The Long and Winding Brexit

Thinking is clouded, actions ill-conceived. There's a deal of talk about the new boy in town. Perhaps the whole country is under his spell? Or else he runs through it like some sort of uncharted river.

Another upstart, obviously and ideally it would be better all round if we simply pretended that he did not exist, much as we attempted to do with cousin Long Covid. But he's been around a while now, gathering in his host of 'disciples,' establishing his boundaries! Dare we hope he's toilet trained, because something's beginning to hum? Damn him, he's got one hand on the wheel! Whisper it... 'the whole country is suffering from Long Brexit!'

Sadly, and with monotonous regularity, once and once again, our chums in government have been found wanting! It must come as little surprise to find them again floundering, woefully beyond salvation! Bloated with disinterest and incompetence, pockets bulging! But to many still it comes as a surprise, indeed so surprising do they find it that even the merest concept cannot be properly comprehended. Imagine, one knows they are self-serving through misappropriation of the facts, yet one is again and again reassured that they are not. Is it that one so wants to believe, or is it that one is endlessly deceived into doing so? Or is it that one is afraid to think independently, or to dare believe what one, deep down in the gut, has long since secretly known to be irrefutable? When did so very many take their eyes off the ball? Or have we travelled the more scenic route?

In too many ways now has this become not unlike resorting to plugging one's ears and loudly humming? 'The king is not naked, the king is not naked! The smell is of roses!'

Picking through the debris it can be difficult to piece together all the parts. Perhaps it is no longer possible- by design- to reliably apportion each action to its consequences. Rather like a battlefield, we cannot be sure which tank breached which defences first, which wrought the greater carnage. Maybe it is a book deal in the waiting? Undoubtedly, the closer that 'abomination' may, through slight of fact, be painted instead as 'honour' the more tainted it becomes. But, what if there never was any honour in the first instance? Where then, far beyond sight of salvation, may we again search it out?

Quite when was pretence at honour first sacrificed upon the alter of avarice? Research the governmental timeline- jot down one's findings upon an AO sheet (write small!) and the bubble diagram 'blooms' like bacteria- prorogation of parliament is quickly subsumed, swamped under weight of countless other historical misdeeds! The process appears terrifyingly organic, yet it is not. Not so much dead-ends as 'gated' driveways?

"It is what it is!" a neighbour shrugged. "Who could have done better?" an inlaw deflected. Such muddled thinking! Orwell would have had a field day! Yet, still it should be fiercely confronted at every turn. There are the facts, and then there are the words that the corporate editors- self censoring according to practised rote- have rearranged upon the page, figurative or otherwise. "It's not!," and, without hesitation "Anyone!" we must retort.

Juxtapose fiction with fact. Search behind the shiny slogans. 'Levelling Up?' And quite how will this act be cutting through to the gig economy? How will 'Levelling Up' balance food and rent, upon £8.91 an hour? How will it calculate Universal Credit against the manipulated-market-rate for a private leaky-roof over one's head?

'Take back control!' came the war cry! Who better suited to have weaponised the salty waters of the island state than Michael Gove, but did we? Did we, take back control? Quite how are those fishermen and fisherwomen now celebrating this (well, it's not even a pyrrhic) victory? Wonder instead, what the environmentalists and the oceanographers (those discarded 'experts!') thought, watching the BBC et al hosting Fiona-Bruce-'balanced' 'discussions' upon whether every one of those idle trawlers should once again be sent forth to plunder the waves? Since when has democracy best been served by setting angry-Cons against informed environmentalists, before a conservative (with a small 'c') audience? Is one permitted to question whether it might be better for everyone, in the long run, if, in future, experts are invited to relay their scientific rationale? For Christ's sake don't reduce it to some sort of public voting panel game! "The people of this country have had enough of experts." Mr Gove pouted. He and his ilk have been packing in their alternatives ever since. We know that, when the wind is at its fairest, still their best remains abysmal, yet we're being encouraged to get behind 'our team!' If only we'd slowed down for long enough to reason that simply scouring the ocean floors, over ever wider terrain, really wasn't going to offer any sort of viable future! The oceans have moved on... on rather they haven't!

Watch the ministers (or their spokespeople) pick off the betrayed one at a time, behind a Daily Mail screen of rustling headlines. 'Divide and rule' is the general rule of thumb but can we now depend upon the fishing industries to again, and quite so soon, fall obediently into line behind this expertise-averse government? If the corporate MSM lead the march will the populace, sleepily nod through the Australian Trade Deal, pocket the 52p per person along with a 'healthy' ingestion of previously-banned farming antibiotics and turn a blind eye to a regression to greater animal suffering? "A cap on tariff-free imports for 15 years!" straight from the mouth of Honest-John Johnson. The NFU and British farmers- Guardians (not) of the Countryside- are said to be unhappy! Really, you could not make it up! My enemy's enemy is my friend? Are we now reduced to such pitifully slender pickings?

Oh, and apparently we are going to miss those overseas workers after all. Oops! Never mind, eh? If we can forget £350 million a week I'm sure we can overlook this trifling inexpert miscalculation. Thank the lord above that we've grasped back control from those overbearing EU bureaucrats, and their Working-Time Directive mumbo-jumbo! It's nothing really. Nothing, when compared to 350,000,000, merely an additional 100,000! A tiny fraction, but it also happens to be the same small total of haulage drivers the UK now finds itself short of 'getting back to normal!' Praise be to the inexperts! Perhaps that's why we so needed to shake ourselves free of the EU. Working unencumbered, we can simply mark our own mathematics, to "Give drivers and operators flexibility" to lengthen the working day from 9 to 10 hours. Solved! Temporarily, of course, we are encouraged to understand. As needs must! Temporarily, of course.

Far be it for me to again whisper, "Wasn't it this sort of corner cutting that enabled the country to house more than 600,000 people in unsafe tower blocks?" The Labour Party has compliantly estimated this figure to be 56,000 which, far from reassuring the public, should instead throw up the implication that we haven't got the first clue as to how many individuals are affected! Hardly a First World Problem, is it?

Lining up all the little duckies, the fishermen, the farmers, the haulage drivers... Martin Niemoller put it so eloquently when he penned, 'First they came for the socialists...' Hints at Sir Keir's (not so) Labour Party, maybe?

Imagine the accumulated bodies, piled so very high, select a suitably sweltering wave of sunshine, preferably adjacent to a site of outstanding natural beauty- a river bank- so as to attract the more abhorrent species, humanity excluded for once. Nurture that stench! Had corporate media set its sights upon exercising some of that oft-lauded 'freedom,' and rather fewer column inches upon 'diligent house keeping,' just maybe the waft of such self-serving corruption and distain might then have blighted such dishonourable goals. But it didn't! Nor will it, or can it, in its present form. Imagine the corruption that might blossom in such a climate! "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you..." If one was charged with compiling a cabal, so driven as to hasten the planet onward to its death, then cast your eyes around the globe! Compare and contrast! ... and then weep!

Whilst Global (Little) Britain festers, uninterruptedly sewing a most abhorrent toxicity- countless £millions so that Israel may 'Build a New Apartheid!' (B'tselem, Israeli Center for Human Rights)- or sending forth its winged horse (Pegasus) to educate the dissenters, why not also reduce (I dunno) foreign aid? Only temporarily, you must again understand. Only temporarily!

I wonder if the planet finally is actually dying upon 'our watch,' humanity's part therein and henceforth? Or if it has been hastened in that direction, upon 'our watch?' Displaced by the pointless panel shows, its demise might just as well be playing out in an unlit backroom cupboard. Of course, it is irrefutably somewhat of an inconvenience, it is going to get to the point where even the mind-numbingly gullible are going to start to notice that something's afoot! Shuffle those carbon-offset cards yet again, see if we can't flatter to deceive. Ask Fiona, ask Emma, ask Andrew Neil, get another of Rupert's hacks to deflect, why don't we?

