LATEST NEWS

There’s plenty of news around this last week in August but apart from the Governor of the Bank of England re-affirming that British savers, who’ve worked hard all their lives to regularly put away a bit of money month on month for their retirement, will still be getting rock bottom interest rates on the money they lend out to banks and building societies for the foreseeable future, that’s the next three or four years to me and you, and then a few millionaire footballers are planning to switch the teams they play for with loads more dosh going into their bank accounts, the main thing filling the newspapers and television screens has been the endless, constant litany about a chemical weapons attack in Syria, who did it, and should British armed forces join those of America in attacking that country. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but up until Thursday night, NOW! Put simply, should Britain join the Americans in bombing the hell out of Syria?

At the beginning of the week, during Monday and Tuesday, Wild Bill Hague, otherwise known as Bomber Hague, David Cameron’s Foreign Secretary was hot to bomb. Bomb immediately! Attack Syria without debate in the British Parliament and its agreement, without any debate in or support from the United Nations and without taking into account the view of its Security Council which had not formally met to discuss the situation, and finally, without taking into any account British public opinion on the subject. In tandem with Bomber Hague was the endless orchestrated chorus of BBC Television reportage and comment. This supposedly neutral and unbiased state broadcasting channel, having made up its mind, absolutely and without doubt as to the Syrian Regime’s guilt for a chemical attack on civilians, on what quite frankly may best be described as the flimsiest of uncorroborated evidence supplied mainly by Islamist rebel fighters, was likewise with Hague all hot for bombing and endlessly managed its entire media coverage to support such a view.

In the first few days of the week the British Broadcasting Corporation television news threw its entire weight behind an immediate bombing campaign. Every nuance, every twist and turn in news reading and interpreting events through newsreaders themselves and commentators pointed in one single direction, that the chemical attack was a barbarous and inhuman attack on innocent people by a barbarous and inhuman political regime and required retaliation. As the BBC saw it, it was established fact that Assad’s regime was responsible and there was no need for any evidence such as it was to be corroborated and no need for the British Parliament to debate the issue let alone the United Nations. The whole British political class was in agreement they broadcast, with the Labour Opposition Leader seeing David Cameron and supposedly giving his consent as well as Nick Clegg. In short they put over the news that everyone was united on the British political front for military action, only they weren’t!

During these early days it was the BBC as much as Bomber Hague who were in a rush for military action and they shamelessly manipulated, distorted and exaggerated their news-reading accordingly. I’m certainly no supporter of President Assad of Syria or his politics, and his friends and supporters from Hezbollah to the Iranians are a pretty evil gang of Islamic terrorists and nutcases, but the so called ‘rebels’ currently engaged in a civil war against him are a mob of vile extreme fundamentalists . Looked at logically the best outcome to the whole situation would be the two sides wiping each other out, but of the two, whereas Assad, an unpleasant piece of work at best, would hardly be likely to put his regime under threat of serious attack  by the Americans with an unnecessary chemical weapons attack on the ‘rebels’ or civilians in general which might prompt such retaliation, the ‘rebels’ on the other hand, with altogether far less scruples, would have no problem in doing so. If Assad HAD authorized such an attack he’d be stupid in the extreme and stupid he’s not. The fundamentalist ‘rebels’ on the other hand would be more than likely to try their hand with such stunt. An act of barbarous provocation at a time when their campaign was losing momentum. Just the right kind of explosive mixture creating just cause, in their thinking, that would bring the Americans in. Give them the opportunity to likewise attack Syria’s backers, the Hezbollah terrorist group, and their own backers, the loathsome Iranians. Talk about killing two birds with one stone, military engagement would give them three and possibly more, so the finger of an evil chemical attack would provide every excuse needed.       

Foreign Secretary Wild Bill Hague and the Cameron Government with the BBC chorus behind them have been going on endlessly about attacks with chemical weapons being barbarous and inhuman. Such use of chemical weapons had been designated as such by convention soon after the end of the First World War. However this did not stop America using them extensively in and over Vietnam throughout that conflict. The weapon was known as Agent Orange. I have heard no comment on the use of this chemical weapon during the 1960’s and 70’s by the United States from any BBC or otherwise indignant Bomber Hague and his supporters. The Americans have made extensive use of chemical weapons to wage war in recent times  so less indignation please!

The media campaign for immediate attack on Syria gradually subsided as the week progressed. The call to allow ‘weapons inspectors’ to do their work was being accepted even though the BBC aired and supported the view of the Obama administration that their findings would be unacceptable because any evidence might be ‘tainted’ by Assad’s ‘guilty’ regime. Indeed, the view propounded by the Americans that the regime was guilty of the attack no matter what the evidence was beginning to sound shaky to moderate opinion and their view that support from the United Nations for any military attack was unnecessary, one naturally supported by Bomber Hague, was beginning to jar on British political ears with the only too recent experience of the Iraq War, particularly as the British Parliament had never been recalled by Tony Blair at the time and the so called dossier of evidence of weapons of mass destruction had turned out to be a tissue of lies. No, with the UN gearing up for rejection by Wednesday, the Russians and Chinese simply refusing to play ball, the headlong rush for immediate action was on the skids and by Thursday the BBC’s thoroughly twisted slant on the news slowly evening out. The Parliamentary Labour Party was asking questions. Their leader was already seen as being entirely too cosy with the Tories on domestic issues. Tuesday night through Wednesday morning brought a change. Ed Miliband was demanding a recall of Parliament to debate the rush to military action and by Wednesday evening it became clear that Labour would not support any Tory resolution giving Britain’s support for a military attack by the United States on Syria.

The resolution of support was proposed Thursday evening and defeated by a combination of MPs from all the main Parties. By Friday morning Britain was out of a war. Ed Miliband’s action was special and very important for Parliamentary democracy in this country. For his stand he has been grossly insulted, it is reported in the Times, by someone senior in the Foreign Office. We trust, Bomber Hague, that you will find the vile conduct of a member of your Foreign Office team deplorable and apologize for it.

David Cameron has now officially ruled out British support for any American military action against Syria. The Obama Administration however, while acknowledging the fact, has immediately responded, making it clear that British opposition will in no way deter it from its intention to attack that country whatever the findings of the chemical weapons inspection team and without any support from the United Nations. Indeed, if necessary, without the support of anyone else.

Yes, the Americans are going ahead! President Obama and his acolytes have made up their minds to attack Syria no matter what. The regime there may be guilty of the chemical attack or not guilty. I don’t know for sure, but quite frankly, before attacking another country perhaps it’s best to find out the truth and be clear that what you are doing is justified. It’s just not good enough saying so. If you want to start playing war then you’d better be sure rather than just convincing yourself and getting caught up in your own hype. Do that and what you say you’re standing up for isn’t worth a damn.

PRINCESS DIANA ALIVE AND SECRETLY WORKING IN BATH

This extremely important news story, readers, is a very personal matter for me and to be truthful I had to think long and hard before releasing it to the world. My motive was simple enough. In view of all the recent conspiracy theory stories and drama surrounding her name, her death, her supposed murder by an SAS sniper of all things that has appeared in the British press in recent weeks I felt compelled to set the record straight. This tale of an SAS sniper trolled around various newspapers, particularly the Daily Express whose circulation has often depended on such tales for a good number of years, is yet another good old worked up yarn, substantiated by a storyline thinner than any chemical weapons attack justification soon to be used by America for attacking Syria! Sounds great as a headline. SAS Kill Princess Diana but only if you’re totally susceptible to bullshit!

