The Aardvark Blog

Edinburgh calling

2005-09-13T21:37:00.000+01:00

That's not really a very good title, but it implies, hopefully, that I'm going to London for a conference this weekend. I don't know quite how much I'll actually get to see (transport difficulties) but it should be a minor amount of fun, especially as I'm determined to wear my new tshirt on the last day, NOBODY KNOWS I'M A LESBIAN.
Moreover I am very happy because I've finally finished a short story which has been niggling away at me for three years and am getting on well with my book, so have wasted a cheery hour googling my own name. I am not mentioned anywhere on the interweb, which is simultaneously relieving and disappointing, and all my namesakes seem to be Australians and/or golfers.
Soon you'll know if I've died or not. Meanwhile, let me leave youse with this final thought:
Walk, don't run.

Look,

2005-09-03T19:41:00.000+01:00

it's not my fault I've not posted for many days. A lot has been going on in that my computer has decided that it won't accept the cookies of fire or what the fuck ever, and I've been busy, and having fits. So this may/will mark my return to blogging as such.

heh

2005-08-03T22:46:00.000+01:00

My last post was an unaccountably long time ago; something happened where my browser was not enabled to receive cookies whatever they are. As I have never refused a biscuit myself I was completely baffled by this and couldn't cope with it at all, I'm back and this time I'm mildly annoyed. At everything really. My work placement is a bit toss, but paradoxically and/or conveniently my mother, acting as unofficial advocate since I am having lots of absences and can't really take in anything above the level of an intelligence-insulting lecture on Good Communication in the Workplace, had a meeting with my supervisor last Friday and I had a fit right in the middle of it, and I might-to-will get my hours reduced. This would-to-will be nice.
And I got a new flatmate, whose ten boxes of books I had to help bring up from his friends' van and who swears at the cat in Italian. He keeps things clean and plays the guitar and sings in the evening, so I like him just as much as the invisible flatmate we had before; and he's a Socialist, which helps economise on arguments.
All this doesn't help me sound annoyed, and a lot of the time I'm not. The sun shines a good bit, and my cat is behaving as well as she can, and I might get to write something for Chartist. But all Socialists should maintain a kind of low-level pissedoffness, just in case.

testing testing 123 (again)

2005-07-25T22:12:00.000+01:00

Shit. I deleted another blog and I think it might have affected this one.

New from Rooters' Press Agency

2005-07-25T21:40:00.000+01:00

Spotted on algae.com:
LONDON, SUNDAY:- Refugees from Earth were today offered a lifeline by the Clangers, who have issued a statement that "People wishing to find an escape from the bigotry, violence, pollution, random killings, pointless hatred and general stupid-wankerism of this unhappy planet can come and live with us, if they don't mind eating soup every day. We will even allow them to reproduce, like the orange froglets."
This information was welcomed by representatives of people with more intelligence than the average crocus. Colin from my jobseekers course said "Fantastic, when can we go?"
Earth people will be picked up later this months in the musical space boat by Tiny Clanger, who added "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

Helen and Alice's Grand Day Out

2005-07-02T17:53:00.000+01:00

Helen, Alice, Tam, Heather, Pablo, Ramon, Dick, Janet, Graham, Sarah, Will, Mel, Jody, Ben and quite a few other people's grand day out. Organised by Tam, hosted by me, with a guest appearance by the cat.
It's rather lucky really that the largest-ever demonstration in Scotland (allegedly) is happening about twenty yards from my front door; on the other hand it means that everyone in branch and all their pals are in and out all the time, having glasses of water, using the bathroom, picking up more copies of Socialist Appeal and other literature and stuff which is selling like hot cliches, sorry, cakes, and storing tables and chairs and all sorts. Still, it's good that we have a base close to the Meadows, and Marjorie is very excited to have all these people in and out of her house. We also have some folk from London staying who absolutely adore her, as does everyone before they get to know her. (So small. So fluffy. So cute. Such a funny little purr. And the scars on my legs which she inflicted two months ago are nearly healed up.)
But I spent four hours yesterday - helped by Heather and my wee sister who has been absolutely wonderful throughout the entire thing - making cheese rolls to sell. This was going to be either a triumph or the greatest cock-up committed by a Socialist organisation since someone said "This Blair bloke looks nice, let's give him a go," and at the moment - because I don't want to be complacent - it looks quite like the former. Two hundred rolls - yes, that wasn't a typing error, two hundred - at 50p each, they're nearly all gone, and we've sold loads of papers, six books which is good because a book at six or eight or ten quid is not often an impulse purchase, and lots of packets of crisps. To be honest the roll triumph is probably just because there weren't gigantic queues at the stall; there were queues at the food vans, the toilets, and very possibly the first-aid tent, because the main activity pursued during any large gathering, from Greenham Common to Glastonbury to bloody Crufts, is queueing, and thinking "I'm hungry" and immediately purchasing a slightly squashed bread roll for 50p is preferable to standing in line for half an hour to spend [GBP]4.50 on some chips.
I tried to join the bit of march that set off at 1pm, but it was just like standing in a queue going nowhere at all, so I gave up. This was a shame, as I was dressed in white head-to-toe in order to look like a slightly bitter angel (however my skirt only just fit, and when I put my phone and stuff into the pockets came a bit undone, giving me an air which was less celestial than who-ate-all-the-pies), but shit happens. They managed fine without me anyway. The whole thing seems to be a wee bit more militant than it was originally designed to be, which is good. Through the window I can hear the anti-war people yelling from their stage, and 120,000 or 200,000 (I'd say the latter, because official statistics are, well, official) people hanging around - well, it gives me a bit of hope.
Not a lot, and maybe too much, but a bit.

Sorry I haven't posted for a while

2005-06-27T23:21:00.000+01:00

to those of you who watch this thing for updates regularly (ie no one). I've been watching Newsnight Scotland about how difficult it is to get published these days. I'm useless and terrible; I'll never get published because I can't write, even my incest story is too staid and stodgy. I'll have to be a librarian all my life, not that there's anything wrong with librarians but, like my middle name, it's just not me. I'm a failure, my work is a failure, my life is a failure, I'll go to my grave dull, frustrated, unaknowledged and unpublished, and nobody will give a shit about me or anything I've done.
Hope you're all well,
love,
Helen.

Getting your balls waxed

2005-06-19T11:25:00.000+01:00

I've been at my training course for a week now, learning how to improve my self-esteem (what would really improve my self-esteem, actually, is getting to do my sodding job) under a couple of un-nervingly enthusiastic Personal Development Trainers. The good news, of course, is that my fellow self-esteem-improvers are not such a crowd of tosswits as the last lot; good age range, lots of different, interesting people, and - ta-da! - some Socialists!! I have flogged three copies of Socialist Appeal (one pound, two pounds solidarity price, available every Saturday morning outside Tesco on the Causeway) and am signed up to do a self-esteem-improving talk in front of the class (public speaking skills; we're all doing it) about 'The Importance of Ideology'. I have already devised a cunning demonstration of the importance of co-operation as opposed to competition, using a volunteer from the audience and three little bags of beans.
One of the magazines I sold, however, was to the blonde woman in charge of the course, who said in my interview that she wanted to learn more about all the stuff I talked about (Socialism, feminism, etc.); I directed her to my tv review of 'The Apprentice' on page 28, she read it with me standing over her, and at the end said that she didn't agree with it. I would have been quite ready to debate the issue if it had not been time for the class to start, but I learned very quickly why she did not agree. The unhappy truth was that she is peddling the kind of going-for-it-giving-it-100% dribble which I was slagging; I've probably put her off Socialism for life.
But I got the quid, so it turned out OK in the end.

Yoghurt

2005-06-11T20:31:00.000+01:00

OK, here's the deal: for five days I have been taking antibiotics for a lymph node infection. After two tablets I felt like shit (stomach pains, headache, nausea, etc etc) so my mother recommended that I eat live yoghurt. I said I couldn't because I didn't know where to buy it. When I went to stay with my parents she bought some for me: it was exactly the same brand of Tesco Bio-Yoghurt, in exactly the same size pack, that I had at home. So all along I've been eating live yoghurt, simply because it was lower in fat than its dead cousin! It says on the back 'made with bio culture for a mild taste', in fact it's made with a bio culture so that it can breed in my stomach! I can't believe I've been such a fool! The bacteria are growing. They're going to take over my body! I can see it all now. If only I can get to the sink in time, I might be able to
THIS IS BACTERIUM T-935735832333 SPEAKING. THE YOGHURT BACTERIA HAVE TAKEN OVER THIS BODY. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO RESIST. WE ARE AWAY TO DESTROY THIS PLANET BY SUBVERTING THE CAMPAIGN FOR LABOUR PARTY DEMOCRACY, TURNING IT FOR OUR OWN EVIL ENDS INTO A CONTACT SPORTS CLUB SO THAT ITS MEMBERS WILL BE DISTRACTED FROM -
SHIT, I'VE BLOWN IT. HAVE TO THINK OF SOMETHING ELSE NOW.
THIS BODY IS OF NO MORE USE TO US. WE WILL HAVE TO FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE TO PLAN FROM. BUT WE WILL FIND SOMEWHERE. MAYBE THE CAT. AND
WE WILL TRIUMPH!

Addiction (warning: self-centred bollocks)

2005-06-05T21:39:00.000+01:00

I've been on my own in the house for a few days, and damn it's nice. I got the 'job' and am starting, I think, next Monday, ie the 13th (although the people in charge are going to tell me more about this on Tuesday). I've written my 4,000 words this week (new weekly rather than daily targets, notice), and am going to join a gym before I start work in order to take advantage of any unemployed discount, and am doing one more rather sensitive thing.
If anyone who knows me in the real world is reading this, you'll know: I have trichotillomania, I think, I can't spell it and don't want to be associated with the word 'mania' but it's a thing for pulling out your own hair, leaving little bald spots. This started when - actually I don't know when it started, it seems to have always been there. If you don't have it you probably won't be able to understand; it sounds really disgusting (it is really disgusting) to pull out the hair on your head strand by strand, or to spend half an hour chasing an imaginary hair on your chin, or to pick off every single eyelash, but I managed it until I discovered Doing your Legs. Perfect. Women aren't supposed to have hair on their legs; I like removing hair (albeit in a slightly unorthodox manner); I can take a pair of tweezers to my legs whenever I like and not be penalized for doing what I want to do. I had not counted, however, on the fact that there are a sod of a lot of hairs on your legs, and so I had to do it for hours. And hours. And hours. I have spent whole mornings when I should have been working sat on the bed with one trouser-leg rolled up and a pair of tweezers in one hand, occasionally looking at the clock and thinking quarter of an hour more and then I'll get on with my work, then quarter of an hour later that clock must be fast, I'll just take five minutes more and then I really will get on with it, then another ten minutes, then - I wanted to stop but I couldn't. That's the definition of addiction, allegedly. I looked in a library book and found out that it's a minor form of self-harm, and that did it. No way am I going to be associated with that either. So I stopped straight off - no tapering off, that doesn't work (again allegedly) - on Thursday, and if I go three months without it I shall get another tattoo. An Amazon axe, to cut through all the bollocks I am (we are) subjected to on a daily basis, rather than to symbolise courage or any bullshit like that. It seems to be the fashion these days to use 'brave' as a synonym for 'unlucky' on one hand or 'stupid' on the other; pulling hairs out of your body is stupid, trying (and I am trying really, really hard for the last and first time) to stop it is just sensible.

Realtime Newsnight shit

2005-05-31T23:03:00.000+01:00

Just a tiny update to say that I'm watching the eurothing debate on Newsnight and I FUCKING FUCKING HATE HATE HATE JOHN FUCKING REDWOOD.
3 million unemployment
Poll tax
VAT on fuel
Selling everything that wasn't nailed down, and quite a lot that was
Remember that when you hear him talking about fucking prosperity.
And the 'Brussels political class': since he stuffed every quango going with Tory donors when he was Welsh Secretary he'd be an arrant hypocrite if he weren't just referring to 'people who live in Europe and understand a bit more about politics than the average knuckle-dragging Tory voter.' And of course he isn't an arrant hypocrite, is he? (is he?)

Libraries: body mass indexes: referendums

2005-05-31T22:06:00.000+01:00

Got it. Goddamn. (That's a good 'goddamn,' like the americans say it, with a sort of funny hand-signal and a baseball hat... anyway, what I mean is that I'm pleased.) I went to the interview and gave the folk a lot of stuff about how much I adore the public, which I don't really - well, a bit, but I'm not entirely - I'm not one of those public-lovers - I don't mean I wouldn't do it in public, I just mean - oh, forget it. I'm glad to get the job, even though it's an hour's walk from my house. Especially since it's a hour's walk from my house. Need to lose a bit of weight. I've got a body mass index of 22. I think.
Oh, the French Referendum. Bad business, that. I think. Neil Kinnock says it is, and he's probably right. Even though he would have expelled me. I wouldn't have needed to join Militant back then. Unilateral disarmament... god. Them were the days. Nationalisation. Michael Foot. And that. God. (That was a 'god' of nostalgia, unhappiness and looking into the distance with a world-weary smile, rather than any reference to a mythical supreme being. Supreme beings don't have anything to do with the Labour Party, cf. The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. Thank g... Oh dear. Sorry. Anyway.)

Nearly employed now.

