Category: General

Classical gas

Going to Cheltenham Jazz Festival had some unexpected benefits – one of them being a cheap CD of Frankie Laine’s Greatest Hits.

The sound of ‘The Kid’s Last Fight’ took me right back to Sunday mornings in the kitchen, mum peeling potatoes at the sink overlooking the garden while joining in with the chorus while through the open back door, Dad could be heard whistling along from the workshop end of the garage.

A chunk of happy carefree childhood, right there, back in the room with me. Continue reading “Classical gas”

Because Claire asked

some weeks ago, I’ve put the online novel I wrote for the MyT competition into a blog. I’ve put it in last entry first so you can just scroll down if you want to read it, starting from the top. However at the end of entry 9 you have to click onto “previous entries” to continue to the end. The story is loooooooong; 15,000 words long. So I don’t expect anyone to read it. Unless, of course, that someone is in the hospital or the Department of Motor Vehicles and has a LOT of time on his or her hands. Here is the link. Some day, I hope, to put the photos in: groovy old record album covers from the 50s and 60s.

Cheers!

Give Them A Chance

It would seem that not only does the UK Labour Party need to accept that it lost the election and is now the Opposition, but it would also appear that Conservatives need to understand that their party did not win sufficient seats to form a government without the aid of the Liberal-Democrats.

It would also seem to me that there is no point in calling an election immediately on the same basis as the last in the hopes that there might be a decisive verdict.  The system needs fixing. The last election was worthy of a third world country: skewed constituencies, insufficient polling stations and ballot papers, polling stations shutting early, opportunity for large-scale fraud, political leaflets ‘lost’ in the post… need I go on? Get that fixed and then see what an honest election brings.

The UK is broke and needs surgery immediately, and all I read are people complaining that there are two doctors working to deal with the problems. There is a coalition, no one party has a mandate, as understood by the UK’s quirky constitution,  to impose its cure on the country. The sooner people realise and accept that and start looking at the proposed cures the better.

Continue reading “Give Them A Chance”

Ambidextrous alliance?

I can’t find any photo evidence, but I think Nick Clegg is right handed. (Strange really, pictures of politicians used to frequently show them signing important documents, but very few do these days) Apparently David Cameron is believed to be the first left-handed Prime Minister since James Callaghan.
Does that make this new political situation an ambidextrous alliance between Conservative and Liberal Democrats, or that we’ll have a situation where the left hand won’t know what the right is doing?