Tag: idiots

Tories, Football & Poo

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As I scour the worlds events in search of topics I discover little. Another Tory sex offender doing his best attempt at being a throwback to the 1990s. Usually they were having gay affairs but with being gay not an inhibitive issue anymore he appears to have just gone and sexually assaulted someone instead. I’m cautious of immediately believing every accusation but there’s often no smoke without fire as they say. In other Tory news the somehow not yet fully disgraced Housing Minister Robert Jennrick has made that favourite of Tory moves and cut red tape. This time it revolves around planning permission and all in the name of preserving the economy post-Covid-19, despite the fact we’re still very much present-Covid-19. It’s not like have no planning permission regulations has ever led to anything dangerous or slum like in the past, I’m sure this will definitely be different now that we have the Compassionate Conservatives in power. Is that still a thing or was it just the last incumbents who were compassionate enough to label themselves such. I forget.

Chelsea lost the FA Cup Final yesterday which I was so pleased about I gave a little fist squeeze when I saw the result. I mention them losing over Arsenal winning because I’m reasonably indifferent to Arsenal, their manager Mikel Arteta is so far likeable and Chelsea are a relatively detestable club with detestable fans. They win too much for my liking, are improving their squad a little too much also for my liking and winning the cup could potentially have given them an unwanted boost. Long term is important but we enjoy that endorphin kick in the short term probably even more. With Manchester United about to kick off their Europa League re-start next week let’s hope there’s not some Chelsea fan sitting behind a keyboard writing similar about us towards the end of the month and the tournaments conclusion. There’s nothing quite like a bit of blind tribal irrationality to give us the chance to embrace our most basic of desires.

In local news, those familiar with past posts, will remember ‘Poo Gate’ in the local Facebook group. This group was closed down by the admin when the tourist bashing got a little strong, but a few weeks ago it was opened up again. Unfortunately the tourist bashing has resumed unabated, apparently the existence of motor homes that don’t stay in the overly priced and full campsites are a blight on society and one woman discovered four of those little black bags of dog poo beside a fence. Society is crumbling before our eyes it would appear. I was very close to leaving them a comment suggesting they were all idiots and that the group should be shut down again but thought better of it as not a single positive thing would come from my action. Cities may be at the forefront of progressive culture but there’s nothing quite like a small village to get to the heart of what is at our core as a people.

Being Human

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I must begin with a retraction. I suggested I was hooted, or claxoned, at by two cars yesterday and that I thought not only were the two people being arseholes, that they must surely have been locals too. I was aware that I may have been jumping to conclusions but I was in the mood to do it anyway. It turns out then that I was wrong. One of the guys in the bakery today asked me if I realised it was him hooting at me and it turns out the second incident, the one I enjoyed, not the one which involved the road rage, was not as it first seemed. Probably not as I interpreted it would me more fitting. It’s amazing how often two people can experience the same situation in completely different ways, or people take offence to someones manner when the other person is oblivious to what they were doing. In this incident I jumped to the conclusion it was some ignorant local being an idiot but really there was only one idiot there, the guy from the bakery obviously. Let’s hope I learnt something from yesterday or the only conclusion can be that there is but one arsehole.

I’m trying to think what if anything else I can retract from previous pieces. Surely in over two hundred and fifty pieces I’ve talked a lot of shit, but how much of it was inaccurate and ignorant. The title of this whole blog suggests I misunderstand many things so not only am I likely to have talked a lot of shit over these months but the hooting incident above suggests I’m simply living up to the expectations of the name. I make observations – locals are idiots – I make misunderstandings – it turns out they’re not.

I was listening to something on woke people and anti-woke people today. I would rather eat my own toes than class myself as either of those two things but what they were discussing was the absolutist stances both sides take and while their targets may change their methods and understanding, for example good guys and bad guys, was very similar. Almost dogmatic like religion. I could criticise them but judging by yesterdays incident I’m no different. To generalise a whole group of people, who have done me no actual harm that I know of, and blame this whole group for the actions of one person is just utterly ridiculous. Why do we do it. Why do I do it. To make sense of the world? Am I that simplistic? Are such crude boxes required for my mind to be comfortable. People are ridiculous. I am ridiculous. But I’m human. And fallible. As is life.

A Heroes Welcome

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As I drove through the small village near my home at about five minutes past eight this evening I noticed people had lined the street and started clapping as I approached. It’s good to have my existence celebrated finally. The strange thing is that having stopped their 8pm clap for carers session, some actually clapped in my direction as I drove by. I was in a delivery van so I wonder if they saw me as some kind of hero putting my life on the line to deliver them their bread. Still, I just drove on. I did contemplate hooting the horn as I drove through but I didn’t want to play along with whatever it is they’re doing. To be completely honest, I think the whole things a charade and it’s stupid. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure there are some exhausted and not to mention ill nurses out there and I appreciate and respect them for doing what their doing, there’s just something empty about this whole clapping show. Each Thursday at 8pm people line the streets, clap and bang pots. It’s a lovely gesture but I suspect for many it’s hollow.

