Regeneration

Hello. Whilst you weren't looking I had a bit of a tidy up, and freshened the place up a bit. So farewell then purply lilac look. Farewell picture of Hadleigh Castle in Essex. Hello blackness and cleaner lines. And for this Festive time at least, have a snow dusted Tardis. Well, aren't all blogs filled with Doctor Who these days?
Well, no, actually. Certainly not the ones I read anyway, but I digress.
For the last month or so I've been finding my feet in my new and slightly grown-up job.
After the old shop closed, I tried working in a call centre for a while. This wasn't ever going to be permanent, but I thought I'd give it 6 months until I felt 100% fit again. I lasted 2 months. And only because I spent one week in hospital, had a weeks holiday and then worked a weeks notice when I came back from my holiday. Otherwise, I would have managed 5 weeks, and then chucked myself in the canal. I can't name the company I worked for, all I can say is they are
British and involved in Telecommunications. And without question, the worst company I have ever worked for. And I used to work for House of Fraser.
So, throwing caution to the wind, I decided to "Live the Rock n Roll dream" I got a job in a bank.
Oh yes! Home Insurance fixed premiums for next 3 years? High Interest Current Account? Saving for your child's future? That's m'job. And to be perfectly honest, I've enjoyed it so far.
Mind you, the best part of 3 weeks stuck in the Jurys Inn in Glasgow leaves you yearning for decent grub. Thankfully, Blue Lagoon chippy round the corner saved me on a couple of nights. Here's a wee tip should you be staying in the hotel mentioned above. Do not, under any circumstances have the vegetarian option. Ever. Doesn't matter what it might be, just say no!
I could have sicked up a more appetising lasagne. And the vegetable tikka masala? I was in Glasgow, they have Indian restaurants there, lots of them. Really really good ones too. What possessed me to have the lumps of green pepper in a runny sauce, I shall never know.
Mind you, the beds. I have seldom slept so well in my life. Either they were the finest beds in the world or the AirCon was blasting out Valerian and Lavender.
I do like Glasgow though. Always have, but I've sort of ignored it in recent years. If my training did nothing else, I'll always be grateful for the fact it rekindled my love of the city.
And most of the people training with me were lovely. And funny. And I shall miss them.
Not sure they'll feel the same about me, but who knows. Maybe one day we'll all meet up again and talk about APR and BGC. Maybe not.
Think of this post as a filler. I'm currently trying to emulate Gwen and post 56 Things About Me
but I'm stuck on number 4. So bear with me.

...just a quick thing...

I thought I'd keep things up to date with a tiny post before I clear off for a week.
Spent much of this week in hospital in Inverness, as a sequel to my earlier illness. The last couple of months have been a bit odd to say the least. What with jobs coming and going, the hospitalisation of my father and indeed myself, and a couple of other things I've not posted such as my 99 year old Grandmother's dementia, and subsequent failures of the care of the elderly in the Scottish Highlands. Forget all the crap spouted by the Daily Mail-centric opinion writers about our old folk getting free, wonderful health care. It's bollocks. In fact where I live they've taken to shutting down the odd place here and there just to make things a bit more difficult. To listen to the people who phone 5Live and LBC, you'd think the care homes here are swimming in milk and honey whilst the inmates, sorry, residents, are sung to their slumbers by Aled Jones and Daniel O Donnell, before being wrapped in cotton wool, and fed quince and grapes...
However, that is for another blog, later.
I just wanted to say that having been for all my tests and scans, apparently I'm fine. Nothing suspicious, "in fact", and I'm quoting now, "Mr Soupy Twist, you can go home whenever you like..." Sadly the surgeon did tell me this 5 minutes AFTER the last bus from Inverness to my hometown had left for the evening. So I got to spend another night in the Highland Capital's lovely hospital, mind you, the food's not bad at all, and the staff are very jolly.
And now, I'm going to take myself off for a week. In fact, as it's November, I'm off to a caravan by the Ayrshire coast. And if you're passing, please feel free to pop in for a cup of Ginger and Lemon Tea. And a pizza. And some chocolate.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. And Ultravox.