Yes, there’s been all kinds of conspiracy stuff peddled about the nation’s once Dearly Beloved like how and why she died but there’s nothing at all about the real truth… how badly she wanted to leave public life, how desperate she was to drop all the royal crap and escape from those Windsor Crazies, lead a normal life, a life of her own and for herself. Forget all the Dodi Fayed supposed romance. Supposed I say. All that was a blind, a careful invention. Something she herself cooked up to throw all the press-hounds and bullies off the scent. You know what they’re like. So did she, as we all know. Creeps who spend most of their apprenticeship time learning how to smell shit and when they can do it from half a mile off they get to work in the gutter. Well she knew all about them right enough, they’d been getting up her nose and more for years and what with the wonky-Windsors and all as is well known, she’d had more than enough and wanted out.

But how to escape? That was the question. Lovers and boyfriends? It all took her round in the same kind of circle with the same kind of dirt, the same kind of publicity, speculation and what can best be described as plain rubbish. No, she wanted out from all that. Out from the whole god-dammed lot, with the exception of her children perhaps. It was all simple enough really and she’d almost certainly known it for years. The only way to get out of it all and be a normal human being again was to fake her own death, and that would take some serious organisation and planning. She undoubtedly had friends in the military but there were very few she could trust. This was, after all, a pretty big thing. The secret would have to be confined to one single person, maybe two at the most. A confidante, someone with whom she could plan the whole thing. Convince the police, convince just about everyone. The chauffeur and Dodi? They were sadly expendable. She had her own personal agenda. To live her own life. Her life, not something she was living for everyone else. She was, as everyone knows, very much her own person but in time she’d become public property. Every part of her, her thoughts, her feelings, belonging to millions of others.

When the time came she just wanted escape so she faked her own death. She knew where she was going. Somewhere where no-one would find her because no-one would look. Not somewhere far away in some country or other, some retreat or hideaway. No, the best place, somewhere no-one would look was here at home. Some town or other. Lying low for a while. Developing a new identity. Looking older in time so that people might think she was just some strange kind of look-a-like. After all she was dead, wasn’t she? A fact so well established by the media, the police, her Royal family, just about the whole bloody Establishment, that no-one would think any different. All it needed was for someone else to go in the coffin and that wouldn’t be so hard to fix. The boyfriend was easy enough so someone similar and newly deceased, a bit of makeup in the mortuary. After all, how many of her adoring public every got to see her face once she was dead? They were all too busy crying! So what might have seemed almost impossible might have actually turned out to be easy, and so it was.

In effect she just vanished out of the scene. Hid away, moved from place to place, changed her appearance. She had money enough so it was all simple and easy. Relatively straightforward. I mean think of how many people must have said it… Did you see that woman just now in the street? Didn’t she look just like Diana! Or… I had a really strange experience yesterday on my way out of Morrisons. Saw some woman who looked just like Diana, only older in a funny kind of way. Really spooky it was! Okay so your wife or your mate listen, but never think of it twice. Diana, coming out of a shop! Oh yeah, and my name’s Wayne Rooney! Well I’m sure you know what I mean. No, some small town somewhere, not a village or too small a place. Maybe somewhere like Norwich, Yeovil, Canterbury or Bath. Plenty of people but a good social mix. Everyone too busy to think about anyone else!

That was where I first saw her. The face looked familiar all right. Nice looking lady I thought and a bit like the woman that everyone once knew. In everyone’s heart if you know what I mean. Especially after she’d died. It was just a curiosity at first. A strange reminiscence that passed across my mind. Nothing more. I didn’t see her for six months after that but then I came across her again. Working in one of the town’s coffee shops. Wearing flat shoes and done up in an apron. Serving at one of the tables. My memory of that first encounter immediately came back. She looked much older than the princess I ‘knew’. Early fifties perhaps, hair grey and a bit dowdy, going about her business. Picking up a tip from one of her tables. Serving coffee and cakes to a family of Japanese tourists. Just some ordinary woman with an ordinary job here in Bath. Typical cheap labour in the town’s tourist trade. Then something caught my attention. A little girl around six all oriental and pretty had looked up at her and showed her the cuddly toy she was holding. Suddenly the waitress smiled with pleasure. A kind of warm friendly smile that went straight to the heart, with her eyes lit up a fraction. The whole thing stirred my thoughts and hit me like some kind of shock. Well if that wasn’t a dead ringer for Diana’s well known expression then I’d be dammed if I knew what it was. But that was impossible…

Almost immediately I turned and looked again but by that time her face wasn’t so clear. She’d moved away and was heading back to the counter. I’d hoped to catch another glimpse but never did. Not on that occasion.

I went home with my head buzzing, not knowing what to make of it all, the whole thing turning round and round in my head. Diana! Yeah, the dead Princess… So go tell it to Rupert Murdoch! A few days passed. I wanted to go back to the coffee shop and take a peek but quite frankly began wondering how delusional I was myself. Diana, serving up cream teas in Sally Lunn’s! Let it go boy or you’re in for a serious headache!

That’s exactly what I did! Just let it go. That is until a few days ago! Sure, I’d checked out the teashop again time later but found out that a Miss Cooper who’d been working there had left. It went out of my mind all over again till last Saturday, just before lunch. I was sitting with some friends in the lounge of one of the big hotels in the city taking some drinks when a touch of perfume drifted by. I turned and immediately took in that long narrow face once again. It was her! Passing by the desk in the foyer giving the receptionist a nod before going through the revolving doors at the entrance. It had to be her! I mean, it was the same woman I’d seen in the teahouse! Just imagine my feelings. What on earth was she doing at the hotel? Should I approach the woman behind the desk? What the hell should I ask? Seconds later I was up on my feet, going over like I was walking into some kind of dream. That lady? I asked, wasn’t she in yesterday’s news on Points West? ...which by the way, for the uninitiated, is the deadly dull and dreary local television news. The woman looked at me with some surprise. What Mildred, you’ve got to be kidding! She’s been chambermaid here for over a year! Not likely to be on anything really!

Mildred the Chambermaid! It should have killed it once and for all! Yeah, Princess Diana some wretched chambermaid… but then the more I thought about it the more the whole thing came together. It’s exactly what she would do! Drift from place to place. Never allowing any firm identity to build up behind her. The control of her life firmly in her own hands. It was then that I thought of the boys. Her two sons whom she’d always so clearly loved. Now one was happily married to a really fine girl and they’d just had a son. If this woman was really the person I thought then she had a grandson. She was a grandmother and mother-in-law! Did she, could she ever see the two children? Did she ever see any of her family. The virtual impossibility of the whole situation was only too evident. It was indeed truly impossible. The grey-haired slim woman with the aquiline face was at best only some vague kind of look-alike. It was all in my mind… If I came out with any of it I’d end up in an asylum. I mean, the Establishment wouldn’t find it that hard, with all their friends in the judiciary. Just a brief nod and it would be the men in white coats backed up by the nour nour sir, you’d better come along with us in the van, boys. No, open my mouth and I was part of the living dead, locked away somewhere deep underground like I was in some kind of French novel!

And yet, and yet… I was a writer. I had a story to tell! But then, when all’s said and done I just couldn’t be sure. Was it really the Princess? Could it really be her after so many years? I needed more evidence, but that would be almost impossible. If she really was who I thought she’d smell some kind of rat half a mile off. There was no way of getting anywhere near her if you know what I mean.