The Guardian- Britain's leading Liberal newspaper (ha ha!)- tends to shed those journalist who speak out of turn. Observe- although not so much care of the Observer anymore- former heroic colleague Julian Assange cast out towards the US nets. Not unsurprisingly the untethered journalism's- those still free to operate- significantly better, significantly, but the outlets tend to be less lauded by the rest of the corporate MSM. Whatever could be happening there? Why, it's almost as if those awkward facts are suddenly somewhat inconvenient. Again (I dunno) maybe we could ask someone like Baron Walney (John Woodcock)- 'Independent' Advisor on Political Violence and Disruption- to dig around for a bit of balance? Independent, please note! Independent, of course he is! Whatever was I thinking there? Go on, John, you put that Greta Thunberg back in her box! And those damn Marxists at Extinction Rebellion, Amnesty and BLM! Do we think these types've even bothered to appreciate the logistics involved with getting all those manual workers affordably across the Atlantic? Raise another glass, another statue to our 'proud' colonial past! Another flying horse required? Only countries with impeccable human rights records need apply- and who better to draw that line? Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

Whisper it again?, "Search out Jonathan Cook, Nathan J Robinson (not the Australian one), Dawn Foster (RIP), Nafeez Ahmed- check their thoughts on the efficacy of the Guardian, the UK's single remaining Liberal Newspaper, err...

Meanwhile, it is being argued that the Amazon Rainforest- once thought to be the lungs of the planet- afire care of Bolsanaro, is now emitting more Co2 than it is absorbing. But, if we can just align enough of those solar-fans, so that COP26 can see their ways to the table, maybe we can pluck another future date from the never-never calendar, offset some of that rising smoke. It would be decidedly unsporting if the Globe didn't at least acknowledge humanity's ingenuity. Damned unsporting if it didn't at least wait until after the projected dates!

Shh! Shh! just so that the adults may concentrate whilst dividing up our depleted resources. Whisper it again, "Regulation of the UK's waterways has been cut deep into the bone!" So often, though corporate editors dutifully seek to distract, we are surely obligated to, at the very least, attempt to observe the winding course. And, if it should come to light, it should still concern us that such a vital resource as water now finds itself almost denuded of regulation. 'Build back better!' barked from the podium, sent forth to dazzle. Oh look, another slogan! Nightclubs, you say? Party, party!

So, 'Building Back (so much) Better!' almost silently so as not to alarm, those rivers are now, often, conveyors of raw sewage- thousands upon thousands of illegal 'spills transforming that holy landscape. That it barely appears to warrant mention should concern us, should perhaps concern us more than the fact of its perpetual re-enactment! On one hand we have the inalienable truth that our rivers run through our fibre like a lifeblood yet, upon our watch, so too now can an excess of excrement! Search, because it does not warrant mention in any governmental slogan- and we learn that the Environment Agency has had its funding slashed by two-thirds. And, along this quieter waterway, we learn also that, under the radar, 100% of the UK's rivers have silently and swiftly acquired the designation, 'polluted!' Search further and watch the target dates for addressing the issues slide about on the never-ending calendar, care of Honest John Johnson.

Bright lights, fireworks, 'breaking!' care of the BBC et all, 'Southern Water has been fined £90 million!' Shut up! The old chestnut, self regulation, we are invited to conclude, is working just fine, after all, albeit nearly six years in arrears, just eight-and-a-half thousand discharges too late. The system 'works,' somewhat rustily, we are misinformed. But, turn one more stone and the greater (and truer) truth reveals that still corporate water manages to evade the yet greater charges (and fines) of, and for, failing to meet "'strict' (sic) standards on discharging water." Why should we not conclude that it has not been, all along, business as usual, basic policy?

Where's BBC Laura (parliamentary re-tweeter par excellence!) when her country needs her- hint: that's not really why she's there- surely not off hob-nobbing with alternative managerial material? "Meet the new boss Same as the old boss," sort of thing? Are we being 'fooled (yet and yet) again?' Those prepared to accept, even seeking refuge behind, absolute vacuity must have been almost replete when New Labour's Margaret Beckett actually uttered the approximation, "Kier wants Britain to be the very best country it can be," when queried for just the tiniest smidgen of policy. The precise wording is not worthy of a search and so I have not bothered, likely the BBC! Perhaps Laura (parliamentary re-tweeter par excellence!) has got some ideas? Perhaps we should be told which of our politicians has aspirations for a 'worse Britain!' Something to share with the grandchildren, Margaret?

Shocker! don't you think? All those illegal sewage discharges? One wonders why the NFU and the farmers- guardians of the countryside?- haven't made more of a fuss. Another stone turned and we learn that that's because they're actually even worse! Feigned shock! In fact, so bad is farming's contribution (it has to be 'ironic,' right?) to the annihilation of England's green and pleasant land that the stones (desperate to be turned) are not even there to be found! On average factory chicken or cattle farms can now 'expect' to be inspected just once every 280 years! Imagine the run-off that might accumulate in such a timeframe. So, phosphates too, running through Little Britain's bloodlines. Prosecutions to date numbering at precisely zero! Such is the state of affairs, under those noble guardians, that, thanks to current non-regulation, in excess of 40'000 factory farms no longer even require a permit. Levelling which way? Building back how?

Or we could (very) simply just shut up and let Little Philip ask the awkward questions... Go on, then Phil... Go on... Any thoughts, Eamonn? Really, it's only through the diligence of concerned bathers and other citizens that this trifling amount is known, although still not actually widely shared. Additionally there are the 'acute' instances, the one-offs. Of course, funding at 66% down, should anyone even bother to note the countless fish, belly-up at the surface, a curious stench wafting across the landscape, by the time the Environment Agency's pencilled in a visit the source is likely in the clear. Not me, guv! Well, at least we've brought something down, even if it is only the rivers' oxygen levels! Little acorns and all that...

Maybe, just maybe- or definitely, - it's time we re-jigged this broken system, so that journalists are able to operate free from corporate editorial-mandate? Give some heft to the much banded about term, 'Free Press!' Ever considered that it doesn't really mean 'Free Press?' It actually means entirely the opposite, 'Owned Press!' Free to be owned! And boy, is it ever? Whilst bigging up those fictitious revolutionary threats it appears we've been conned into misdiagnosing far, far too much for any nation with aspirations of grandeur!

Just a final thought: If Home Secretary Patel is so intent upon 'redirecting' all those refugees (which the UK absolutely had no part whatsoever in creating, honest guv) what rights, if any, do they have, regarding drowning in unpolluted waters? A future judgement for the European Court of Human Rights, or will we again be hoping to make our own rules, Mr Gove?

Noise!

At the very moment of England's victory I had considered that maybe, just maybe, there are those sporting moments when the spoils really do deserve to be shared. But, of course, the game was over and, as the rules stood and were understood by both teams, the victors had been decided, every last ball played in the true spirit of the game. It's sport and sport needs rules, but it is still only sport, a game, it's hardly a matter of life and death! 

Then Simon James Arthur Taufel, formerly of the ICC Elite Umpiring Panel, elected to chip in. Was he perhaps dissatisfied with the decisions of the two on-field and two off-field umpires, the playing ethos of either team; did he believe that he could have presided better? Maybe he had fully digested the whole match and thought that the result should have been reversed? Or maybe his reasoning was otherwise motivated? 

Either way, what he did was unhelpful, it has brought out the worst in some of those who watched and hopefully otherwise enjoyed the marvel that is international cricket. If Simon cares to reflect he will no doubt recall that perhaps the most significant 'recent' change to the rules of cricket- because on the surface this presents as being about the rules- was actually caused by one of his fellow countrymen, then Australian captain Greg Chappell, when on the 1st Feb 1981 he instructed his own brother to bowl the final ball of the Third Final of the Benson and Hedges World Series Cup underarm, in order to prevent New Zealander Brian McKechnie from possibly striking a six to tie the game. This incident was the third in a series of highly questionable on-field incidents during that one game, that resulted in neither of the officiating Australian umpires ever appearing in this capacity again, and the aforementioned rules change being implemented.

