A load of Rubbish

So much for good intentions – I have got as far as making a list of things to complain about (I like lists) but have yet to do another formal complaint following my success the other week. Oh well. I guess I will get round to it eventually.

The thing that is bugging me at the moment is recycling. I think I have said before that I am really sick of being told what to do by our bloody government, and it is particularly irksome when they don’t make it easy to do the right thing. I was harping on about recycling and the future of the planet long before the politicians got on the bandwagon. Now of course, in true Tony Blair fashion, we have loads of stupid government targets about how much councils are meant to recycle, by tonne. So what happens? Well, our council takes away the heavy stuff and valuable stuff and sod the rest, that’s what. So, for instance, plastic doesn’t get collected from our homes because it doesn’t weigh enough to make it worthwhile. This is not the fault of the recyclers, who are a social enterprise company who provide training for people with learning difficulties – they used to rely on European funding and even shut down for a while due to a lack of money. Eventually the council did see sense and now fund them (I think) to collect our recyclable rubbish, but as I say, subject to these ludicrous targets. I know for a fact that some other councils in England do collect all recyclable waste from households so it just seems crazy to me that there is this disparity in how councils interpret the regulations. I’m off to write to the council and my MP.

Complaining is Good

I really had every intention of doing a mild-week blog entry last week, but just didn’t seem to get round to it. How on earth do people who blog all the time fit it into their lives? Or is it the main focus of their lives? Actually, there was a very good programme on the other night called www.herecomeseverybody.com (a reference to Finnegan’s Wake I believe) saying how t’internet had popularized culture and made knowledge free etc. Actually, this is a prediction my partner made some years ago (in 1995 to be exact – I remember ‘cos we were in the Hacienda in Manchester where Carl Cox was meant to be doing a gig but he didn’t show up and we bumped into an old school friend of mine She thought he was talking a load of rubbish, but she was still into that worker’s revolutionary bollocks).

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit. I really meant to write about the art of complaining, because we really ought to do it more – us Brits anyway – we just winge rather than complaining to the right people. I rang up the customer helpline for the co-op to complain about the stock levels in our local supermarket, and lo and behold! The very next day stocks of fruit and veg were up, and the day after that, I got a letter saying they were really sorry and they were making sure it wouldn’t happen again and to please continue shopping at their store. Wow! I thought. That’s customer service. So I am going to make more of an effort and complain constructively from now on rather than just wingeing.

Justice without Mercy

Justice without mercy is revenge… That is no road to peace’ Thus spoke a holy man in the holy land on telly this morning. What an excellent way of putting it, thought I. It is a great irony that the so-called holy lands are torn apart by conflict and hatred, and yet we still feel this great connection to them. Well, I do anyway. I was brought up religious but no longer practice. Nonetheless, there is definitely something special about that part of the world. We spent two days in Jordan earlier this year as part of a Red Sea cruise and I really really liked it. Predictably, Petra was awe-inspiring. It was even better than I expected. I had failed to appreciate beforehand how big it is. And the colours! Just fab!

What I didn’t expect was how much I liked the country in general. Not that we saw that much of course during such a short stay, but just wandering about Aqaba and people-watching in cafes, I started to get a real feel for the place after only a few hours. It made me want to go back there, as well as explore more countries in the region, especially Lebanon and Syria. However, with seemingly no end to the troubles it’s a tricky business. How do the Israelis justify blowing up the road to Damascus for Christ’s sake? (No, I am not blaspheming, I mean it). It really is such a shame that one of the most interesting parts of our world is torn apart like it is. And as for Iraq, well. Don’t get me started….suffice to say that the cradle of modern civilization has been turned into hell on earth, but at least the American people have at last cottoned onto the horror of war at last (well, it only took 3 and half years, Ha! Ha!). Some of us said the ‘V’ word way back in May 2003, but now there is a lot of opinion that it is actually worse than Vietnam. Reap what you sow, say I!