The clocks have gone back, the nights are drawing in and deep within the primeval heart of every man a desire to lie in the dark listening to old albums awakens. Alright, perhaps not every man, but certainly me. Every year it happens. One day I'll be going about my normal business, the next, it's a cold, wet, dark Sunday night and I'm lying on the floor, headphones on, re-living my teenage years. And I reckon that this has been going on for over twenty years now. And this year, it started today. Quite without warning I found myself drifting in and out of conciusness listening to Ultravox's Lament album. Which I probably haven't listened to in full since I was about 20. In the old days, I would have supplemented my inappropraite album listenign with the Early Sunday Evening musings of Annie Nightengale. Straight after another God forsaken Top 40 Countdown with Bruno Brookes, or Simon Bates, which came itself, straight after the aural shite-fest that was "Sing Something Simple". Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Autumn. Now don't get me wrong. I like Autumn. I love watching the colours change from green to red, gold and brown. There is a freshness in the air and there is sense of change. I enjoy Spring for much the same reason. But this year, Summer wasn't exactly brilliant, even by the standards I'm used to, and it never really got into gear. So for some months now, there has been an overall feeling of "meh" about the place. In truth, I've been waiting for Summer to start. But now I have to accept that this year, it's been and gone. I believe it was a Thursday.I suppose you'll want to know why I came to be listening to Ultravox.

Truth is I've been sticking stuff onto a "popular fruit based mp3 player" and in between transferring the entire Radio series's of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy and loads of lovely stuff from the 4AD back catalogue onto it, I've been going through my not so fashionable music too. And there is a large part of the music of the 80s I still hold dear, as it was the music of the school discos, the soundtrack to my growing up, the stuff I pretended to hate but secretly went out and bought. So yes, there is a lot of stuff by The Smiths and This Mortal Coil on my portable tunefest, but there is a good chance that OMD, Johnny Hates Jazz and Curiosity Killed the Cat may find themselves in there too. Poor Ben Vol-a-vaunt, where is he now. Bless him, I wonder if he ever realised how much of an arse he looked in that beret of his. He's probably giving style tips to JayKay on HatTwattery as I type.

Actually, I think I may return to this theme in the coming days. Your Guilty 80's Musical Secrets. Book your place in Father Joseph's Pop Confessional now.

quality music-at a price you can afford

Poll Position

So, after months of frenzied speculation, and a poll rating that has gone up and down like Casanova's underpants, Gordon Brown has ruled out a snap election. It says so as BREAKING NEWS on BBC News 24. Although, if the rest of the British Media is to be beleived, I should take everything said by the BBC with more than a pinch of salt. Obviously, if it were a cynic, I might be inclined to believe that the other outlets of the Media in the UK may have their own agendas when it comes to pepetuating their anti BBC bias. I might say that, if I were a cynic.

Oh hold on, the chaps and lady chaps on Sky News are saying it too. So it must be true.

Mind you, it seemed highly unlikely it was going to happen anyway.

The Labour Party have no money to fight another election so soon after the last one, the Tories have had enough of licking their -often self inflicted- wounds, and are putting on a united front. A report in the Sunday Telegraph on the eve of the Tory conference suggested Lord Ashcroft had already spend £10m on campaigning before the election had even started. Hoping to repeat the success of his previous campaign when in the first three months of 2005 he paid nearly £300,000 in donations to 33 candidates in marginal constituencies. The effects of this were clear for all to see: 11 of the candidates unseated Labour candidates and five vulnerable Conservative MPs were saved. This time around, he is refining the campaign to target an even smaller group of seats, and Brown knows the effects could be far more serious than in 2005.Gordon has been in the leader's chair for 101 days now, and probably doesn't want to run the risk of being turfed out of job he's waited so long to have.

