Blog 107 Labour's gift to the Tories (another one!)

Isn't it obvious to EVERYONE that the wrong Labour leader has resigned. The wrong head is rolling down the path. There is blood on the floor but the wrong sacrifice has been made.

Something the Tories have (or should have) worked out is that with a Labour ex-leader taking the blame for conning the Scots out of a Yes vote up here and the current leader disconnected and un-electable, Cameron has now been handed the chance of a majority at the next election. Is that not why the Tories are light on Miliband bashing and serious about poking Farage? They appear to goad Miliband just enough to look as if they are serious but must go to bed every night praying he’s still there in the morning. If asked by the politics fairy what they want for Christmas the Tories reply ‘we want Ed M gurning at us across the political divide two beats behind the rest of the nation on what really matters - pretty please’.

During the recent referendum, Labour was so intent on keeping the union because they need their Scottish votes, that they forgot that the votes they've had in the past are not a foregone conclusion. And it wasn't the Labour party sounding like they cared for the ordinary folk of Scotland in those last desperate weeks. What they showed us – as Ms Lamont pointed out – is that Labour HQ is mesmerised by the Westminster machine and interested only in keeping those cogs turning. Arriving during the end game as part of that horrible trio, sucking down some iron brew while trying not to gag was far, far worse for Miliband than the other two. They already have nothing to lose in Scotland when it comes to the general election.

When Labour also boast an ex-prime minister who helped kick off Armageddon, every Tory drawing down an MP's salary must be secretly planning to poison any non-male – non-white contender who looks like they could pose even a half serious threat to D’Ed man walking. There is no point now going over what could have been (see blog 88 Off with their Eds). However, it can be fun to play woulda / coulda / shoulda / what if / perhaps / maybe so if you like mathematical equations here are some simple ones to play with -

General election lethargy + Miliband = Tory win 2015

New Labour leader + UKIP effect on Tories = Labour minority government 2015

New Labour leader + alliance with Greens + Labour ditch support for HS2 = Labour majority win 2015

New female Labour leader + alliance with Greens + apology to Scots + public finally sickened by Tory wetness and UKIPs Hitler/light + ditch HS2 +Labour rule out every having ANYTHING to do with Libs while Clegg is still sliming round = Labour outright majority.

But no – Johann Lamont fell on her sword. Ed grabbed it up in a flash, wiped off the blood, stepped over the body and carried on in his I-don’t-really-get-it gonkness. He got his big brother’s toy and he don’t care. It may break, it may run out of batteries, he may not know how to play with it anyway. That is not the point. It’s his now and he aint giving it to anyone.

Oh boy

Anyhooo – on a lighter note – the first launch events for Casey & the Surfmen are underway for me. It’s been fun so far. When I did the Q&A after one reading, a cute little boy put his hand up and asked “How old are you?” so this week at the next tranche of schools and libraries, I will have to explain that when I say ‘you can ask me anything’ what I mean is ‘ask me anything about the poem-story.

Check it out, help yourself to a free listen and/or download it for the kids.

www.caseyandthesurfmen.co.uk

Blog 106. The Protocol Predicament.

The problem with politeness, the maddening thing about manners, the quandary you can get into with kindness is that you may be left wanting to eat your own head.

To be fair, facebook now acts as a reliable dumping ground for much of the mundane detritus of people’s lives and delusions. This can save the frozen grin we used to suffer when being told details of someone’s last meal out or what they enjoyed about East Enders last night.

But we seem to have our when-to-be-polite radars turned off.

What part does politeness have to play in the area of public performance? I don’t mean not shuffling your programme while watching a live show or unwrapping sweeties during the quiet bit of a film (or answering texts or phone messages etc). I am talking about the politeness that leads to audiences sitting passively while someone serves up a massive heap of crap.

