blog 167 Donald Trump / Katy Hopkins SCIENTIFICALLY explained.

No it’s not pretty and it is disturbing but there's an explanation and that always helps. The rabid Donald Trump, noxious Katie Hopkins and even pub fascist Nigel Farage can be explained by science. Hooray.

I am so relieved to be able to bring this to you in my last 2015 blog.

Last week I heard an interview with ‘scientist’ Alex Travis. He is part of a ground breaking (let’s hope Nobel Prize winning) team. For decades these science philanthropists have tried and tried and tried – bless 'em - to perfect IVF in dogs. I know – you’re thinking what I thought at the time - THANK HEAVENS. Because what the world is desperate for right now is IVF puppies. The globe needs IVF puppies like we needed Viagra and Botox (See blog 97 Viagra – Yes. Effective Cure for Malaria – No!) Well done Science.

But consider this -

What happened over the decades to those failed, malformed, IVF experimental, abnormal, botched, freak doggy embryos?

Yes - Trump – Hopkins – Farage...

During the interview the BBC interviewer laboriously (labradoriously?) fed Travis the usual line that this would – wouldn’t it – help us find cures for human problems – wouldn’t it. To which Mr doggy scientist stumbled an unconvincing yes. This was odd as he’d spent the rest of the time saying how doggy IVF had taken so long to perfect because it was so entirely different to the biological process in humans.

But at least now we know. And if anyone does come across Donald or Katie or Nigel don’t get too close and do call the dog wardens.

*

I hope you enjoy the festive season. I'll be having a winter snooze being very tired. (I blame writing a weekly satirical blog – I think my irony is low...)

See you in January.

blog 166. OUT is the new IN

Weheeey. Get me. Ms Brown girl OUTSIDE the Ring - I’m so OUT I’m IN...

I read last week – on the internet so it must be true – that mixed race is the fastest growing ethnic minority in the UK. Mixed Race is cool.

As usual, commercial needs have trumped an institutional grasp of this situation. You can barely look at a billboard in the UK without seeing a pretty mixed race kid advertising cute clothes or whatever. And I am old enough to recall a time when if my parents saw a black face on the TV my brother and sister and I would be called into the living room to witness this strange phenomena. (See Stephen K Amos for really funny sketches on this point)

Ok so my parents were many decades ahead of their time and I am too old to give a fig about ‘cool’ now but it’s still nice to know.

In the 80s debates raged about terminology. For example did you refer to Asians separately from the ‘Black’ umbrella? In the US 'people of colour' was an acceptable term whereas 'coloured' was viewed as disparaging in the UK. It was a time when racism flourished and the politically conscious-raised simply regarded non-white as black. 

I recall a couple of years ago at a Meet the Promoters event in Newcastle trying to point out to the audience of venue key holders that many people - even in the NE - now looked like me. The entirely white, predominantly male barriers to the arts venues in the NE looked at me blankly. But it’s true. And what I love about it is that mixed race children seem to be the ultimate response to racism. Despite the endemic prejudice of our immediate history, black and white people have quietly got on with falling in love with each other.

It then occurred to me that other groups that think of themselves as outside the mainstream are possibly also more IN than they realised.

Gay men have always used the term ‘out’ when referring to admitting their sexuality. There is another implicit ‘out’ there as well. Some must realise that white hetro able bodied middle/upper class yada yada yada is the most IN club there is. So in coming out they are not only revealing their gayness they are stepping away from the benefits of that exclusive club. And it’s an odd one anyway because some in the gay community or the hetro have felt bound to ‘out’ gays who didn’t want to be out. The guy who employs my youngest daughter has a mug which says “no one knows I’m gay” which sums up the whole thing neatly.

Disabled people, like black people, don’t get to choose if the world knows about their ‘outness’ or not. And frankly neither do working people who bear the yolk of the world’s grind. And ironically some of the groups who clearly do not in any sense make up a minority in the way we mean when we discuss these bizarre human constructs – are not in a minority. Women. The afore-mentioned working people. If we could just tweak our perceptions enough we’d realise that OUT is the new IN. Minorities are the majority.  If you add up all the people outside the exclusive club of white male hetro able bodied born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-your-gob people who think the world owes them - they are so few and we are so many.

We, out here, make up the biggest club. We are so unbelievably out there – here - that we are totally in there (!). When you start to include other ‘outs’ the red heads, the ones with regional accents, the people who don’t conform to physical ideas of what is body-acceptable we are almost everyone.

In fact I think there are only about 3 people left in the IN club. Three shrivelled up apparently hetro able-bodied white guys who live in cities, have money and power, went to the right schools, married their cousins somewhere along the family tree were born with a sense of their own indispensability.

