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Tuesday, 19 March 2019

303. ERG – the Brexit sect feasting on Parliament’s failing blood supply.


ERG stands for - we are told - European Research Group
This absurd misnomer is the Rees-Mogg cabal orchestrating Brexshit constipation and now jubilantly beating time to the death throes of British democracy.

ERG is one of the most dishonest acronyms in the history of politics. 
Here are 25 more apt suggestions…

Extra Rotten Gobshites
Empire Rabid Ghouls
Evil Rancid Gonads
Eerie Reptilian Goblins
Endemic Right-wing Gobbledegook
Encephalitic Rumpled & Ghastly
Endless Raging Gibberish
Exhausting Ratty Grubs
Enormously Repugnant Gits
Envious Runty Gerbils
Ectoplasmic Rectal Goo
Ebola Rickets & Gonorrhoea
Easily Riled Gimps
Encrusted Reeking Gumboils
Exhumed Resentful Gunge
Effluent Rank Guts
Entrails Ruptured & Gaseous
Extinct Reedy Gringos
Extraordinarily Repulsive Gargoyles
Eons of Rapacious Greed
Explosion of Riotous Germs
Espousing Ridiculous Guff
Entitled Righteous Gloating
Emphatic Rhetorical Gangrene
Excreted Rheumatic Gnomes

(feel free to make up your own...)

And - as some commentators with clout are managing to break the surface re other disasters we've not been dealing with since June 2016 - why not check out how we are wrecking the world and how we could prevent it -
or what it will be like when we've wrecked it -

Tuesday, 12 March 2019

302 Trump’s toxic train is derailing. How does Brexit, with no wheels, no engine, no train tracks – rumble on?


Across the pond the creeps and the cronies, the corrupt crawlers, the crass and the craven and the crap - the people with whom Trump habitually surrounds himself, are getting a little of what we used to call just deserts. Only the crazies remain.

As they take turns in court to hear a new sentence (Manafort) or to be told that they may be incarcerated for contempt before they’ve even been tried (Stone) or sit dog- faced, weary and diminished before The House Intelligence Committee (Cohen) the list grows. The seediness is exceeded only by the strange mundaneness of it all.

But here in the UK, nothing. The liars (Farage, Gove etc) the racists (Farage, Johnson) the dullards (David Davis) hypocrites and lunatics (Ree Smogg) and the growing list of incompetents (Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn +++) still stand in Parliament, do press conferences, seem to believe they are in charge of something and worth their pay cheques.  Dominic Raab – Minister (for about 4 months) for Exiting the EU who admitted he didn’t understand the importance of the Calais to Dover trade route, is now being named as a potential successor to May. Well – why not. Why not vote for a hay stack for that matter?

Chris Grayling the unbelievably below par Secretary of State for Transport and Karen Bradley the idiot Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – who knows nothing about – well – Ireland, are like diversionary plants to show us that however useless  those 'doing' Brexit may appear – there are worse people. Much worse. Just cast your mind back to the snivelling Gavin Williamson – spider boy – our gormless Secretary of State for Defence who – after the Russian poisonings proclaimed that Russia should “shut up and go away”. Problem solved.

And yes – one could argue that their destruction of Britain – in terms of credibility and in fact - was not intentional. Being an ex-lawyer – I am well aware of the importance of INTENT – marking as it does the difference between Murder and Manslaughter.

HOWEVER...

There comes a point in criminal law, and in the depths of personal injury law – and surely in common sense – when blind incompetence to the point of willful ignorance becomes recklessness and opens up the charge of obvious, foreseeable harmful consequences to such an extent that intent becomes irrelevant.

Why - in the US and UK - have all the turds floated to the top at this point in history and when are the publicly paid, most incompetent and  in-cohesive johnnies and janes this country has ever had the misfortune to call a ruling administration, going to get theirs?

We’ve had ours and it’s making most of us sick…

AND – as I said in another letter to the press this week (published in The Independent) – it’s not as if anyone is even debating actual Brexit anymore –

Listening, at the weekend, to the various white noise that passes for debate about Brexit  – in the run up to more ridiculous Parliamentary votes on something or other to do with the Brexit mess - I had an out of body experience and came to a very simple, obvious conclusion -
No one is even fighting over ‘Brexit’ anymore – whatever that was.