The crazy part is that people are prepared to be rude in almost every other arena these days. From social media to politics, from shops and buses to the people in your own street - foul language, lack of consideration and abuse are a la mode. Bigotry is in vogue (thanks Nigel). Callous attitudes are no longer something to be frowned upon (thanks Dave). Even dishonesty (Nick) and lack of principles (Ed) are nowt to be ashamed of. So why the sudden politeness when we find ourselves at a live performance?

A while ago (I won’t be too specific because this is a general point [see I am doing it now...]) I was at a live performance. There was open mic stuff which is always a mixed bag and all the more entertaining for it. Usually there will be a good tumble of newbies, experienced and/or talented and the hacks who've been doing the same stuff for two decades but we love anyway. There can often be a wildcard surprise that seems to make the whole night glow. But then there is the feature slot; the performer who anchors the night and is supposedly relied on to provide at least the level of quality or freshness and originality which makes leaving the sofa worthwhile. Clearly the feature slot cannot be expected to suit every taste.

Now if you are filling a night on a monthly basis or more frequently, you can get sold a pup. It happens to the best. But what I have noticed in recent times is the audience’s unwillingness to trust its gut instinct (or act on it) and show this person what they think.

WHY?

So on this night the feature turned up late but the promoter was relieved he’d arrived at all and we all settled. He was worse than awful. He was ghastly and gauche. Clearly he loved himself immensely and that made his lack of talent, stage presence, audience connection, disastrously miss-aimed attempts at humour - worse. What began masquerading as wacky ran on and on and on revealing itself as self indulgent pap. The initial thin titters died out. Soon it was left to the drunks to emit the occasional fneeer while everyone else – including me – stared in cold disbelief at the stage. My friend left but I did not want to seem rude. Why? Why was I worried about making a bad impression? Plenty of times in the past I have had to rush off at inopportune moments because of childcare issues. But without that imperative my conscience forced me to stay. Why wasn't he booed off the stage? Why wasn't he pelted with rotten vegetables? Why didn't people just start talking among themselves? Time is so precious. And he abused and wasted and stomped all over the time we had on that night to forget the shitty state of the world (see last week's blog).

In the end as Mr Ilovemyself wittered on and on over his allotted time, I eventually snuck out only to find a gaggle of performance refugees huddled in the cold. One approached me,

“Has he finished yet?” he begged hopefully.

“No” I said in funereal tones.

And none of us stormed the stage or tarred and feathered him or phoned his mother and demanded that she come take him home.

But – though it was torture for us – maybe he went home and had a really, really good laugh.

Blog 105. Ebola – what’s really gruesome...

What is really gruesome about Ebola is that for the four+ decades we’ve known of its existence, the West has been kind of ok with it – because it was just killing Africans. And let’s face it we are used to watching desperate foreigners die of poverty or disease or preventable illnesses or the results of the exploitation of the developed world – and getting on with our tea.

Suddenly we are interested because it looks like the virus might have the bare faced cheek to come over here. (For previous comments on this issue check out blogs 12. Armageddon will not be televised and 95 Trump is a chump – again).

In lieu of anything new to be said about this disaster and certainly anything humorous, I will instead insert here an excerpt from my short story The Remainder published last year in ROOT.

(entry - 223)

I hoped the false lavender would trigger a sensory memory of the real thing but it’s too long ago.... The material disintegrated even though I tried not to handle it. During the great plagues of 2103 when a cloying, fetid stench fouled the air for months, I forced my precious lavender pouch to my nose even though there was only the faintest trace of its aroma. I tried breathing through it, ignoring the muggy brown air which was like my own fear. In those days the air was always adulterated with some chemical or other. Every year the food developers created new seeds to keep ahead of the mutated crop diseases. I vaguely remember a seven-year cycle. But eventually the developers found they were only two seasons away from earth zero. That was when the super-plagues arrived. Also the nightmares that I still have. Millions were already weakened from unwholesome synthetic nutrition. It was in 2103 that we took our biggest hit. Food supplements could not prevent starvation, even in the Priority Nations. The Sub Nations ceased. I can hardly visualise a Sub Nation now. They are a shameful footnote; areas bombed for their oils and natural resources by coalitions controlling the peace weapons. Even in grandmother’s time it was accepted that there was little practical purpose in shoring up the fragile populations of countries that, in the pre-plague years, failed to hand over resources to the Democratic Council of Nations. We were taught at school that areas of the globe historically suffered from famine and various economic and geographical crises. There was an unspoken understanding that it was the natural order of things that these branches of the human tree be allowed to whither for the benefit of The Remainder. Lots of things are unspoken now. These are the things that hurt my head. The ‘natural order of things’ isn’t much used as an argument the rest of the time.