Maybe it shouldn't have done so but Simon's Taufel's more recent decision to 'comment' upon the outcome of the Cricket World Cup Final, amongst other things, will have caused some to consider whether perhaps some of his own umpiring decisions, back in the day, were not 'now' motivated by considerations other than achieving a fair and just result. Simon may have kicked the hornets' nest, but he cannot now control where those disturbed and angry creatures may choose to venture. I have neither the patience nor the depth of malice to investigate further.  

More significantly, and more insidiously, what Simon has done is to create unhelpful noise across quite a wide spectrum. That which deflects from England's victory- here referred to as 'low pitched'- is just petty and ultimately it reflects poorly upon himself. Where his decision may be judged to be far more calculated- the 'higher pitched' noise- is that Simon's comment also deflects from a far more serious and justifiable uprising- higher pitched and upon a higher moral ground! 

Simon Taufel, as did many of his countrymen, benefited from the convenience of 'free to air' transmission of the whole tournament and, thus, will have gleaned a greater insight into the World Cup. Unlike the majority of the hosting Brits, Simon will have been able to watch every single ball of England's 'home' semi-final, the one in which they defeated Australia by eight wickets, with 17.5 overs to spare. Further, England achieved this feat having batted second, the position from which victory was throughout the tournament made approximately 30% less likely. No amount of close call decisions could have reversed this one! In Australia, he'd have been able to watch every ball of every game on 'free to air TV,' and why not, it's a World Cup for Heaven's sake!

In celebrating England's tight victory there should, quite rightly, be an element of noise, we have waited long enough! Much of this noise should reflect the wonderful culmination of an often truly spectacular tournament. It should also reflect the great spirit in which the whole event has been played, hopefully also inspiring a new generation of eager participants to the game, rewarding several generations of dedicated, often hardened, fans and players, current, past and future!

But, of course, it wasn't able to do any of those things, not to the full, not in any truly national celebratory manner. Because of Sky TV, and because of the English Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council, and because of the dealings of successive British Governments. Maybe in Australia, maybe in New Zealand, maybe in India and Pakistan, maybe in South Africa and the West Indies, maybe in Bangladesh, maybe in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, maybe in all of these places it was... but not in the UK where the event was being hosted! Because all that the hosting nation of the 2019 Cricket World Cup were afforded was one solitary complete advert-blitzed game! It was reluctantly conceded and in the face of much fierce and justified criticism!

So no, without a doubt we shouldn't be thanking Sky TV, who are looking belatedly to boost subscribers for the upcoming Ashes Series, no doubt, hoping maybe also to deflect from the greed which has already seen far too much of the UK's National Lottery bolstered sport being snaffled by subscription TV. We should instead be making noise- plenty of it and loudly, and publicly - such that this sort of commercial greed should not be permitted to smother this wonderful international event. Otherwise those disingenuous bods at the ICC, the ECB and those currently propping up the UK's government will tinker and otherwise alter the beloved game of cricket, such that it might soon be reduced to nothing more than a glorified game of rounders, beholden always to the mightiest of the gambling cartels, rarely so much as glimpsed upon by those who cannot or will not subscribe to the likes of Sky.

The car boot sell off of the UK may be traceable back to Thatcher- currently residing in a special place in Hell- but since her thankful demise the carpet baggers have become more deft, less brazen, more covert (still hateful!) in their dealings. We may cite Blair's 'closed doors' meeting with Murdoch in '97. Maybe then it was more the Private Financing to death of our precious NHS? Or Hunt's- alarmingly still the lesser of two absolute evils- secret dealings with (again) Murdoch's News Corporation take-over bid for BSkyB in 2012? Quite how did that man avoid a stretch inside- 'insider trading' by any other name- and now possibly 'our' next Prime Minister? Or will it instead be the Mini-Trump, currently residing in the home of one (again) Sky chief executive? But I digress...

In a Commons debate of 11th July 2018, the Government said that it did not plan to reopen the list of events (qualifying for recognition as an 'A listed' sporting event) and that the system was "delivering the best outcomes for the viewing public." Less than a week has passed since England's hard-fought victory in the Cricket World Cup and already, on 'free to air TV' it is as if the event never happened, even the meagre highlights have been wiped! Give it another couple of days and also the 'Test Match Special' evidence will have disappeared from the BBC."I don't believe you, Granddad! Which World Cup is that? It never happened!"

'The sky's the limit!' 'Aim for the sky!' It's a very poor limit, and really we should be aiming far higher than this.

Currently there is much noise, objecting to this state of affairs. Currently Simon's noise is deflecting from this.

Asleep at Post!

The more senior residents of the UK may recall that there were many butts for the nation's darker humour, way back in the nineteen-seventies. With an element of good fortune, and maybe the odd guardian (angel) in an important or influential position, many of those selfsame butts were able to battle onwards and survive well into the nineteen-eighties.

Here in the nineteenth year of the 'new' millennium there is less room for the (older) butt jokes. Moreover, those 'easy' targets have long been assimilated, or dissolved, or smashed, or otherwise discontinued. Mostly they have been assimilated, but rather like a kidnap-victim in a second-rate TV drama, the identity may have been altered, maybe almost beyond recognition, perhaps beyond salvation, or so we are frequently encouraged to (mis)believe.

A particular item for scorn in the 'newspaper' of my parents- The Daily Mail- was British Rail. My, how the Daily Mail hated British Rail. Daily, the Daily Mail lambasted British Rail! And, because the reporting of this national 'failure' was being reported in a 'newspaper,' the 'failure' of British Rail was assimilated into common parlance and oft repeated as a national fact.

My parents had 'standards,' so the hatred of The Sun (even pre-Murdoch), for example, for British Rail was unknown... but assumed, as it was with many of our other national newspapers.

Today there are many rail companies to ridicule. The scathing commentary has not stopped, despite the Daily Mail's goal of privatisation having been 'fully' met! But, the railways are now far, far worse than ever they were in the nineteen-seventies, late, overcrowded, and prohibitively expensive!

But, this post is not about trains and their peculiar ailments, it is about another butt, the Post Office.


In all truth, I'm not entirely sure that the Daily Mail's hatred for the Post Office was ever that obvious in the nineteen-seventies. I'm not even sure that the Post Office was yet in its cross-hairs. I am sure that the Daily Mail's currency was still largely in the 'coinage' of hatred. I think that it was a far more overtly racist paper back then, with its sights upon other, more 'urgent,' targets!

The type of racism spewed by the Daily Mail, these days, is that of an altogether more 'inclusive' breed. Invariably such dilutions as this may even weaken the bloodline, and yet the Daily Mail still fights its corner with such rabidity that it now, often I find, resembles nothing quite so much as some sort of aggressive societal cancer. Aspirations, aspirations...  

My first serious recollection of a growing disdain for the Post Office was in the nineteen-eighties, under the inglorious reign of Thatcher. Although the beast that was Thatcher always maintained that she would not ever sanction any physical attack upon the Post Office. She mustered her most superior and tutored enunciation to utter something about "the queen's head," being safe whilst she (Thatcher) was in charge.

But, despite its adoration of the woman, the Daily Mail still doggedly disliked the Post Office. And, being the Daily Mail, it undoubtedly stoked and encouraged this dislike to fester into a hatred! A more familiar currency!