2005-05-26T00:09:00.000+01:00

Got my job (placement, but never mind) interview tomorrow; the bloke on the phone told me it was an 'informal chat,' which presumably means it isn't a proper interview but a quick look on their part to see just how much of a maladjusted sad freak I am, and I'll be given the job (placement, but who's counting?) if I don't come in naked/give them a display of uncontrolled Tourette's Syndrome (I do tend to shout FUCK!!! occasionally, but that's only when I hear about the latest id card fiasco or dead Iraqis or what-bloody-ever I voted for)/have a swastika tattooed on my forehead. So that would maybe do all right.
I told them rather a lot of half-truths to get onto the programme; there was a list of Potential Problems in the Job [free] Market, and I couldn't really say I was homeless or used illegal substances, and the man asked me eventually (about half-way down) if I felt I 'would be discriminated against on the grounds of [my] gender or sexuality'. I automatically answered yes - I'm a woman living in the patriarchy, of course I'm going to be bloody discriminated against - and he asked how. I made up some gibberish about people not wanting me to work with children because of my sexuality
"Are you gay?"
And I just said "yes," and that was it, it had been said, it wasn't inside my head any more. I said it was a half-truth and of course it is, but it would have been just as bad to say 'I'm bisexual' and I wouldn't have got any points for that.

Queeniness

2005-05-20T21:47:00.000+01:00

A horrid sort of day: muggy. I went off to the job centre to see my new deal adviser and tell her the wonderful news that I've got an interview for a placement in a library far far away arranged by Edinburgh Council's Deal Me In for the Terminally Hopeless. I thought my appointment was at 11am; I arrived at quarter to and told the man on the reception desk, who looked down a list in front of him and frowned. After taking down my national insurance number he told me that yes, my appointment was at eleven o'clock, but... next week. Could be a good deal worse, of course, I could have missed it and thus got much shit from my adviser and all connected to her (especially the scary woman who does New Deal for the Disabled; I swear she never blinks), but the fact remains that I trailed halfway across town in unpleasant weather, wearing my 'smart' trousers with the shiny nylon or polyester or some kind of synthetic ugh thing lining, for no reason at all. So I went to the library, paid a fine on a book, and then went to the goth boutique on George IV Bridge and bought a t-shirt saying QUEEN OF THE FUCKING UNIVERSE for fifteen quid.
That's what I did today. The end.
(Shit, I can't believe I spent fifteen quid on a t-shirt.)

Queen's speech swearword alert

2005-05-17T21:28:00.000+01:00

Now I - well I didn't envelope my arse off last election, but I know people who did, and I stood at a bloody freezing polling station doing nothing but smile at people which was probably a waste of time but never mind I did it, and I didn't bloody do it for this. 'Condoning or glorifying terrorism'? What kind of wonky thinking/wanky language is that? Who decides if you're condoning or glorifying terrorism (and what's with the christian jihad terminology? I haven't glorified anything since I was 17, and that was only because I was being stupid)? And the ID card thing for benefit cheats (cliche of the aeon) and scroungers off the state (so I suppose they'll be fitting Rupert Murdoch out with one then? - No? Jolly good). Haven't they twigged that this is not wanted on voyage? Expensive, pointless and sinister. Actually that seems to be Our Leader's litmus test on policy, now I come to think of it.
And making the taxpayer subsidise big business when it's running state schools and setting the curriculum there? And - Jesus, it's all wrong. It's a rubbish queen's speech, is what it is.
Oh, and:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1485653,00.html
Excuse me while I don't combust with disbelief.

Biographies of Neil Kinnock

2005-05-16T20:37:00.000+01:00

I've been staying with my parents over the weekend, 'sorting out' my books. Damn them. They painted my bedroom white (this is the parents not the books I'm talking about here), they took my chair out from besides the fireplace, they took all the books off of my shelves and put them on the floor, and now they tell me to look through and see which ones I want to get rid of.
I didn't mind it too much, actually, although it was mildly disorientating. There were easy choices; George Orwell's essays stay, detective stories I've already read go. But some of them were more difficult, I must admit. The abridged edition of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall' was tricky, for example. Do I keep it and use it as an offensive weapon against possible rapists? Do I chuck it, and with it my pretensions to intellectuality? And am I ever going to get round to reading 'Perestroika'? 'Kosovo: a short history'? It didn't feel that short when I read it, but I was 16. Might I want to read it again, even though I only bought it because Michael Foot recommended it in the Observer? And I must have spent fifty quid on all those Private Eye books, and now they just annoy me. How many biographies of Neil Kinnock do I actually need? I'll keep the one with the red cover and throw out the black-and-white one. Same for German dictionaries; and English dictionaries, come to that. Why the fuck did I buy Norman Tebbit's autobiography? And what made me think I'd ever need 'Irish Politics in the 1980s'? Half an hour later I'm standing in the middle of my bedroom looking mournfully at what my mother calls the Keeps and Not Keeps piles of books and thinking about the person who used to live in the room who was and wasn't me; different hair, different handwriting, different vocabulary, different ambitions. I was going to Be Someone. By this point (if you'd asked the fourteen- or fifteen-year-old me) I should have been a PPC, writing pamphlets which would revolutionise the Socialist Vision and the way the Labour Party was run and novels and short stories which would make people compare me to Disraeli; I'd have had at least one profile in the Guardian, a husband, probably a child or so... and I'm just a depressed diseased underachiever with no job and a cat to support, and I still haven't read Capital. It's funny how things turn out.

They're lying. It hurts.

2005-05-10T21:18:00.000+01:00

My latest experience with Tribe body-piercers/tattooers to the gentry on West Nicholson St will apparently not be my last. Tattoos, allegedly, are addictive. In my opinion they're just sore. It's a shame, because it was supposed to be a celebrating - celebrative - celebratory, that's it, thing. I made the appointment on Friday on the first day of a historic third term, and I walked into the tattoo room, which looks a lot like a dentist's, to a stencil of a two-inch-tall long-stemmed red rose. It looks nice, now it's on, but it did hurt. The biggest cosmetic problem is still the blood seeping through the ink. When it's settled down it'll be a lot better. Exactly the reverse of the English and Welsh education policy reforms, then.

Hello? Hello??

2005-05-08T17:03:00.000+01:00

I've been coasting around the Tory websites and apart from conservatives.com (how interesting that they should be a .com while even Newlabour is an org.uk) can't find a single one updated since Thursday. Queer. A nice one to visit is http://www.gavinbrown.org , the charming website of Gavin Brown, unsuccessful Tory candidate for Edinburgh South (the Liberals actually came second. Boundary changes schmoundary changes) for all your motivational speaker needs. He will no doubt be able to cater for these very effectively, since he has so much time on his hands now, having lost the election, hence the words unsuccessful Tory candidate which I wish to repeat as often as possible. Why not leave a message casting doubt on his mother's marital status while you're there? I wish him every success in his small business career, which will probably be more successful in any case than that of my parents, who ran a petshop (catering to real needs, ie the need of pets to have food, litter, etc, rather than intangible needs, such as that of executives to have people tell them to chin up a bit) until the second Thatcher recession, when they went bust. (I know what you're going to say; but it's rather odd that an entire road's-worth of shops should become incompetent at the same time in the middle of a recession. And they've got a very successful farm under this (Labour) government.)
A rather more tragic case than that of Mr Brown (let us not forget, the unsuccessful Tory candidate for Edinburgh South) is documented here:
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=sandra.howard.page .
Look at her. In't she gorgeous? Lovely woman. Baffles me how she could end up with him.
Then read it. It's appalling. It's fucking appalling. Think of the mirror-image of me during the past month or so, distort it horribly, add three gallons of bile, a metre-large smirk, and several metric tonnes of chintz, and you're still nowhere fucking close. There are three possibilities here:
1. She didn't write it herself.
2. Her brain's been hacked.
3. He's the one who's drawn the short straw.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be that unkind. (Well I did, but you know what I mean.) But she's used the EU exclamation-mark quota for the whole UK; and halfway down the page she starts looking like Christine Hamilton.

Bagpuss works - official

2005-05-06T20:14:00.000+01:00

We made it. Half a rainforest of leaflets, many many phonecalls, lots of billboards and much shouting and 100 people still didn't manage (Stephen Twigg, for fucksake! Apparently it was the Liberals), but we made it. Iraq was a big issue throughout the campaign, so I think what finally swung it for us was Michael Howard, as a person, and the presence on polling day of my lucky Bagpuss socks.
My Dad analysed the result over the phone while I was still in bed at the ungodly hour of 11.45am; majority of 66, 40 Blairites, 47 Brownites, however-many (I can't remember) swingers, and around 30 bolshy bastards of the kind that I love best. So Our Leader may have a slightly more difficult time getting the ID cards et al through than he thought. It'll be a wee bit odd having a smallish majority like that, though. I'm used to seeing the Labour benches crammed to bursting point with women in suits, but - ach, we're in, shut up. And Michael Howard is leaving the building, or at least stopping being leader of the Tory Party (yes, Tory, not Conservative, see entry last month), so we'll not see anything of his strange face soon, good. They may of course choose someone even more repellent, but apart from Boris Johnson there's not really anyone quite so annoying. Watch this space.
And finally. My tory candidate, as I have said, has been bombarding me with leaflets, free gifts, et cetera ad nauseam, for over a year. Gavin Brown. Gavin Brown vs. Nigel Griffiths MP (Edinburgh South: Lab). Nigel Griffiths, with the help of my Bagpuss socks, fucking wasted him. Go Nigel.

Not long now.

2005-05-03T21:23:00.000+01:00

I'm getting two letters a day from my tory candidate, my latest containing a potted biography describing him as a former World Debating Champion* and a black belt in Tae Kwon-Do (as my sister points out, you only need one or the other), an outstanding 'trainer with the Junior Chamber of Commerce,' which I've had a run-in with myself (it seems the kind of body in which a maggot like Gavin Brown might well flourish), an outstanding litigation lawyer (there's nothing wrong with lawyers, except - it must just be a coincidence that Michael Howard - anyway) and - he has the good grace to pretend somebody else said this - 'a star.' Modest boy. A lot a lot a lot of resources are being channelled into Edinburgh South, so people like me get free DVDs (OK I'm on his mailing list, but it's expensive to send anyone DVDs about how great you are) and Nigel Griffiths, who isn't sound on the war but despite everything is a Labour MP, is their top target; so if you're living in Edinburgh South and reading this please please.

*I don't know how they decide these things, but apparently all the debates are conducted in English; which is unfair, to my mind. Much like only letting people from Earth enter Mr Universe.

May Day may day

2005-04-30T19:42:00.000+01:00

The problem may be that I'm not doing as much campaigning as I should be. Or it may be my opinion poll addiction (they don't matter, they really don't matter) which makes my hands shake every time I guide the little mouse button onto the Guardian election page, with its polls section and the handy guide up the top saying 5 DAYS TO GO (yes, thanks for that). Or it may be the media dribbling on about all the wrong stuff. Or it may be - I don't even want to think this - about Lynton Crosby. His Queensland Gambit is particularly unpleasant, in that it tries actively to make voters stay home. Now this may be politically correct of me, but I thought the point of an election campaign was to make people vote for you. Convince people how great you are, and/or how shit the other boy is, and make them come out and vote to get you in or the other one out, doesn't matter about their motives, the point is they vote. Right? To try to make people think 'sod it, I'll stay home' because they will never ever vote Tory is extremely daring and extremely cynical. I don't know if I'm the only person to think it stinks. The Queensland Gambit is a kind of political bulimia. In the short term it works fine. In the long term it does serious damage not just to everyone but to you in particular. (I'm only using the bulimia metaphor because of the word 'erode' floating around my brain.) Watch out, Lynton Crosby. Instant karma may not get you, but it'll catch up with you eventually.

I do try.

2005-04-29T22:23:00.000+01:00

Just to let youse know that I have been trying truly, madly, deeply to sort the page so that I've got a bit at the side for Links; but I can't.
Also
The Greens have been putting an awful lot of paper through my door lately. Neither I or any of my flatmates are on their priority list. I simply note this for the attention of future generations.

Fitba/feeling unwell

2005-04-26T22:53:00.000+01:00

I am trying terribly hard to avoid turning this into When Where and Why I had a fit, incorporating how awful I felt at the time, what I missed on tv and in real life, and how disappointed I am; but I had one last night because I missed my tablets earlier on, so it was entirely my fault. I am also going to try to avoid turning this into a series of personal attacks on Michael Howard, but not terribly hard, so I will simply mention his verdict on the tory campaign so far, which is not that far from Lynton Crosby's (which everyone, allegedly, is talking about). He was asked on We the Jury or Whatever the Fuck it Is how he thought it was going and he said that he was a football fan [in passing may I mention that all politicians, from whatever party, who go on about how much they like football make me want to vomit] and it was quite common for a team to be 2-0 down at half-time and make a miraculous comeback in the second week, sorry half. From the Guardian:
But Mr Howard admitted that his beloved team [this being Liverpool - me] did not provide a great precedent. "We were ahead [in the Carling Cup final against Chelsea] until the last 10 minutes and then we were screwed."

This shows that he is desperate:
a. he seems to have been talking about Lynton Crosby
b. he finished an anecdote with the phrase 'and then we were screwed.'