***

If you haven’t already downloaded Casey & the Surfmen for the kids DO -

Part 1. Down by the Sea

Part 2. Ripping the Earth

can both be found at

www.caseyandthesurfmen.co.uk/

Blog 104. Surprise, Surprise!

You wouldn’t think I’d be easily surprised. If you are a regular bleader you will know I suffer from a certain scepticism which is nevertheless useful for a broadly satirical blog.

I’m not surprised that my soon-to-be-ex energy suppliers Scottish Power are even more crap than my previous one npower. I’m not surprised that trying to communicate with the Ombudsman service was nearly as frustrating and like talking-to-a-brick-wall as efforts to deal with the initial problems.

I was, however, surprised to find that it really did just take EIGHT MINUTES to switch to a new supplier – which is twelve minutes less than the last time I was in a queue waiting for a response from Scottish Power to find out why I still didn't have a bill - before I was cut off.

I was not surprised that within 24 hours of the results of the referendum Cameron had tied up the Brown bribes in so much obfuscation that it would take a hallucinogenic contortionist to unscramble the con. I was, however, surprised that Sir Ian Wood’s fracking intentions were not unearthed (sorry for the pun) when he was scare mongering about Scottish oil.

(for fracking cartoon go to 28^th Jan post this year by clicking on the orange ‘amanda baker’ in the right hand column and scrolling down)

I am surprised at the new and ever more bizarre ways IT creates to allow communication between people who don’t or shouldn't mean anything to each other so that e-mail (which is still where I am at) looks like carving a note on a tablet of stone.

I am always surprised when the internet comes up with something that is actually useful especially if it’s useful to me and I couldn't find it in a book that I already had in the house.

A year ago, walking along the East Lothian coast I noticed the bright orange berries growing in abundance on smokey-grey-blue bushes with leaves shaped similar to Rosemary plant leaves. I could not help but think something so beautiful must be good (a mistake we humans often make).

So I looked them up on the internet. I discovered to my delight that they were not only edible but fantastically good for you and called Sea buck-thorn.

Fast forward one year and not only did I pick some (and they are horrible things to harvest) I went back onto the internet to discover what on earth to do with them. I needed pictures and descriptions and hints on how to pick and prepare them. I needed to know if they would make better jam or jelly.

And I found not just abundant information about this not-especially-common plant but more images and advice and step-by-step how to make jelly tips than you could shake a stick at.

I have to say, to the blogger with the fab coastal pics, that the stripping-from-the-branch-while-the-other-person-holds-the-bucket didn’t work for me. My berry pickin pal has the thorns to prove it. But we did manage to get enough to cover the bottom of the bucket to the depth of about an inch and a half (it was a good size bucket – we were very enthusiastic until we were reduced to one berry at a time).

After a ridiculous amount of physical labour – boiling then pressing reluctant berries through a sieve and boiling again with sugar to a temperature that would possibly melt lead and with my tiny kitchen spattered in sticky, scarily bright fiery orange goo – as if the sun had burst directly over my cooker and pans and spoons and containers and measuring jugs equally brightly painted, I finally ended up with 9 very small jars of deep orange brown STUFF. Now I have to wait and see.

And I can tell you – know one will be more bloody surprised than me if it WORKS.

In honour of the lovely afternoon by the un-frack’d coast in the surprise sunshine, do have (if you haven’t already) a listen to Casey & the Surfmen

Part 1. Down by the Sea

Part 2. Ripping the Earth

can both be found at

www.caseyandthesurfmen.co.uk/

Blog 103 A POEM TO SAVE THE PLANET!