It was yesterday that matters came to a head. Soon as I’d seen her in the hotel my mind was a whirl. I just had to go back. See if I could just get a sight of her, however brief once again. I did and it was early that evening that I definitely knew. In through the doors and passing close to the desk I was recognised by the girl on reception. You’re the gentleman who was here just a short while ago, was the part enquiring voice with which I was greeted. I nodded, my eyes taking in the plump curves in her blouse. Well sir, as you can imagine we all had a shock… Miss Mildred phoned in early this morning… Got a much better job down in Devon she said… Some mate of hers came in later to pick up her pay… Was she some friend of yours if you don’t mind me asking? I smiled, just shrugged my shoulders. Just someone I knew I half muttered . I got a coy look on the way out. Interested in middle-aged women eh? Well she sure knew my type!

I left, knowing for sure now that I’d been right all along. Seen at the teahouse then at the hotel. She’d put it together and got the hell out. If I wasn’t some rat in the media it could even be worse. Somewhere in Devon? That was also a blind. She could be just about anywhere by now, and look, let me put it to you straight. I know all of you out there want to know more. Get back under her skin as it were just for your own satisfaction so I’ll tell you the truth. Well it’s like this so you’d better be ready for it. I’ve decided for the sake of journalistic honesty and integrity to come clean. I made the whole story up just to give you a read. I know absolutely nothing about Diana. I’ve never seen anyone who even remotely looks like her! Honestly, I swear to God…

And finally… here’s a question for you. Can you see any connection between the above post and the assertion that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons on rebels, one about to be used as a pretext for America attacking that country? If you can see any connection your comments will be welcome.

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NEWS OF THE WEEK

Some of the main items of news this week dominating the media have been the ongoing situation in Egypt, the attempt by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties to appropriate the will of an elderly spinster left to the Government of the Day to spend as she thought in the national interest and finally the further disgrace of yet another current star of the Coronation Street serial involved in seriously dodgy behaviour.

To Egypt first. As I have already observed in a recent Post the involvement of the media in reporting the news from Egypt, the BBC in particular, has been a litany of almost one sided reporting bias on behalf of the Islamist movement the Muslim Brotherhood in its attempts at an insurrection against the Egyptian Army. What has been ignored, indeed virtually suppressed and covered up is that the Egyptian Army itself acted to depose the Brotherhood’s elected President after countless millions of Egyptians came out onto the streets to protest against his conduct over the last year in attempting to turn their country into an Islamic state. It was on behalf of these many millions of both secular and religious opponents of the Brotherhood that the Egyptian Army acted. However this has now been made to appear as if it was a military operation on behalf of themselves without the backing of anyone. This is a plain lie, made in the interest of the British and American Governments, to distort the truth by separating the just concerns of the military from those of the overwhelming majority of the Egyptian people who as we all saw only recently, came out onto the streets in Cairo, Alexandria and elsewhere to demand the removal of Muslim Brotherhood President, Morsi, and call for new elections.

The bias and plain twisting of truth by the BBC in particular, closely followed by Channel Four and Sky News, on behalf of Egypt’s Muslim fundamentalists, now into burning down Coptic Christian Churches throughout the country, is shameful and shameless. And not a word anymore about the Brotherhood itself being closely allied to and providing support for the Palestinian terrorist organisation Hamas, internationally regarded by the way as such. That’s all been covered up as has been the close links between the Egyptian Army and the millions of people who demonstrated on Tahrir Square in Cairo for the removal of the Islamist President. Indeed, ninety percent of seemingly random interview reporting has been with Brotherhood supporters and members, and the same has applied to panel interview so called ‘guests’.

The BBC and Channel Four, with their well established comprehensively anti-Israel bias have now let their Muslim fundamentalist, anti-secular bias off the leash. The vast majority of those courageous Egyptian people who demonstrated for weeks for their basic democratic political rights have now been downgraded to non-existent status by the British news media on behalf of Foreign Secretary William Hague and the rest of the British Government who by their pro-Islamist stance hope to drag President Obama along with them.

You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing and with respect to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the anti-secularist, Muslim fundamentalist breeze in the air is as disgusting as ever.

Now here’s a real smelly political attempt at a bit of serious thieving. A lady called Joan Edwards left £520,000, practically all her estate, to the Government of the Day to spend as they thought fit. Both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat Parties interpreted this as a donation to themselves, don’t you know, and promptly portioned it out and put the cash in their own Party coffers! It took the Daily Mail to splash this sweet piece of aggrandizement for public interest. Indeed a view could be taken that deliberately misinterpreting the terms of a will for one’s own benefit when the deceased is no longer there to explain and defend their true intentions is plain evil. You might not like everything you read in the Mail but there are times when it gets it seriously right in matters of integrity and decency and its investigative journalism in this matter is to be applauded. Rumour has it that there are many more examples of other bequests to the Nation that are going to now get a second look, hopefully prompted by the Mail defending us against the unashamed rascals in politics.

Finally more Coronation Street Blues. Where are the Good Old Days, people are asking, where nothing ever happened where Derek and Mavis would go on and on about a new sofa and Albert Tatlock would froth about the head on his pint of at the Rovers? Well as most people know, if they can remember, it was never all wine and roses, what with Len Fairclough’s real life off screen naughtiness with kids. Recently however it’s been far more than dirty and dark. Two of the show’s major stars, dear old Ken Barlow and feisty Kevin the Garage Webster implicated in underage off Street sexual entanglements, and now Jack Duckworth’s grandson Tommy exposed in all the national media making evil rap-rape videos wearing a peculiar mask.

Quite frankly given the status of Coronation Street it leaves you wondering what the Meerkats must think of it all. After all, these are pretty straight guys. Immigrants doing their best to get on in life and bringing up their family with best British values. They really don’t need any of this kind of thing!  

Quite frankly it’s difficult to understand why Ken and Kevin have been up to this kind of thing if indeed any of it is true. I mean, come on Ken, didn’t Deidre give you the kind of attention you needed? True, she’d been round the block so many times that it sent your head spinning over the years, but we all thought you were such a nice patient man… And as for you Kevin, doffing up Tyrone’s wife was bad enough, but there was always blonde Sally. Still, I suppose soap audiences really don’t have a clue about what really goes on off the screen.  We’re made to think through magazine gossip that it’s all lovey-dovey or thereabouts and maybe it’s not. Maybe the fact that they’ve all been working so closely together for so many years means they all know each other only too well, and that thespian professionalism masks a mountain of genuine contempt. The public will never really know, unless reality and the police get in behind the drama to provide the mass media with something altogether less pleasant. Some sordid little real life drama all of its own.

Ken Barlow and Kevin Webster had to disappear, temporarily, perhaps permanently, from various ongoing storylines. Everything happening on the Street had to be rearranged, stories manipulated and twisted to work around the disappeared actors without saying too much. In fact without saying anything really. There they were and suddenly they’ve gone. Whole situations manipulated and created round disappeared people. Gone into a serial black hole with vague provisions made for their emergence if they came out Not Guilty in real life. The great script writing trick played on the viewing public is fascinating. And now Tommy Duckworth, hapless boyfriend of Baby-Mule Tina, is front page yellow rag news for stupid, plain stupid indiscretion.