So, has he bottled it?

Possibly. Or he could be the shrewd, prudent political power he clearly feels he is.

For a man who wrote such a fine selection of Political essays under the collective heading of "Courage" it is claimed he has, at times, been shown wanting when it's come to demonstarting the courage of his own convictions. When the whole of the UK fell out of love with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown didn't go for the kill, he stayed in the background, "brooding" if the media were to be believed. Maybe. Or he showed loyalty to his Party, and his leader, knowing that an all out civil war would do irrepairable damage to Labour. For many, the long dark years spent in the wilderness weren't all that long ago. If a week is a long time in politics, 18 years is akin to the rise and fall of the Mayan empire.

Only time will tell if PM Brown has shown weakness in ruling out an election now, or if he's shown great courage.

Politics is a fickle business. 7 days ago, Gordon Brown was hanging ten as he rode the crest of a wave, bouyed by a surge in the polls, this week it's "Just Call Me Dave" Cameron that's on a high, mind you, after all his years working for Carlton he should be used to that. That and talking unprompted for hour upon hour...

By which I mean, they were once a very successful Media organisation, with very impressive communication skills.

Personally, I'm quite glad that there isn't to be an election just yet.

It's Autumn and Hallowe'en is just around the corner, surely opening the door to ghoulish visions of the undead imploring you to choose between a trick or a treat, would only get in the way of Hallowe'en for the kids.

Boom, and if you will, tish... thank you very much, I'm here all week, try the soup.

A Glimpse Into My Soul

Just a quick one, this weekend I'd been going through my old phone and binning pictures and other junk, when I came upon this snapshot. Possibly the finest episode of Holby City ever. Coming up next on BBC1, Casualty, Harry stumbles across Davros in the staff canteen and Charlie and Josh are killed by The Master. Obviously this picture seems to imply that my Sky+ is filled with episodes of QI, Holby and Torchwood. This couldn't be further from the truth. It's mostly episodes of Shaun the Sheep.

Mellow Yellow

And so the blogging begins again.

Never the most regular of posters, my blog has been somewhat lacking on updates in recent weeks. This has been for a number of reasons. Firstly, the company I have worked for for most of my working life, has finally shuffled off it's retail coil. And it has been a slow painful death. This has meant that I have been travelling up and down this fine country for various job interviews, using up any spare time or days off I had. On a positive note, every interview I had resulted in a job offer. Unfortunately, the job I wanted, in the town I wanted, was snatched from my grasp. Not by my failure to find somewhere to live, but by my body rebelling against me in a most painful way. And in a way that allowed me to resemble, in skin tone at least, my Simpson-a-like. Oh how I laughed.

Acute pancreatitis. I have never in my life experienced anything as painful, or as unpleasant. And this comes from the perspective of someone who lived through Thatcher's Britain (yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen, a little bit of politics, doubleseatdoubleseatgottagetadoubleseat, sparkly suit, git face)and had his... No that's another story, and not one I really want to go into just yet.

So, there I was, lying on the shop floor, sweating, turning yellow, and cursing the indigestion I seemed unable to shift, and slowly, but surely it got worse. Now as a lardyarsed Scotsman, who hasn't taken as much care of himself as he should, every thought going through my head seemed to end at the same point, "You may as well face it Tubbs, you're not going to be sending any Christmas cards this year..." oh alright, the actual thought was, "Shit, I'm going to die" well that and a bemused "Didn't I used to have white bits in my eyes?". Now all this started on the Friday, by Wednesday I decided I should see a doctor of some sort. Doctor seemed to think I'd have been better going to A&E. Probably on the previous Friday.

So off I went to my local hospital. For reasons best known to itself, there is a part of the Medical Ward in the same part as the Maternity Ward. The very Maternity Ward I was born in. "Brilliant" I thought, "I'm going to die 10 feet from where I was born, how pitiful is that?".