It’s worth pointing out that were I live in both Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, Tory MPs were voted in to power recently. Perhaps these people banging pots could instead just not vote for them next time. Who gives a shit about what you think if you clap your hands and then vote for the very people who actively weaken those you’re clapping for. The mind numbing hypocrisy just seems lost and maybe that’s the worst part. I want to hang a banner from my window highlighting this but I’m concerned the attention it might draw to the bakery below me may not be ideal. I just want to slap everyone and point out that they’re idiots. There’s too many idiots.

People talk about ten years of Tory government and their ideological attacks on the NHS as being the reason for it’s current struggles but that’s not accurate. Either people have short memories or they’re just playing party politics. While I would trust Jeremy Corbyn with the NHS, I would be curious to know people’s opinions on Tony Blair’s version of a Labour Government. But really we can go back as far as Thatcher and the first real inroads of a neoliberal movement to destroy something that has helped so many. In truth actually we could go all the way back to Nye Bevan and the Tory government he had to fight against to establish the NHS we all love and cherish now. You see, it’s not just ten years of Tory austerity. Or forty years of neoliberalism. These bastards have had it in for free health care since the very beginning. Don’t believe their lies. And if you vote for them, save your breath, and save your effort each Thursday night. If you truly cared for the carers you wouldn’t be voting for that self-serving mob. It’s not bloody hard to understand.

A Brexit Hangover

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While yesterday may have been a day for breaking down contrived differences and the fences built in their wake, today feels like a day to take the piss out of Brexiteers. After last nights Brexit celebrations in London I skimmed through a live recording of the event online, lets say fifteen to twenty minutes of my life were dedicated to it, and made some notes. It is worth saying to start with that the whole event seemed highly amusing if anything, and while I don’t doubt there were some conditioned subjective observations; there were moments I found myself observing them as just human beings, not necessarily positively, but at least not first and foremost as Brexiteer monsters.

“Watching the Brexiteers sing We Are The Champions makes them look like spoilt little children.
Counting down like it’s a New Year celebration.
The fake clock sound because Big Ben’s broken and they can’t afford to fix it.
Sad bastards.
I’m so happy I’m not there.
Or them.
A tin pot 19th century military brass band playing the introduction to what turned out to be a 1950s Christmas crooner rendition of the national anthem.
Nigel Farage belting out his pre-memorised song sheet.
The singers out of time as the final line is stretched out.
The Union Jacks and St George’s cross blowing in the wind.
Farage legs it less than five minutes after the clock strikes 12 (Brussels time).
‘Brexit Celebration’ left on the screen to remind the crowd why they’re there.
A few of the crowd break out with Auld Lang Syne, it is New Year after all.
Some hip hip hoorays.
Chants of “Nigel”, an encore perhaps?
The sound of the bagpipes like a knife to the heart.
A multicoloured 10 Downing Street dressed up like a circus tent.
I bet Farage is desperate for this to be over so he stops having to hang out with those morons.”

I was tempted to rewrite it but thought best to give you the raw notes. Some a little harsh I admit and I hope it is entirely objective but there was something really pathetic about the whole thing. I’m in no doubt I would have said exactly the same thing had they been a bunch of pro-EU supporters gloating over something they also don’t understand. But that’s done now, I’ve had my fun and will return to the moral high ground of merely attacking the fences and those who build them. Certainly more fun being a dick though.

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

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And just like that the turkeys voted for Christmas. Or how about the Turkish proverb “The forest was shrinking, but the the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that as his handle was made of wood he was one of them”. The Conservatives won with a majority of forty seats, it was a landslide and Labour were arguably crushed. Previously safe working class Labour seats which had voted Labour for seventy, eighty, ninety years voted Tory. For some reason the residents of Grimsby think that the ruling elite somehow represent and will look after them. It’s a shit show.

I’m also angry. I’ll try not to be bitter or a bad loser but there is no surprise when seemingly the entire media has spent the last four years attacking Corbyn. Crowing, barely able to contain their excitement throughout the election show. Despite spending the last forty years fighting racism they have somehow successfully painted him as an anti-semite racist. He stood up for the Palestinians and was anti-Israeli. That is not anti-semitism. He fought the billionaires with the intention of them actually paying tax and slowing the cash grab that has been going on these last ten years. Unsurprisingly they have been terrified he may actually get in. His social policies described repeatedly as extreme left wing marxism when in fact all they would have done is put us on par with Germany and France. This was him standing on the first real working peoples manifesto for the last forty years and the working class rejected him. It feels like he was the last great hope for change, that’s what hurts so much. It will now get worse.

It turned out people couldn’t look past Brexit. The Tories managed successfully to make it the Brexit election while the rest tried to have some actual policies other than ‘get Brexit done’. 88% of their ads were found to be misleading, Labour – 0%. The Leave and Remain traditional Tory voters continued to vote Tory but the Leave Labour voters switched their allegiances and voted Tory. That was it really. And of course those who switched feel disenfranchised, they’ve been left behind, they have nothing but leaving the EU won’t magically fix what in reality is the result of forty years of neoliberal policies and neglect within Britain by British governments. It’s always the same, we think that by just buying that new car, getting that new job, winning that referendum, we will somehow wake up the following day and everything will be great, our lives will no longer suck but that’s just not how it works. All that’s going to happen is we wake up the next day to find someone ramming stuffing up our arse and placing strips of bacon across our back. We did vote for it after all.