'unintended consequences'

I am really getting sick of this Blair government telling us what to do on the one and hand, and making life suck for loads of people on the other. Whilst being told not to eat ‘junk food’ (which now apparently seems to be everything apart from veg and salad – I am just waiting for Cadbury’s to sue them!) the infrastructure of services is under threat which many commentators refer to as ‘unintended consequences’ (is this code for 'don't know what the f*** they're doing'? Hmm!) This has been applied to everything from money being taken out of adult education to meet the 16-19 agenda, to targets for doctors meaning you can’t make an appointment more than 48 hours in advance to see your GP.

Well, I’ve decided I’m going to do more ranting about all this, Before we lose everything for ever – so watch this space (and others!)

Shirkers Beware!

I just had to write about this as it is one of those things you’re not sure you should mention.

I was in meeting this morning, and a woman from the Job Centre was updating everyone on changes in approach to giving out benefits, particularly for incapacity benefit, which is going to changed over the next couple of years to make it nigh impossible for people who are sick or disabled to avoid getting a damn job. Anyway, they have a saying in the jobcentre which is part of the Department for Work and Pensions and thus by default beholden to Our Glorious Leader (sic) which is ‘work is the best form of welfare’.

Well, call me cynical, but doesn’t that sound a bit like ‘Arbeit Mach Frei’?
Now who was it said that…..?

The English Language is a wonderful thing

I have hardly stopped laughing this weekend – trust the Hebden Bridge Times to give us a good giggle.

There was an article in about a talk at the Local History Society about the Fustian Weavers strike which ran from 1907-09 (the longest ever in the textile industry apparently). The strike was over pay as the workers here got paid less than in Lancashire, and when scabs were brought in from other factories to work they were nicknamed ‘nobsticks’. Now call me 9and several of my mates) childish, but we were rolling about at this but of news. Not only because it is such a Yorkshire-sounding expression, but also because the article reported it in such a matter-of-fact way, obviously not getting the joke!

Talking of double-entendres, this is apparently the best joke in the world (according to Sid James)

A woman goes into a pub and asks the barman for a double entendre
So he gives her one.

Bonfire of the Varieties

The town I live in is well-known for the big bonfire and fireworks display that is organized for the nearest Saturday to November 5th. It is the busiest night of the year by far, with the streets, pubs, restaurants (not to mention the park where the event actually takes place) absolutely rammed. You are almost guaranteed to see everyone you know in one night.

This year we went out a bit later than normal as we decided to have dinner at home, with everywhere being so busy – a lot of places stop serving food early in true Yorkshire style, because they can’t cope with the demand. We had time to queue for one drink and chat to a few people, before crossing the street to get a good spot on the Marina (well, the park is much too muddy at this time of year and full of kids!) to view the fireworks before they started. The fireworks were really good actually, although Catherine said they weren’t as good as last year (sic), Phil said they weren’t as good as Blackpool (international fireworks championships in September – well duh!) and Teresa said they weren’t as good as Spain (she could be right). After the fireworks we went to another pub with a bunch of women, most of whom I know by sight and some to chat to. But we only got to know them better through Catherine and Teresa. We had a really good night chatting shit and having a laugh and got far too drunk. Some idiot guy in the pub kept going on about ‘bloody lesbians’ and his name was Les so I said ‘is that short for Lesbian’. He didn’t think it was funny. I also challenged him to justify his existence if he was so great, and gave him ten seconds. What did he come up with? “I’m here to drink beer”. Fantastic!

Anyway, the flip side of all this bonfire night frivolity and merriment, is that 13 years ago, a friend of our’s daughter went missing and was found murdered down the canal a few days later. They never found her killer, and every year, Geri and her closer friends put round posters and talk to people and get them to try and remember that night. There is usually an article in the local paper and/or on regional TV news, but I didn’t see anything this year. What I did see, though, was an article she wrote in The Guardian. I was really pleased for her that she got in a national newspaper, and it was quite a good article and there was a nice photo too. I told her it was great and she said it took about 5 hours to get the photo. Bloody photographers! What’s wrong with a few snaps?

Geri’s younger daughter is now the age that Lindsey was when she went missing so it’s really hard for her to let her have her freedom, but she’s a really strong woman and copes fantastically. I really hope she finds out one day who killed Lindsey.

