things blow up it is usually the person at the coal face who gets it in the neck. It is rarely the more senior medic, almost never the hospital manager and it is never EVER the politicians who landed the NHS with the targets and PFI contracts that led to much of the present misery and a funding crisis.

SO take a deep breath before you listen to the news or read tomorrow’s papers – they may announce that crossing the M25 without looking increases your risk of getting run over.

This week’s recommended blog from the archives is

No.32 NHS & the Condom of Common Sense.

Blog 82. Max Clifford, UKIP & ‘all our yesterdays’

Any hope of a sensible outcome (or even process) in the European elections was snuffed out when the first election leaflet flopped onto my doormat.

I am left still trying to comprehend (among other things) the appeal of UKIP – or should I say Farage. Yes he’s been shamelessly promoted and normalised by the media but over and above that, what is his draw? He’s a frog-faced racist hypocrite who seems to have galvanised the previously limp passions of (some) white men over 60 – like political Viagra. And who’d argue he wouldn’t look better with a condom over his head?

According to various opinion polls and commentators and worried Tory insiders, he appeals to those who feel their country is not what it was; those who crave the ‘better yesterday’. Presumably they want a yesterday when everyone was white and spoke perfect English which was – NEVER. There was no such thing as Standard English until well after Chaucer’s time and today most so-called indigenous people don’t speak it. The Royal Family are a Continental European import and blacks and Europeans have been resident on this island since Roman times. The fictional better yesterday seems to be some mythical time in the 60s, 70s or early 80s.

So I thought – couldn’t we put all the folk who want it to be yesterday together? They could go live on an island with Max Clifford. Maybe we could get some posters saying ‘no blacks, no Irish, no dogs’ to make them feel at home? The men could have compulsory comb-overs and the women would be forced to wear pale blue eye shadow.

On this island the only T.V. will be back episodes of Crossroads and Top of the Pops with Jimmy Saville. The food will consist of sandwiches made from packet Mother’s Pride bread filled with smash and condensed milk sprinkled with powdered coffee.

I do get why the main parties are such a turn-off. The Tories are shits. The Liberals justify their existence by claiming to be keeping the Tories from being as shit as they would otherwise be and Labour are whining from the sidelines that they will be a bit less shit than the others if we let them have a go (see spoof leaflet with this week’s cartoon).

Just last week the Tories proved yet again their disdain and utter contempt for the British public by approving the proposed take-over of Astra Zeneca by Pfizer (talking of Viagra). Apparently on the basis that P has given assurances they won’t decimate the AZ UK workforce. And we all know how reliable those kinds of business assurances are from the Royal Mail debacle.

The Liberals haven’t worked out that Clegg is as electable as chilled dog vomit.

Labour doesn’t get that;

Ed is unelectable

Blair is not completely exorcised

You can’t just keep saying you will manage the mess; you have to prove you’ll clear it up.

If the Tories want to out-UKIP UKIP they could pass a law stating that homosexuality is re-outlawed, we all have to paint our rooms brown and orange and all women must be trained as typists and not complain if their bosses grope them. And we could all go to hell in a handcart singing Rule Britannia.

Or...

... young people could wake up, smell the coffee, get themselves registered to vote and introduce euthanasia for racist, homophobic, misogynistic hypocrites.

Click on the orange Amanda Baker - top of the right hand column to view this week’s cross-cartoon

This week’s recommended blog from the archives is,

Blog 35 Eton Mess – pudding or state of the nation.