Late deliveries, especially during the Christmas rush, were frequently being cited as reasons to 'modify,' break up, alter, but really to privatise! First class did not ever deliver first class, we were oft reminded. So the Daily Mail's 'desired' process was duly brought to the fore! As was and is the habit within ostensibly rightward-leaning nations yet another appeasement of the politically right was duly put into place.

Like a gigantic cake, the old Post Office was meticulously sliced into ever smaller segments. It's easy, sometimes, to forget that the 'old' Post Office used to cover virtually all postal services and all telecommunications services before 1969.

I think that the more financially-attractive telephone service was the first thing to go. Now we have many 'service providers,' few of whom appears to be able to hold up a (virtual) certificate of 'commendable,' or even 'reliable,' 'service' for more than a few months. Costs in general, particularly those of land-lines, have gone upwards, yet the Daily Mail's agenda has once again been fully realised! The now seriously modified British Telecom is no longer just a service, it is now a corporation, 'service' having been assigned a more 'suitable' place further down the queue.


As (Murdoch's) Sky has done with its 'own' TV 'services,' the Post Office has been looked at and reappraised, again and again... the cake has been rearranged and repositioned upon the plate, but the ultimate goal has consistently been to slice any offering yet thinner and thinner!

Now there are many, many courier services, none of whom are really any cheaper than the Post Office once was. Certainly, none of these are able to provide quite the cover that the Post Office previously managed!

Disingenuous rag that it is, the Daily Mail is most cunning at making its agenda read like it is actually 'our' agenda. The disdain that it felt for the Post Office was, in fact, never even disdain. What it was, instead, was an agenda that was disguised as disdain- a hidden agenda, if you like.

Now, I am actually something of a fan of the Post Office, although this 'appreciation' is, like other aspects of the Post Office, daily being reduced further and further. Really, it is more the concept of an earlier model, of which I am a fan. But even as a wavering fan, I would have to contest that, should you wish to acquire a stamp in the city of Norwich, the very last place from which you would wish to do so would be the Post Office. Quite likely, this is true of many Post Offices- those that have been tampered with- in many large towns or cities... those still fortunate enough to still have a Post Office!

Firstly there will be interminable queues- this much, in cities, has not changed, perhaps merely extended- then there will be an almost draconian refusal to allow you to pay in coinage, over a counter to a person with a face, unless one particularly savours the British queue. Unlike other automations that employed by the Post Office appears, first and foremost, to have been (re)designed to frustrate. How you will wish you had found a friendly face in a corner shop, or remembered to pick up that book of stamps whilst still at the supermarket. It is really one of life's many ironies that just as 'our' government are clamouring to shut as many Post Offices as they can get away with, so the nation is once again growing to value those formerly untampered-with lost services?

Still, even here, actively being (mis)organised deliberately to fail, we find that the Post Office remains, in one highly significant respect, far superior to the competition!

Imperfect as it undoubtedly is, the Post Office's parcel and letter service remains as good as or superior to much (all?) of the competition. How it must goad at the Daily Mail's ideology, for this still to be the case! But hatred, like that perpetuated by the likes of the Daily Mail, has these days to be spread ever thinner- there is just so much for 'them' to despise, and so few pages upon which to do so. The old war horse, Paul Dacre- his unshackled contempt for humanity was damaging even to the Tories- has been given to pasture. Dare we hope that his is not to be a pleasant retirement?


Austerity, when it arrived, was rather like manna from heaven to a party of multimillionaires and industrial-scale landlordly types. It offered itself like one immense screen, behind which everything public might finally be carted off to the great car-boot sale in the sky, that which had actually survived thus far... the likes of the Post Office!

Money that was desperately being diverted to prop up failing (but now private) rail companies, for example, was being hacked raggedly away from the public bone. Curiously, the sums now available to repeatedly (and shockingly) failing rail companies are far in excess of anything that was ever deemed imaginable in the days of British Rail. We know what the Daily Mail thinks, or presents as thinking, but does the Daily Mail?

In the scrabble to reduce and to minimise Post Offices presented themselves much like sacrificial lambs, their purposeful buildings were vacated and alternative-skeletal-services were transferred to salvaged old school desks, hastily set up in the darker corners of supermarkets and other shops- WH Smith in Norwich, for example- the Post Office took another round to the flanks!

Hundreds of wonderfully and purposefully constructed community-serving buildings were opened up to the free market! Or else were boarded up and left to gather dust and longing looks from an older generation of locals. If one finds oneself living away from the far larger conurbations, one's 'local' Post Office (local Crown Post Office- note the distinction!) may be as far as a dozen miles away, a twenty-plus miles round trip! The language has changed, and the word 'local' has mutated. Seriously ironic, we might consider, given the state of our rural public transport.

As the markets are being continually 'opened up' to governmental friends in the city, and other playboy types, 'investors' are ever hoping to cash in! Of course, and given the manner in which failing businesses are able repeatedly to shovel cash into the bank-balances of culpable CEOs and major share-holders, those types seriously do cash in! But the courier 'services' that are springing up are all based upon the 'cutting corners, getting rich quick' models of current UK business practise. Investment, in any real sense, is merely a catch phrase, to be wheeled out, time and time again, should a wider public notice how shoddily the 'service' is performing. The proof as ever is in the eating!

When my family used to live in Aylsham there was a wonderful and ever-busy Post Office, until austerity saw fit to squash this into the nearest supermarket and to relocate parcel storage facilities some twelve miles away. Competition courier service, Hermes- is that contagious?- used to quietly slip their, 'sorry you were out,' notes through letterboxes and then run away! So tight was the timetable of the poor courier that he (or she) didn't even have time to knock on a door and to wait for a less-than-instant reply. Once or twice, I caught up with the embarrassed chap and challenged his efforts but, really, it wasn't his efforts, was it?

Other courier services left things in the refuse bin at the rear of the property, justified via a hastily scrawled card dropped upon the doormat. Had they in fact checked that bins were not to be emptied later that day, or before the parcel was to be retrieved? Of course they hadn't, how could they? Presumably, the companies deal with the flak resulting from binned valuables in much the same manner as all modern day complaints procedures... that is without serious concern, and via an automated 'answer service!'

Now that my family lives in a city apartment, the question often asked of us is, "Is there anyone we can leave it with, if you are out?" The follow up is invariably, "Is there anywhere safe we can leave it?" We live in an apartment on the fourth floor of an apartment block to which 'non-residents' will only be permitted access at certain times in the mornings. "Is there anywhere safe that you, Mr Courier, could store it?" might be a not unreasonable response.

At our home in Norwich we are expected to suffer couriers like Yodel, who will not so much as deign to buzz an occupied apartment, instead preferring to jettison a card with the message, "Sorry I missed you when I came to deliver." "Except you didn't, did you?" I often hope to confront the runner with. Have the couriers now become quite this time poor? Surely this behaviour is the modern city equivalent to refusing to make a delivery because a front door has not been left ajar... just in case. What then is really their purpose?

When the Post Office delivery service was operating at an optimum- never quite optimum enough for the Daily Mail- letters and parcels were regularly delivered at a fairly punctual, probably earlyish morning, time, maybe there was even a second delivery? Should any person awaiting delivery of a sizable parcel be out there was a thorough network of purpose-built Post Office premises where an undeliverable item might be stored... locally!

Fast forward to the present, where we had a recent delivery by the courier service Yodel; it was left on the doorstep of the apartment block, effectively almost upon the street. Whilst entering the building, I  distractedly picked up two irresponsibly left parcels, I had assumed on behalf of one of my many neighbours, and was amazed to discover that they were both addressed me. Pure chance! The items could instead have been taken by anyone! Probability would suggest that it is most unlikely that I was the first resident to make such a finding.

It cannot be considered the fault of those who live in apartments if the courier service has cut its options to the bone, can it? Although my family unit is not in quite this boat, there are many who have been forced into this lifestyle (it is not always a choice), through also a long-long-list of nationally inadequate housing policies.