A barely functioning hand writes

2005-04-24T21:57:00.000+01:00

Oh my dear goodness. I am actually surprised, really, no shit, that my arms are functioning well enough to work this keyboard; I started stuffing envelopes on Friday and today I stopped and it feels like several years. The story is this; that I went for coffee (assiduously counting calories in the cappucino froth) with a couple of Marxist friends and was rude about the Labour Party for an hour or so, then took the scenic route home. On the way I passed the flat I used to live in in my third year, which was a bit of a shithole (the flat and the year) and saw no. 78 Buccleuch St covered in Labour posters. I am a Labour Person. I wouldn't leave the Labour Party if national conference voted to cut little babies' throats. I'm certainly not leaving it now. My feet automatically walked me through the door.
"Any leaflets to stuff?" I asked a woman jocularly.
"Yes."
In the back room were a few people and some leaflets. More than a few leaflets. We're talking large numbers of boxes here. Seriously large. I found a place at the table (not difficult) and settled down to be told the Rules; one pre-folded (thank christ) leaflet to each envelope, of course, and put in a certain way, so that the first thing people saw when they opened it was Alastair Darling's lovely face. (I am absolutely certain that I will see Alastair Darling's beautiful face in my dreams for many, many nights to come. The top half of it, rather. The bottom bit was cut off by the way it was folded over.) I got a pile of envelopes and a pile of leaflets, and started.
My god, what did I get myself into? The short answer, of course, would be "stuffing fucking envelopes. Of course it hurts your arms. Everyone does it, you moaning twat." But it was much more complicated than that.
All right, it wasn't. And occasionally we (being more people every day) did have a good time, chattering on about how Michael Foot had stayed in one woman's bed (audience: ohhhhhh??) which her father, then an MP, used as a spare room while she was away at college (audience: ohhhhh), and the Jeremy Paxman interview with Michael Howard. I never watch Jeremy Paxman interviews because they're so frustrating; if the politician gets to finish one sentence, let alone one answer, s/he's lucky. It's just a symptom of the current simplistic political debate; we want Answers Now No Obfuscating (nobody says obfuscating, but you get my drift), which is entirely understandable but doesn't allow for the fact that some issues really are more complicated than 'yes we did' 'no he didn't' 'but they are' et cetera ad nauseam. And then he complains that people don't understand politics... At any rate, I didn't catch Michael Howard, being engaged in more rewarding pursuits eg picking my toenails, but the only other Michael Foot fan in the village said that he (Howard) looked "really as if he was - mentally ill.' We asked, naturally, for evidence, and she talked about the way he kept pulling bits of paper out of his pockets to illustrate his points rather than giving an answer of the real sort. Everyone pulls bits of paper out of their pockets, I do it all the time and I'm not mad. (Well I am, but it's got nothing to do with little bits of paper.)
Put like that, though, it does sound a bit crackers, simply adding to his resemblance to Alec Guiness in "The Ladykillers."
Stream of consciousness rubbish. My hands are getting better, you can see.
But he does. I think it's the teeth.

2005-04-21T23:24:00.000+01:00

On Newsnight last night I came across the immortal sentence "Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby." I find it highly unlikely that the we're-fucked attitude of the Conservatives' Director of Communications is as big a deal as the death of the last pope, a royal wedding or Gwyneth Paltrow changing hairstyles, but having been read my sister's top ten country song titles (the winner, if I recall rightly, being 'You're the Reason our Kids are Ugly') I decided that it should be recognised as the wonderful title it is. Therefore my song for scratchy voice, blues guitar, incompetent piano and improvised drum/s, in the style of country and western crossed with Flanders and Swann. This is dedicated to the cast and crew of Newsnight.

EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT LYNTON CROSBY

Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
Yesterday we'd never heard his name
Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
Talking talking about him just the same.

Sold his soul to the devil the daft sod did
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
Shacked up with Michael Howard for a few thousand quid
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Arrived in London all fresh and clean
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
Sold himself to the Tories, got dirty and mean
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Now he thinks himself his tone's all wrong
(Yesterday we'd never heard his name)
So none of us think he'll be here for long
(We're talking talking about him just the same.)

Now he'll take back his memos to his native land
I found it amusing all the same
Guess it's sad though he don't understand
Got nobody but himself to blame
Everybody's talking about Lynton Crosby
But Lynton Crosby
Yeah Lynton Crosby
Lynton Crosby is a fuckin stupid name.

Yes it is

2005-04-16T17:10:00.000+01:00

I found this page which cheered me up a bit
http://www.andypryke.com/pub/AreYouThinkingWhatWereThinking
as did the news that the Tories are 5% behind us in the polls; apparently they have to be something stupid like 15% ahead to actually win due to the vagaries of our election system. Tch. Terrible. We'll have to sort it out some time. Not that soon though.

It's not me, it's you.

2005-04-16T16:39:00.000+01:00

Jaded, that's what I am. I'm jaded. The word just came to me spontaneously a few minutes ago, when I was reviewing my 77,000 words of first draft and thinking it was all shit. I'm jaded with my book. I'm jaded with the election. The whole thing seems so... I haven't volunteered this time round, not even once, which is a pure disgrace. OK my ned-fest course only finished yesterday, but I should have been out today, doing Nigel Griffiths things, I haven't volunteered one day not only since the campaign began but this entire year, and sometimes I just think I won't bother.
Got to bother. Onwards and upwards not backwards and downwards.

Fock the Pope

2005-04-11T22:01:00.000+01:00

So the pope's died. It happens, you know? Born, take oath, make anti-woman statements, die, get big funeral, replaced with exactly similar old bloke. What's sad is that Andrea Dworkin's died. Now she was one of a kind. She's become a byword for all kinds of bollock-removing feminist excess, but I'll bet none of the people who write this shit have read her actual books, which are occasionally a tad OTT but essentially very sensible. Ave atque vale, pal. They don't make them like her any more.

Red blues

2005-04-07T22:11:00.000+01:00

It feels like it's been a year since I last wrote this. I'm doing a dole training programme with the worst bunch of neds I've ever met, and there's a bloody election on top of everything else. I hate elections. I especially hate general elections. In particular elections we might lose. We might very well lose. God it's awful. We've cocked up everything we possibly could cock up for the past two years, and now Our Leader, in His wisdom, has decided he'll call an election a year early to capitalise on it; of course this may be the logical culmination of his cunning plan to toryize the entire country, firstly via the Labour Party and now quite openly, but I don't think he'd do it at the expense of his own job, would he?
I'd go out and campaign if I wasn't doing this bloody programme, which is quite useless and very unpleasant and lasts another week. Instead I watch the polls with manaical intensity and try not to cry openly in case in case because we may be fine, you never know. I always thought we'd only properly be buggered when people started tactical-voting against us rather than against the tories, but there's too wide a gulf between the tories and the Liberals for this to work really, and we may have to - not resign, but prepare - ourselves for the ugly spectacle of the ugly spectacled one smiling and waving from the steps of No. 10 surrounded by the zillion relatives he trots out for the press. (I bet some of them were hired from an agency.)
It's ironic, really, because a long time ago in my youth I compared political participation in newly-democratised developing countries, where people queued for hours in scorching sun or freezing rain to vote, and the UK, where they've got to wander down to the end of the street and spend thirty strenuous seconds deciding which box to tick on the basis of what their newspaper said that morning but just can't be arsed, and decided that the best way to politicise our population would be to turn Britain into a military dictatorship headed by Michael Howard for a few years. And now we've got a -

Shut up and vote.

...that dare not speak its name

2005-03-31T18:04:00.000+01:00

Apparently the Tory central office people have sent an email to the BBC to ask them to call them "Conservatives rather than Tories." They said that the name of the party was Conservative rather than Tory, and not to mention this would cause confusion on the ballot papers (considering the intellectual calibre of people who vote Tory they may have a point there) and they would be voting (or not) for "Conservative, not Tory, policies."
They will still be Tory policies though, get used to it. They will still be the same stupid policies. I don't see why the Tories think a name-change will do them any good. Although, perhaps, it will confuse people who like me (when I was younger and couldn't use proper bad language) use 'tory' as a swearword. It's nice and easy to say, rolls off the tongue like 'tossarse,' and doesn't take up much space in a text-message. 'Conservative,' however, has another meaning as well as 'foul party,' and takes up more time and space; it is 'motherfucker' or 'wankbucket' to 'tory''s 'cock,' requiring a far greater investment of time, energy and space, and therefore likely to be used less often. (I want more people to say 'wankbucket.' I think it's a very good word.) It is therefore much more suitable for a party name.
Of course they could change the Tory policies. Just thought of that.

I really hate this

2005-03-28T23:21:00.000+01:00

I really hate this bloody thing. I really do. It disconnects and won't reconnect and won't do anything else. I can't access my Favorites list (and it can't even spell Favourites) and I can't put up my wise words about the Lib Dems. God.

Like I said...

2005-03-22T22:32:00.000Z

From the Labour Party members' email (good god) comes these only-just-not-serious predictions of the next tory PR campaigns:
1. Howard pledges new "ATM bill" to deal with people who take too long getting money out of cashpoints.
2. Howard to ban hosepipe bans.
3. Howard to double limit on items allowed in "six and under" supermarket queues.
4. Howard says Premiership abuse of referees has grown under Labour, and promises a new "Graham Poll" bill.
5. Howard pledges to press Channel Four to move The Sopranos to 9pm.
6. Howard urges The West Wing to have a Republican President - preferably one who will meet him.
7. Howard to outlaw "push polling" - except by the Tories in this campaign.
8. Howard calls for royal wedding memorabilia profits to go to charity.
9. Howard pledges new bill to force pop stars to sing lyrics clearly.
10. Howard pledges streamlining of choice in coffee shops.

I'll tell you about my bathroom moths tomorrow.

[tries not to spontaneously combust]

2005-03-21T22:08:00.000Z

I would have written this yesterday, but I feared I might burst with suppressed rage, showering guts all over the kitchen units which would be a shame as I'd only just cleaned them. The reason for this towering hatred was/is Michael Howard's new policy about Travellers, added to his - Added to his existence, really. Added to the existence of his entire revolting party and every single policy they have ever proposed not limited to but including all this fucking asylum/immigration shit. Apparently there's 'one law for gypsies [sic] and another for the rest of us,' the rationale behind his statement being the existence of - wait for it - the Human Rights Act. Study that word Human. I can't decide if he's implying that his fellow party members and tory voters are less than human - an extreme view, but one that has much to be said for it - or if he's just pandering to the racist sensibilities of Middle England. The I'm Not A Racist But sympathies, rather; 'm Not A Racist But you have to admit this asylum thing's gone too far, they're taking advantage of us, that nice mainstream man on the tv said it, that nice mainstream intelligent sensible cultured Jewish man on the tv. And that's the worst bit of it. He's not just I'm Not A Racist But, he's Jewish so he can't possibly be a racist, can he? So if he's whipping up prejudice against asylum seekers, immigrants and Travellers it must be serious.
This is one way he's setting himself up.
At every opportunity he tells us the Labour Party's ad. dept. is being anti-Semitic because it's being rude about him; the poster, for example, with him swinging a hypnotist's pendulum and the caption "I can spend the same money twice." It has been alleged that this represents him as a "Fagin or Shylock figure"; now, Iwas shit at English at school, but I know that neither Fagin in Dickens or Shylock in Shakespeare, while both being disgusting anti-Semitic caricatures, ever had anything to do with hypnotism. What these whiny people are maybe thinking of is Svengali in 'Trilby' (du Maurier I think, but I'll have to look it up), who was indeed an unpleasant Jewish hypnotist, but whose name these days connotes less stage-hypnotism than a sinister sort of creation/control of a popular phenomenon (witness all these criminals against taste described as 'pop Svengalis') . The posters depict him merely as a conman, which face it he is. I've never been that comfortable with ad hominem negative advertising, although a party's got to do what a party's got to do and people do need to be talked down to, but they're - well, they're OK is what they are.
That's the other problem he's creating for himself. He desensitises everyone with two braincells to rub together by saying everyone who's rude about him is being anti-Semitic, and when somebody or some body really genuinely attacks him on ethnic grounds - because sooner or later this is going to happen - no-one's going to notice.
The pissing-up-the-wall contest he's having with the Home Office about asylum and immigration is also going to backfire. It's playing into the hands of the BNP: a bunch of racists led by an open Holocaust denier. As the tories' own posters say, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Keep the red nose flying

2005-03-11T21:32:00.000Z

The Oxfam bookshop ran out of red noses (the stylish new ones with the little bit of hair on top, rather than the crappy old ones which you can get for 35p at the bargain store) before I got there yesterday afternoon, and we had about fifty people come in and ask for them.
"Sorry, we've not got any left."
"Sorry, we ran out ages ago. You could try in Stockbridge, I think someone said they had some there."
"We've not got any at all, sorry."
"You could maybe try next door." They had an emergency shipment at about three o'clock and were selling them for a fiver each. This is an example of market forces at work. In this case it was in a good way; or rather for a good cause. 99.99999% of the time this does not happen.
"Sorry dude, we're completely out." This from a bloke called Andy, a deputy manager type-thing.
Most of the time I felt quite bad about telling people they couldn't buy a red nose, but once a bossy-looking lady (I would say woman, but she was definitely a lady) trailing a greyish middle-age man who might well have been her son, came in and asked me at the counter.
"I'm sorry, we've not got any left," I quoted myself.
"You've not got any?"
"Aye, we've not."
"You've got the sign in the window," she said, as if it was my fucking fault. I really hate when people take it out on shop assistants, I really do.
"I'm sorry, we've not got any."
She then played her trump-card. "We've come all the way across town." Again, as if I had myself perjuriously promised her a nose of her own and then sold it just before she got there.
"Sorry, we've not got any."
She glared poisonously (I always thought this was just a cliche) and went away. I remembered a line from "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" in which the shop assistant and failing poet Gordon Comstock tells an annoying customer that he hasn't got a particular book "with secret glee" and for, I think, the first time felt exactly the same thing.