It’s as if shady street hawkers enticed people into a spangled glitzy looking restaurant with promises of free roast beef, double pudding and singing waiters and somewhere between the entrance and the table at the back – the heating was switched off, the music stopped, the lights went out, the décor faded to a mottled grey and now the customers are being persuaded to stay in the restaurant and fight over whether to eat the dusty old dried flower arrangement – or not.  And,  they are going at it hell for leather.

Meanwhile – normal life is going on outside…

Tuesday, 5 March 2019

301. Make Pancakes not War



Panic not – I am a poet so poems occasionally appear on this blog. This one is in the form of a secular prayer for Shrove Tuesday or, as we called it as kids, Pancake Day.

***

Make Pancakes not War
by Amanda Baker

Make pancakes not war
Make love don’t fight
Talk it over
Have a cuppa
Be still
Be the light

Don’t shoot to kill
Plant sunflowers,
Grow crops, fix the world
You can’t call back
Harsh words
Once they’ve been hurled

Hold hands in soft silence
Pick fruit
Row a boat
Slow down
Observe
Watch bath toys afloat

Make peace with joyful noise
Have a hug
Be my friend
Don’t go on
Like this
Stumbling to the end

Let the sum of your
Happiness
Outweigh
Your despair
Make pancakes
AND love if you dare…


***

NB. My verse picture book is on offer in its e / kindle form today at a 60+% discount until March 12th . Check it out then treat a little reader you know to the paperback version. It is – according to Goodreads - “a wonderful bookJ

Tuesday, 26 February 2019

300. May's Brexselection v Corbyn's Diarrhoea option


After months of political constipation, May is going to give the Westminster weevils another vote. WEHEEEEEY I hear you cry (not).

On the 12th March (just 3 days before the Ides of March – has this woman not heard of Julius Caesar?) MPs will be allowed to pick from her limited and tainted selection. They can choose between bad and dreadful which will look something like this...


Plus, in the wake of the 9 defecations from Labour (no – that is not a typo) Corbyn has been dragged kicking and screaming to actually agree a previously stated Labour Party plan. Depending which Labour Party spokesperson has the mic, this is something like a policy on a second vote/referendum – albeit one that is vague, unformed, kind of sloppy/watery and uncomfortable for everyone. Let’s call it Corbyn's diarrhoea option…

*
NB. If you would like to try some mixed race magic, a 7-day Ella & the Knot Fairies offer starts next Tuesday.



Tuesday, 19 February 2019

299. This Blog post will change your life…


… (It won’t)

Ok - after last week’s splurge of sarcasm I realise that it’s me that is out of step so, this week I’m doing NORMAL.

I had a cursory look online to see what counts for normal these days.

So firstly, ignore the dire warnings about the appalling state of the natural world and obviously don’t read my dystopian sci fi novella unless you are mad
Instead, look at what rich, thin, vacuous women are wearing at various spangly meaningless events or watch comedians who have run out of material talking to each other on game shows. Stomached that for about 2 minutes.

Then apparently there are lots of mysterious things those nasty, pesky doctors don’t want you to know; medical and beauty secrets that will magically make you younger / healthier / more attractive/ thinner yada yada yada with NO effort. So, I came up with two of those – a. don’t eat shit. b. walk around a bit. Ok that’s that done.

Plus, here is a picture of my half-century+++ face after four days with my grandson, little sleep and no makeup because, apparently, if you are a woman, that makes you a hero these days. I generally wear eyeliner and lipstick if I’m performing because it’s quite important for an audience to be able to clearly read facial expressions while I have a rant about how we're all fucked by Brexit (woops, sorry, shouldn't have said the 'B' word) but apparently the rest of the time I am akin to a firefighter diving into a raging inferno to rescue 8 children from an 11th floor or a civil rights activist... just because I leave home without slapping ridiculously expensive chemical kack on my face every single day and go places where other people might see me.

Also – here is a gluten-free egg-free recipe for coconut macaroons that will change the way you eat forever (it really won’t).