What the hell is it, you people? Isn’t having guaranteed work in your acting profession right at the top with its regular income, media profile and fair future prospects good enough for you so that you have to go and stuff it all up?  

Tommy in trouble means Tina’s also on her way out. Storyline hints were being written in for public consumption weeks back with new lines being prepared. Now it’s back to the fire at the Rovers, Carl and the fat boy! It ought to be fun but it’s a shame really, that the storylines have to keep changing because of the real life indiscretions of the participants. More twists for soap audiences to ingest, more sad scandals for our morally unhealthy, moralizing public to pick up out of the gutter... press.

CONVERSATIONS AT THE COBBLERS EXCHANGE

For some time, as the general public have been aware, the policies of the three main political Parties have effectively coalesced so that their ideas seem virtually inseparable and they all seem to speak the same language. The process began around a year after the Coalition Government came to office and was soon picked up by the media pundits, however it has become altogether more noticeable as an established fact to the wider British audience in the last eighteen months. This interesting and unheard of situation of all three Parties sounding the same at the top has been a matter of widespread speculation let alone concern by the politically attached or unattached ideologues now frothing at the mouth at the lack of traditional Parliamentary democracy. The latter complain about having no-one to vote for anymore while the former grunt about UKIP, wonder whether they’ll still be in Parliament after the next election and continue collecting their tasty expenses.

The political chatter’s mainly been about each of the Parties wanting to capture what’s called the Center Ground of British politics because that’s where they believe the bulk of the electorate are and where most votes may be culled. They’re no longer after a left or right vote because party advisors are telling their Leaders that most people have grown tired of extremism and in tempestuous economic times they want moderation. A quiet politically moderate life of national coalition somewhere in the big middle ground. That’s where all politics is these days they suggest so that’s where the three Party Leaders have set up shop. David Cameron with Gay Marriage, Ethnic Minority Rights, and Green Save the Planet issues has mixed blue and pink and gone a light mauve. Ed, Florence the Snail Miliband has chucked the light pink for light blue and wound up playing kiss-kiss with Cameron while environmental Nick the Dick Clegg has come out a pale puce. They clearly want to please everyone they believe to be in the middle, the effect of which is that they all look the same.

Before I tell you where the Cobblers Exchange fits into the picture and what we ourselves have done to make it all happen I want to make certain things clear. It’s been said that Ed Miliband can’t open his mouth anymore or say anything politically serious because everyone knows that it was Gordon Brown’s Labour that fed the British people to the financial crooks and speculators, set up the perfect regime for corporate tax avoidance and much other dirt besides, with Ed keeping his mouth shut all the way through as one of Gordon’s best friends in Government. This may be seem reason enough for the smarmy Ed keeping his gob shut while taking a poke at the Unions, but it’s not the real reason. Likewise David Cameron going all touchy-feely and giving his blue back bench Thatcherites the chuck has got nothing to do with keeping Nick Clegg and the nation’s favourite Scarecrow all happy. He’s quite prepared to put the frighteners on his own Tory right with UKIP but that’s not because of Nick and the Scarecrow. He wants to win the next General Election and the Liberal-Democrats are expendable. The public see them as dirty and he knows they’ll walk The Green Mile. No, Cameron’s been told by some little snot-nose to go for the center and we at the Cobbler’s Exchange have helped him along. As for Clegg and his cheesy-on-a-stick clones it’ll soon become clear!

In the last year the Executive Committee of the Cobblers Exchange here in London has met on a regular basis to discuss and analyze the overall situation with regard to politics and the economy, talking the kind of cobblers we know represent the spectrum of views of our members. There were those who believed that destabilization might shake up the whole rotten system and lead to the logical outcome of a military coup. This view, having the support of many, was seriously preferred. There were others, however, who sought a more subtle direction. By no means ruling out such persuasive possibilities it was decided to explore an alternative avenue, leaving the taste of the stick in the background, next to the bench as it were. Coalescent politics might be best for the country. Getting everyone to move in a single direction. Party leadership could make it look how they liked with whatever new ‘causes’ and ‘issues’, even some, like Gay Marriage, distasteful, as long as the drift was the same. No-one saying or doing anything silly, anything extreme moderated  down with everyone coming into the center to create stability and order. We didn’t need any kind of Hitler for the time being. We’d do it all British style!

Consultation was therefore decided. With the stick in the background that is. Executive members of the Cobblers Exchange, already known to our good friends in Party leadership, would request talks. A series of private meetings at The Exchange to establish a process of dialogue during which we’d put our own views. At first advise and suggest but above all carefully observe. Help our friends understand that the decisions were theirs and had our support! Our first meetings were arranged with the greatest of care early last year. In utmost secrecy of course. For this we had the advice of those who I would say were certain, very select members. It isn’t every organisation of course that has the benefit of support from people with GCHQ connection but let me say that such benefits are purely for matters of national concern. The national interest as it were. Above Party or anything else. Initially informative though discursive in essence.

We began with the Conservative Party and one of the most senior advisers to the leadership, the bright, well informed and congenial Turdy Roundstone. Someone who might best be described as an Issues Specialist, listened to and respected right at the top. Turning to Labour, Ed Miliband, aware of the context, proved equally amenable, sending his foremost Minority Rights advisor Pinky Perks. Contact with Mr Perks, once established, proved exceedingly useful for as we soon learned we had the ear of Labour’s leader himself. Most pleasing of all perhaps was the effusiveness of the Liberal Democrats, a Party only too keen to discuss just about anything with an institution such as ourselves. Our Executive Member for Party liaison had only to mention The Cobblers Exchange to illicit an instant response. A call from the Party Leader himself… Most glad to hear from us… How could he help! I remember it all very well. His call transferred to my office, his manner affable as ever. After a congenial exchange of greetings, a brief explanation after which his deferential response. The Party would certainly be interested. I deliberately kept it all vague. Informal discussion at this early stage. A policy advisor would certainly be welcome. Someone he knew well. Who would indeed have his trust. It was how we came to meet his most senior advisor Dilly Claypole the following month.

The above information is meant to inform you of the general background. Our careful approach you may be interested to know was indeed instrumental in setting up a framework for future formal discussion with Party leaders and their confidential advisors. Our objective needless to say was molding the kind of ideological coalescence that would best serve the national interest. The country didn’t need any more of what it had been getting for the last sixty years. There was to be no more pointless accusation, no more political points scoring. Instead a genuine blending of views and harmonization of policy in respect of the Economy, that being the banks, corporate taxation and the helpful attitudes of the Inland Revenue in this respect, Utility price rises and an understanding of the need of the Energy Companies and suppliers cartel to be profitable for their shareholders, the Trades Union movement, the National Health Service, Civil Rights, Flexibility on future large scale Immigration, Ethnic and Minority Groups and their causes, Benefits control with a necessary curb on the Welfare State, and last but by no means least, Pensioner and Elderly issues.

What surprised us most at the Exchange was how willing all the three party leaders were to come together and abandon what at first seemed un-surmountable differences. Ed Miliband’s Labour willing to compromise with David Cameron in matters of privatizing aspects of the National Health Service for example, along with their joint attitude towards strict means testing of the disabled, initially a Gordon Brown idea, and this time getting seriously tough with the scroungers. And then all three leaders united in their determination to face down and rough up the Unions. When we first put these ideas to Labour’s Pinky Perks we soon sensed that we’d have a positive response from his boss, so long as Gay Rights and other attendant issues weren’t on the table and it became clear not long after in our conversations with Turdy Roundstone that his pleasure at Labour’s new flexible approach would receive a reciprocal welcome from Cameron with more employment opportunities opening up in the Housing Sector for immigrants.