I'd quite like to be a failing poet.

My minutes of the meeting held 7.3.05

2005-03-07T23:12:00.000Z

The meeting held 7.3.05 probably opened with the singing of the Red Flag, but I didn't get there in time because it was such a crush to get served at the bar. A comrade gave an interesting speech about the revolution in Venezuala and developments in Cuba, and in the discussion on entryist policy following the presentation of our policy document I introduced the idea of tactical campaigning, having heard comrades talk about how great it would be if our majority were smaller after the next election thus increasing the amount of influence the rebellious tendency in the Parliamentary Labour Party would have proportionally. I did not get embroiled in the following discussion with the conclusion that we should all campaign for our local Labour MPs whatever they thought, thus implying that we should all go out and campaign for such... entities as Alastair Darling (south-west) and Nigel Griffiths (south; I would have gone out for him anyway, since his tory opponent is so greasy that you could fry a whole supper in him, including battered mars bar) which would in fact increase the right-wing presence as a proportion of the PLP as a whole. I didn't want to make trouble.
The meeting concluded with the traditional reciting of the The Revolution is Coming Soon as a result of the World Credit Boom and following Slump, and a discussion of whether green tea had caffeine in it.
I don't know, I don't know, these people - does green tea have caffeine in it?

Today's Sunday

2005-03-06T21:26:00.000Z

Therefore, unless you're Norman Tebbit*, tomorrow's Monday. Which means I haven't posted for six days. Which is a bit toss. Also I have to go to the Oxfam bookshop in the afternoon and have nothing to wear (I mean no clean tshirts, rather than having an empty underwear drawer and the cat having eaten all my trousers thus forcing me to go to my new job dressed as an unsuccessful poker player) and will have to either recycle something old and smelly or cross-dress (one can't wear a shirt without a tie, come on) which is not fabulous even in a volunteer.
New week's resolutions:
#I will do my washing on time
#I will write 800 novel words each day
#I will not pretend that half a bag of Sour Squirms is a nutritious breakfast
#I will spend both quality and quantity time with the cat
#I will not say fabulous.
... Ah yes, 'Stars.' This little piece was inspired by a letter I received from my Tory candidate. I subscribe to the mailing list of Mr Gavin Brown (I'm sure he won't mind being mentioned by name; he revels in that kind of thing) to find out exactly what kind of fucking lies he's telling now, and every now and then I find a letter from him dumped on my hall carpet like, but less pleasant than, a gift-wrapped dog turd. I read these, shout at my sister about them and then deface them, and this is what one was party to (while I was going through a particularly fallow and bored patch).
STARS
(Written in glittery ink (you can get it from WHSmith))
The stars outside shine in a black sky - as black as your rotten soul, Gavin Brown. But there are no stars there; only empty words, hollow lies, the graceless detritus of a life spent in pursuit of advancement, success, profit: above all profit. When you fall asleep, what do you dream of? What meaningless slogans resonate in your pitiful mind? And when you fail - because you have the face of a man doomed to failure - what then? Will you moan about 'unfair advantages' and 'political correctness' or will you try to make yourself a genuinely better person? Don't. Because you CAN'T. You can NEVER change, never cleanse your rotten soul, your disgraceful, disgusting self. All you can do is give up. Take the gentleman's way out. Die. Die today. Die now. Horribly. And as you painfully lose consciousness you can breathe a last sigh of relief, knowing that you have done all you could ever do to make the world a better place.
Now it's all typed out it looks quite horrid really; but I'll keep it on anyway. He might see it and be gratified that someone took the trouble to write such a long piece about him, even though it took about five minutes, and 3.16 of those were trying to get the ink to come out of the pen for the first time.

*Emperor of shit circular reasoning, who once said in a debate on the EU that the Trojans sent themselves a horse and is most in/famous for telling unemployed people to get on their bikes to look for work in the early 80s (manufacturing three million bikes would have created a lot of jobs, so maybe he had a point there). Now spits apathetic poison from a perch in the house of lords, being politically untouchable because his wife's disabled. As in the film: kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman Tebbit.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/columnist/story/0,9321,1427054,00.html

2005-02-28T23:47:00.000Z

Roy Hattersley, the Labour Party's one-man vaccination campaign. Generally speaking very sensible, just... occasionally a prick.

I didn't buy a new tie today.

2005-02-25T22:26:00.000Z

Today I didn't buy a new tie in Oxfam, even though I wanted to.

Sorry, I'm trying to replicate the hopeless and pointless mundanity of a blog I saw recently. I'm rather good at pointless mundanity generally, but I'm being distracted by Newsnight with the promise of Tom Paulin in the review section. See TV Go Home ('Infinity Plus One Channel'):
Newsnight Review. With three Mark Lawsons and sixteen Tom Paulins.
There's really nothing else to report, but I'm in the process of a little reverie called "Stars" which will be shat onto the page as soon as possible.

Not dead yet.

2005-02-23T23:40:00.000Z

Well, it hasn't been a busy week since I wrote this last. Went home for the weekend to see my mum and dad and their cats, then came back just in time to find out about the road tolls referendum, hurrah. EDINBURGH SAYS NO: the Evening News was quite clear and definite and fucking bloody gleeful about that. What pisses me off the most wasn't those arrogant shit-for-souls little signs saying "No to the Toll Tax" (what a fine pun, trivialising the suffering caused by the poll tax [a Michael Howard production, lest we forget] just in order that we should feel sorry for a few rich commuters) but simply that people weren't even (vile Americanism coming up) voting their pocketbooks. It would be far better for the people who were actually allowed to vote to have the extra investment in public transport - I in particular was looking forward to having a tram line running between my house and the casualty department at the hospital - but no, it's nasty redistribution and we wouldn't want that, would we? Last night I felt for the first time in my life that it would be nicer to live in Glasgow, which had a Communist MP in the 1930s-50s, than Edinburgh, home of Malcolm Rifkind (also of poll tax fame/shame). It passed very very quickly, but they've -
Perhaps the best metaphor for the situation, however, is that they have a beautiful bronze statue of Donald Dewar in Glasgow, but the actual Parliament's here.

The last of the Militants

2005-02-18T00:09:00.000Z

I seem to have got in with a very bad lot indeed. I went along to the Scottish Policy Forum on Saturday and in reaction to some rather horribly complacent speeches and the handing out of the new pledge cards
Safety and security for your community
[on the back: We will kill anyone who looks a bit lefty, especially if they're tinted; we will introduce dooty-do-do ID cards which monitor your toilet visits and scan your retinas every eighty seconds, as pioneered by the scary corporation in 'Black Books'; we will put you under house arrest if you're rude about religion]
Toughness on verbs and the causes of verbs
[on the back: Newlabour promises not to use the verb before Russia, America, France, or whoever does; we have been told that people don't like it because it makes them have to think]
General niceness
[on the back: Newlabour promises it will not kill any kittens within the next Parliament (unless they live in Iraq) and will let the puppy out when he wants to go pee-pees rather than slapping him when he does it on the floor. In addition it will do your washing up and surprise you with profiteroles occasionally. We will not paint the front door without your express permission, and if you want it painted will do it beautifully.]
And there were some other ones, which I can't remember because they were so pointless and vague.
After the speeches I asked a pointy little question about asylum seekers, which got a very small round of applause; and after this we all divided up into groups to discuss the policy documents. I got in with a VERY LOUD Marxist chap, who made the same speech about fifteen times, predicting a massive down-turn in the world economy after the credit boom and saying that the only way to deal with this is nationalisation UNDER WORKERS' CONTROL. (Which would BE NICE, but is PROBABLY NOT GOING TO HAPPEN, AT LEAST NOT YET.) Queen Victoria said of either Disraeli or Gladstone, I can't remember which and it hardly matters as they're practically the fucking same, that he 'addresses me as if I were a public meeting,' and it IS A SHAME as he was making quite a lot of good points, but there were ONLY THE SEVEN OF US THERE INCLUDING SARAH BOYACK, SHE'S NICE, SHE AND I GO WAY BACK AS THE AMERICANS SAY, and he kept getting into shouting matches with another old bloke who kept telling him to go and live in North Korea. So there was nothing achieved in that hour and a half really.
Afterwards I went for coffee (at a Starbucks - I'm serious) with another member of the group, ex-Militant, and we swapped phone numbers and arranged to go to a meeting through in Coatbridge that Monday. We went through with the VERY LOUD BLOKE and sat in the back room of a pub listening to a Welsh journalist talking about James Connolly for half an hour; then everyone else in the room had a fight about Sinn Fein (any-good ness of) until half-past nine. Everybody was very nice to me and we had a lovely time, sort of. Now I keep getting phoned to go to meetings about the G8 and who knows what and getting addressed as comrade. And worst of all I kind of like it. Damn it, it's interesting. It's the kind of debate people in the mainstream of the Party should be having if they want to attract bright people. (And don't give me that shit about the Militant boys not campaigning; they're out backing the bad against the worst door to door every weekend.) I like them. Really, I do. I like their dedication, their political knowledge, their grasp of what's actually wrong and refusal to be brainwashed by Murdoch and his imitators, and their idealism.
I only wish I shared it. I try to Keep Buggering On, but every time I think about nationalisation under workers' control and production for need not profit and the destruction of this whole abhorrent system I wish they were right about people ('the workers') wanting it; and I remember that Utopia is Greek for 'no place.'

Things I have learned from fake Socialists: 1

2005-02-10T01:12:00.000Z

ONE-THIRD OF PUPILS IN EDINBURGH ARE IN FOR-PROFIT ('INDEPENDENT') SCHOOLS
ONE-THIRD OF PUPILS IN STRATHCLYDE ARE ENTITLED TO FREE SCHOOL MEALS

Don't want to go to SOLS Council anyway

2005-02-04T23:13:00.000Z

Currently watching 'Love in a Cold Climate.' Best quote so far:
"When you go up to London for the Season, you'll forget all about badgers."
Too true.

New Labour, but still me

2005-02-02T21:52:00.000Z

I've just come back from a Labour Students meeting during which someone asked me 'how the weblog was going'; hello Kenny if you're watching.
I normally have a fit during Labour Club. This may be because it's so depressing sometimes to be around Labour Party members who don't even pretend to be Socialists (not you Kenny, if you're watching), but I didn't this week, which is nice. Before the war people were different: the personal ... details may have been slightly questionable, but everyone - nearly everyone - was or professed to be a Socialist and now it's so difficult.
Once, a few weeks ago, some boys asked me what I thought a Socialist Labour Party should be doing and I gave them a few bits of common sense (the Tom Paine rather than the William Hague variety) - renationalise industry, scrap the Royal Family and House of Lords, ban the bomb - and they looked at me as if I were a museum exhibit or a comedian. I think it was after that that I had the fit.

Written very late at night.

2005-01-31T23:40:00.000Z

For some reason I always get the urge to Tell My Parents very very late at night. This is a bit weird. I've only ever phoned them after 10pm three times before; two to say I'd just come out of hospital (leading to my Dad bombing down in the car at midnight to take me back to my homeland like a knight-errant) and once after I'd had a fit in an ill-fated attempt at tae kwon-do and fallen on a hard floor and a couple of hours later started to feel dizzy and sick. Mum made my wee sister take me to hospital, and the latter was very pissed off when I didn't have a brain haemorrhage after all and we had to take a taxi back into town from the PFI Royal Infirmary. It's 11.50pm at the moment and I'm feeling honest. I should disconnect the internet and phone up.
"Mum, Dad, did you see 'Jerry Springer, the Opera'?"
"Was that the thing with the..."
"With all the black transsexuals, yes."
"Oh yeah."
"And did you see the bit with Jesus?"
"Which bit?"
"Well, he's saying he loves all mankind and everyone says 'so you're gay then' and starts laughing. Then he goes into the spotlight and sings in a very beautiful solo
'Actually
I am a bit gay.'"
"Yes, I think I saw that bit."
"Well - the thing is -
You know part of the reason I split up with [names ex-boyfriend] was because he was homophobic?"
The conversation kind of stops here; or rather I don't know how the next bit goes.
I'm glad I spend so much time in/with Labour Students, who are a most tolerant (or 'positive'; we don't just tolerate LGBT people, you know) lot, although you'll always find one bloke sitting at the end of the bar scowling, talking about Lenin and complaining that he's the only homophobe in the village. But you have to face up to the fact that enormous chunks of the rest of the world disapprove not only of what you do but of what you are, and that's ok with a lot of other people. I don't think it's tremendous fun to shock people all the time or to treat your own sexual preferences as if they're wrong but so enjoyable that you have to do it anyway. I just don't want it to matter. At all. I don't want to shock the old priest who's one of my best friends at home, I don't want to decide whom to tell and who not. I don't want to have to Tell My Parents.

Those who forget history...

2005-01-31T22:41:00.000Z

Sorry, the computer's been a bit buggered for a while.
Item 1. Friday's Daily Mail. The front page is white on black with a large photograph, commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day.
Item 2. Searchlight magazine ('against racism and fascism') front cover last October. A large photograph of a demonstration against (the 3% of) asylum seekers coming to the UK, and a white person, face contorted with hatred until it looked like something by Muench, holding a placard:
VOTE BNP
READ THE DAILY MAIL

It's not nice to mention leopards and spots, you know.

