The Daily Rant

Well the press are having a field day are they not. Simon Hughes has covered himself in all sorts of stuff he didn't want to be covered in. Made all the worse by his previous stance when standing on a "Straight" platform. Not only did he lie about his own sexuality but he made others suffer for being open about it. He deserves everything he gets right? He deserves to be villified and hung out to dry right? Of course not. My observations on homosexuality (or being gay) are that it remains terribly difficult to "come out". Yes, thanks to the braveness of many, society is changing its view. It is easier than in the past. In fact if you are a female who is gay, hardly anybody notices. I think however it remains terribly difficult for alot of men. I guess not being female and not being gay and not really having many gay friends it is a bit presumptuous for me to assume this so I freely admit to be talking from a position of relative ignorance.

But I am a man. And I was brought up in a kind of Victorian enmeshment of values where it was ok to be whatever you wanted as long as you were normal and a real man and didn't have or show emotions. Where children were to be seen and not heard. Where you would burn in Hades if you thought improper thoughts and where a life of fear was the only way to keep God on your side.
It was a very normal upbringing, in many ways, for a man of my age. These messages were not necessarily written on advertising hordings for all to obey....but they were implicit in every facet of existence. Now what I do know was how hard it was for me to admit I had feelings of any type. I found it excruciating even to feel for a girl, let alone admit it. Inside my sides churned and I was confused. Knowing what I "wanted" was also very difficult. I came from a background where what I "ought" to do was the prevailng concern. This imbued me with many good qualities, but its legacy was a certain lack of awareness and an inability to read and trust my emotions. I ignored my emotions and tried to press on. But my emotions were real. In effect I was trying to ignore reality. Hmmmmm...not very clever really. Yet I am intelligent and have been pretty good at most jobs that I have done.

Yes Simon Hughes has made some mistakes. Yes he has been a hypocrite. Yes he has told some lies. But he has probably put himself through more pain than anybody. And it's now out in the open. So if you thought he was a good politician before, then why change your mind now. He will still be a good politician.

No. In my opinion the big problem here is the wanting to be a politician. For me wanting to be a politician is a sign of sickness and they should all be forced underground or locked away until they have been thoroughly rehabillitated and cured of their power-mongering ways and learned to live decent lives like, maybe, Rupert Murdoch or the entire executive team at Enron!

Just watched This Week. Though I don't feel overly comfortable saying it, I do rather enjoy a "non politically affiliated" M. Portillo. I think he comes across OK. Tonight's discussion centred on....yup, education.

Now when it comes to education my own gut tells me a quick way state education will get sorted out is to stop private schoools. If all the people who send there kids to private schools suddenly faced the prospect of having them educated in the state sector they would most definitely make sure things changed! Funnily enough these peolpe tend to come from the "influential" classes. You know the type...went to single sex boarding schools etc. Now in my opinion that in itself is abuse...and these people (yes TB, that includes you) don't even know it. But that's a different argument.

There is another alternative though. Instead of sending everyone to university in order to make us all equal let's just assume everyone IS equal(!!!!!!).....irrespective of race, creed, colour, income bracket and so on. Surely if a street sweeper were treated with the same respect,say, as a £500k pa banker that would be a more equitable way to go about it. This is not so at the moment....just see who gets their issues mentioned quicker in PM"S Q time! Anybody doing a good job of work is worthy of equal respect no matter how much they earn or what they wear. For me the fact that TB and his merry men seem to think that having been to university makes you a better person or whatever reeks of snobbery and ignorance. When we had universities, polytechnics and other further education colleges were we not recognising peoples inate aptitude. If I'm good with my hands and have an aptitude for say bricklaying, does that make me a "worse" person than an estate agent? Hmmmm....methinks not. Let just see how useful being a Foxton's bunny is when trying to help in the rebuild after the Tsunami last Xmas.

Thanks TB for investing so much in some inane target for university attendance.....get the basics right, so we can all read and write, and then give ample funding so that those who are good at writing can write, those who are good at banking can bank, those who are good at helping others can help others, those who are good at selling ice cream can sell ice cream. And then praise us all equally for doing a good job. Don't just wait 'til 7/7 then say the fire service are wonderful people.....having just cut budgets drastically and put us all at risk from an average housefire let alone a major terrorist event.....or a burning oil depot....wrong type of fire for the foam and all that!

I gotta wonder.....I read all this stuff about Sven Gordon and what a terrible person he is for talking to peeps about possible future job opportunities! Terrible....I'd never do that, would you? Is this just not another case of the press trying to make an issue out of a non-issue? I mean what is so wrong with discussing the possibility of a new opportunity? But this is the world we live in now.....the press runs it. Gone are the days when the pretense was that the press fulfilled a role that kept politicians et al in check and would highlight any injustices. It's all about selling copy come what may. It's easy to write a disaster and make all that gore and grime seem fantastically absorbing......it's a whole different issue making slushy stuff riveting.