I know - you were thinking exactly the same thing – a poem is definitely the solution...

Government conferences don’t seem to work. International agreements are ignored. Whaling and deforestation and dumping and chemical contamination and melting ice-caps and car pollution seem to be madder than ever –

So what we need is a 22 minute audio-poem/story to sort it all out. And I just happen to have one here.

Casey and the Surfmen is an environmentally themed piece which only took TEN YEARS to bring to fruition (for heaven’s sake) and I am selling the audio download for £1.

Really if you think of it in poetry terms £1 is a fortune. Poets are supposed to be penniless and romantic and die in attics of TB so a decade’s sweat and tears for a quid is actually a bounty of riches.

Trust that I will spend wisely.

Casey and the Surfmen is a “spoken word treat”; “an exciting, beautiful, ominous story which celebrates the united actions of ordinary people, inspired by magic, mystery and the truth remembered from childhood”.

 “Enchanting, lyrical and highly topical! Certain to engage and delight children and adults alike”. Pam Gresty (ex-head teacher, Yorkshire)

“Casey & the Surfmen sifts through the sands of time and finds the child in us all” Oonah Joslin Poet / Editor Northumberland

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a Luddite, as afeard of technology as rabbits are scared of foxes and Tories are scared of UKIP. (see blog- 53 - I suffer from PANTS). Do not fall off your chair then when it is revealed to you that there is a website for this new venture. And no – obviously I did not do the website. Thank you Chrissie. Also Thanks to ex-punk Gary for doing the recording/editing and background music.

Click on the ink and do check it out - 

www.caseyandthesurfmen.co.uk/

And do please purchase a download. Ten year’s work and three downloads and I can afford a coffee!

Blog 102. I really know how to have a good time.

Call me a total party animal – a social butterfly – a hedonistic thrill seeker. This week, in the post-referendum greyness, I feel it’s my duty to let the rest of you in on my ultimate wild-time-having secret.

To be sure this may be an acquired taste but trust me, once you've tried it, all your recreational drugs, booze binges and wild nights of passion with strangers (ehh, the GERMS) will seem as naught.

Maybe you spend hours reading up on recipes to impress your friends for a Saturday night culinary extravaganza or you are one of those people who is planning the next holiday before the baggage is off the carousel. I don’t know. But I do know I am about to blow your mind. I am going to show you the three steps to heaven the zinging excitement kick to end them all.

A trip to the municipal tip.

I know what you are thinking. The woman has gone bonkers; she’s unhinged after the disappointment of last Thursday/Friday. She really believed that there was a chance for more egalitarian government. Albeit that she has not a nationalist bone in her body – she actually thought the establishment was going to get a shake up, that at least for Scotland there would be some hope for those who understand that not everything is about profit. She’s such a naive twit she thought the people who really wanted change could stand up to an alliance of the comfortably off, the cowards who were taken in by all the bogey-men-under-the-bed stuff and the cynics from the main parties who realised that a Yes vote would be disastrous for them personally. Really. Does brown girl not realise the establishment is called The Establishment for a reason? (I hear you sigh.) So now she’s lost it.

Well – you are wrong.

Having spent my first few months in Scotland stressed by mind numbing hassle with my energy provider and their subsidiaries who needed to do some stuff to make the place usable and did it horribly badly – I only recently got to the point where the flat actually looked like a home. Therefore, the trip to the tip took on Xanadu type significance.

For days I have been looking longingly at the rotting junk ripped out of the kitchen and stacked kind of neatly by the bike shed. My partner and I who take our weekend on a Monday decided that this would be our Monday treat. We debated which of the available municipal tips to attend and decided on the one by the shore near Portobello. We charted a route that would take us the scenic way and we debated, in detail, which coffee shop we would visit for a bun, should our trip be successful.