Now, you've probably guessed by now that I didn't die. I'm not yellow either. And I have lost around 20lbs since my collapse. Actually, I lost most of that on the Friday, still, it's still off. People I haven't seen for a while have commented on how well I'm looking, how I've lost weight and am looking fresher and younger than I have for a long time. And the pancreatitis? Apparently it may never rear it's head again, nasty gallstone getting lodged in places it shouldn't be. And now that I seem to be living on porridge, fruit and low fat-well-everything, it might just have been the warning I needed to give myself the kick up the arse I needed. I'm sure that when it started in my head, that sentence made sense.

Sadly, because of the illness, the job in Ayr fell through. I really wanted the job too. Still, obviously wasn't to be. So for the past few weeks, instead of the stress of moving house and starting a new job in the same week, I've been in hospital, lost weight, gone from pink to yellow and back to pink again, and thrown myself into a Closing Down sale. Must end Saturday, Everything Must Go. Including me. Free to a good home.

However, on Monday, I start a new job here, in my hometown, and it's 9-5, Monday to Friday, every weekend off, every Bank holiday off and pay wise, I'm no worse off than I am in my current job. Now, that might not seem remarkable to most people, but ever since I left school I have worked in Retail. The last time I had every, or even regular, weekends off it was May 1987. And I don't have the stress of moving house. Yet.

So, this weekend, I shall hang up my Retail Hat. For a while anyway. No more kilts, menswear, tailoring or malt whisky. No more soul destroying trips to the NEC in February, and no more salty soup at the Scottish Menswear shows in Moodiesburn and Hamilton. No more Sales reps. No more late night curry frenzies in Birmingham. No more smelly old tweed.I've sold everything from postcards to HD Televisions, and for the best part of 2005, Ladies Accessories, anything you need to know about Radley Handbags, just ask. And in 3 years, I've managed to not only close the oldest established store in the town (1860-2004) I've closed the local Currys and the new Menswear shop (from the "ashes" of the old store) we only opened in April 2006. You'd think people would have stopped employing me by now wouldn't you?

And will I miss working in Retail? Ask me after a month working in an office.

But wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it.

HELP!

Not a blog as such, in fact it's now a cry for help.
I need somewhere to live, preferably in Ayr, as that is where my new job is, but happy to live anywhere on the bus or train route.
Do you, or any of your friends, have a spare room for a poor ex leper?
If not, have you a copy of the Ayrshire Post handy?

It's yesterday once more

Throughout my childhood, it seemed school holiday telly meant one thing and one thing only. Old black and white serials on BBC1.
The finest example of this genre being The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
As sure as day follows night and the Weather follows the News, it would be on. Until that is, the early 80's. Suddenly grainy old black and white serials fell out of favour, and the yoof went off in search of The Kids of Degrassi High and The Red Hand Gang-although I'm not sure if that series was ever shown in Northern Ireland-leaving poor old Robinson and his man Friday to gather dust in a French film library.
As touched upon on an earlier posting, until the age of 7 I grew up with just the one channel, and tv during the day was a treat. And I loved Robinson Crusoe.
And now, it's back, back, back! Thanks to the good people at Network DVD, those grainy images are available whenever you want them.
And surprisingly, it's as good as it ever was. The opening scenes with the ship being battered by huge breaking waves, as one by one the crew are sent overboard or crushed to death are worthy of many films made today on multi million pound sets.
Given that the last time I watched any of this footage was 25 years ago, it's comforting that so much is still familiar, as if it was only a week ago. At times the narration jars, but maybe it's just his accent. And the music, oh what a sound. Haunting and beautiful, the hairs on the back of my neck tingled as the sweeping orchestral score soars and swoops like a seagull on the wind.
Sometimes it's easy to see the past through a haze of rose tinted nostalgia. But sometimes, just sometimes, it really is as good as you remember.