Shredded coconut - as much as you can get in half a small bowl (your local Asian supermarket will probably sell pre-shredded coconut)
About half that amount again in rice flour and ground almonds (if your budget is tight – more rice flour than ground almonds)
Vanilla essence if you have it. Vanilla extract or real vanilla if you won the lottery
Wee bit salt
The equivalent of 6 tbsp of melted coconut oil (pound shops or Aldi etc sell it cheap)
Honey or – if you just came into an inheritance – maple syrup
Mix and mush
Squidge into balls and bake in medium oven for 15 – 20 mins
Leave to set for about an hour (or less if you cannot wait)
Eat with a cup of tea either on your own or with a friend if you are feeling generous. Hide some in a tin so they don’t eat them all. Couldn’t be arsed to take a picture but I’m assuming most folk who eat food or ever ambled by a bakery know what a coconut macaroon looks like.

I know I really should have put up a story about how something inane changed my life but I can’t think of anything apart from GROWING UP.

See – a whole blog post that is entirely normal…

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

298. This Remainer wants XXX Brexit


I mean raw – served up still bleating. I want a Brexit so hard it would penetrate pack ice like steaming piss through warm ice-cream; so potent it could push through bedrock like a hot knife through rancid butter. I want Brexit so pure it would make high end cocaine seem like weevil-infested dust. I want Brexit so tough it would make John Wick look like a soggy disabled kitten.

And in the words of Queen I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW…

Then I want it shoved down Ree Smogg’s weird neck. Build Brexit into a wall to knock Boris Johnson’s fat head against. Grill it into dry toast that Corbyn has to eat every day for a year with no fluids. Form Brexit into concrete shoes for Gove to wear in Parliament.

I am sick of hoping for common sense to prevail. I am tired of waiting for mediocre politicians to chuck in the towel like Cameron and Clegg and go fuck up somewhere else. I am weary of waiting for decency to outplay intolerance and for rationality to get a foothold and rise up over the heads of the greedy and self-serving and those lacking self-awareness. I am fed up of trusting to the end of wilful ignorance.

So – come on. Let’s get it over with. Let’s rip the dirty plaster off the infected wound of British democracy.

As the blue collar America MAGA brigade who voted for Trump in response to his dog whistle politics and white supremacy begin to ache, so will the Brexit voters when they finally realise they’ve been duped. The tax year is ending across the pond with huge numbers of US voters waking up to just how much worse off their families are since Trump gave their money to the billionaires whose validation Trump  - a multiple failed business conman - craves. Well – it’s too late.

I want to see the faces of the Brexiteers when regulated workers from the EU are replaced by unregulated workers from anywhere we can get them. I want to experience the reactions of those who followed Theresa May to Armageddon as they struggle on growing NHS waiting lists while – presumably - she will still get seen promptly.

Let’s see the responses of those who followed Johnson’s jingoist gibberish when they stand in the supermarket queues in the hope of buying scarce or unaffordable fresh produce – while he and his ilk shuffle off to WE’RE OK LAND – or whatever place the well-heeled shits go to when they’ve finished screwing things up for everyone else.

I want to hear the howls of the folk in Wales and Sunderland and other areas that voted heavily (without bothering to check the facts) to ‘reclaim our borders’ when companies along with Nissan swell the Brexodus and industries like steel, complete their flight and the EU funding that has helped keep many areas, ignored by Westminster, afloat after Thatcher wrecked working class communities, dries up.

And yes – the people who didn’t vote for this nightmare will hurt too, along with the many millions who saw sense too late but I still want it.

I want the flea infested, un-house-trained, incontinent cur to have its face shoved in the steaming pile it dumped in the corner. And yes we’ll all have to suffer the stink but, just for today, I do not care. Right now my inner 8 year old is stamping her foot…


Tuesday, 5 February 2019

297. Sanity or Insanity…


Today’s options – a couple of pleasant distractions or down that rabbit hole - just click the links.

My silliest poem

Or – how about my quirkiest book (nb - the original edition of this off-beat, eccentric histoire d’amour was written several years before auctioning virginity on the internet became a thing…)

But, if you really haven’t had enough of Brexit – this is my favourite Brexit essay –

Bonne chance