The only thing is they are behaving like they own the world and we are letting them get away with it.

Ok

So we need to have a think about that one.

Meanwhile – welcome to the new not-very-exclusive in club of not being in the club

165. Syrian air strikes & living in the Penissic era.

We’ve had the Jurassic epoch, the Triassic, Cretaceous and so on. This is most definitely the Penissic age.

It’s impossible to think of a time in history when avaricious, aggressive maleness made such a total mess of everything. They may have had the will eons ago but not the tools... so to speak.

The latest call for more bombing of Syria is so mindless, as to be explicable only as an excess of testosterone induced lunacy. There are a minimum of two very good reasons why we must not join in the Syrian bombing party -

a.     We know it won’t work (it never has before)

b.     We don’t really know why we would be doing it other than its something to do and we get to kill randomly with phallic shaped objects.

Oh and there is the issue of not hitting the correct targets – remember 40 dead working for or in the care of MSF recently? Even military types reckon bombing kills on average 80% innocent people.

Oh and there is also the horrible disgusting utterly revolting issue of rank hypocrisy. We would be bombing (trying to bomb) a group who have partly grown in viciousness and numbers thanks to previous disastrous Western interventions and who are occasionally funded by vicious regimes we still SUPPORT  and do arms deals with (cough – Saudi Arabia)

We’re overdue the Dawn of the Rise of the Fanny. Why is it not happening? We know that fiscal corruption is less likely when at least a significant minority of women are in strong positions in large companies – we need the same in international diplomacy.

Sadly, on the African continent, too many women are oppressed by poverty, lack of educational opportunities, FGM etc. In many places in the East women are hampered by a fascist interpretation of Islam. And everywhere they are stamped on by the boot of bigotry entrenched in other major religions. In the affluent West women are oppressed by – well frankly – women’s magazines, addictions to soap operas, bingo, consumerism and other embarrassing shit. 

So the testosterone fuelled dicks of the world are in the ascendancy. The global phallus just keeps rising and rising.

Interestingly if you take a good look at some of the world’s leaders as they wet dream of bombing Syria, you don’t have to readjust their features much to see the dick in them. Wherever there is mindless destruction there’s a nob. Assad is literally a walking penis with a bit of hair on top though someone did misplace the ears – they’re too low and just don’t look real.

Cameron with his tape worm Eton mouth is just a dick with the opening on the side instead of the end. Putin – say no more. No need to mention the Liberal has-been (never was) Clegg whose wife was so keen to tell us about his cojones. Lest I make you puke I won’t refer to Mrs Blair’s insistence on allusion to his bed prowess.

Months and months ago (even before I accurately predicted the UK election results) I fantasised about a world where the women politicians – Merkel, Clinton, that Welsh bird and Sturgeon, would get it on politically and start to deal with the boys. Sadly that dream came to nought. Merkel is valiantly battling, on her own, against a veritable tsunami of testosterone.

We don’t know what if anything is going to happen with Hilary in the US, The Labour Harmon – who although lacking in many ways maybe could have been something with the support of the other blonde bobs - is now politically defunct. But I still wish the women we have could form some sort of rearguard action. Couldn’t they be a 5^th column to stand up to the puerile peni?

My good friend Oonah referred to the world as being run by DICK. She does not mean someone of that name and she does not mean ‘a dick’ she means – unless I am mistaken – the whole notion of masculinity gone very very badly wrong. Out of control.

We are living in the Penissic era. And, like the Cretaceous, ultimately it will be a flop.

Last week I referred to the unholy alliance of two drug giants. On the one hand the American company that draws massive profits from the sale of Viagra. On the other the Irish pharmaceutical that makes lots of dosh from paralysing women’s faces with Botox. It is a joining of monsters for tax avoidance. This week I realise that it’s not just horrible. It is not just a grim judgement on our priorities. It is in fact a painfully accurate microcosm of the state of the world. 

The penises are drugged up on machismo and out of control. The fannies are paralysed and the goal is money, money, money, power, power, power.  Never mind the ongoing humanitarian disaster.

God (I hope she’s listening) help us.

blog 164. I Don’t Like this Ad...

Whether it’s a printer with a cash-back option or  Myleene Klass smirking smugly in another frock your mum would like or boiler cover from ‘just’ £10 per month, it’s impossible to get rid of them.

No matter how often the ‘I don’t like this ad’ red cross is clicked, another one pops up almost immediately. It’s like being involved in a permanent survey of things that really really really piss you off. And if I go the next step and tick a reason why I don’t like this add they thank me for helping them improve the experience then the same one will pop up again anyway as if to say you think we really give a ---?