i-play u-play we all play

I'm a terrible Luddite with modern technology as opposed to the

Spinning Jenny I suppose, but in the last few years I have gone wireless, I do love a podcast, and I have an mp3 device so that wherever I go I can listen to Mark Kermode's film reviews and Danny Baker's All Day Breakfast.
Hell, I even have a myspace page and this blog thing. But today I downloaded the new super duper BBC iPlayer. I think. For a long time nothing seemed to be happening with it. I've long been a fan of the BBC Radio Player, and seldom a week goes by without me using it, so imagine my excitement when the iPlayer came online. No really, try and imagine, in fact, in much the same way the Story Makers might put it, Imagine, imagine, imagine a slightly excited Me. I got my secret codes from the BBC, I put in my account stuff, and I installed the"an end to missing 2Pints of Lager on BBC3 misery"* device and now I wait. It's downloading now, and it's taking forever. I decided to download something I had already seen, so that should the whole thing not work, I wouldn't mind too much.
So, should Holby City appear somewhere on my computer, I shall let you know. My hopes aren't high though. My computer is a bit old and knackered, and the software is a Beta program, but fingers crossed.
Still no sign of a job though. If you know of anything... I'd quite like to move to Ayr if that helps.




*actually, because of the unique way BBC3 works, I believe it takes a supreme effort to miss 2 Pints as it does appear to come round with alarming regularity, and normally as a double bill! Make it stop.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I shouldn't really be blogging right now. I should really be looking for work. And quickly.
It's 20 years since I left school, ill equipped for life in Thatcher's Britain, with just a handful of qualifications- if that handful was represented by Jeremy Beadle's tiny paw-that I managed to scrape together having somewhat lost interest in my education, during my first real bout of depression.
But despite, or maybe because of my melancholic moodswings I have always worked. Except when I didn't need to and took a few weeks off here and there to relax.
So here I sit, 38 years old, firing my disappointingly short CV off to random employers, and so far...nothing. Not a glimmer of interest. It's like my School Discos of 1984 all over again. In fact, in an attempt to relive these days to the full, I should really stick on my cherry red DMs, shabby cardigan and "Hatful of Hollow".
Actually. Hold on, "William It Was Really Nothing" is now blasting out and I'm feeling quite inspired. "the rain falls hard on a humdrum town, this town has dragged you down..."
Do you know, there might be something to this. I'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, if you know anyone who wants to employ an indie loving, gentleman's outfitter/tailor/kilt salesman/ former independent radio presenter/blogger, let me know.

Slim Fast, Die Young

A week ago I came downstairs to find my 75 year old father lying on the floor. He was fitting, foaming at the mouth and was lost somewhere in the depths of a very deep diabetic coma. Although, at the time I couldn't be sure if his condition was related to his diabetes, I'd seem him have a hypo in the past, but this was different, his face was swollen, and his tongue was hanging out of his mouth, his eyes were wide open, but there was no response from him. Paramedics were called and after they had administered 3 IV shots of glucose, they called for back up, having got no response from him. After an hour he was still out cold. However, slowly, very slowly, he started to come round. As he regained consciousness he became very distressed, but after another 15 minutes or so he was pretty much back to his normal self. The whole episode lasted about an hour and a half, and was one of the most frightening things I, or any other member of my family has ever gone through.


Now, I don't think I would normally post something this personal here, but this week saw a report published, and covered extensively by the BBC and others, of the latest trend for some diabetics to miss out their insulin injections for fear of getting fat.


Current estimates are that one third of young women with diabetes are using this method to keep slim, in the process they are risking blindness, nerve damage, kidney failure and heart disease. However, I'm not condemning them entirely for their actions. The society in which we live nowadays is very much obsessed with body image, where teenage girls, and boys have impossible role models to aspire to. To be anything over a size 6, or to be without the obligatory six-pack is to be unhealthy, ugly and a freak in these "Heat" obsessed times, whereas in reality, as a majority we are a nation of lardy arsed wobble bottoms- and remember, I come from a people who think nothing of putting a Scotch Pie on a roll, or deep frying in batter anything that doesn't move.