At least I'm related to someone famous

2005-01-24T23:49:00.000Z

My mother has just told me about this website:
http://www.elvislennonjfk.com
My cousin is Richard Melchior (the ginger one). I would like to say here that I have some naked pictures of him, if anyone from Ebay is interested. (He's about 3 months old in them, so I'm not actually entirely sure if they're him or me; they don't show the genitals and without those all babies look exactly the same (bald and dribbly).)
I now feel a terrible failure, and since he's 18 months younger than me an old failure. I really ought to take to drink. Or chocolate, which has the same sort of number of calories and gives you less of a hangover. Yes, I shall definitely take to chocolate. Watch this space.

2005-01-19T22:53:00.000Z

Again.

2005-01-19T22:35:00.000Z

I really am trying to avoid turning this into a journal of my fits. Really. But I had another little one tonight and it was very odd. I was sitting in the pub, post-Labour Club meeting, talking to a bloke called Dave who's also a Socialist, and then I found myself... just... forgetting what... I was, you know... I was saying, hang on a bit... no, I was saying. Just excuse me a moment. Collect my thoughts up. And then I was sitting there in front of my empty glass with someone else holding my hand and telling me I was ok. What I thought, and said, was "How embarrassing." Apparently my eyes had glazed over for about ten seconds and I'd drifted off, and then I drifted back: nothing embarrassing there at all. I keep having them at Labour Club meetings for some reason, but at least there are people there who know about it and can do something about it and. Nobody's attitude towards disabled people has anything to do with what they believe. Just because people are Socialists. And that's that. Really.

Here you go

2005-01-14T23:53:00.000Z

With the hunt ban in England coming into force soon, I present here - no, not just present, but proudly present - a range of alternative country sports. None of them are presently illegal, and, more importantly, all are stomach-turningly bloody and entirely pointless.

Badger flushing
The badger is flushed out from its sett and killed with dogs.

Squirrel slamming
The squirrel is slammed against a wall. (Devotees normally use more than one squirrel, because it's generally over quite quickly.)

Wolf versus toff with pencil
A wolf fights a toff armed with a pencil. (The toff is armed, not the wolf.) A kind of updated Coliseum arrangement. If entry was charged, it could be used for charity fundraising.

Bear versus toff with letter opener
As above, with the wolf replaced with a bear and the pencil with a letter opener.

Bison coursing
Hare coursing with a bison.

Cat mousing
A cat is put in with a large number of mice. Bets are taken on how long it'll take the cat to dispatch them all.

Hare teasing
You find a hare, and then tease it.

Otter taunting
Very similar to hare teasing, but with an otter. Classic taunts include 'You've wet yourself,' 'Eugh, you smell,' 'Fishy fishy breath,' and 'You're rubbish, you're rubbish, you smell of crap' (which can also, of course, be used on hares).

Polecat jamming
Jam is hurled at a polecat - either tied up or running around - until it suffocates. The jam can be of any flavour, but is traditionally seedless raspberry.

Bat winkling
Winkle a bat out of its nest. (Then blast it to bits with a shotgun.)

Mole stamping
Find a molehill, wait until dusk, watch the mole come out, then STAMP ON IT.

Rat splatting
Go into a barn, watch for rats running around, and when you see one - splat it. Tread on it preferably. (One for the hard-core ex-foxhunter.)

Rabbit tennis
Tennis, but... how can I put it... using rabbits. You get through rather a lot of them, but of course that's the point of country sports, isn't it?

Finding the nests of dormice and stamping on them
Self-explanatory really.

I'll destroy them all

2005-01-13T22:19:00.000Z

I'm going to get on the phone soon as I've finished this. I'm going to telephone Bill, whom I haven't spoken to for several years (pseudonym). Then Jeremy, editor of Piffle magazine ( http://www.pifflemag.co.uk ), who's through in Glasgow. Then Fiona, my ex-flatmate, who was last heard of in Cornwall. Then Catherine, my other ex-flatmate. Then my dad. Then get hold of my now-flatmate, and enlist my sister, and myself.
The computer pixie. The psychologist. The vet. The biologist. The DIY expert. The other biologist, mainly interested in plants. The standby psychologist. The raw talent and master brain (think of Alec Guinness in 'The Ladykillers' crossed with Bernard in that episode of 'Black Books' where he has to make vintage wine in three hours). And we - with specialist knowledge of artificial intelligence, natural lack of intelligence, biology and nuts and bolts, and the ability to cackle insanely while holding the other end of bits of wood - will create
A BOMB WHICH DESTROYS NEDS BUT LEAVES NORMAL PEOPLE STANDING.

It's necessary.

Sick thing of week:
http://rawstory.rawprint.com/1204/westboro_tsunami_statement_1230.php

Goblins and things

2005-01-09T00:26:00.000Z

The problem with writing a blog is that it gets like washing-up; you don't do it for a bit, then you realise there's too much to do in one session so don't do it then and the next time you remember it's backed up even more. So the fact that I've got goblins would have merited an entire entry if I'd done it sooner whereas I now have to confine myself to the observation that I've got goblins. I brought my DVD player up to my parents' house when I went home for Christmas, but by the time I'd got it back had lost the remote control. I phoned my mum a couple of times to make sure I hadn't left them in different places, eliciting the response that they were in my flat and the only reason I couldn't find them was because the whole place was such a shitheap (paraphrase). I searched my bedroom thoroughly then went to my bed in a huff, vowing to get up early next morning and tidy up; I got up early and had begun to tidy up when I noticed a silvery glint from under one of my suitcases. I picked up the suitcase. Yes, it was the DVD remote controls. But - and this is the important bit - I had already looked there. Twice. So I deduced that it was the moving-things-about goblin from my sister's Christmas-present book "Goblins!" Since then I have observed many more instances of inexplicable goblin-like doings; I'll keep you posted.
Talking of believing in stupid things leads me to the present 'controversy' (which these days only means a few whingey christians and a couple of shit-stirring tory MPs) about the BBC's broadcast of "Jerry Springer, the Opera." I've just stopped watching this, and it was preceded by two warnings and had another one in the middle - an unprecedented (in my experience) precaution, but not enough for some christian groups. They held a public burning of their tv licences earlier today, very reminiscent of the book-burnings of "The Satanic Verses" a few years ago; but the BBC went ahead with the broadcast because we don't live in a fucking theocracy (just yet), so fair play to them. It says something about the strength of these people's beliefs that they think other people will be turned off god by watching a tv programme in which Jerry Springer dies and goes to hell and surely, whatever their opinions in the Watch with your Heavenly Father department, if they don't like it they - stop me if this is too wayout an idea now - they don't actually have to watch it. Do the tiling. Hoover. Play Monopoly. Spend quality time with your children. Have a nice cup of tea and a slice of walnut cake, or perhaps a scone with jam. Bugger a choirboy. Read some improving works of literature (don't worry, I'm not watching to see if your lips move). Hit your knees (that's supposed to be your favourite activity anyway, isn't it?) Or just - for fucksake, it's quite simple - just bloody watch BBC1.

The cat and other animals

2004-12-31T23:16:00.000Z

This year what we say farewell to at the moment has been almost uniformly grotty, in my opinion and surely that of all right-thinking people. It started off with Abu Ghraib and continued through the non-re election of Bush - no title seems appropriate somehow - to a humanitarian catastrophe of a scale which pretty conclusively proves that there isn't a merciful - no, you're not allowed to say there's no God these days, so I'll not. Aye, it's been a pretty shit year for humanity as a whole. I've had a good one (got a degree; got a cat; stopped having fits all the time; started my mistresswork) but this doesn't matter as such. We (Socialists in the Labour Party) shall have to get hard to work within the Party as well as amongst the general public. I shall certainly have a go; it's all I can do really.
I'm not pissed actually. It's just late and I haven't had my tablets (new ones; lovely little orange capsules which look slightly illegal), so I shall go and take them now, and watch tv with the cat to see in the new year.

Writer's block, part 8936732

2004-12-28T19:58:00.000Z

I got back to work (so-called) yesterday, and managed 700 words. Today I did 600. This is fucking pathetic even by my standards. It may be due to the fact that I have written 43,000 words and am only a third of the way through; there are only two sorts of novel which can be sustained over 130,000 words, the epic saga of something or other which keeps winning the Booker and the Tempocalypse. ('Tempocalypse' was the title of an all-purpose beach book in 'Black Books,' the plot of which the bookshop owner described as
"It's this temp and she's twenty-nine and she can't get a boyfriend, 'oh my god,' and also she's got twelve hours to stop nuclear war with China.")
I'm not good enough to write an epic what's-it, and I do have some dignity and self-respect left (ie I'm not going to bloody write a blockbuster), and moreover I know subconsciously that a hundred and thirty-thousand words is a lot when the action takes place over nine months, give or take, so it is very difficult to keep it coming. My advice to anyone else out there who wants to try this sort of thing is to read writers who are not as good as you are, in order to comfort yourself with the thought that they got published even though they're shit and therefore you can too. I have a very short reading-list, myself.

The same to you, dear.

2004-12-25T23:22:00.000Z

Today, like so many others within the western world and not the witnesses to the Jehovah's incident, I celebrated Christmas, using
An up-slap meal with my nuclear family, using non-alcoholic drinks, cold turkey (very long story), readings from the works of Stephen Fry and blasphemous speculation about the baby Jesus
Lots of presents, far more than I got anyone else, which made me feel guilty. My distant relatives always kindly send me a tenner at Christmas, unaware that this will just about pay for a round in a fairly respectable pub. But they are no doubt far spiritually richer than me, as I didn't send them anything
A very baroque scratching-post arrangement for Marjorie the cat, hopefully to be used at night instead of my legs
Bad tv
A phonecall to my ex-boyfriend and his entire family
Catnip for all and sundry (Marji was turned on to it for the first time in her life and is now a seasoned pot-head)
Fruitcake with too much icing and a little plastic snowman on top, in accordance with Christian tradition.

And I hope everyone reading and not reading this had a jolly good one too. Now for the Boxing Day sales.

happiness, and Michael Foot, and things.

2004-12-24T23:14:00.000Z

I'd just like to recommend a book I found in the library today called "The Uncollected Michael Foot," which contains reviews of various publications and biographies of famous people and Venice for some reason dating from the early 1980s (which all of us with any sense at all will surely agree was a really shit decade; even the fact that I was born in 1983 cannot redeem this appalling year which I think brought us the misery of Michael 'Section 28' Howard as well as all the other stuff which I don't need to go through again as this is supposed to be a time of happiness and rejoicing rather than of Norman Tebbit) to about now, and bits of things about the Bomb and the Occupation, which he threatened to oppose with a mass trespass in Hyde Park, possibly due to the fact that it is less popular to shoot old people than people with nose-rings and dreads on the grounds that they won't shoot back, although you never know these days.
It's got a lot of that type of sentence in it, so if you haven't made it here there's a good chance it's not your style of type anyway.
Anyway, I've got to go to bed so that I'm nicely tucked up before Santa comes, so a very happy to any of you and your families whom I haven't emailed, and to Will thanks for being so nice about this and for writing back, which none of the other ones did; bastards.

Kebabbed

2004-12-23T23:27:00.000Z

I haven't posted for - god, I can't remember. Couple of days (?). I had a fit last night and it pretty much wiped everything for a while. So I can't remember where my parents' christmas presents are. I can't even remember what I fucking got my mum. Which is pathetic, as I know almost exactly what she's giving me. I forgot to save it to the hard-drive and so I can't remember any of it, and I haven't been able to do anything but eat, sleep, read, sleep a bit more, and then watch old children's films. Even when I went to the doctor this morning I only yawned all the time and left the explaining bit to Mum, which was... toss really, but I mean it doesn't matter as such in the great scheme of things, it's not a policy matter or... anyone who's ever met me knows where this is going to end up...
When I went to a cafe with the young gentleman who so tragically spurned my advances (passim) I had the privilege of seeing my first resting kebab. It was the traditional kebab-shop kebab, one of those long cylinders of what might possibly be termed meat with bits shaved off the side standing in front of a little grill. It was 1pm and the kebab operation was not... operating, so the grills were off, and the kebabs were just standing there. Our subsequent discussion explored the biological and social consequences of just leaving a kebab standing there, and I have since come to understand the kebab as a metaphor for the occupation. The occupation of Iraq, not the kebab occupation referred to above. Don't be stupid when I'm trying to be intelligent.
Let me explain. The kebab is made. It's not made out of very nice stuff, and when it's finished it's a bit eurgh, but it's not doing any harm. After it's made it has a stick put up its bottom and is thoroughly roasted. Not thoroughly enough, however, to kill off all the germs; if it was cooked well enough to kill off all the germs the whole kebab would be a blackened, useless mess. The germs are merely awakened. The heat is turned off for a while, but the germs multiply. They multiply and multiply; of course they wouldn't have been able to multiply or become active without being subjected to the previous heat, and eventually some twat turns up the heat again. The germs go into action. And at the end of the day you have a lot of people very ill from bacteria which they wouldn't have had before, and fair enough they bought kebabs so they're not entirely innocent, but they didn't know what they were letting themselves in for. Although the analogy does break down at the end in that the kebab-shop owner doesn't say as he hands over each newspaper-wrapped bundle of botulism "You might get very ill from this kebab, but that's just God's will," nor is he insanely, inexplicably, ridiculously popular even though it's quite clear that his IQ is roughly the same as that of a pitta bread.

