Lesson not Learnt

So Ireland is screwed. Greece is already screwed and next on the list is one of Portugal, Spain or Italy. I'm not entirely sure that we're totally out of the woods either. What I find difficult to understand, amongst many things in this business, is how when we know why this is happening we aren't stopping it.

Greedy people are destabilising countries on purpose to...well I'm not sure why they are doing it beyond the fact they make money from it. And we (ordinary non bastard type people) seem to sit back and wait while they do it and then pour more money into the huge black hole they create. So why aren't every one of these people in jail ? They should be shouldn't they. They are ruining millions of people's lives and we just stand back shrug our shoulders and say that's the market for you. Well fuck that. In the words of Howard Beale It's time to get mad God damn it !

Why can't we let the banks fail. Seriously why can't we. What's the worse that can happen. The argument that is peddled out is 'that would ruin our whole financial system.' quite honestly it looks pretty fucked from here anyway. We've allowed a situation to occur where the majority are held to ransom by a tiny few who make fortunes.

I don't see where this will all end. With blood on the streets is my guess. The speculators will not stop and I can't see how the rest of Europe will stand back while another country is driven to the wall and ordinary people are expected to pick up the tab again.

The Letter

This is the letter I wrote

Every time I read the letters page of your newspaper there is a letter from someone decrying modern life. Well there is a lot to be said for the modern world. We live in a world where most infectious diseases have been wiped out, certainly in Western countries. There used to be fears of too many people congregating for fear of Polio, not any more. We also live in world where people are not left to starve. Of course there are people who abuse the benefits system but that is the price we pay for having a safety net in case ill fortune befalls us.


We live in a world of unparalleled technology. I can carry my entire record collection in an iPod the size of a wallet. I can communicate with anybody in the world from my living room, or on the bus or anywhere. And although we can bemoan the lack of community there is now there are plenty of online communities for people to enjoy. We dismiss this sense of a virtual community at our peril. A close friend made online is still a close friend.

I am not about to dismiss the idea that we have lost a sense of community. We probably have. But this is not through choice. Society has become more mobile and people have had to move around to find work. The same families don’t live on the same street forever anymore. I was 6 in 1977 and I remember with golden fondness the street party we had that day.

That was the last hurrah for that. I had no wish to become political but the fact is two years later Thatcher came to power and brought her there is no such thing as society philosophy with her. Maybe that sense of togetherness would have gone anyway. She certainly accelerated it.

But there is no point in looking back. There are examples everywhere if you seek them of people working together to make life more colourful. I am a member of an Amateur Theatre company, one of many in this area alone. My daughter goes to Rainbows and I see there the work of the guide and scouting movement. There are countless other examples of good young people and their parents trying to make a better tomorrow. By all means let’s look with fondness on our pasts. But let’s do it without decrying the world we live in now.

The Last Hurrah

I have had a letter published in the Halesowen News. I am currently in Halesowen Library so have no access to it but I will put it on here later. What I wanted to talk about here was a part in in where I refer to the Silver Jubilee of 1977.

I was 6 in 1977 and obviously had no idea of what really was going on in the world. I had no idea there was a band called the Sex Pistols or that they had released God Save the Queen. What I do remember very fondly from that time was the street party we had. I lived in a cluster of three streets and ours was the central one. The street was closed for the day and everybody, and I am sure I am hardly exaggerating when I say that, came out and joined in. My brothers and I went to the party as an RNLI crew and my older brother as The Man with no Name (Clint Eastwood).

In the morning and afternoon there were loads of kids games and we all sat down together and eat. And then all the adults got drunk and danced on the evening. And  I stayed up till 11 o'clock. It truly was a golden day. And I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that just thinking about it makes me a bit wobbly and brings tears to my eyes.

Its very easy to get sentimental about the past. The 70's were not a perfect decade by any means. But it does seem to me that it was the last days of what we, certainly the white working class, could call community. Its easy to blame Thatcher for this. She certainly went out of her way to destroy any sense of community that did exist by selling off council homes and destroying our industrial base. But I guess these things may have come to pass anyway. I'll never forgive her the callous way in which she did it and will be lighting a cigar the day the old bitch finally croaks it. Not an admirable thought or one that does me credit but its the way I feel.

What we have lost is that sense of community that we had that day. As I said in the letter communities are out there. Look at the Guide and Scouting movement, football clubs or any of the other community activities that are out there. But that sense of everybody dropping things and coming together to spontaneously to just celebrate has been lost.

Unless we win the World Cup of course..(hysterical laughter).