It took time to put things together. Our patient liaising with all sides, separately at first in a constructivist approach quickly bore fruit. It soon became clear that Labour already had a new approach under Miliband and this wasn’t altogether far from that of the Coalition Prime Minister. Any differences there were after the General Election had soon become softened and with a little work on our part could be finally smoothed out. The Labour Leader’s attack on the Unions said it all, once and for all! Nationalization was out and the working class along with it. Ed Miliband, such a nice chap, was more smoothed out even than Clegg. The dervish in the woodpile in that area of course was the Scarecrow making all those silly noises of his from time to time thinking he had to be radical then of course doing little to nothing so it was all empty air anyway. The man had to be given something to do to keep his mouth shut so a word in Dilly Claypole’s ear went straight to her boss with ridiculous Vince hobbled in weeks with taxation sillies.

A progress report in the middle of last year showed all the advances we’d made. Ideological differences straightened out and the political pathways of the Parties running in the same direction it was time for their leaders to put on a public face to show unanimity. Where might it be best done? At the Cobblers Exchange itself , a champagne party perhaps with some five star ethnic minority entertainers on tap. No, altogether too private. Something more ‘establishment’, in full public view to be seen and appreciated was better. We had it immediately. Something for the Parties and the nation to share. Something bigger than all of them, The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, joint celebrations with Clegg, Miliband and Cameron side by side at the Abbey, suited and booted. The coalescence of the political leaders and their policies beneath the flag of the sovereign, beneath the banner of the nation!

Hardly a word needed saying. They were seen there first but later, in official celebration, they met together at the Cobblers Exchange. Nothing formal you understand. More of a private affair in company with many of our members. Naturally nothing said. Not even a whisper. Just the fact that all three were there under the big chandelier of the ballroom was a tacit recognition of our patient hard work. Of what had already been quietly achieved. Everything in its place for a genuine economic recovery. With ideology out of the way all that remained were the political ambitions of the participants. These had to be dealt with and assurances given!

Have you guessed what was agreed? It’s all going to be fun with each of them having a hand in running the country! A Conservative victory at the next General Election, clear cut and decisive. Labour far behind and the Liberal Democrats cut down to size. Five years on in 2020 a victory at last for a silver-haired Miliband, his Prime Minister’s role alternating with Clegg. Cameron gone to the Lords, his party wiped out with UKIP and Nigel now the official opposition.

All is already agreed. After 2020 we here at the Cobblers Exchange will all look up to heaven and await the second coming of Christ.

You might know who it is. Might even have guessed, but I couldn’t possibly comment!

 

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If you've enjoyed reading this post and others in the series, why not try reading some of the novels I've written? One is a highly enjoyable black satire about the English Literary Racket and what unknown writers have to do to try and get their work published. It exposes the whole dirty world of literary agents, celebrity writers, journalists and publishers and it tells you the truth. I know, I've been through it all.

A CONSPIRACY OF TRASH is a story that Rupert Murdoch's book publishing company Harper Collins, the largest in the UK, refused to publish. You can download the Foreword on Amazon for free if you like, and if you want to read more it will cost just 99 cents or around 75 pence. Above all I hope you enjoy it and that it makes you laugh because I enjoyed writing it.

The story has many different characters and one or two heroes. It also has a serious message. About the people who really control publishing and the kind of books they allow you to read. All the publishers refused to give this black comedy a public hearing. They pose as liberals, believers in free speech but they're nothing of the kind and the thing they fear most is satire. If you read A CONSPIRACY OF TRASH you'll understand why.

Another great read is my Science Fiction novel THE ADVENTURES OF A MAROONED SPACEMAN told in two parts. It’s a story about a human being’s struggle to survive after being dumped on an alien world after his Starcruiser is attacked by space pirates. It’s a real thriller about human endurance and the triumph of a man against all the odds.

Finally you’ll really enjoy my exciting human interest drama THE BROTHERS PAGE, A VERY ENGLISH NOVEL, about a working class family up north, two brothers and their sister, who make it out of a tough grinding background to achieve happiness, fame and fortune. Through it all the guiding spirit is Ma Page, who nurtures her family through many adventures. This is a story full of happiness and romance where true love is found. A great family tale full of hard work and ambition, optimism and hope. Something that will warm the hearts of those who find life tough and dispiriting today. You can likewise get some free download from Amazon to experience the spirit of the story and to buy it is cheap. I promise you’ll enjoy it!

THE WEEK’S NEWS

My chosen topics for the week’s news are the Bank of England’s interest rate policy for savers, Chris Huhne’s new job, President Obama cancelling his meeting with President Putin over Russia’s refusal to hand over Edward Snowden and finally a mysterious place somewhere in the world called Bongo-Bongo Land!

In recent days the Bank of England’s new Governor has announced that future interest rates will be tied to rates of employment. They will only rise when the unemployment rate goes down from its current level of eight percent to seven and that’s official, with no word of comment or opposition from any of the three main  Party leaders. As far as savers are concerned it means that the already historically low level of interest rates they’re getting will stay the same for the next three years while the rate of inflation will remain above it at between two and a half to three percent during that time.

Most savers are elderly. People who’ve worked hard all their lives, been frugal with their expenditure and thrifty in order to put money away for their retirement. There are millions of them and their immediate future is bleak. Their savings are being whittled away on a monthly basis by the rate of inflation and what capital they had is being eroded by rising prices and rock bottom rates of return for any investment they make in banks and building societies. In short, millions of elderly people will continue being hit for six by government economic policy which kicked in since the Economic Crisis began in 2008 and will continue until 2015 at least. In fact almost certainly beyond. And all this now has the official blessing of the Bank of England.

The banks and building societies will continue lending money for mortgages and business investment at rates varying between four and five percent, yet savers will receive no more than one to two percent. Another rough time for savers ahead in addition to those they’ve experienced in the previous four years! The question is, who speaks for these people? Answer, NO-ONE. For those once trumpeted by politicians as being the best of British, there’s now a great silence. They’ve been coolly abandoned by all those ‘personal expenses’ rascals sitting in Parliament. And nowhere is this betrayal at its worst and most smelly than that of The Labour Party and its current leader Ed ‘The Snail’ Miliband.

A word about this person for a moment. Of all the people who should have had a concern about the plight of pensioners and savers it is the leader of the Labour Party, but not so with Miliband. Not a word of comment out of him in answer to the statement made by the Governor of the Bank and for very good reason. That’s because he was part of Gordon Brown’s Government responsible for the financial policies that caused the Economic Crisis in the first place. As a Cabinet Colleague of his Dark Master, Miliband went along with everything he did, collectively being one of the architects of the great Bankers Robbery and City of London financial incompetence and swindling. Didn’t you realise it at the time Ed, you supposed socialist you    (joke-joke), that when you let dirty dogs off the leash they wind up shitting all over you and everyone else. And now millions of people have to pay for what you and your friends did and the largest class of their victims are pensioners and savers. Little wonder that you’re keeping so quiet these days Florence. Open your mouth in any direction and the Tories will point a finger straight at you. You and your political mates are the one’s responsible for kicking the shit out of the poor and the elderly. And they won’t forget you and your mealy mouth come the next General Election. That I can promise you.