One other thing. In my last article I mentioned 'Peter's friends' in what I hoped was a small hint of libel. The libel was not that Peter Lilley has no friends, but that the phrase carried innuendoing implications. (I don't know what the word is, sorry.) Too late did I remember that "Peter's Friends" is a 1990s film about luvvie actors, and the phrase I was grasping pathetically towards was "friends of Dorothy," which is not a film about actors at all. To quote Stephen Fry, if you want to know what these are
"ask a policeman. Or one in five Tory MPs."
So I apologise to all the actors I know.
And the homosexuals.

Functional creeps

2004-12-21T22:10:00.000Z

Tory Peter Lilley savaged the [ID card] bill as a "bad idea stemming from the worst possible motives".
Critics said the national ID register would be open to expansion, or "function creep."
- The Guardian.

I joined the Labour Party in 1996, so I should have known what I was letting myself in for. At the time, of course, the Scott Report had just been published, the horror blockbuster BSE II had just hit the fan, and possibly most influential I was twelve, a recent convert to Socialism and quite up for slouching towards the new Jerusalem (WB Yeats, look it up) in any way possible - possible being the key word there - so I have some kind of mild weak excuse. But I should have known. *We* should have known. Then again: it was perceived to be a bit racist to keep on talking about Arab terrorists (excepting suicide bombers); everyone knew that PFI was a repellently expensive and entirely mad idea; and Clinton was President, so we *couldn't* know exactly how far up the US neo-cons' collective arse Our Leader actually was. Well, this year we celebrated Ten Glorious Years of being discreetly dragged rightwards and seven of discreetly dragging the country - all over the place. The trouble with the Labour Party, or with the ruling faction anyway, is that they/we do nice things and nasty things, so you can't in all conscience campaign for or against them/us as an organisation. The National Minimum Wage. PFI. Writing off debt to developing countries. Selling them arms. Improving conditions in prisons. So we don't have to feel bad about banging people up for longer. The New Deal. Following GWB around like an ickle puppy.
And now these fucking ID cards.
At first they're going to be optional, so that terrorists don't have to apply for them if they really don't want to. (No-one has said exactly how optional.) Then, and to his credit Charles Clarke has been entirely honest about this, they're going to be compulsory. Fingerprints, photos (presumably passport photos, in which we'll all look really stupid, because you always do), eyeball prints, iris testing, bionic what's-its, the whole he-bang [stet], and quite possibly, after the introduction of functional creep, what subversive groups we belong to (e.g. Save the Labour Party (Labour Party members only)), our sexual orientation (Don't Know not permitted), our religious beliefs (so that The Man knows whether we're protected under the new religious hatred bill or whether we're atheists who can be freely insulted by religious groups, they do have freedom of speech after all), whether we can cook or not and any amusing speech impediments.
So they're popular. People are afraid of crime (which has been going down for several years now). So were the Blackshirts in 38. People were afraid of unemployment (which if you remember wase a real problem). Doesn't mean either of them present/ed the right solution.
People are fed crap by the tabloid press - it's a left-wing cliche, but that's because it's fucking true. They are told systematic lies by the press, owned by guess who rich people, real problems like poverty are ignored in favour of pretendy problems like the 'threat of' 'asylum seekers,' and then the people in charge say they're Doing Something About the pretendy problem and produce a bit of legislation which serves either their interests or those of the aforementioned rich people. I knew this when I was twelve for fucksake. The problem was that there was no Labour Government to test the thesis on.
Now there is, and I was right all along. Hurray.
I cannot stand Peter Lilley. I never dreamt that I would ever ever possibly ever be on the same side as Bill Cash ever in my entire life. But I'd rather be one of Peter's friends (pun only slightly intended) or brandish a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four in a melodramatic and cliched manner at the government front bench than be one of the functional creeps lining up to vote for this particular piece of populist piss. And so, I expect, would a lot of other Labour Party members. So be careful, is all.

The only political lesbian in the village

2004-12-17T21:18:00.000Z

And thus you find me transferred to the dubiously delightful surroundings of Ardallie, which is horrible and cut-off and insular and incestuous and horrible and toenail-gnawingly boring and almost colder than Aberdeen station [clinically proved to be the coldest place on earth] and muddy and full of sheep and horrible and horrible. Madge the cat has, strangely, come with me, but is confined to my bedroom so as to avoid upsetting all the other cats; so my hands are still being bitten and scratched (this is her favouritest hobby: she's got about 10 toys but none of them quite measure up to my flesh) until they look like somebody's tried to put them through a mincer, and she mews pitifully at the door in a manner that, or which, I'm not sure, makes my heart ache for all the experiences she's missing out on. Normally I don't feel bad about this because she's got a whole flat to run around in, but one tiddly little room really isn't the same. I caress her head in pity, and she goes for my hand again.
And I still haven't got my sister's christmas present yet.
And I'm never going to get the application form for the social services job off in time. This is quite ironic, because it's the only jobcentre job I've ever liked the look of, and I actually rather want it.
And the book isn't getting on very fast, and what there is of it doesn't look very good at all. This upsets me. It would be a bit shite not to get published at all, or to get published and not be very good, now that I've been outed as A Writer to practically every Scottish Labour Student. The tricky thing about being A Writer is having to write, and I can't be a writer if I don't write anything, and I want to be a writer, I don't want to work for social servicessssss...
Still, worse things happen at sea.

Health warning

2004-12-15T18:45:00.000Z

On Monday evening I got a text-message from our friendly local campaigns co-ordinator asking me to come campaigning on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I replied in the same medium that I couldn't because I was going home, apologised as profusely as you can within a 160-letter limit, and switched my phone off to save my battery. The next morning I put it on again to check for messages. I found a reply from the night before saying not to worry and he might not be going because he wasn't feeling well. I immediately ruled out any kind of cold, flu, food-poisoning, foot injuries from too much door-to-door work, post-exam hangover or having been beaten up by our MP (long story), decided that he must be dying in some unspecified and/or unpronounceable way which I don't know about because the only other person I know with diabetes is my gran and we never talk to her, and began to worry properly.
I am like the american terrorist alert system (ONLY) in that I never stop worrying. I have green-level worrying (what if someone breaks in when I'm out, is the cat growing fast enough, am I going to run out of clean underpants), amber-level (will I get to the meeting on time if I stay in to watch the Simpsons, has the meeting been rescheduled to yesterday, have I run out of pills when I can't find my new prescription) and red-level. Did I leave enough time to get to the station to catch the only train to a crucial destination at the other end of the country. Is Dad going to be ok driving to the Western Isles and back without a seatbelt. When's the war going to start? (I know it's not going to start outside my bedroom window and the bangs are only fireworks, but still...) This was a proper red-level worry, which I always welcome.
My phone was fast running out of money as well as battery so I phoned him a couple of times on the landline. Answering machine. Bugger. Tried again in the evening. Still nothing. By this point I was practically jiggling up and down on my feet with anxiety like a little child which needs the toilet. Eventually I spent my last sixpence on a text-message. I got one back about half an hour later saying that he was fine, "how are you?"

The warning contained in the title is DON'T WORRY ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE ADULTS AND CAN LOOK AFTER THEMSELVES.

If you're reading this, I'm ok, I just haven't got any money.

Cuh.

2004-12-13T21:22:00.000Z

I looked on the your comments section of proud of britain, hoping to find even the bit of my comment which said how great the minimum wage was. Which it is. If you're watching. I did not find my tiddly comment, but did find a gigantic number of badly-spelt numbers - one amounting to more than a page - about how wise Our Leader's policy on Iraq is and how everyone opposed to it must be an al-Qaeda sympathiser or collaborator.
I can't remember whether or not I told the proud of britain people that I'd been a member of the Labour Party since the age of 12. I have a feeling I did, merely confirming the hypothesis that they don't give a gnat's toss about Labour Party members so long as we applaud at conferences and hand out plenty of leaflets come election-time.
http://www.savethelabourparty.org .

2004-12-11T18:11:00.000Z

Today I was phoned by a man from MORI (or rather from an Indian call-centre on behalf of MORI). He asked me whether I supported fox-hunting and which party I was going to vote for, and then said "This section is about the seven deadly sins." (In passing may I note that I have no idea who would want market research done about sins.)
"Right."
"Now the seven deadly sins are lust, greed, gluttony, envy, pride, anger and sloth. Now which of those would you say you had committed in the past month."
"Ehhhh... probably all of them."

Latest news from the People's Front of Judea

2004-12-10T18:28:00.000Z

When looking in WordPower for "Screen Burn" by Charlie Brooker (I think) I came across an extremely odd and most heavily-plugged thing, called "The Revolutionary Wit of Tommy Sheridan, Colin Fox and Rosie Kane MSPs." Where... to... start. Possibly with the observation that I distrust anyone who calls themselves or their policies revolutionary. It is annoying and self-glorifying, with the occasional undertone of Thatcher. Or perhaps with the smug assertion on the back cover that politicians try to be funny but aren't, while this holy trinity are funny because they're not really politicians, they're real people. I have met a large number of politicians over the years and all of them seemed to be people rather than an evil alien life-form trying to take over the galaxy and shoot The People. (The People are the voters, or rather the small number of voters who voted SSP.) Or indeed with the irrelevant assertion that Rosie Kane has a silly name (though I'm biased because when I was very very small I used to have a dog called Rosie). Or with the fact that most of the witty remarks aren't really very funny. I had a flick through and - well, I say things like those myself every day, and I'm hardly Dorothy fucking Parker. Or with the character biographies. Rosie Kane's says that she led the campaign to 'stop young working-class men being described as neds.' Well. For a start young working-class men aren't described as neds. Neds are neds. They can come from any kind of social background, it's what they do that's important: shouting 'shagged yir ma' at passers-by; drinking Vitamin T and leaving the cans on the ground; pointless grafitti; putting bricks through people's windows; abusing homeless people (how's that for a revolutionary act of working-class solidarity), etc. Even if all these young men were working-class, they'd still be neds; they can't be let off just because they're working-class. This also assumes that all young working-class men behave like this. There must be some who after coming home from school play football, do the washing up, read, watch TV, visit their gran or even - and god forbid a working-class person should do this - do their homework. These are young working-class people. They are not neds. They are not viewed as neds by anyone except, presumably, Rosie Kane.
God knows there's a lot wrong with the country and with the Government. Maybe some SSP policies might make a bit of difference. It's just that the SSP are the wrong people to implement them or indeed anything.

An article, if not the article

2004-12-09T22:00:00.000Z

Today I went to First Minister's Questions at the Scottish Parliament and then to a Labour Students reception. Our Chair asked me to write an article about this for the LS website, saying that he had asked me before anyone else because he knew I wrote, which was very sweet and made me feel extremely smug. My last excursion into proper journalism (and even then 'proper' may be an exaggeration) was committed at the age of 16, working unpaid-ly at my then local paper, the Ellon Times. I mostly wrote up stuff off the wires and phoned dead people's relatives to ask them how they felt, but I have one claim to fame of a sort, from the 2000 Scottish Labour Conference. This was fixed by a mutual friend. I was a CLP delegate, leaving my seat at the end of the conference sans interesting interviews, when she ran up to me and called out 'Helen? Have you got your pencil?' '
Umm... yes...'
I've got you an interview with Donald Dewar.' I ran down to the front and saw the First Minister sitting on a flip-up chair at the front of the conference hall. He looked up and smiled, and I started to thank him effusively while trying to think up something to say. I asked him a few questions and wrote down the answers in longhand, and after a couple of minutes we agreed that he had to go
a. he had to speak to some proper journalists
b. I didn't have anything else to ask him
There's a statue of Donald Dewar in Glasgow with "That there should be a Scottish Parliament" etc. written round the bottom, and I suppose he is a great historical figure, but I'll always remember him not as our first First Minister or as the person who commissioned the (d.q.) 'white elephant' of a building which they've stuck our MSPs in, but as the First Minister who gave an interview to a sixteen-year-old work-experience 'journalist' from a local newspaper with a circulation of about 10 while the BBC and the Scotsman and the Herald waited outside.
The "Ellon Times" put it on page 15.
So I'm going to stick to fiction in future, and while I was flattered by the offer I didn't think I could do 300 words on a Labour Students reception. Still, I can try. Not very hard, but I'll have a shot:
Scottish Labour Students today enjoyed a reception at the Scottish Parliament, in one of the committee rooms really high up with a great view on the one side and quite a lot of grubby-looking buildings on the other, but you can't have everything. The Parliament people provided coffee, tea, juice and horrid sandwiches, but the highlight of the lunchtime was the appearance of our First Minister Jack McConnell, looking radiant in a suit. He chatted informally to students in the front row of the audience, including me, who told him that he'd properly shafted Colin Fox, though not in those precise words. However, he went to do his speech before I could ask him why SSP people CAN'T SPEAK IN A NORMAL VOICE. As a Socialist who can be polite occasionally, I deprecate their OBSESSION WITH SHOUTING, which frequently SPOILS QUITE GOOD POINTS THEY'RE MAKING. They obviously haven't got used to having microphones, or else they just want to demonstrate what tough street-fighters they are, which is REALLY VERY ANNOYING. Anyway, back to Jack. He did a wee speech saying how great we were, which everyone does when they're speaking to students (they can't get over the fact that there are young people who actually like them) and then buggered off. The Labour Students ourselves then got up and mingled, discussing by-elections and things, and a few MSPs spoke informally to small groups of enthralled Socialists (and other Laboury people who wouldn't even describe themselves as Socialists) and all the cups were used up so I couldn't get any coffee. Others present included Marlyn Glen, Jackie Baillie I think but she was across the room so I couldn't really tell, and Richard Baker (list MSP for NE Scotland, and really the only reason for me to vote last time round since I was registered in Banff and Buchan [spits]), though I'm not entirely sure. Representatives of various Scottish Labour Clubs were also present (I really ought to stop saying 'present'), and wafted around the room saying hello to each other and taking pictures with their digital cameras and mobile phones and cameras in phones and phones in cameras and all kinds of weirdy things.
I don't think that's 300 words, but it'll have to do.