May I recommend the Deep Fried Pizza Supper, Pickled egg and a cheeky little bottle of Irn Bru?


So I won't condemn them, but their actions do anger me, to put their lives in danger in this way saddens me. Not that I've lived a blameless life myself. There was a point in my life when in my Top 5 list on BT Friends and Family, after my parents' and my girlfriend's number, listed as Number 3, was the telephone number for Pizza Hut Delivery, Sockets Heath, Grays, Essex. And I got staff discount in Oddbins, Lakeside.


I do think we need to educate (not lecture) people more when it comes to health and nutrition in this country, my own father's diabetes could possibly have been avoided if he'd been more careful in his lifestyle choices, my own body is on the verge of collapse having abused it quite spectacularly when younger, but it's not too late to make a change. Find a healthier balance. And make the most of the life we have.


And if I can give just one piece of advice to anyone reading this, it would this... Start each day with a bowl of porridge. A slow, gradual release of sugar into the bloodstream, lowers cholesterol and almost as tasty as the cold left overs of last night's Chicken Patia. I may have lied about that last bit.

I'm sorry, this has become a bit of a lecture. It's just that after seeing my dad the way he was, and knowing how much worse the whole episode could've been, it threw me a bit to read the story about diabulemia.

I'm leaving this post as a work in progress. I started out trying to come to terms with my own feelings about nearly losing my dad, but I became distracted first by the eating disorder side, but latterly by the role image alone plays in so many women's lives.

For young women to put their health at risk to look good, or at least to conform to the image society, or at least fashion, dictates is nothing new. But there seems to have been so little progress in over 300 years.

One of the first, and finest feminist books published was Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" in 1792, yet in part it could have been written at any time in the past 25 years- image, sexuality and independence may be hot topics now on Loose Women, but they are nothing compared to the arguments put forward by Wollstonecraft at the tail end of the 18th Century. And, if you would indulge me, in time I would like to come back to this.

So for now I'll sign off. Maybe not my most coherent posting, but, it will all make sense eventually.

Now, if you would all turn to Chapter One in "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin...and pay attention, I'll be asking questions later.

Let's play Master and Servant

And so 3 months of good old fashioned family entertainment has come to it's conclusion in spectacular form. There may be spoilers ahead, so if you don't want to know the score, look away now.
It seems like only yesterday that we were saying hello to The Judoon and Martha Jones on the Moon, as nice lady from "dinnerladies" sucked the blood from poor old DC Dalglish, and yet here we are, Summer's here and the ride is over. For now at least.
But, oh what a ride. Only blip in the season was the 2 parter featuring those malevolent pepper pots, the Daleks in Manhatten. I'd have been happier with the Muppets myself.
However, if that was the low point in season, there were many, many high points. First and foremost, it was a beautiful series to watch, hopefully the BBC will allow the production team to spend as much as they want on the visuals, it's incredible to think how far things have developed in the world of Special Effects since the original series aired.
We also witnessed possibly the finest "Who" stories in Stephen Moffat's "Blink" and Paul Cornell's two parter "Family of Blood/Human Nature". Moffat also wrote last year's "Girl in The Fireplace" and Series One's "The Empty Child", so has really got his work cut on for next season. Paul Cornell was also responsible for "Father's Day" in Series One when Rose went back to meet her father, so again, no pressure!
And what of the actual cast? I have enjoyed seeing Freema Agyeman's character of Martha develop over this series, and I hope the rumour that we haven't seen the last of her is true. I liked her, she was refreshing to watch after Rose's latter smugness, she was funny and sassy, and was a great foil to the big fella.BBC One's Mr Saturday Night, John Barrowman in his Captain Jack guise was back, larger than life but more rounded than in previous outings, and all the better for that. But still very much behaving like a dog in heat, flirting like Bill Clinton at... well anywhere really.
Now if you are going to bring back a super baddie, you'd be unlikely to do better than have one played by Derek Jacobi and John Simm. The Master, now sans goatee, but still oozing charm, was resurrected with a fantastic end of series triple parter that put the world and The Doctor himself, to their collective knees. Although I have no idea what a collection of knees would be called, A Knobble? Anyway, it was good to have him back, and even though we last saw him being burnt in a funeral pyre, (ashes to ashes, as opposed to Life on Mars) I fully expect to see him back in the not too distant future.
And so finally to the former David McDonald from Paisley.
I am a long time devotee of the show, my earliest memory is of watching Doctor Who, in my high chair. No really, in those days, we had two televisions, both from the Co-op, both black and white, one had a picture but no sound, the other naturally had sound but no picture, so one sat on the other. And that's how we watched telly in our house in the early 70's.Thankfully we only had one channel, see blogs passim.
And as a long time devotee, I can say without any doubt, that David Tennant is everything that The Doctor should be, and so much more. He has evolved into the role, bit by bit ever since he first burst forth from Christopher Eccleston's firey leather jacket back in the Summer of 2005, and has made the role very much his. His performances have been a joy to watch, his acting has terrific depth and he displays marvellous comic timing time after time. Cheeky, funny, scary, dark and brooding. And, in a Bowie-esque way, rather sexy.
There will come a day soon when he's gone from the role, so, make the most of these glory days. His are very big Converse boots to fill.