Now here’s a question for everyone who wants a good job! What do you need to do to earn £100,000 a year for working just two days a week? Answer, be a wife-cheating, lying, jailbird and former major political figure like ex-Secretary of State for Energy, Chris Huhne! Like so many of us, when I heard the news that this former main-line Liberal Democrat politician had landed back on his feet after coming out of jail where he’d served a much reduced sentence for getting his former wife to tell lies for him to the police about his driving, I felt so heartened!

Dear old Chris. Getting a top job again? No problem! And it didn’t take that long either! Before serving jail time he was the Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy. Now he’s almost back where he started, only not quite! His good friend and former Lib-Dem political colleague Ed Davey now holds the post but Chris is kind of there alongside him working as the European Chairman of an American Energy company called ZilkhaBiomass Energy. No doubt, offering them his advice from the experience he gained when in Government!

While his former colleague Ed Davey now has current executives of the Big Six Energy Cartel working for him in his Department, no doubt all worrying over those rocketing energy prices of recent times, (joke-joke) Chris is dealing with energy concerns like carbon trading all over again. So good to see another nice politician back on his feet, especially after being banged up for being a liar. It’s easy when you’ve been in the energy business you see. Getting yourself such a good screw for only two days a week. Please Chris, could you tell me how you did it as I’d like some of it too. I mean, did being a former Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Energy help or was it the jail time that did it?

Now as I prophesied last week, President Obama has been willing to put at risk America’s diplomatic relationship with Russia over their refusal to hand over Edward Snowden into American custody, instead granting him political asylum. His first act in this direction was to cancel an important meeting he was due to have with Russia’s President Putin. The decision to grant the American asylum could indeed only have come from the top so it was logical to give Putin the brush off. President Obama, head of America’s totally bankrupt political regime gives the President of Russia the brush off!

As everyone now knows, Snowden’s crime was to reveal the activities and operations of America’s secret and secretive spying apparatus that was mostly unknown to the country’s top politicians and hardly legal at best. This was shock and surprise number one. The second was just as great, making public the fact that America used the spying apparatus of Britain’s GCHQ to obtain intelligence on countries currently our partners in Europe. This led Germany and France to pull out of a long term Treaty with both countries in respect of intelligence gathering given the now revealed major breach of trust and a justified all round fury by the Germans and French.

Little wonder that the Americans want to get hold of Snowden so badly and little wonder that they’re so peeved. Too bad! You’ve been caught doing dirty things to your friends President Obama. Betraying their confidence and trust. And you such a nice man and all. Such a honorable freewheeling liberal. Only worst of all is that you’ve knowingly been using your spying programs to unconstitutionally collect information about millions of your own people without them knowing. And there was me and everyone else thinking you were such a democrat! Not the kind of person to get hot under the collar because someone’s telling the truth. I mean, isn’t it the American Way to tell the truth at all times? Something that makes you so different from those lying commie bastards, sorry I mean Russians!

So why get all pissy and peevish with the Russian President for wanting to uphold some of the virtues of truth telling. You can hardly blame him when an opportunity like that comes his way through your own stupidity and deception. Anyway, I thought that telling the truth was right up your street Mr Obama and not something you’d want to lock a man away for!

Finally, I was never really good at Geography myself so can anyone tell me where Bongo-Bongo Land is? I’m really surprised you see because the only people who actually seem to know are members of UKIP and distraught touchy-feely soft left radicals who’ve been frothing at the mouth because a senior member of that Party recently used the expression to describe a catchment area or place where British taxpayers money gets sent by the Government to be spent by its various rulers on personal luxuries and jet aircraft rather than for the benefit of its citizens. In short, Bongo-Bongo Land is a kind of black hole. A place where hard earned money is chucked for no good reason that could be far better spent on British citizens at home.

But the question still remains. Where IS Bongo-Bongo Land? Well given the spike of irritation that accompanied the phrase coming mainly from ethnic minority complainants and resulting in a deep fried apology from the necessarily humbled and penitent UKIPER, the place is a kind of geographical catchment term for The Third World. Countries with which Britain once had a colonial connection. It’s a 1950s expression that initially referred to the islands of the West Indies where small drums held between the knees were played to accompany music. Along with Caribbean immigration to Britain during the 50s came the bongos. These drums were never equally popular in Africa or South-East Asia but were more a symbol of Caribbean culture. However the character of the symbol expanded when Caribbean immigration became a precursor for a much broader movement from these other continents and countries with which Britain had a colonial tie.

After such places gained political independence during the 50s and 60s they were granted substantial financial aid by Britain most of which was diverted into military, personal or political expenditure by the new rulers or political elites of these countries and not used for the benefit of their peoples as was thought. This resulted in huge sums of British taxpayers money being wasted. Money that was given away for the benefit of only a few. A process, it is argued, that still continues today. Bongo-Bongo Land is not the Caribbean nor any discrete geographical place. It is, as many of the people complaining well know, a metaphor for Third World Government corruption, thieving and scrounging on the back of the British taxpayer and a waste of their hard earned money.

Those people who complained know very well what the rulers of their countries of origin get up to yet they prefer to stay silent, criticizing instead those who point to such political corruption and greed.

If Bongo-Bongo Land is the metaphorical expression of a generalised black hole for the British taxpayer, then it ought likewise to be a reason for genuine concern by former inhabitants for those of its politically abandoned citizens who remained and are still badly treated by their rulers today, so long after their independence.

THE CHURCHILL DOG, THE MEERKATS AND MARMITE

In recent times television advertising has bombarded us with a wide variety of what may best be described as scuzzy irritating crap some of whose central characters have slowly irredeemably evolved into hate figures. One of the finest of these is the fat songster with the twirly moustache would exhorts us to go compare. People have now become so sick of his zany antics and one track suggestion that he has degenerated into a figure of contempt. They’ve simply got tired of being hectored. We’ve got the message. There’s no need to tell us anymore. If we want to go compare then we’ll go but in the meantime shut your gob and leave us alone to ponder. Indeed, there are already two other candidates for insurance already taking up our attention. One’s the simply horrid Churchill Dog. The other’s the ever insouciant ever lively Meerkat family who feature in a genuinely inventive, evolving series of family stories and tales of woe.

But first let’s look at the Churchill Dog; what it is, what it’s supposed to represent and how it affects our psyche. The company, called Churchill, clearly aims to associate the character of its prime point of sale, a bulldog called Churchill, with the character of the politician and former war leader now long deceased, Winston Churchill in a running series of colourful adverts showing the various antics of the beast. Key to all this of course is the public memory of the man himself and the most prominent event of his life, that of an indomitable, courageous and genuinely popular war leader of Britain in its struggle against Hitler and his odious Nazi tyranny from 1939-1945, throughout the Second World War. That is, even today, how he is best remembered. For his pugnacious never say die spirit that brought the people of this country out of the darkest of times out into the sunlight of victory. His popularity and determination were re-engineered for public consumption then and in the years that followed into a bulldog spirit. A notion that is still with us and now capitalized on by the Churchill bulldog adverts.

The association all seems pretty simple and straightforward. Public memory, such as it is, exploited for the purpose of television advertising to sell us a product. There doesn’t seem much harm in that, the advertiser would say, but let’s take a look at things more closely! The dog, often called Churchie is portrayed as being endearing. It has a kind of insouciant pugnacious charm with ridiculously twinkling piggy little eyes that invariably accompany an affable expression and winning smile. Trouble is the man was never like that at all. He rarely smiled, was more often angry and scheming than not, drank like a fish, got up just about everyone’s nose with his political and military bluster and bungling and more often than not got firmly put down for overweening ambition that at times made him look ridiculous. Indeed, it was only near the end of his long career that he found the right path but for the rest of the time he was deeply unpopular and a bit of a joke.