To whom could such a woeful courier service, as that provided by these companies, be of any real satisfactory and ongoing use? As a nation we should give the issue much serious thought!

Well, I would imagine that Mr Dacre could afford to employ staff for the sole purpose of receiving random post items, as could the Daily Mail's offices, as could many households as occupied by the current members of our majesty's government, as could the offices of all the larger corporations, and almost all of the smaller ones, although not necessarily all small businesses. The likes of Messrs Bransom and Sugar are all equipped with fully staffed and functioning receptions. For these types there is always someone at said reception to receive that parcel.

These groups and people often now operate within a hermetically-sealed bubble of comfort, a sort of financial privilege, whereby they are always afforded public platform in order to convey their distaste for that which is daily foisted upon the rest of the country. In example, I know that Mr Sugar strongly dislikes, answer-phones, as Mr Bransom dislikes arriving late, and yet should one try getting through to any of Mr Sugar's companies via a telephone there will be found an array of prerecorded messages, before one is to be unceremoniously dumped at the wrong end of a considerable waiting line of similarly frustrated callers. Indeed such, often, is many of the larger corporations distaste for accessible telephones- but only ever for the service of other people- that they may well have either removed, or effectively buried, the merest mention of a serviceable telephone number. Just try phoning Apple!

Half-hatched and likely legally questionable, I think that there is a suitable response to the afore-outlined type of corner-cutting by courier 'services.'

Had I, for example, always opted to deny all knowledge of receipt of any or all of my more ad hock deliveries then I should imagine that I could have benefited easily to the sum (or equivalent) of several hundred pounds- parcels that may have been collected by refuse trucks, parcels that may well have been randomly picked up off the doorstep- perhaps more besides! Imagine projecting this idea outwards, over the length and breadth of the country. It is, I am led to believe, the company from whom the item has been purchased that is financially liable... what happens if collectively we make undertaking a claim every bit as routine as the pertinent courier service makes abandoning our parcels? They absolutely cannot be certain that unsigned for items have ever arrived... so maybe we could try treating these half-cocked 'deliveries' as if they haven't?


The flaw in my plan perhaps currently lies in the necessary organisation of such a movement. There within the coordination sits the implicit proof of intent, never mind the incompetence of the companies and the courier services that they choose to employ.

Maybe the very best, yet impossible, answer to the issue of the lost Post Office services lies in a virtual national journey back to the (values of the) nineteen-seventies, those times of a more-embryonic hatred employed by the Daily Mail. Seventies housing and seventies British Rail, the bad old days? If only there were some way that we in the UK could turn back the clock...

As we currently stand, and specifically with regards to the delivery of parcels and packages, we appear to have deregulated ourselves into a system whereby courier 'services may regard certain household deliveries as effectively a zero-hour arrangement- "We will attempt to deliver the items for which you have already paid a delivery surcharge sometime on the following Tuesday, between the hours of 08:00 and 21:00. Please feel free to cancel all other commitments for the stipulated day!"

There was a time, somewhat brutal, when falling asleep at one's post was punishable through execution by firing squad, with innumerable repercussions beyond imaginable! So, who's been asleep at their post this time and, more worryingly, who's been sneaking around whilst this has been going on?

We might like to delude ourselves that 'our' ministers are all too often figuratively asleep at their posts, but the reality is far, far worse than this. They have collectively and all-too-consciously ushered in an era of plastic suffocation, hastened an ecological holocaust, and enabled a global hierarchy whereby much of global commerce is driven at the behest of merely a 'handful' of teflon-coated-multibillionaires.

We were right to have felt betrayed by our parent's generation, much as our grandchildren's generation might rightly point a deservingly accusing finger at our generation. Perhaps The Post Office has just been swept up with the current.

Congratulations and 'God's' speed to all of those striking school children who are already pointing an accusing finger. May they fair far better than did we!

The Slippery Exodus

I have been something of an insomniac for well over a decade now, but one of the things that seems to work reasonably well (at getting me off to sleep) is listening to the radio. I think that it is likely that a settled mind best lends itself to sleep. I am given to believe that for many insomniacs the issue is more specifically that they (insomniacs) struggle to get to sleep whilst in bed, that is whilst actively trying to get to sleep, whereas reading a book, watching TV, even attending a lecture often seems to ease the process, whether this is always convenient or otherwise. Isn't this the basic premise behind 'counting sheep,' introducing to the mind the process of 'simplifying and decluttering?'

Specific (radio) material works best for me. I find that topical comedy will too often have quite the opposite effect. Classical music and some forms of jazz work reasonably well, as does ponderous conversation, but the subject matter must be worthy of attention; that is to write, no contemporary pop, or any conversation/broadcast that might somehow involve Piers Morgan. Invariably the more interesting the subject matter the more likely it is to aid transition. Focus the mind, shut out the peripheral clutter, and we're half way there... sometimes.

Of course, this doesn't in any way guarantee that I won't be wide awake again by half-past-one.

Quite naturally a great deal that is selected is from the pallet of BBC Radio, invariably BBC Radio 4. Featuring prominently in recent months I have found 'Woman's Hour' to be both highly listenable and thus wonderfully conducive to sleep. The subject matter is colourfully varied, invariably contemporary; I don't recall it being quite this good when I used to listen to Radio 4 a great deal more  when I was a student.

West north-west

Anyway, several months back, Jenny Murray (Woman's Hour) was speaking with a guest, a mother who had recently served a prison sentence for the non payment of council tax arrears. The woman in question had been trying to 'catch up,' she was juggling with more than one job and trying to look after her school-age son. The third party in this conversation was a lawyer, and she (the lawyer) pointed out, for the interested listener, that the UK (and even so only in England and Wales) is the only country in Western Europe that currently still operates debtor's prisons, much like it did in Dickensian Britain.

It was also pointed out that whilst serving time any 'debtor' is liable to lose both home and job, and therefore much of the means to best catch up on arrears. The two jobs that the lady had were both zero-hour affairs, so were not really proper employment at all, but her home and the home of her child? That was very real!

I was expecting Jenny Murray to reasonably sympathetically cajole from the lady the more specific details and then, in some Woman's-Hourly manner, to lay down some sort of critical view of this practice. But instead, and quite shockingly so, she stuck steadfastly to the government line. She instead held the woman to task and repeatedly questioned her recounting of the events leading up to her eventual imprisonment. '"We' have been told that it was £10," Jenny contradicted her guest, "not £20."

The lawyer was able to clarify that the lady had been paying off £20 a week of her arrears, ahead of the court ruling of £10, because she had wished to more swiftly get the system off her back. "Many 'just-about-managing' families would have little sympathy with your predicament," Jenny led the neutral listeners to conclude. "You have then made yourself, and your child, intentionally homeless," Jenny contested, without breaking stride.

Quite how it was so 'easily possible' for Jenny Murray to 'imagine' attempting to survive and to escape debt in such circumstances is difficult to fathom. The guest remained all the while entirely subservient, meekly accepting of Jenny's contentions, judgements and consequent condemnation. At no point did Ms Murray elect to encourage or to entertain any more empathic thoughts. Much like we may have witnessed upon numerous other BBC programmes, she seemingly blindly toed the governmental line.

Those of an older generation  may well recall a time when the BBC was regularly accused of harbouring swarms of old communists and socialists, simply because a more balanced approach was sometimes sought. In reality the 'communist and socialist' accusation never reflected the reality, but as Lenin was once quoted as having said, "Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth." Even though our (BBC) airwaves and screens are now quite awash with old Conservatives, and rather too many old-New-Labourites, the likes Of Edwina Curry are still eager to 'regale' us with the tired-ol' Tory line, tell a lie often enough, eh Edwina...