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man
Each language pours it's vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In a euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow,
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work',
And helpless governnors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleagured by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

W H Auden

Never a frown, with Gordon Brown

New Labour, New Leader, New book in the shops now.
And I have to say, rather good it is too.
Eight essays about individuals who have, in Gordon Brown's opinion, shown great courage when others may have taken the easy option. Each subject has that all important moral compass to guide them, and at times it is almost as if the profiles are really parables set out in the Gospel according to Gordon.
But the profiles are written with warmth and a very healthy lack of cynicism, which is rare these days, the language used isn't overly worthy, but manages to avoid the trap of being dumbed down.
In his introduction, Gordon Brown recalls, at the age of ten, being given an encyclopedia on twentieth century history,which told of the great deeds by the likes of Ernest Shackleton, the attempt on Everest by Mallory and Irvine and the sacrifice made by Captain Oates, and yet it is the story of Edith Cavell a nurse working in Brussels at the start of the First World War that left the biggest impression on him. And it is the courage of people such as her that has inspired him to write this book. The almost super human compassion and good that can exist in even the darkest of days is what is celebrated here.
Of course, these short essays cannot tell the full story of each individual, there is much that is unsavoury in some these lives, but it does work as a good introduction to some remarkable people.
And likewise, much as I have enjoyed this book, that is all this review is of.
I will return to the author in good time.

And now, the end is near

Technophobe

My stomach is in knots as I type this. Tonight I am doing something I've done for many years, that is I 'm taking my turn as a volunteer as the technician for the Talking Newspaper service in my town.
Unfortunately, tonight is my first night since we went digital. The old equipment was solid, reliable, easy, if you like and 100% analogue. The new stuff is apparently "really easy to use, once you get used to it" which is handy. My first sighting of the our new baby was on Monday, I had a 20 minute training session, and that was it. This morning I was e-mailed the training manual. And naturally enough, the instructions sent contradict everything I was taught on Monday. And I do mean everything, right down switching the bloody computer on.
It will be, I'm sure, an adventure. If I survive, I may even be tempted to scrap this blog piece entirely as I re-write my own personal history in a Stalinesque stylie. The spell checker wants me to say Stalinist, but I say blee to the spell checker. The spell checker says blew...