Eco bollox

There is such a load of crap talked about the environment, global warming, carbon footprints (what the hell is that? We’re all made of carbon aren’t we?) these days. I remember talking to people about global warming 20 years ago and they all thought I was some loony leftie hippie nutcase. And now…. now they think they can stop decades (nay, centuries) of not giving a toss about what we are doing to the environment by using our cars a bit less and paying more air tax. What a load of bollox! It is far too late to stop the tide of change now… Don’t get me wrong, I do my bit by recycling what I can and shop local as much as possible and that kind of stuff, but do they honestly think that if we stop putting our tellys and other electrical audio visual equipment on standby we can save the planet? They must think we are really stupid. Oh yeah! And if we did all turn off our dvd’s, videos, satellite boxes etc., we would lose all our settings and have to re-programme them every time we wanted to watch something. Well, I guess we could go down the road of not watching t.v. at all. But I have known a few of those in my time – self-righteous hypocrites mainly, who don’t own a t.v. set, but are happy to come round your house and watch yours! I was quite amused the other week to overhear a conversation in our local supermarket between a man and a woman:

Woman: ‘so what are doing tonight?’
Man: ‘I am going to pick up a television actually’.
Woman: ‘No! I can’t believe it! You are so against that kind of thing!’
Man: ‘I know, but it’s only a small second hand-one and we’ll keep it upstairs and only use it for special occasions’.

I really found it so hard not to laugh but somehow I managed it and gave him a wry look instead. He noticed this and the look I got back was almost as fumy as the conversation. You could tell he knew I had sussed him as a complete tosser. And what special occasions was he on about? The Queen’s speech at Christmas? The Coronation? (he could be waiting some time). I had visions of a small child getting really excited when the telly came down for some ‘special occasion’ and dad had to blow the dust off and fiddle with the aerial to get the reception, and by the time they had managed to get a decent picture, the programme they wanted to watch was over! Just like the old days!

It’s fine line between saving the planet and being an asshole if you ask me, so I think I won’t bother with either.

Crummy Lives

Here is my first rant about the lack of funding available to projects like the one I work on. (There will probably be more later).

A couple of weeks ago, a young girl got stabbed and died from her injuries. As it turned out, she was a client of the housing charity I work for where she was getting support to help her with a housing issue. Her boyfriend was on a cooking course ran the project I manage. He has said he will come back on the course, but understandably he has other priorities right now, which, at a guess, include grieving, supporting his girlfriend’s family through a rough patch, etc…

If he doesn’t finish the course, we don’t get paid by our funders for giving him the training. Is this crazy or what? What are we supposed to say? “Well, Chris (not his real name) we realise you are really upset about your girlfriend dying on you, but we really need you to come and finish your portfolio – not because we believe it’s important to you, but because we want the money”. Absurd, isn’t it? I really don’t blame the people who pay us though. They are only responding to Learning and Skills council targets, which in turn are determined by stupid government priorities and targets.

I found out today that over 50% of adults who enroll on literacy and numeracy courses do not get a full qualification. Is the response to this by the LSC to say that maybe people Aren’t too bothered about the qualification and just want a bit of a push in the right direction? Of course not! They are now saying that only courses that do lead to full qualifications will be funded. That could mean over 40% of people who would potentially benefit form some literacy or numeracy teaching, either being forced onto a course they don’t want to do, or not getting the training.

It is absolutely ludicrous that those who need the most help are falling further and further away from the mainstream, and the government give all this spin about education. They haven’t a bloody clue what projects like ours do and the sort of issues our clients have to deal with. I really wish they’d get off their high horses and come and have a look round at what it’s like in the real life for once!

A musical weekend…

This weekend I have been subjected to quite a bit of live music, which has been fun. On Thursday evening, I went with some work colleagues to the 21st Birthday party of Beaumont street studios which is a small community- based recording studio in Huddersfield where they also deliver training in music technology, video and radio production. We were subjected to 2 very-eighties acts – Crucial Vibe (old style reggae) and Hotline (the first proper British house single apparently, which got to no. 1 in the dance charts) then a couple of lads with guitars called I.E (who sounded like loads of other lads with guitars). Anyway, after the music there was food and I had some excellent Caribbean chicken.