It was all more wonderful than I could possibly have imagined. There was almost no one else there as we edged to a halt next to the huge skips with their labels and side walkways to make chucking easier for the uninitiated. As it turned out, the three different skips we needed were actually adjacent to each other – wood, hard plastic and metal. Clearly it was one of those zeitgeist, Zen, feng shui, karma thingy situations.

One thing we had not discussed before hand was who would empty the vehicle and who would do the chucking. Now I didn't want to steal all the fun but I really REALLY wanted to do the chucking. As it turned out my guy seemed remarkably sanguine when I bagsied the chucking job. There was a little argy-bargee about the tarpaulin which we won’t go into because it nearly spoiled things. Suffice to say that little hiccup was overcome.

Then it was time to chuck. I was magnificent. At one point I nearly hurled a bit of moldy chip-board too far and it was in danger of flying over to the skip earmarked for metal. I shudder to think what could have occurred if this had indeed happened. Thanks to a corner clipping the edge of the skip it flipped and fell with a satisfying thwump into the correct skip. Then I went crazy, hurling and chucking and throwing – even some overhead moves and quite a lot of skimming and flinging. Probably if there had been a lot of people there I’d have felt inhibited but there weren't and I didn't.

Honestly – I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Next time you are stuck for exuberant entertainment – forget gaming or gambling or drugs and alcohol or bungee jumping or skiing or late night clubs. Take a hop ‘n a skip - go let rip – I mean man just flip – get hip - zip down on a tip trip.

Blog 101 Yes.

In the afterglow of my Oscar experience last week I am taking some time out (knackered after a double delayed train journey yesterday), de-toxing (stuffing pastries), reflecting on the beauties of life (worrying about work), thanking god for the blessing of children (really hoping for a break at half term) and congratulating myself on cheap, hide the lumps & bumps, ironic decor (my partner used the pages of a Delia Smith cook book from the charity shop to cover a very rough wall in my kitchen).

All I have left to say is YES!

Not ‘yes yes yes oooh yes’ as in Harry met Sally. Nor the Yeeeeeesssss with extra syllables and a snake at the end that I get when I ask my teenager if she has remembered her packed lunch today.

It’s not the absent yes – which with hindsight should have been a no - I often say to myself when I am trying to think of three different things at once and that same daughter is insisting on an answer to a vitally important, urgent query that can’t wait two seconds.

It’s not the yes that still sometimes slips out instead of no when a pal in a secure, well paid job asks if I will come and perform at their social event, interjecting with a smile and without embarrassment “there’s no fee” And I don’t ask them if they work for free because I know they will instantly take umbrage (why don’t I?)

It will not be the exasperated yes given to a question repeated so many times that even if that question were ‘would you eat lion dung’ I would say yes just so as not to hear the question again.

It’s not the mumbled yes in response to a concerned ‘have you been ill’ when I realise I look so knackered, wiped out and un-put-together that the only explanation is a bout of plague.

It’s not the ‘Oui merci’ I once gave to a French mother while trying not to vomit after she asked if I enjoyed the bouillabaisse she'd just served. To me it looked like grey/green turds floating in a warm open sewer and didn't taste much better.

There is a very convincing YES that I’ve practised for when one of my fashion obsessed women friends (I know only two) demands to know if I like (for like read ‘am impressed by’) their latest designer dress / handbag / shoes. I worked out long ago that 'liking' is irrelevant, as is ‘suiting’. It could look like something you wouldn't have saved for the dressing up box but if it’s got a certain label, is expensive and someone on the telly has one you are supposed to desire it. Yes gets you out of the spot quickly.

No – this week it’s a yes vote for the Scottish referendum. You’ll only need to ask why a non-nationalist craves the opportunity to escape the rule of Eton and the spinelessness of the so-called opposition and the callousness of a government that only has an ear for the rich and powerful if you have never before read this blog.

Click below for a comedy performance poetry treat.

HOW TO BE A BETTER BIGOT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhVBSvac52c

AFRICAN JOURNALIST IN BRITAIN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjEIy39nDBg