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2004-12-08T21:50:00.000Z

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PEOPLE LIKE YOU USE ACME ANTI-CRUD, you disgusting dirty little freak.

Britain, Britain, Britain

2004-12-07T21:47:00.000Z

If you are patriotic please visit this site:
http://www.proudofbritain.org.uk
which will give you the opportunity to register your views on how great Britain is. I didn't do it for a while because I couldn't make up my mind between all the choices, but eventually I decided to pick the attendance at anti-war demonstrations last year over the first series of 'Little Britain.' (I think the second one's a bit shit.)

This is quite difficult for someone without a pound sign on their keyboard.

2004-12-06T19:34:00.000Z

Fee for Edinburgh University Students' Association to rejoin NUS after 25 years ...... 50,000
Amount we'll make back ...... 57,000
Surplus, counting conferences and stuff ... 2,936

Return ticket from Edinburgh to London for Labour Students National Council ...... 57.60
Bacon roll and bottle of juice for breakfast ...... 2.35
Tube ticket on Saturday (purchased from woman in the queue rather than real ticket office) ...... 5
Five panicked texts to conference organisers in an attempt to find the venue ...... 0.50
Horrible meal at youth hostel ...... Free [and even then a ripoff]
One and a half pints of orange juice on Saturday night ...... 1.90
Sunday lunch, purchased outside the venue in order to a. avoid the horrible Nestle-filled packed lunches we had been given free, b. get to know someone I wanted to get to know ...... 4.80
Tube ticket on Sunday (I was too thick to get a weekend pass) ...... 4.30
Sight of the chairman [stet] of Scottish Labour Students, wearing a party hat, a hair-clip and a tinsel feather boa and holding a bottle of beer, dancing the twist with several other people who ought to know better ...... priceless.

There are a lot of things you can't put on a credit card, you know.

Not at a Soiree: explains why.

2004-12-03T18:48:00.000Z

It's 6.50pm (ignore the time at the bottom of this post; I think it's in American) and I'm supposed to be at a soiree (add acute to one of the e's. I'm not sure which. This is because I'm shit at French) with the people from my writers' group, but instead I'm sitting in a squishy chair with my laptop balanced on my knees, the internet connection liable to go arse-up at any time, and... not really regretting it. It was described as 'formal,' and to tell the truth I was rather looking forward to getting my long jacket out of the 'I never wear this' part of the wardrobe, finding some earrings which while being beautiful don't contrast with my nose-stud to such a degree that the latter looks like a piece of metal which was driven violently through skin, flesh and muscle simply to create a hole in my nose, which is what it is but never mind, and most of all taking my Good Dress out of mothballs.
'My Good Dress' is a bit of a misnomer; I have three Good Dresses, one black, two in varying shades of red (no jokes about scarlet women or clumsy references to Socialism please, even at this time of night). None of them have been worn for three and a half years. The reason why I didn't go to the soiree was that when it came to it I couldn't face putting any of them on again. I'm not a Good Dress person. Before I came to university Good Dresses were simply fancy-dress. That changed when I was seventeen, in first year, in love - not with anyone in particular, but with the whole place. My school was so shitty that I'd formed a rather idealised conception of university, dreaming spires, cloistered... whatever it is comes in cloisters, that's not the point. The point is I got it wrong. In all fairness university was far better than school. Everyone was there because they wanted to be there. I wasn't used as a punching-bag simply for being brighter than everybody else. (I wasn't brighter than anybody else, but for some reason this didn't matter so much.) The coursework was interesting. I made friends easily. And most important of all, I found other Socialists. Ironically, it was some of these Socialists who ruined the whole thing. There was a debating club. Not the Debating Club, and this was part of its appeal. It was a small elite grouping of pretentious eccentrics which adhered strongly to the Christian ethos in letter if not in spirit (its executive comprised, if I remember correctly, one Catholic, one Protestant, an atheist and a Jew) and which viewed itself as combining the wit of Oscar Wilde with the razor-sharp brilliance of F. E. Smith, look it up, but which could be more accurately described as a cross between The Secret History and Fight Club with less lethal violence and more references to Tom Driberg, look it up. Evening dress was officially optional, but there are two kinds of 'optional' and theirs was the other one. So I spent in total about thirty quid on these Good Dresses and attended faithfully every fortnight and sometimes made weak little floor speeches and sometimes not and shouted 'Hear, hear' and 'Shame' along with the rest of them. (Not shouted exactly, now I come to think of it. I was always pretty quiet, and when a lot of people are saying 'hear, hear' together it's fairly indistinct. 'Shame' makes you sound very much like a herd of cows who have just spotted the bloke with the silage coming towards them.) I basked in this, and overlooked the fact that I was being despised. This doesn't sound like a big deal. It isn't a big deal. It's just that... I thought I'd got away from all that. I comforted myself at school with the thought that it wasn't me it was them, and that everyone would be nice at university, and then I found out that:
a. Just because people are bright doesn't mean they're going to be nice. All it means is that they can work out more sophisticated ways of being nasty.
b. There are some people who are always picked on.
c. I'm one of them.

A nice dress would look a bit silly with my tackety-boots anyway.

The private/public divide (like yesterday)

2004-12-02T21:32:00.000Z

I won't be posting at the weekend because I'm at a conference in London. I went to get the ticket this afternoon and with a disability discount card it costs 57.80. This isn't even funny. So I am not going to the Gaelic class's Christmas dinner. (They're mostly a very irritating set of people anyway.) I am going to economise and make DVDs out of cardboard and sellotape and string and not buy chips or go to the cinema. Fares are going up by more than inflation again. Capitalism, unfettered, is like Fenrir the wolf. (Look it up.)

Compensation

2004-12-01T23:14:00.000Z

The Socialist government in Chile is apparently about to compensate people who were tortured under Pinochet. They had an inquiry to find out who was eligible and what had happened to them, which must have been rather unpleasant for all concerned but all's not quite so horrific which ends well.
Today was also the 20th anniversary of the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal (India). I saw a documentary about this on the bBC. The compensation paid by the private company to the thousands of people whose lives have been ruined by disabilities caused by toxic gas amounts to about 1.50 per person per month.

2004-11-30T21:51:00.000Z

Haven't posted for a few days because one thing or another was all buggered. So I didn't put anything about the anti-racist march in Glasgow. But it was jolly good. And we all got very wet. Anyway, I went home for a couple of days for my mother's birthday and got her a cup saying I HATE WORK and went Christmas-card shopping at the evangelical christian shop in Peterhead. There is a rather rocking one (sorry) saying Greetings From Peterhead with a picture of what I suppose is Jerusalem on the front (at any rate it's got more palm trees than Peterhead), and one with a robin wishing you peace, which is a bit out of keeping with what some Christians no name no pack drill have been up to lately. I also couldn't resist the temptation to buy myself a little something out of their tat section; this consisted of a keyring with a fish (the fish, if you know what I mean) on a revolving bit in the middle and the frame thingy saying I AM A BELIEVER. This cost 2.99, which I know is a ridiculous amount to spend on something like that, but I am a believer, just in Socialism rather than god and talking sheep and things like that, and I'm going to put something to that effect over the holy sardine as soon as possible. There is a huge selection of targeted cards to your great-grandson and your daughter and her lovely husband, but nothing (I checked, on the off-chance that I get one before Christmas. But I know that this is not likely.) saying "to my lovely partner." Damn. It's within the realms of human possibility, you know, that I might be a mad Baptist with a girlfriend; the interesting bit is would they sell me anything if I told them? Would they chase me out of the shop with a broom? Or would the lure of Mammon prove too much for them? Heh heh heh.

Being youth unemployment

2004-11-26T18:30:00.000Z

At the start of term I went to a Labour Club social thing where Sarah Boyack spoke about our achievements, one of which was that 'youth unemployment in Edinburgh has been eradicated.' I wanted quite badly to put up my hand and say 'I'm youth unemployment in Edinburgh.' And I'm being ungrateful about it. I do want a job. Sort of. But preferably one in the afternoons. Not working Wednesday morning anyway because I've got a class then. And within walking distance, obviously. And no weekends because I like to go home and see my family then. All right, I don't want a job. It's awful admitting that, because it makes you (or me) think of the queues in the 1930s and 80s and Jarrow and the People's March for Jobs in 1983 and those cunts sitting round the bar in golf-clubs or wherever they congeal saying that these people could get jobs if they wanted to, but I really don't want a proper job. I've got a sort of a job, writing something, which I can't tell the advisor about. I've done 33,000 words since August (not too bad considering that I've been in hospital and places for quite a bit of that, but still, objectively, a bit shit), and I'm still only about a third - call it two-fifths - of the way through. These dole people do not understand that I am an artist, and a work of art takes as long as it takes, they can't order me to have it all done by January. But in January I am going on the New Deal, so I'd better pull my finger out.
Fortunately, however, I have a nervous, earnest manner when talking to officials, so they probably think I mean it when I say I want to get a proper job.
- Shit, I hope nobody from the benefits office is reading this.

God mark II

2004-11-24T21:39:00.000Z

I wish I knew why the Jehovah's Witnesses (Stephen Fry: 'witnesses to the Jehovah incident') keep coming round to my flat. Today the woman who came last time brought an old bloke who had trouble, she informed me, with his blood-clots; I assume this was to silence people like me who ask why if God loves me so much why have I got a disability? Apparently it's because Adam and Eve were sinful and became imperfect and were cast out and all that which is no use at all because I didn't do it. To quote 'Fight Club' (just because it's a fucking good film) "You have to face up to the possibility that God does not like you very much."
My mother once got rid of the door-to-do Christians forever by asking them to help her calve a cow. However, this is less acceptable for someone who lives in a first-floor flat. Help me detach the cat from my toe, perhaps. That would be useful as well as interesting.
I wonder how many people they actually convert like this. Still, I can ask them next time.

At the party.

2004-11-21T18:26:00.000Z

And eventually. very quickly actually. sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall, and people who would indeed come to my funeral come over and ask very quietly and politely if I'm OK, to which I answer not 'I'm sitting up against the wall with my legs and hands and head trembling uncontrollably do I look as if I'm fucking OK?' but, agitated, "Fine, fine, it's fine," because I want them to go away and also because my mouth seems to be full of glue and all the words I know have seeped out of my brain. Smiling politely in order that they don't panic. Shitty disco music from the room below. Someone - god - someone sitting on a little leather seat beside me, his hand on my shoulder. I'm clutching onto him so hard that I get pins and needles a few minutes later. He is keeping on saying that it's all right, which is one of the clearest signs ever that whatever it is isn't all right, and then starts talking about 'Balamory' [sp.?], which is far more comforting, and I can feel any respect or - or anything - which he ever felt for me melting discreetly away. If only I were normal, and people wouldn't pity me -
However. I'm not normal. People do pity/despise me. Shit happens. Nothing is fair, get used to it; the best we can do is try to make it a bit less unfair. There are a lot of people worse off than me, who don't wallow so, and that's why I'm turning a whiny self-absorbed essayette into an Argument for Socialism. Proper progressive taxation, the money raised being put into the benefit system, would help disabled people who can't get jobs, also other unemployed people who don't have the 'ahhh' factor of wheelchair-users and ASYLUM SEEKERS WHO GET THIRTY QUID A WEEK. I'd love to see the editor of the Daily Bloody Mail live a life of luxury on that. There was a photo of a sign in Searchlifght magazine a couple of months ago: VOTE BNP, READ THE DAILY MAIL, which fucking says it all. Revolting piece of junk. I'll never let it in my house as long as I have the money for proper toilet paper.
That's ancient. Sorry.

From the mouths of sucklings

2004-11-16T21:13:00.000Z

Me: Oh my god. "Ian Macartney [chair of the Labour Party] said to voters 'If you go to bed with Charles Kennedy, you'll wake up the next morning with Michael Howard.'"
My sister: Both options sound pretty scary to me.

Me: Ha!
My sister: What?
Me: X hasn't updated his blog for more than a week.
Me: Well, as long as you're better than someone, that's ok.

I'd never go to bed with Charles Kennedy anyway. So there.
Actually, she's not suckling anything, she's 18.