On Saturday night, we went to see Leon Rosselson and I was quite surprised at the low turn-out – us living in this little enclave of alternative culture (apparently) and him being an old socialist folk singer/songwriter. He did a double-act with a socialist magician called Ian Saville who was quite funny. Amongst his props he had a William Morris ventriloquist dummy and part of the dialogue went like this:
Ian ‘so what are you doing here?’
William ‘Well, I’ve been dead for about 100 years and I thought I’d come back and see how my socialist utopia was doing’
Ian ‘er, well, not very well actually…but people love your wallpaper!’
You get the idea.

We bought 2 CDs – I got a compilation of Leon’s songs performed by other folk artists including Eliza Carthy doing ‘the man who puffs the big cigar’ (which is one of my favourite Rosselson songs and we saw her sing this when she came to Hebden for a gig last year) and Phil got a newer one, from which Leon said he had only sang one of the songs on the night, so that’ll be a surprise – haven’t had chance to listen to them yet.

Life in a Bubble

On Sunday there was a family get-together for my mum's birthday. It was the first time I had seen my eldest sister for some time, as she lives in Wales and travels quite a lot and our paths don't seem to cross too much. We do speak on the phone though so I have an overview of what her life is like.

Although I love her and think her philosophy on life has some merit, she always manages to get to me. This time, I felt myself getting really angry at her 'downsizing' theory which basically boils down to 'everyone can work 2 days a week and manage financially'.

While I agree to some extent with her views that if we are just wage slaves and then we die we haven't lived, I think she is so out of touch with other people's lives.

She sits in this little bubble in a big house with her big organic garden and works 2 days a week (earning about £50 an hour at a guess) and she has had her mortgage paid off for her... and she seems to thinks this is normal! Doesn't it occur to her that if we could afford to do it we would? Not to mention all the trials and tribulations lots of ordinary people have such as redundancy, unemployment, homelessness...

I don't know why I let her bother me, only that it is just her lack of failure to see how privileged she is. If she was saying 'this is my life, that is yours', then I'd say fair enough. But she isn't - she is saying we should all live like her. AND while pontificating about we should only eat(preferably home-grown) organic veg. and spend lots of time in the fresh air, and be aware of the environment around us, she drives around the country in a camper van and flies abroad on regular occasions. There is something wrong with her view on the environment I think, even double-standards. I suppose I shouldn't be so judgmental. After all, I am in no way perfect myself. But I guess that's it. I know I'm not perfect, she seems to think she is (or at least more perfect than the rest of us!) so perhaps that’s why it annoys me so much. I guess I should let her get on with it.

If it's good enough for Madonna..

After much prevarication and extensive research, I happened across Madonna's blog on this site today and thought if it's good enough for her, it's good enough for me!

I was interested in what she had to say about adopting a child from Malawi, as our friends in the pub last night were having a go at her and saying if she really wanted to change things, she should invest in the country not take their kids away. Well, I found out that she is doing so, according to her blog. This just shows how much even those of us who like to think that we are intelligent, go by what is reported in the media and that we should know what we're on about before we started ranting and passing judgement.

Mind you, the image of her doing that embarassing white auntie dancing with her new Malawian friends has put us right off going to see her on her next (and probaly last) tour... I realised I had a mis-conception that she could dance and when I actually thought about it, she can't really. She might be bendy and nimble, especially for a 50-year-old, but not exaclty a dance hall diva is she?

Anyway, that's enough about her... fanous people go on about themselves enough without us having to do it for them! "Me, me, it's great being me" - that's what they're like..

And what the f*** does Paul McCartney think he's doing copyrighting his own name? This may come as surpirse to him, but both Paul and McCartney arre quite common names in the English-speaking-of Oirish-extraction countries of this fair planet... but there I go again slagging off celebs, when really I shouldn't as they provide us with much entertainment. I'm not talking about the singing here by the way, or dancing or acting or whatever it is they're famous for (and for quite a few of them it's difficult to work out exactly what it is they're famous for), I'm talking about their amusing antics and their delusional behaviour where the world in their heads revolves around them. I've got news for you Macca - you might sell loads of records but guess what? When you die, the planet will keep spinning! Mind you, so will your records I guess. Ha! Ha!