When I first turn on my Yahoo email (other providers do it though Yahoo is possibly the worst) the little time circle of dots swirls around and my mail wont load until someone I don’t know and will never meet manages to load their gush onto my private e-mail, while my life ticks away. I cannot get rid of this constant invasion unless I PAY.

Spam is the same. No matter how many times you report it the same stuff keeps right on returning. But the ads are in your face. They don’t default to somewhere you can’t see them until you check the folder to see which bank wants your password or who wants to sell you some medication – usually Viagra. And now that the US company that makes Viagra has married the Irish company that makes Botox in order to avoid tax, it won’t be long before we are getting joint ads for paralysed faces and budget erections...

It’s like someone letting their dog piss up your leg and saying ‘I will get him to stop if you pay me’.

And you can’t ignore the bloody things.

So I am trying to email my mum and find out how her pepperpot went on Wednesday and my eyes are drawn to a message that takes up about 1/3 of the type space asking ‘Should you be selling your stocks?’ I only own vegetable stock cubes. Who would want them?

Someone called Ken wants me to download his report about a retirement plan. Ken, honey, we won’t need retirement plans, they are gonna legalise euthanasia for ordinary people.

Then BT want me to get their TV. The face of the woman in the ad says it all. She looks horrified and dismayed – she clearly hasn’t been botoxed. That is how I would look if I ever had to have anything at all to do with BT ever again - ever.

Then there are the ads containing items I recently searched for on the web making me feel like Yahoo is stalking me. It’s creepy. The stalking ad is followed, paradoxically, by an ad for human rights. Oh the irony.

A gymnasium wants me to pay £19.99 per month for membership. Almost £20 to exercise indoors with other people’s carbon dioxide, sweat and body odour and, worse, all the bloody horrible chemicals they use to suppress the b.o. – why? Get rid of your car. Instant exercise on tap every day AND you double save the price of running a car and the gym membership.

Hey – you know what – never mind Ken it’s me who should be giving financial advice.

Then there are banks offering credit cards. Presumably to pay for all the tat these ads pressure you into wanting that you didn’t know you wanted until you logged into your e-mail to try to contact your mum.

Then there is an ad for half price Sky movies showing pics of flicks I wouldn’t go to see if THEY paid ME.

Then more BT this time offering a sport app.

And I still haven’t finished the e-mail to my mum.

So I am going to advertise my new paperback book that I just managed to get OUT THERE. I nearly had a cataclysmic personal implosion dealing with all the IT stuff but I’m sure it’s good for my character. Anyway Maybe I’m not a Pigeon is ready in paperback for you or your mum, aunt, sister, cousin to fill that quirky, fun, stocking filler gap. Then you can cosy up with it on Boxing Day while everyone else looks at shit in the sales and diet products on the internet. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/151924729X

If you don’t want to see my ad just pay me some money every month for the next year.

blog 163. Irony & Misery

This will be a very short blog as there is only one thing to write about and little that hasn’t already been said about the horror and the sadness.

Ironically, harking back to last week’s blog I was asking why we can’t remember the lessons of the so called ‘great’ wars more than once a year and then Paris...  Just the latest dreadful example of how badly we’ve let down the next generation.

I hope if one good thing comes out of the hideous tragedy in the French capital it will be a sense of time for unity. I am not a fan of out of control bureaucracy or multi-layered governmental control. However, let’s hope that the current madness of our PM trying to appease the nasties and the right-wingers and the xenophobes will cease. Let’s hope everyone realises that this is NOT the time to attack or try to destabilise the European Union.

blog 162. Remembrance Day v Political Amnesia.

Maybe it’s the effect of the poppies but this government seems to have severe, selective amnesia.

Just last week I was aghast listening to a story of a London organisation that vacuums up single homeless men and puts them in homes fit for rats. It does this in order to make a profit by cashing in on housing benefit. As we all know, ex-servicemen are disproportionately represented among the homeless. This is immoral but not, apparently, illegal. All while the government are making a crusade out of cutting benefits to the vulnerable.

Despite their significance from 1915, it was not until the 1920s that the Flanders poppy became an established remembrance symbol of the unimaginable suffering and loss of WWI. But an idea that took on more immediacy was that of homes fit for heroes. One wonders what Lloyd George would have made of the above scenario or the bedroom tax or the attempted cuts in tax credit that currently keep many working families in the UK just above the bread line.

Move to WWII and yet again the idea of a better life for those who sacrificed so much was the order of the day. Of the 1m houses built by Attlee’s post war Labour government 80% were council houses and many built to replace those destroyed by Hitler. The selloff of those properties by Margaret Thatcher – a policy endorsed by the current administration – has done more than any other to put the low paid at the mercy of the worst elements of the private rented sector and exacerbate the problems of homelessness.