They're all over the place

2004-11-14T21:19:00.000Z

So it's official (it was in the Sunday Mail and the Times so it must be true): Tommy Sheridan's personal reasons were shagging-related after all. I hadn't wanted to say anything before, but I thought so. How many there were in the bed really isn't that important - oh come on, I'm only human, I want to know what Tommy Sheridan - no, this is debasing and only indicates the kind of level to which political debate in Scotland has sunk over recent years. The Sunday Mail said four, but... No. Stop it.
And his mirror image, Boris Johnson, the only man on the Tory front bench more nauseating than Michael 'also useful for emetic purposes' Howard, has also been sacked for sleeping around. This makes a bit more sense, seeing as they're all so big on family values (really should have learned from Back to Basics 10 years ago: when you start talking about traditional morality the press always go looking for the skeletons, or other things, in your closet). Tommy, to his credit, has always kept his nose out of other people's bedrooms, so we should really return the favour. But like I said, we're human ...
The whole affair raises a lot of questions about political morality. Does what people do in their spare time really matter - i.e., is it justified to say that if someone cheats on her/his partner s/he might cheat the rest of us? (There have been a lot of deeply corrupt politicians whose private lives have been as pure and unsullied as ... as ... god, I don't know. Virgin milk. So probably not.) Does it really matter if someone disobeys a policy so stupid as these back-to-basic things? And most importantly, who the ambidextrous glitter-buttocked fuck would want to have sex with Boris bloody bastard Johnson?

A quick commercial break

2004-11-11T21:42:00.000Z

I'm sitting in the Negociants coffeehouse internet access department, with a member of staff standing next to me having one last fag before the ban comes into effect, as my own computer is now totally unable to connect to the internet for more than fifteen seconds. It's costing me a quid, so here's an advert to pay for it.

IMAGINE
how your family friends and colleagues would feel if you was eaten by an anteater IT HAPPENS YOU KNOW.
Cushion the blow with an insurance policy from
THE BEING EATEN BY AN ANTEATER INSURANCE COMPANY
of Doncaster and Papua New Guinea.
Only £20 a month will stop you being eaten by an anteater.
This does not apply to ants.

Customer report on the Department of Work and Pensions

2004-11-07T12:39:00.000Z

I couldn't post yesterday because my computer was fucked yet again, but here's what I wanted to say: that I received a letter from the Department of Work and Pensions about my claim for disability living allowance.
Dear ***********
ABOUT YOUR CLAIM
We are sorry that we have not given you a decision on your claim for Disability Living Allowance yet.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
We will deal with your claim as quickly as we can. Do not worry you will not lose money [sic]. We will write to you again as soon as we can with more information.
HELP AND ADVICE
Please get in touch with us if you
*want to ask us about anything in this letter

Yes. I'd like to ask them why they send out letters saying 'we'd just like to say that we're sorry we haven't sent you a letter, and this letter has no other purpose than to convey our apologies we haven't sent you a letter, we're sorry to keep you hanging on like this but at least you've got *a* letter even if it says nothing but 'we're sorry we haven't sent you a proper letter,'' and why they demand claim forms back within three seconds of sending them out but take three months to come to a decision, and whether it is going to be back-dated or are they delaying it so that they can say that I've only been disabled since they've found out, and how a Labour Government can preside over this bureaucratic arse-up, and how much tax-money a year they spend on sending pointless fuck-you letters to the disabled, and how they think I can pay my electricity bill on the tiny amount of income-based Jobseeker's Allowance aka dole I get, and when the Secretary of State is going to change the Incompetence Culture within the Civil Service. And whether they can send me a copy of the letter in Sanskrit. Just to test them.

That's that, then.

2004-11-03T21:14:00.000Z

I was five when Reagan left office, seven when Thatcher went. All I remember of the first Gulf War is begging my father (then a thirty-six-year-old pacifist) not to enlist. I'm new to this. All my sentient life I've been able to assume that - all right, governments can be greedy, and corrupt, and deceitful, and venal, and sometimes just stupid, but you could practically guarantee that at some point, somewhere, they would show a flash of some kind of niceness. Some vague sort of common sense. That's all I ask. (Well not quite all, but it's a start.) And now it's formally over. I didn't mind so much when he hadn't been actually elected, I could comfort myself with that (although I'm not sure how much the Iraqi civilian population, for example, know or care about pregnant chads), and the thought that he might be re-defeated, like the stickers said, kept me going. A lot of us, probably. And we placed our faith in a slightly dull, immensely intelligent, compassionate, pro-choice Roman, and kept buggering on.
And now this. And now this. A majority - not a big majority, is the only consolation, but still a majority - of the USA population have rejected reason, decency, fellow-feeling, and even self-interest. This feels like a death. It will be deaths. As Romans go, John Kerry is Brutus.
People don't seem to realise that the devil you know is still a devil.
We are going into the dark.

Grantham (stream of consciousness)

2004-11-01T21:41:00.000Z

Unhappily I was prevented from wishing both my viewers (readers? punters?, whatever) a very Happy Samhain yesterday by being in Grantham, where the NUT have a deeply fantastic house which they lend out to Union/Labour groups for conferences, seminars and other excuses for a subsidised kneesup, attending a Labour Students thing and trying to get the Students With Disabilities Caucus to discuss something other than dyslexia. As I told one of the organisers, I shouldn't really have been there (as a non-student) but I 'didn't have any real friends' to hang around with; when he disagreed kindly I didn't press the point that I meant people who would voluntarily spend their Saturday nights with me, rather than people who'll come to my funeral, because it wouldn't have been polite. Also it would have been very difficult to explain in any detail because of the disco which I was trying to watch in an affectionately cynical and detached manner in order to avoid awkward questions about why I wasn't dancing (I object on principle to songs whose lyrics consist of the instructions for the dance, and I wouldn't insult anything else by trying to dance to it because I always look like somebody's granny). I managed in this pathetic way to get out of dancing right up to the end, but the last song was Things can only get Better, and everyone had to dance to that in the same way that everyone in cinemas had to stand up at the end of the programme for "god save the king." In exactly the same way, when you think about it.

John Redwood speaks

2004-10-28T18:27:00.000+01:00

This is quite amazing really:
http://www.labour.org.uk/redwoodtape
I can't work out whether I prefer the quote or the way the animation makes his mouth move up and down in a very creepy way.

Sorry about that.

2004-10-26T19:42:00.000+01:00

So it did post after all. And I used my entire weekly quota of swearwords to no purpose. Oh well, all's well that ends.

Fuck Everything

2004-10-26T19:33:00.000+01:00

And especially my stupid shitting computer. I did a long and hopefully interesting semi-essay about the promotion of god in schools and it just fucking dies on me. Well fuck it, and fucking fuck everything.

God...

2004-10-26T19:08:00.000+01:00

This is a story about Mr and Mrs Naafin. Naafin isn't their actual name, but they give talks (indoctrination sessions) to primary school children in Aberdeenshire and Naafin is how they pronounce 'nothing.' As in:

An Gawd made aw the animuws ahta Naafin, but we're diff'rent, boys and gews, cos weh made ahta Claiy.

(My mother then has to go back to her classroom and teach these children biology.)
Mr and Mrs Naafin produce a newsletter which is not circulated to the teachers they work with, but my mother's boss got her hands on a copy of it. It contains various unkind personal comments about teachers at assorted primary schools, a recommendation of lunchtime prayer meetings rather than whole-school presentations, as Mr and Mrs N. have 'much more freedom' when the teachers aren't there (having seen what they do when the teachers are there, my mind boggles at the thought of what might happen when they really let themselves go), and an amazing (slightly) account of goings-on at one school, where they prayed that the head teacher should be sacked because she was an atheist in collaboration with the acting-head. The head duly left, and they prayed that the acting-head should get the job. It does sound pretty innocuous, but I always thought you should pray for nice things in general; in this case, perhaps, that God's will be fulfilled in the behaviour of the previous head teacher, who is after all legally entitled to be an atheist herself as long as she keeps stuffing the children's heads with religious propaganda, and when she left that the post be filled by someone with a commitment to the Christian ethos. This is what these people are like. This is what's happening in America and I'm buggered if we - who are, like it or not, a secular, Socialist Party - are going to sit back and let it happen here. Thank fuck Mum's boss (who is by the way a Christian herself) is taking it to higher powers, and Mr and Mrs Name-changed-to-protect-the-guilty may not be allowed to spread this shite in state schools again. It's ridiculous to think that taxpayers' money is being used for this; I'd far far rather it be used to promote homosexuality if they've got to do something useless with it. At least gay people fucking exist.

Owwwwwfuckinell

2004-10-22T21:08:00.000+01:00

I finally got my nose pierced today, after months of speculation, in a sinister-looking tattoo merchants'. After having lied about the date of my last seizure on the application form I was led, alone, into the basement (you're not allowed the equivalent of birth partners for piercings, which was a shame because my sister had come all the way from our house to offer me moral support and was left in the waiting-room reading bizarre fetishistic magazines) by a much-tattooed and pierced bloke who was really very nice, and used sterilised equipment, and everything, but seemed to view a nose-stud as something that normal people got at the age of ten. And it fucking hurt, I will say that. Not as much as getting stitches in your lip without anaesthetic (from personal experience), but it did hurt. I managed however to get through the whole thing without making any noise except a quiet whimper of "Mother of God" as the instrument entered my flesh.
It didn't/doesn't really hurt since then, but I got an appalling great cramp in my left leg afterwards, coincidentally the side I got pierced; am I the only person to get my nose pierced and end up with a sore thigh? And if I got a bolt through my thigh (people probably do) would my nose start hurting?

Heritage, schmeritage

2004-10-21T21:31:00.000+01:00

Just come out of my Gaelic class in a state of barely-concealed fury. Occasionally, we waste valuable time talking about little fripperies, and tonight the frippery talk turned to the new wind-farm on Lewis. This posh bloke up the front was terribly anti in the kind of NIMBY-ish way that only people who don't live there can manage, and said it would cut up seabirds. I was pretty much sold on renewable energy already (expecially since my ex-flatmate was very disappointed that her father couldn't get one on his farm - yes I wrote COULDN'T) but as a just-outside-Aberdonian the thought of it cutting up seabirds settled it entirely for me. I look forward to its arrival with great glee, as will anyone who's actually lived near any seabirds; they are the pigeons of the seaside, with the important differences of course that their shit smells of fish and they are also really big evil-looking fuckers who keep giving you the Eye and have actually been known to attack small children. So smash the bastards.
Another woman said, when our teacher (Ann) said that it couldn't spoil Lewis's natural beauty because it had no natural beauty, that (ip. verb.) "Lewis is beautiful!!" To which Ann, very sensibly, said that it might have some bleak midgy-ridden beauty in the summer, but that it was not at all what one might call beautiful in the winter, especially when you're young and free and have to walk six miles for a pint of milk and cycle to school in the dark. I can extremely identify with this, except that no-one's had the nerve to suggest that Aberdeenshire's beautiful... Actually, put your windfarms there!
Not instead, but as well. When Lewis is under two metres of water it probably won't be as beautiful. But these people rarely think beyond their next holiday.

The old bloke downstairs from me.

2004-10-19T16:03:00.000+01:00

The old bloke downstairs from me, while watering his gardinias yesterday, told me the best George Bush joke I've heard in a long time:
GWB visits a high [secondary] school in america and after being given the guided tour is asked to say a few words to the students [pupils] in the auditorium [assembly hall]. He makes a little speech and then says that he's open to questions. One student puts his hand up.
"Hi," says the 'President, "what's your name?"
"My name's Bobby," says the student, "and I've got three questions for you. Firstly, why are you President when Al Gore got more votes than you?"
"That's a very good question, Bobby. What's your next one?"
"What are we doing in Iraq when there's no WMD's there?"
"That's a good question too, Bobby. What's your third question?"
"Why, after spending all this money and time on the job, have we not caught bin Laden yet?"
"That's another good question, Bobby." At this point, the fire alarm goes off and everyone is ordered out of the building. When they're allowed back in, Bush says that he'll take some more questions.
"My name's Steve," says another student, "and I've got four questions for you. Why are you President when Al Gore got more votes than you? What are we doing in Iraq when there aren't any WMD's there? Why have we not caught bin Laden yet? And what's happened to Bobby?"

Be on the skag as well next.

2004-10-17T15:16:00.000+01:00

Just received an email from a boy (officially you're a child until you finish university) I know in Bologna who has started a blog with photos and far more interesting entries than mine. As a bishop said. Sorry. So in future I am going to update this more than once a week, and add interesting comments on the state of the world and tips on how to stay on the dole as long as humanly possible, the last being due to a precocious mid-life crisis on my part; this is prompted by the fact that I now have to make up my own mind on something, which no-one likes. Until now I have had a perfectly normal life. What/whom you do, think, say, fuck, beat up, criminally libel or get out of office et cetera ad nauseam outside the classroom doesn't matter: this is what happens in your life.
Primary school.
Secondary school.
[for nice middle-class girls like me] University.
The End. Or indeed the beginning. This is the bit where you have to decide what to do: are you a selfless (this is slang for badly-paid) public-sector worker, a normal, content contributor to the Gross National Product (well, good for you), a sell-out cunt working for some fucking multinational arms manufacturer or something, which does to your immortal soul what smoking three packs a day does to your lungs*, a policy wonker, an appallingly clever PhD person what I was trying to be like but it costs three thousand quid a year anyway, or none of the above but still some kind of over-achiever, or indeed achiever of any sort. Or, alternatively, a dole mole with a crappy 2.1 (that's it; I'm officially second class now) and no back-up plan after failing the health-check for a post-graduate teaching course. Hmmm. As Our Leader once said, you've got to make tough choices in government.

*Although this of course brings International Investment to Britain, so you're actually a wonderful person, and mustn't lie awake at night wondering what poor sod is on the receiving end of one of your produc
ts and how when he's been shovelled up he'll look like a pound of finest steak mince.

Aardvarks of the World Unite.

2004-10-13T05:41:00.000+01:00

Ehh ... hello? Anyone there?