Dalek Emperor

In my life, if I'm being honest, I have a few obsessions.
Anthony Hancock is just one.
To most people he was a flawed genius, a brilliant comic actor who had it all and threw it all away. Ending his life, alone in Sydney, in June 1968 at the age of 44.
That's the story everyone knows, but there was so much more to East Cheam's finest...

In 1962 Tony Hancock began working with a writer called Terry Nation for a two man show he would tour with Matt Monro. As the toured progressed Hancock and Nation would write scripts, rip them up and start again. This went on night after night, another thing that went on night after night was that the two men would drink and talk into the wee small hours as they bandied ideas about.
One of the ideas they came up for was for a film. The plot involved the human population being destroyed, only for the planet to be governed by robots. It was in the design of the robots that Hancock, no doubt fuelled by alcohol and good humour, was in his element. His favourite design was of an inverted cone, covered in table tennis balls with a sink plunger sticking out of it's head.
When the tour ended, Terry Nation returned to writing television scripts, including a commission for a new Science Fiction series on the BBC called "Doctor Who".
When Hancock saw the Daleks for the first time on screen, he pointed to the tv and shouted, "That bloody Nation, he's stolen my robots."

Next week, How Arthur Askey invented the Cybermen.

Television, still sometimes quite good.

BBC 4 have recently been devoting a somewhat unhealthy amount of time to Children's Television, and why it's not as good as it used to be. And I am sure there is many a person out there inclined to agree with the good folk of said channel, particularly if they'd ever watched the Dick and Dom re-imagining of Ask the Family, in the faint hope that the spirit of Robert Robinson would somehow spring forth and reawaken the imagination and intellect of our downtrodden yoof.

It was never going to happen. If for no other reason than in these enlightened times no child would take anyone seriously if they sported such an obvious comb-over as the thatch worn by our esteemed quizmaster.

Sadly it is all too easy to look back at the halcyon days of television through rose tinted spectacles, like so many things in life, we forget the bad things. Like the school summer holidays that were filled with sunshine, which I'm sure they were, it's just that I didn't actually get a tan until I was 16. Spent my formative years a shade of blue, with webbed feet.

As Newton's third law states, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" So for every Bagpuss, there was a Ludwig and for every Sarah Jane Smith, there was an Adric. There was always rubbish on television for children, it's just that now with so many channels all broadcasting around the clock, a lot more cheap filler programmes are being made, the quality is still there, it's just knowing where to look. In the 70's, when I grew up, after the BBC had shown Play School, Watch with Mother and Pebble Mill at One, it closed down. A lovely voice would come on and say something along the lines of "The BBC have nothing else to show you right now, so why not get on with having a life, until we show Play School again at ten to four..."

I should maybe explain that where I grew up in the Scottish Highlands, until I was about 6 we only had BBC1. No BBC2, and certainly none of that filthy commercial muck on Grampian or STV. So whatever we watched was whatever Auntie Beeb had decided was suitable for young people, so my views may be more staid or less rounded than those of somebody who grew up in the twin worlds of Thames and LWT.
Although, as a child I learnt what true disappointment was at an early age. And it was normally preceded by the phrase "...except for viewers in Scotland, who have their own programmes".

Didn't stop them from showing the bloody cricket every morning in the Summer holidays though. Why couldn't we have our own programmes then?

Thumbs up if you're a twat

A Fresh Start

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I had a blog. However, a blog, like love, needs attention. It needs to be nurtured and tended to on a regular basis or it will shrivel up and die. It will lie, neglected and alone, and by the time you do actually get round to doing something about it, it's too late. And your blog will have gone off with someone else, possibly someone they met at work, or even in the queue at the Post Office, and you find yourself alone.
Suddenly you have things you want to say, but no-one to say them to...I'm not sure if this is still about blogging, I seem to have lost my thread somewhat. Sorry.
Quite simply, what I'm trying to say is that once I had a blog, it wasn't very good, so I'm going to try again, and hopefully this time I'll avoid making the same mistakes again.
Right, are you all sitting comfortably? Good, then I'll begin...