West north-west

Anyone who may have spent more than about half-an-hour in my (author of this post) company will have quickly deduced that I am no fan of our government, but even so I was surprised to learn that quite so many of our citizens are currently incarcerated within debtors prisons. And I would contest, until my dying day, that such practice is highly indicative of a 'society' that has slipped up!

Do we always need to slip quite so very far before such a howling glitch is addressed? Or, is the question more, who's interest is best served when such slippage occurs? 

I think also on Woman's Hour, although the issue has been known about for a while now, the topic of up-skirting was recently discussed. Here at least there is not a governmental 'concern.'

The up-skirting article was seeking to highlight the growing problem for both female staff and pupils at some of the UK's secondary schools. For anyone who is unaware, up-skirting is the practice of surreptitiously lowering one's mobile phone until the camera is able to 'see' up the skirt of any female and then taking a photograph, which may shortly be shared with other 'friends' (usually boys), or/and posted on social media.

I doubt that there would be many people who would be bold or stupid enough to openly celebrate this act, so the questions are, 'who benefits through the practice of allowing pupils phones on to school premises?' and, 'in who's interest is it not to more stringently police social media?' Or, more generally, 'who most benefits through every child having in their possession, all the while, his or her own mobile phone?'

Have we allowed standards to slip, and in who's best interest is this?

The appreciation of any sport may be a very subjective matter, but then one can only appreciate from the array of sports that are on offer. I am going to suggest that it is quite probable that many amongst us may not have watched any reasonable form of proper cricket (test matches or one day internationals) for an age or, in the case of many younger citizens, 'ever!'  Of those who have rightly grown to appreciate the wonders of test cricket even many of these will not have properly watched the spectacle for a while. Instead, many will have quietly had to settle for the services of BBC Radio 5 LiveX, a non-visual format. Maybe, at the end of the day, or late into the night, they will have salvaged the 'highlights,' presented as if every ball is either smashed to the boundary, or else gloriously dispatches the batsman (or woman). Wielding his cleaver like a mighty war axe, the editor will have hacked the spectacle to within a hairsbreadth of its life!

North-east

Speaking briefly, for those I know who like(d) to watch and listen to cricket coverage, 'we' enjoy the subtleties and the ponderings of the game, we enjoy the speculative side of the game, the tactics, the immense skills of spin or swing (and reverse swing) bowling, the spectacle of blistering pace against the best of batting prowess, the setting of field placings and traps, all these things and many more. We do not so much like to speculate about which ball in the over will be a (potentially preordained) no-ball, about which ball will be dispatched for a six, about how many balls in the match will be lofted over the boundary ropes, and we do not like to spoil our enjoyment of the game, by speculating with sums of money which we cannot afford to lose, which players will best defy or confirm what the bookies will have predicted and to which they will have apportioned most-ungenerous odds. Thus, we are not so much fans of the fish-bash-bosh form of the game that is Twenty20.

For we fans who are also fans of BBC Radio 5 LiveX things are about to change. TalkSport, yet another branch of some Murdoch Empire conglomerate, has just snatched one last ember from the dying Ashes (pun half intended) of that which once was a proud tradition of wonderfully accessible cricket coverage upon various BBC channels. That is to report that they have snaffled 'Test Match Special.' I have found it to be the case that the Sky is seldom these days anything other than very murky!

So, the same megalith group who currently presides over, or colludes with, the frequently and easily corruptible betting groups, and with Twenty20 cricket, now holds all of the aces. One might sensibly conclude that any deck that never deals the aces to anyone else might be a deck best avoided but gambling, we know, is not based upon any degree of sensibility.

"We want the whole nation to get behind England's cricket team!" I seem to recall Alistair Cook, then captain, once requesting of the fans. Quite how this might be best achieved he did not go on to elaborate. Michael Vaughn might have an opinion, more likely he'll have an official and an unofficial one. That we cannot, without conforming to at least some of Murdoch's demands, watch or now instead listen to our own national side playing matches at home upon it's own national ground suggests that something is not right!

So, have we again allowed standards to slip, and in who's best interest is it this time?

East south-east

As with all political subterfuge we invariably find that nothing ever evolves in complete isolation, although it may well be pretended and presented as such. Turn over enough rocks and there we are likely to discover the constantly creeping fibres of spreading political mycelium... follow the money, perhaps!

If we were to speculate upon the 'evolution' of the UK's police forces we might be here a while and thus discover more than a few fingers in that particular pie. And, given that numbers are undoubtedly down, we would all likely agree that dealing with the UK's abuse of vehicular exhausts is not likely to be topmost upon a daily-growing list of should-be-police-priorities. Yet a more open-ended debate could scarcely fail to recognise that this is an issue that has escalated, and done so because it has been permitted through neglect to fester. Leave a toe to fester long enough and we might well lose the toe, lose the whole leg, the entire living entity! It really doesn't take a genius to draw the conclusion that if 'children' are encouraged to make enough noise, then they will soon be looking to find out what else may be up for grabs.

Blighted neighbourhoods, escalating instances of aggressive and dangerous driving, fatalities, road rage, yet another manifestation to heap onto the mountainous tip that is so amorphously labelled as, 'pollution?' It's not just shiny pipes and a questionably-warm throaty growl, is it, despite what the advertisers might have us 'believe!'

Have we yet again allowed standards to slip, and in who's best interest is it this time?

Speed bumps we find are swiftly replacing the sleeping police forces; sleeping policemen in exchange for sleeping policemen? But the bumps do tend to knock the street-life off the best of vehicles- we can literally hear the years falling away- so not everybody is losing out. And so much of that political lobbying is being done behind closed doors, we find that it eases the transit of all that cash!

In who's best interest is the slip-up this time?

East south-east

Watching and being rightly horrified at current news stories, regarding the huge volumes of plastic litter in our oceans, 'we' might almost be forgiven for 'seeing' this as somehow a recent development, except to write that in no way is this really excusable. Such is the current concentrated news coverage that it might yet help to obscure the fast sinking Grenfell tragedy or to somehow dilute the Windrush debacle. Today is a good day to bury a bad news story, as might these days be said of so many (news) days and stories.

Others, with a less easily distracted eye, might well contest that litter, especially that of a less biodegradable nature has been a ballooning issue for, at the very least, the last few decades. The over-packaging of 'goods' has been argued against for a lifetime, and some! What will the supermarkets, amongst others, be doing to redress this concern, we have been encouraged to think, then to re-think, then to unthink, then ultimately to forget about! Which to bury behind which... litter, sugar... sugar, litter?

Is it really in anyone's interest to allow this one, or two, to slip? You can bet your life that it is!

It might almost be better if the issue concerned solely plastic litter, almost. Have you walked along many supermarket-adjacent lanes recently? Recycling, we've got it covered! Of course we have! Or somebody has... just as long as their questionable 'coverage' doesn't result in the rest of us also being covered! Voluntary codes in the wrong hands can be such slippery things.

It could be contested that the above listed matters are all separate and individually-separable issues, that we are merely in the throes of an unfortunate and unique concentration of many different, variable concerns. If this were indeed the case it would be fair also to contest that any beneficiaries, should such happen to arise, might not always transpire to be from one and the same small group, although, curiously enough, invariably these days they are. And if we in the UK are to consider ourselves operating in the guise of a democracy- naive admittedly- then we would have to consider that much of this 'unique concentration' is slipping by design, through exactly the same fingers... or at least greasing the same fingers... again and again and again...

If we in the UK were a functioning democracy then surely the beneficiaries would be almost instantly traceable, invariably by virtue of these same beneficiaries invariably being us. If only!

Spread the benefits adequately and, highly satisfactorily, there should actually be far less need for benefits. We might also be able to dispense with food banks, operate ideally no zero-hour 'contracts,' need no longer concern ourselves constantly with the paucity and poverty of the nation's housing, need not redraft 'our' 'education' 'policies' every season... no longer need to adopt such a moving target mentality! 