He was a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough maybe but his own immediate family was a mainline disaster with his father a blundering politician, an aristocrat in Government through family connection, poxed up to the eyeballs with syphilis who’d married a wealthy American for money much as anything else. Winston had a lot to live down and after public school became a main line chancer who used his historical background for self-promotion in journalism, the army then politics in a series of desperate adventures that eventually led him to political disaster for being responsible for the great military fiasco of the Gallipoli Campaign and the needless death of many British and Commonwealth soldiers. Desperate and a political outcast for a large part of the following decade he returned with a vengeance as a Tory trades union basher who took on and fought striking coal miners and the Labour Movement just about everywhere, only re-emerging with political respectability during the early thirties. Throughout the two post Gallipoli decades he was an unsmiling uncompromising bullying antagonist of organised labour who was universally detested by British working men and their families.  

There was nothing much twinkly-eyed about him then and no smiling insouciant photos either. The man, it was generally acknowledged, had about as much charm as a rattlesnake and only eventually found his true destiny in life as the uncompromising enemy of a man altogether more odious than himself. Notwithstanding his wartime leadership, the British public gave their own judgement on the man for after leading the country to victory the nation’s soldiers, sailors and airmen immediately booted him out of office to again leave him angry and festering in the political wilderness. He again, however, returned to office in 1951 after five desperately hard Labour post-war years.

All in all then, throughout his life Churchill was never an affable, twinkly-eyed, chortling charmer who’d get into zany adventures and let anyone address him as Churchie. And neither did he show much pugnacity or determination of spirit throughout his political or military career unless it was escaping from Boer captivity which at that time was easy, or leading Britain in the Second World War. It was at this latter time that he showed the pugnacity and determination of spirit on which this projected advertised memory rests. This is the memory capitalized on in the adverts. However, since the War ended almost seven decades back and history lessons at school not what they might be, the name is best known to those who may be said to come from the older generation and the advertising pitched at them. An affable bulldog with an affable bulldog spirit, fondly remembered.

Okay, fine. Now let’s look at bulldogs! Who says they’re really determined… really pugnacious… that they’ve really got any charm? Only their owners! Actually they’re fat, slobbering, squat, grossly even offensively ugly. In fact, compared to most dogs they look pretty vile and walk like they’re permanently crippled. They don’t look at anyone and they’re not interested in anyone. They are determinedly anti-social. You’ve got to own one, be the kind of person who’d want to own one in order to like one. You’ve got to be seriously idiosyncratic. Think of yourself as absolutely British, British with a vengeance to want one. Look at a bulldog’s arse and think of it having a shit, then think of Winston Churchill doing the same.

So the silly adverts keep coming. The twinkly-eyed dog with the silly expression on its face getting up to yet another ridiculous caper with a well-known actor calling it Churchie! And the advertising company playing on your sentimentality for things past with an entirely manufactured memory. It’s such a very British phenomenon… wartime images being manufactured for sales purposes and mainly older people being sold to in this manner.

The Churchill television bulldog is plain awful. There is something irredeemably vile about it’s silly expressions, silly shaking head and silly chatter. It really is simply vile. Nonetheless the adverts keep coming so what does it say? Well it says they have to be working. That the wretched dog is selling their product! If that’s the case then think about it! What does that say about people?

I can only think of one phrase. BLOODY PATHETIC!

I’d now like to talk about an altogether more interesting animal advert for in-sur-ance! The Meerkat family series! Ever since they began with Papa Meerkat from Russia most viewers were swept off their feet with a lively, intelligent, genuinely insouciant charm. The Russian accent was great, the story told of emigration to the West and hard work full of realism and fun. In fact, the realism was so strong that portraying a meerkat as central character with the brilliant cartoon animation involved made it even more so. It might have been selling insurance but the innocuous way this was sold, as being almost secondary to the antics of the meerkat and the story in which it was involved, made it altogether more subtle. People weren’t being ‘sold’, weren’t being invited or hectored to buy… they were primarily being entertained. People didn’t feel they were being ‘got at’. Indeed, they were being drawn in as part of a story, one that became a whole family tale. A fascinating new kind of animal success story with lively charming new characters, each with their own personality. This was altogether something unusual. A piece of highly realistic creative genius that so many of us could identify with without necessarily feeling we were under a sales cosh. This was seriously new psychological thinking. A soft sell combination of imaginative story-telling and complex animation to sell a product which as everyone now knows, has worked!

There’s something magical about the Meerkats and their tale of success. They’ve now turned into a lively very realistic almost human family of individual characters with problems, problems we can identify with because they’re actually so human. A family of animals has been strangely humanized, made undeniably charming, and yet they’re still a family of animals. Humanized animals we feel affection for and can identify with. It’s brilliant psychology in more ways than one and does the job, sells the product as intended.

The Meerkats, however, have now become more than an advert. Their status is almost iconic. They’ve become part of an ongoing story lodged in our culture. They’re creatures, and we almost don’t like to think of them as a ‘creation’. Indeed, those who thought them up have given us a hitherto unheard of achievement. Switch on the popular Coronation Street soap as many do and they’re there on the box. In our lives with their story just as much as the machinations within the soap opera itself. What we have then are two parallel stories! The Meerkat soap rivaling the Human! Just a few seconds at either end but the first often preferred to the second! Everything depends on the creative ingenuity of the writers but many now hope that the Meerkats might have a show of their own with more characters and more individual stories. It might cost the insurance advertisers a fortune but who knows? In purely economic terms it might be worth the expense!

Perhaps not, but for now let us hope that the family keep delivering the goods. Maintaining their charm and maintaining ours. The adverts are now more than adverts. More than a plain commercial success. With the commercial spin-off they’re becoming a franchise, something that happened to Star Trek with astonishing commercial results. Who knows, Meerkat Incorporated might find its way into the Footsie 100 with Papa Meerkat a real Russian Hero! A Russian success story in the capitalist West.

I don’t think the same could ever happen to ‘Churchie’. The charm of the Meerkats is genuine because it’s only too human while the charm of the silly-faced dog’s too full of shit for my liking.     

Finally, THE MARMITE ADVERT

I have now watched this advert for Marmite on YouTube. For some reason I am trying to understand there have been various complaints about it to the Advertising Standards Authority. My own opinion is this. Only rarely have I seen an advert for a product that is so creatively brilliant, so tongue in cheek, so entertaining and actually so compelling. I’ve always loved Marmite. It’s a unique and very British product and true, it takes us time to get through a jar but when it’s finished we’ll undoubtedly go out and buy more because actually it tastes quite delicious.

The tongue in cheek advert is also so very British. Part of our very best kind of humor. Extremely witty, clever, inventive and quite frankly ingenious. It’s kind of self-deprecating, deliberately low key which makes it all the more powerful. To those with a real sense of humor it’s fun. Something that those who deprecate our idiosyncratic Britishness detest. We might be a mighty peculiar lot but we know how to laugh when others can’t. We can be light when others are heavy. We have a peculiarly anarchic sense of fun. We’re getting to a time now when people are too deadly serious with just about anything. The this campaign and the that campaign. Disagree with anything they say and suddenly you’re a Nazi! They may say some good things but you’re not allowed to air or have your own point of view. Only theirs.