An NHS free at the point of use was another Attlee vision, not one that has become an underfunded postcode lottery with many sections made vulnerable to profiteering.

The working classes were to be offered a decent education; one that would give them a chance to compete with the well-heeled. In 2015 in the UK we know that a child’s circumstances at birth will influence its life chances more than any other single factor. The time when those at the bottom could rise according to their abilities was a brief flowering of egalitarianism, quickly stamped out by the establishment. The introduction of tuition fees is part of the same pattern and a recent announcement stated that even the grants made to the very worst off students are now to be converted into loans - debt.

As I battled on Sunday through the Remembrance Day crowds in Edinburgh to a service at my own church I was chilled by more than just the rain and the wind. Just what has happened to our hopes and dreams of a fairer society since the guns fell silent on the Western Front in WWI?  Woodrow Wilson called it a war to end all wars but 1939 saw the dawn of a second ‘great’ war. At the end of each, the hope for a fairer, more peaceful world was great.

But in this country the gap between the haves and the have-nots has grown exponentially since the 90s into a vast chasm.

Instead of a fighting force engaged in security measures we are enmeshed in the global aftermath of one of the most stupid, testosterone fuelled bits of international madness any government ever engaged in to the point where we are morally constipated. We make embarrassing overtures to the Egyptian leader in the hope that he will help sit on ISIS while ignoring any number of human rights abuses in the attempt to make the sticking plaster of risible international diplomacy stick. (I already covered our embarrassing slavering to the Chinese a couple of weeks ago).

We managed D-day but couldn’t repatriate a few hundred holiday makers from sharm-el-sheikh. In WWII we (belatedly) took in Jewish refugees without complaining about school places or benefits. However, having failed to stop Assad’s apocalypse we bellyache about taking in Syrian refugees. People had so much less then. Is that maybe why they were more willing to share?

We defeated Hitler and Mussolini but there was an embracing of Farage and his watery nastiness at all levels that made good people nauseous.

Why do we remember the lessons of the two great wars for just one day a year?

Give us an administration that cares all year and remembers the hopes and dreams of those who survived the horrors. We’ve no use for a poppy-one-day-a-year government, shafting ordinary people the other 364 days.

If this government want to truly honour the war dead and the sacrifices they made for freedom and a better life, let’s see more fairness. Let’s see better schools, better health care and let’s see the very comfortably off (and eye-wateringly wealthy) friends of those in power paying their bloody taxes.

blog 161. If you’ve ever wondered...

...what it might be like to be a young black mother in the white / male dominated fiefdom of the UK capital of the North in the 1980s / 90s?

I may be able to tell you.

In yet another departure from my global apocalypse ramblings, I have done battle with my IT demons and produced my first straight-to-e-book book in a literary experiment that cost me at least half a dozen more grey hairs.

Albeit that I piddled about with the text post proof-read, introducing new typos AND that the process of uploading the damn thing – which should have taken 20 minutes - took me three days.... it is done. And it is available. And here is the obligatory blurb.

‘Maybe I’m not a Pigeon !’  

(My Lives & Me in Ten Houses)

by Amanda Baker

In 1988 the capital of the North elected its first black woman councillor. Now, after a stint in law (without much order) she has produced this genre bending, humorous, sortofanautobiography. Bizarre memoirs wrestle for space with amusing anecdotes. Painful revelations, apocalyptic short stories, satirical blog posts, flash fiction and other extracts from her published writing are marshalled to serve up this appetizing offering.

WARNING

You may get dizzy as you ricochet from a creepy encounter with pre PM Tony Blair wearing can-you-really-walk-in-those tight trousers to a near death toilet experience. Hang on as you are flung from hitchhiking with a ginger tom cat on a lead, to accidentally becoming a stand up comedian via child~prefers~pear~to~Nelson~Mandela shame.

There is love, loss, and a house renovation that makes Grand Design look like a Lego project, finally splat landing in the congealed spaghetti of the fostering process. All in an off the map literary mashup from this mixed-race, mixed up, Brown Girl Outside the Ring.

 “...it was the shape of things to come. I’d been elected to Newcastle City Council despite having no political aspiration. In the future I was to be a finalist in a national BBC sitcom writing competition despite not owning a television, a quarter-finalist and finalist in two separate national Stand-Up-Comedy competitions, despite not being a comedian. In 2014 I voted SNP in the referendum even though I am neither a Nationalist nor a Scot.

The thing is never to let logic get in the way of the unexplored path...”

Welcome.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B017BKM93C