Of course, 'those' like Edwina Curry will always be on hand to happily thrust a frightful face at any camera and to boldly state that, "Food banks are far more a cause of the problem than they are a solution." Curiously far fewer breadline families are lining up to agree.

Were the UK a functioning democracy we wouldn't need to ensure that our much-heralded 'free' press was always to be concentrated in the hands of so few invested multi-millionaires, most being happy to report such bilge as that spewed by Edwina as a given fact. Were democracy more at hand we might well by now have solved our currently insurmountable plastic ocean-islands issue... if not solved then we may well have headed it off at the pass!

You see, it's not really so very slippery... that is, it doesn't need to be.

South-east

A sudden and most welcome upturn in the weather recently saw us (family) enjoying our local park. We had bravely, or perhaps foolishly, elected to remove the stabilisers from our granddaughter's bike. This once peaceful recreation now involves a great deal of crouching at speed, with the accompanying greater volumes of anxiety. One can't wrap them up in cotton wool, if only we could... Still, let's at least try to minimise the dangers!

'We'd' just dismounted- standing at the edge of the playground area- when I happened to detect a discernible rise in the intensity of the buzzing of the wakening insects- another subject we could add to 'the list.' "Should this be a swarm it might be best to alert other park-goers at the soonest, rather than to wait and to observe potential developments," I had mused.

Of course, it wasn't a swarm, neither bees nor wasps, instead it was a drone! This somewhat hefty device was seemingly fixed at a constant height, perhaps 80 feet above the busy park. Decidedly miffed, I scanned about for the childish dolt at the 'helm'... nothing!

"Mmmm,' I considered, "I wonder if our 'friend' has considered the damage that 5kg of fast falling plastic and metal might cause to any child's skull, should the device suddenly lose power?" The government site is jolly helpful in this regard; it completely set my mind at ease (not) when I referenced it later that day. Take a peek, why don't you?

I have, more than once or twice in recent years, been given cause to consider the potential consequences of any sudden spurt in the ownership of variously-sized-and-or-capable drones in and about our cities and our countryside, so to have found this site came as little real surprise. It is both helpful and it is not, entirely dependent upon how slippery you wish such things to be.
I thought that I would just cut and paste some 'highlights' for your perusal:

Drones are readily available on the high street and Internet, and are being sold in their thousands... they are great fun to fly or operate, and have great utility.

Essentially your responsibilities are:

• to know how to fly your drone safely, and do so within the law
• to understand that the operator is legally responsible for every flight
• to keep your drone in sight at all times – stay below 400ft
• not to fly your drone over a congested area, never fly within 50 metres of a person, vehicle or building not under your control
• ensure any images you obtain using the drone do not break privacy laws
• avoiding collisions – you should never fly a drone near an airport or close to aircraft. It is a criminal offence to endanger the safety of an aircraft in flight

There are several other things to think about – what is your drone going to do if it runs out of power or fails? Is it going to land/fall somewhere safe? Are you far enough away from people, buildings and more importantly airfields if you lose control of your drone?

Now, stick with me here, if you will. I'm going to suggest that anyone who might consider that they have all of these bases covered either lives and intends to operate their 'toy' in a desert or, far more likely, that they intend to pick and to choose which guidelines to consider- and they are still presented much as guidelines- and which to ignore, entirely reliant upon their own peculiar wants, much as they did as an egocentric child. "Oops, did we forget to ask the customer if he was a diagnosed sociopath?" It's the UK's equivalent of the US gun laws. I'm obviously hoping that we'll keep casualties down to around zero on this side of the Atlantic. 

We can expect to see the first government redraft fairly hot upon the heels of our first child fatality. I wonder what the drone-owner's equivalent of, "He's never shown any signs of wanting to attack and kill a child before," might be. Hell, let's not beat about the bush, many drone-inclined males- this group is going to comprise almost entirely of males- are highly likely to be already proudly numbered amongst the nation's dangerous dog owners.

'Hidden in plain sight' has perhaps become a somewhat cliched term... perhaps? To clarify might I just point out that it means, 'to obscure without hiding, by virtue of an item/event/whatever nestling amongst other, perhaps more obvious, choices?' The concept itself is almost self evident, although the frequency of its regularly-amended usage appears these days to operate often more counterintuitively. So, when we hear the term 'hidden in plain sight' it may now be clearly appended to that to which it refers... thus not actually hidden at all. So, now that we are made 'aware' the enveloping chess is required to have effectively upped it's game! 'It' may well be hidden (or rather displayed) in plain sight, but the 'it,' waved before our eyes, may no longer be quite the 'it' that most urgently needs to be addressed. The term has become rather a slippery one.

When Thatcher sold off all of those council homes, supposedly to their respective tenants, the idea was, we may now easily surmise, to transfer ownership into the grasping hands of the landlordly classes. She may not have been the biggest fan of democracy, but 'democracy' was to serve as her cloak of convenience. The electoral minions had already fallen for the privatisation of the nation's social foundations, gleefully opting in to the markets and effectively out of any sort of social cohesion or responsibility. With the proffered crumbs to hand the minions behaved as if unaware of the slicing up of the real loaf! They barely noticed that the markets remained all the while immune. They barely noticed those homes slipping through their fingers! Yet, the design was all the while kept in plain sight... almost.

So, when the market-unsavvy tenants gained 'control' of their knock-down homes, it was reasoned to be only a matter of time before many of those same homes also became marketable commodities. Result, a highly marketable housing crisis that is currently being sustained by the bigger crumbs, in order that they may rest slightly closer to the top of the accumulated debris, and ever-so-slightly closer to the cleaner air... 'investment' homes ltd.,' care of your updated BBC.

Heavens, why make decent housing accessible? Why make education any less market-fodderable, why consider 'public' transport for ordinary people to be an essential service, or the general public's health to be a social responsibility? Instead, why not consider giving every youth £10,000 to reinvest in the markets? Re-balance society!

It really doesn't need to be quite so very slippery! If only the wrong people, with entirely the wrong vested interests, weren't constantly greasing the wrong poles! And, lest we should for a moment doubt ourselves, seventeen 'identified' as 'unnecessary' procedures that NHS England is proposing to cut should more correctly be understood to mean seventeen procedures that have been lined up for privatisation. The slippery exodus is well underway!

* I think that it is called a Hextaptych?

Ol Doinyo Lengai

Ol Doinyo Lengai is unique in being the world's only active carbonatite volcano. It's tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner of Tanzania. It's not particularly big and, although it seems to be at least mildly active most of the time, it doesn't even glow in the daytime, just emits a dull isolated redness at night, something like an angry boil. It sits quietly and patiently upon the shores of Lake Natron, which is an altogether different image.

There is, or there was, an element of inconvenience in getting to the place, but this should be considered almost insignificant when set against the magnitude and majesty that awaits one upon arrival. In the context of the wider landscape Ol Doinyo Lengai is but a furuncle upon an almost unblemished skin, and an exquisitely beautiful one at that.

Of course, it is really so much more than this, much as the spectacular geysers at Yellowstone might one day blow the lid off the globe! 



Flooding at Lake Natron is unlikely to present a serious issue for generations to come. Drought might yet have its day, but 'flooding?' A sustained period of seriously heavy rains might even unzip the austere beauty of the place and transform it fully and truly into nothing short of a Paradise upon this Earth! Whereupon humanity would swiftly set about corporatising its assets and exploiting its material wealth. Then, not only would we have a Paradise, but we would also possess within it a yet more 'magnificent' and marketable paradise, bite-sized pieces even.

I'm certain that neither those residing upon the Somerset Levels, nor significant chunks of Yorkshire or Lancashire, would begrudge Lake Natron a significant share of their  overgenerous precipitation. Water, 'the bringer of life,' and yet it is also capable of so much more. The beauty that one natural phenomenon may provide, whilst also sweeping away so many of our precious acquisitions, is both curious and terrifying to behold. If only corporations could control nature I 'honestly' believe we'd have it cracked.