Me, well I'd like papers split down the middle. In one half continue with the gore and sensationalism....in the other lets have some good news. There's plenty of it and it would be so nice to walk down the street with a warm glowing feeling of how wonderful people can be.

Gotta say on that point how moved I was by Linklaters and the family of the tragically murdered Linklaters lawyer. To set up a memorial fund in his name to help with the education of underprivelidged kids in London I think is just so dignified and respectful of human life. In all of the pain of his family and friends this was the result of what they feel is a fitting tribute to him. I am deeply moved. It IS a tragedy all round. That youth can throw away the life of another so cheaply is tragic, but it is also tragic that in this society there are people out there so damaged that murder is a run of the mill event. Yes part of reparation is the years of incarceration they will recieve for their crimes, and rightly so. However if we are to move forward we need to recognise that we are ALL part of society and we ALL have a responsibilty to it. That kids can be so feral that life means nothing is not just a reflection on their particular circumstances but is a reflection on us all. Not to blame or shame, but perhaps we all need to start putting something back. Something for nothing. Maybe some charity work or some youth mentoring. We can all point the finger but is our own side of the street perfectly clean. Let's look further than punishment......wouldn't it be nice to do something to prevent this kind of thing happening again rather than just tutting and pointing the finger when it does?

Gosh....how bad am I ? Been off line for sometime.....hmmmm and I think it's probably a good thing. TB and his merry men have been up to their tricks practically non-stop and I think apoplexy would have been the only answer apart from the amusement that were the libdems or dimlebs or whatever!! Happy new year to all.....and let's hope 2006 is 2006! Spent sometime over the hols checking my back for feathers as I was quite unwell....alas not for me the cheap checkout of a supermarket trolley....no bird flu on me.

Gotta say I never thought ranting about TB's lot could get so boring....but you know what? It is too easy!! Peeps are even waking up to the mess that Gordie has/is making of the economy......the press have turned and all agreement New Labour(?) had with Murdoch and his mucky morons have been torn asunder.

Enuf. To berate would be to legitimise...so for me...I think I'll ignore and move on.......but what ground to cover now? What to rant about?.....Well not usre really but will spend some time thinking and see.....obviously and input from anybody would be wonderful.....

So did anybody else see TB's fine performance in Europe? He was passionate, riled and fluent. His detractors were left open mouthed. Wow! Hmmm....but in this case the detractors were the UKIP MEP's....horrible little people! TB's wonderful rhetoric? "This is not 1945, these people are our partners!"....hmmm again.....did he misread his history books....were we at war with europe or with europe?...Gadzooks!......I thought globalization meant the whole world is our partner.....that said CAP directly contributes to a child dying every 3 seconds in Africa......surely where the west preaches free trade we should practice free trade and not pander to the wishes of a few militant farmers and create mountains of waste! Instead of giving a small part of our over production back to keep a few in Africa barely alive, maybe we should stop subsidizing farming in Europe. This would remove the artificial trade barrier that African farmers face and allow them to compete. It allows dignity. It is fairer. A tiny proportion of the CAP budget would be all that is needed to retrain those farmers in Europe who are no longer able to be viable. We can then put pressure on the US to remove their grossly limiting farming subsidies. This in turn would be a step towards a level playing field - on a global basis. This on its own is not the answer to global poverty but it would allow some poorer countries to become self-sufficient and it is a start. Even if it means a child dying every 4 seconds in Africa rather than every 3 seconds do you know how many lives this saves? 7,200 a day!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's 2,628,000 per year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The CAP is a murderer!!!!!MURDERER!!!! Look this is real. If Europe and the US removed farming subsidies some of the poorer nations could compete. There is no argument to this. This is an horrific manipulation of the 3rd world. We force them to remove capital controls etc if they want investment blah blah blah but we keep these trade barriers in place to protect ourselves. This hypocrisy is killing millions and millions of children every year. If the developed world believes in globalisation and free trade why do we not live by this for ourselves. This is real. This is a terrible manipulation of those weakest in global society. This is a terrible sickness in the minds of the leaders of the west. Our own complacency means we are complicit in this. Millions of children are dying needlessly because I am too lazy to do anything about it! How does that feel. It feels pretty sick, huh?

Just watched a TV show about some fella who decided to walk the length of the country naked. He was with his girlfriend who he had only met the month before. What interested me was not so much thier personalities - they didn't come across as particularly endearing - but more peoples' reaction to them. On the one hand there seemed to be a fair amount of sympathy and support for what they were trying to do, on the other there seemed a certain madness. One woman attacked the narrator and left him with some painful looking scratches - the narrator (he was also the cameraman) was fully dressed. Other people hurled abuse, including some women who called the female "nakedee" a slag and a slut.

Now our intrepid ramblers were venturing into supermarkets and pubs etc and so were no exactly shying away from the general public and in the end somebody must have called the police. At one point the man was arguing with the cops and was heard to say " so what part of me is obscene? My arm? My elbow? What?". Hmmmm....I think he had a valid point. Why is there so much fuss made over the naked form. These guys were arrested I think 5 or 6 times on thier journey. They didn't finish it because he is serving a 3 month stretch in Scotland for not wearing clothes.

It seems there is some discrepancy in the interpretation of the law...in some places he was released immediately and in others, Scotland funnily enough, he was in more serious trouble. To me this whole issue reaches to very heart of the hypocrisy that characterises this nation (and others). Why is it such a crime to walk around in our natural state? I don't think I would necessarily do it as I tend to feel the cold - and it shows!! But why shouldn't we be free to if we choose?

Some people were saying "I don't want my children seeing that" and to a degree I understand where they're coming from. But why not? It is only a body. We all have them. Why should it be such a shameful thing? To me the fact that it's "shameful" for a body to be on display, even in front of children, is somewhat worrying and reeks of Victorian values. Perhaps if we could learn to love and appreciate ourselves as we are without shame we would be taking a step in the right direction. Is it some big conspiracy by the glamour mags in case we find out that nobody is like those air-brushed waifs on their front covers? Is it so the judges and politicians can continue with their "kinky" oddities behind closed doors. Let's face it most of these people went to single sex, boarding schools.....now that is abuse.

I really don't think that given the option I would choose to walk around naked.....but I don't think I should be arrested for it. Yes I know people will say what about flashers etc....well maybe they wouldn't get off on it if it was allowed...I think that's probably more about repression...errr and I think we've known for some time that repression is behind alot of the problems in society......

Finally I've figured it out!!! TB is simply very, very thick. This privately educated nincompoop(?) actually has one of those inbred genes. Think about it...the energy minister does not sit in the cabinet.....yet this man thinks he can spin nuclear energy as a viable proposal. This stuff has a half life of 1000's of years.....we supposedly are having a terrorist resurgence....errr???? This is an industry that went bust a couple of years ago....AGAIN..the enrgy minister does not sit in cabinet - that means they do not think he is important......we are being told we are about to have the coldest winter for decades...global warming is an issue and nuclear power - chernobyllys cousin...-is the answer? oh by the way we are going to ignore the pensions report that we commissioned- errr.. nuclear power is great............don't think about working til 67 cos there is a pensions shortfall exactly equal to what gordie taxed the pension industry....oi , yes you, oi i said NUCLEAR POWER!!

Oh my days. The end. Turner report is finally not out. Having raped us all of basic monies for our old age this gov do not like the report they commissiioned themselves so......let's rip it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wake up...turn stoat....get rid.....this lot make corruption smell sweet......Gordie makes the merry men look spectacular, TB just simply sucks.......this is real.....they are more bent than a lamb with false teeth.....it really is time to rise up an overthrow this gov......comeon.......

too bored for more!

How dare you not order enuf flu jabs you naughty GP you! Luv Tessa.Let's bomb Al-Jazeera TB, Bushy Wushy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

C'mon nutters get rid now!

I wandered past a shop t'other day. Then I wandered back and had a good look in the window. It must have had hundreds of different style of knives; from little itty bitty fingernail scrapers, thru hunting knives of all wondrous serrated imaginables, right up to virtual swords. Hmmmmmmm.........what a wonder knife crime is such a huge problem in this country. The shopkeeper said he sold well over 20 of these things a week. I also heard that on MacKyntyre's Dangerous Cities. Now I wonder (again) how much demand there is from genuine animal skinning hunters in this country. Not much I would think. These knives are obviously being purchased for a somewhat shady purpose. I'm sure not all purchasers are out to stab the nearest, suitable person and in fact I'm sure an awful lot of them never leave the testosterone steeped teenage bedrooms of many of the buyers. However a fair few do. And when they do there is always a chance that the owner is going to end up doing something he regrets (charitable huh?) and leave somebody else leaking somewhat.

Now I know peeps can always go and buy a kitchen knife so there's no point banning them!?!? or licensing them etc.....B****x!!! Restricting these weapons may not be THE whole answer but I think perhaps it might be a little help and a small part of the answer.

Why am I suddenly getting uptight about this? Well apart from certain tragic stories I've read of late I am about to take TB and his very merry men up on their kind offer of 24 hour drinking!! And you know what? The last thing I want is to see my hard earned cash emptying shower like out of my belly when I've just finished drinking it!