It's what we humans do so very well, working together for the betterment of all, that everything thereof and every part therein shall thrive. We could argue all day, as to which method might best achieve this, we One Nation Conservatives, but in this post that would be to digress. Working small scale, we would first need to help those most affected by unkind circumstance, and amongst these the victims of flooding.

"Thank the Lord Above for insurance," I say. It is thus, with responsible investment in the insurance corporations, that we can rebuild each and every tiny little boxed paradise within the overriding and greater 'paradise.' In rebuilding this 'aspiration,' the government shall unbutton its bulging pockets, and funds shall rain down as might alone dam up the cracks. In rebuilding tomorrow's 'paradise,' society's 'figureheads' and society's high-fliers might bleed benevolence, that we shall once again be healed.

But, just a minor point, even 'paradise' might require an element of policing; forget not that Eve was cast out, caught red-handed, with her hand in the cookie jar. This, a reference to those who might choose to exploit our benevolence. Insurance corporations at the ready, scammers and cheats cast out, the sky is already lighter, the air is sweeter.



Just t'other day I myself had cause to partake of our benevolent society. Nothing as serious as needing to refurnish a home recently scoured of content. Instead, unfortunate circumstance had brought about a trauma to our new-to-us car. The dent was small, the motorcyclist shaken but not broken- 'twas ensured that he arrived safely home- and the insurance claim was swiftly dealt with. Liability had anyway already been accepted.

The car was booked in within days. Had it been the 'old' car, the one that our two-year-old granddaughter had taken to calling the, "Crazy car!" I wouldn't have bothered at all. During journeys to and from Norwich she would sometimes list the faults, waving her arms and gesticulating like the great orator that she is.



"When can I pick it up?" I enquired. I was informed that the car would require, "a lot of work," and that the corporation would be hanging on to the vehicle for five working days. "Have you availed yourself of a courtesy car?" the lady behind the desk smiled, "the insurers will sometimes pay the cost of car hire," she elaborated.

The insurance spokesperson will flash those teeth at the camera and 'inform' the nation of the deep, deep sympathy that burns at the heart of each and every insurer, and that they will be losing serious sleep in order to ensure that flood-victims may soon be permitted to commence the rebuilding of their own private boxed paradises. There is, of course, no need for an equivalent bod to flash the furniture, in defence of the car-repair corporations that continue bleed the system. Those who may well be experiencing their second or even their third prolonged bout of happy bed and breakfasting would be best placed to appreciate this curious juxtapositioning.



They may well come to the conclusion that this is because the insurers of paradise are far too concerned with treading down those in pursuit of any-kind-of-paradise, at the behest of those in control of every-sort-of-Hell! A model for we 'One Nation' thinkers.

"So, this 'paradise," we should have enquired, "is it an 'inclusive' or an 'exclusive' model? Can I just run an eye over the blueprints?" Check the small print! "Is there a policy on 'homelessness?"

That is not my signature!

In or Out? Up or Down?

Reality Check

When I was just a school boy, around the age of nine or ten, with a friend or two, I'd often venture over to the local corner shop. We were just children, all we really wanted to do was to waste our pocket money upon alarming quantities of sweets. I can still recall how importantly we viewed our respective purchases. Should anybody's tuck fall even a half penny short of the entire sum, then instant 'advice' would be ready on hand; where to 'invest' that last  ha'penny?

We came away with our respective feasts, paper-bagged up, and set about scoffing the lot, before we should return home. Upon reflection, I wonder now whether perhaps the low cost was brought about through subsidy by the local dentist, a man who's sole relationship with me was driven by a rabid desire to substitute the entirety of my mouth with metal.

At that time rationing would still have been a recent memory for our parents, and so sugar was very much in the ascendancy, yet to be recognised for the slow poison it actually was. A minor deity!

Beautiful, Paul Townsend

The shop was there from my earliest memories of the street, and it was there when I eventually upped sticks and set sail for pastures anew. In my childlike memories I want to believe that the same chap, mysteriously unchanged throughout, ran the place for the entirety of my childhood and beyond. He provided tooth-rot for the kids, newspapers and cancer sticks for their parents and all manner of minor convenience items for the locals. What more could one require from a corner shop? Perfect!

He wasn't forever wandering the streets, searching out a second or a larger premises, in order to expand. At the end of the week he duly considered his lot and settled for more of the same, much to the satisfaction of many a school child. I don't suppose the concept of 'sustainable growth' ever troubled his contented little mind. And why should it have?

He lived in a finite neighbourhood, within a finite space, in a finite country, upon a finite planet, within a finite solar system... You get the idea, I'm sure.

Each and every return to the town of my youth, has slightly sullied the memory. The shop is there, still I think, but the town has grown, the volume of traffic has exploded, there's more litter, the neighbourhood looks curiously run down, everything's noisier! There's a monstrous Tesco 'super' store, 'nuff said.

Still beautiful, Paul Townsend

On Thursday I 'learned' that the Eurozone's economy had, "stalled in the second quarter," 0% growth, raising, "the ugly prospect that the region's meagre recovery (had) lost momentum." For some curious reason it reminded me of my old corner haunt. Surely, I was given to consider, this childhood place had existed in a contented, "stalled" state for decades. What could it be that the proprietor of that tiny shop doesn't understand, that Europe's great leaders might? Or are things really that black and white?

Perhaps we should contemplate things from the smaller perspective.

That is unless those big and 'important' leaders, with all of their resources and advisers, know something that we don't, about sustainability. For example, perhaps the reasoning behind the cessation of manned trips to the Moon is based upon the fact that just behind our heavenly companion there is secreted another Earth, ripe and ready for the pillaging. They're hoping to keep it a secret, in order to throw a huge, "Of course we haven't buggered everything up!" party. "Look, just around that corner are the answers to all of our woes. The cupboard really isn't nearly empty after all."

Or perhaps they're just deluded, or lying to us, or incompetent, or far too much concerned with self-serving. Who can possibly say?

Also on the news, I watched the handsomely remunerated Professor Lesley Dobree, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University, talking 'frankly' about this year's clamour for University places. Lesley and co. had invested heavily in 'sustainable' expansion and were looking to shovel in the maximum number of new students. Sweeteners (bribes) on offer at this particular University were thousand pound book vouchers. Other universities were offering the likes of gym memberships.

Ever beautiful, Paul Townsend

Is Lesley also privy to unspoken inside information, regarding the whereabouts of a massive cache of global resources? Or is it very much a case of, "Wakey, wakey, Lesley!" This isn't about education, this is just another huge financial transaction. All of those potential students are merely resources, much like coal, oil and gas.

And there was the far from N.I.C.E. news that another drug has been deemed too expensive for the NHS. Abiraterone (Zytiga), it has been deemed, is not to be used prior to chemotherapy. It is, "not cost effective at its current price," the nation has been informed. Which sort of begs the question, what is the point of developing life-sustaining or lengthening drugs, if they are not to be made available to those who require them?

Spot on, Susana Fernandez

That, of course, would be a valid question until one factors in that highly topical term, 'sustainable growth,' then suddenly the scales fall away and everything makes 'perfect sense.' The Institute of Cancer Research has clearly also been making its bid for greater 'sustainable growth,' looking to 'grow' those share values for its top investors, never mind the lost causes- or indeed patients- that might occur en route.

So, 'sustainable growth,' upon a planet with absolutely nothing that is truly sustainable, least of all its resources. But, hang on one cotton picking moment! Unless that blossoming human population could be regarded as nothing more than another exploitable resource. Cooking on gas!

Perhaps, purely as a very last resort you must understand, we could consider human fuel in order to keep those generators a burning.