More horrifying than anything it’s only their point of view that counts. Have your own ideas or thoughts about gay rights, ethnic issues, animal rights or the feminist movement that disagrees with some ‘cause’ or other and you are likely, these days, to be labeled abusive. If you disagree with me then you’re abusive and I don’t want to talk to you! That’s where democracy seems to be at the moment. It’s like countless little Nazis have taken over running the show and determining what everyone’s morality should be. These are very serious people, their association with their new cause addictive. So very serious that they’re quite unable to see any funny side to their instant addiction. Quite unable to laugh anymore. They’ve got a mission in hand. To make people see the truth in what they believe. To convert others to their own point of view or else ridicule or condemn them. Ultimately destroy them. I’m not joking. It’s happened before. In recent times too. These very serious people, unable to tolerate anyone else’s point of view, are on their way to becoming the new Nazis.

Imagine the attitude of those people who complained about the Marmite advert. They’ve lost their ability to be humorous about anything, anymore. To see the light side of life. I mean, have you seen any extremist ever smile about anything? Ever seen any Nazi have a good laugh! They couldn’t, but we could… laugh at them. They couldn’t laugh at themselves, but we could. That’s why they lost. The Marmite Advert is something some people couldn’t laugh at. In fact, it made them so uptight that they had to complain. Either they couldn’t understand its humor or they have no sense of humor themselves. In which case what I suggest you do is begin a WE HATE THE MARMITE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN and see how far it gets you with the British public when you tell them what they can eat and what they can’t.

Yes, instead of criticizing the Tory policies of Ed Miliband why don’t you put all your energies into that kind of thing. You do understand, don’t you, that all the many fanatical enemies of Marmite throughout the world as well as the many aliens on hitherto unknown planets will love you for it and definitely want to get in touch!
_________________________

If you've enjoyed reading this post and others in the series, why not try reading some of the novels I've written? One is a highly enjoyable black satire about the English Literary Racket and what unknown writers have to do to try and get their work published. It exposes the whole dirty world of literary agents, celebrity writers, journalists and publishers and it tells you the truth. I know, I've been through it all.

A CONSPIRACY OF TRASH is a story that Rupert Murdoch's book publishing company Harper Collins, the largest in the UK, refused to publish. You can download the Foreword on Amazon for free if you like, and if you want to read more it will cost just 99 cents or around 75 pence. Above all I hope you enjoy it and that it makes you laugh because I enjoyed writing it.

The story has many different characters and one or two heroes. It also has a serious message. About the people who really control publishing and the kind of books they allow you to read. All the publishers refused to give this black comedy a public hearing. They pose as liberals, believers in free speech but they're nothing of the kind and the thing they fear most is satire. If you read A CONSPIRACY OF TRASH you'll understand why.

Another great read is my Science Fiction novel THE ADVENTURES OF A MAROONED SPACEMAN told in two parts. It’s a story about a human being’s struggle to survive after being dumped on an alien world after his Starcruiser is attacked by space pirates. It’s a real thriller about human endurance and the triumph of a man against all the odds.

Finally you’ll really enjoy my exciting human interest drama THE BROTHERS PAGE, A VERY ENGLISH NOVEL, about a working class family up north, two brothers and their sister, who make it out of a tough grinding background to achieve happiness, fame and fortune. Through it all the guiding spirit is Ma Page, who nurtures her family through many adventures. This is a story full of happiness and romance where true love is found. A great family tale full of hard work and ambition, optimism and hope. Something that will warm the hearts of those who find life tough and dispiriting today. You can likewise get some free download from Amazon to experience the spirit of the story and to buy it is cheap. I promise you’ll enjoy it!
 

LATEST NEWS OF THE WEEK : END JULY - EARLY AUGUST

So Silvio Berlusconi, former Italian Prime Minister for what seems so many years, otherwise known as Mister Smiley and easily the country’s richest man owning most of its television and newspapers, has had his recent conviction for tax evasion and fraud upheld by the Italian Supreme Court. Poor Silvio, your heart goes out to the man! He’s just made a video showing how upset and highly aggrieved he is. Claiming his convictions in recent years for all manner of things, particularly being found guilty of having sex with underage prostitutes and models is all part of a political conspiracy against him. Yes, how our hearts are all bleeding! He says he’s a victim, but then think of all the fun he’s been having at those very naughty private parties of his while under his management the Italian economy’s gone down a financial drain with the country’s bonds and securities not worth a monkey’s.

While in power he was supported by Italy’s fascist inspired Northern League and smiled his way in and out of trouble year after year with the rest of the world looking on. He was a friend to many top politicians, both in Europe and the United States and it couldn’t have been his wife’s spaghetti doing the trick! She dumped him years back. Never mind, all through these ‘torrid’ times of his many Italian people still loved him and his political party. In fact even today his Party is still an important part of the governing coalition so it’s still not so bad for him. Even so he still feels mighty aggrieved. He’s likely to spend any prison time due under house arrest because it’s thought that at 76 he’s too old to spend time in jail. That’s the worst part of it all really. People thinking he’s too old to have fun anymore but knowing the ever-smiling Silvio he’s not finished yet and bound to be looking for more, Italian style of course! He may not get back to being Prime Minister again but you can bet they’ll be plenty of other tasty diversions.

There was always something special about Silvio Berlusconi. A certain charm, a certain braggadocio. He was and still is a man who knows how to put on a face. Up against all the worst kind of adversity he can still put on the make-up and smile. In that he has a fair understanding of what the Italian people like. They’ve been around for thousands of years after all. They once had a pretty large Empire which went down the drain but they’re still around all the same, so why be serious all the time? No, Italians like to be happy. They’re at their best when they’re painting, playing football, smiling and having a laugh, and they definitely don’t like fighting! So when Silvio says he’s innocent all the time and smiles, many smile along with him. They think of him as a friend.

And speaking of friends a brief word about one of his best. Yes it’s Tony Blair and his family. Good old pals and best of mates when Tony and Silvio were both Prime Ministers together early in the twenty-first century. You surely remember all those invitations? How the Blair’s used to spend their summer holidays as guests at his Holiday Villa, never mind all those nasty whispers going on at the time about their host. It was quite okay. Free summer holidays in the Italian countryside being entertained by the country’s ever smiling, ever generous Prime Minister and now look what the country’s judiciary, politicians, journalists and women campaigners have done to their friend. Still we hope you’ll remember what a kind and generous man he was to you and the kids, Tony and Cherie, and say a word to support him now at the height of his troubles! He was, after all, one of Britain’s key partners in Europe at the time and worth his weight in political gold, even though you were New Labour and he was backed by Italy’s Northern League fascist based party with its Mussolini connections. But then why should such as nasty thing like that matter when you’re having a good time on holiday together?

Still as I say, a good word for your old friend wouldn’t come amiss now during these terrible times that he’s having.

Another interesting news item of the week are the trial in America of Bradley Manning, a young man of 27 and formerly an American soldier with access to secret information along with the release from a no man’s land suite at a Moscow Airport of Edward Snowden, a young American security expert formerly employed by the United States Government who blew the whistle about his country’s spying practices on European and other supposedly friendly governments to Wikileaks and the rest of the world’s media.

Edward Snowden, who the Americans badly want to get hold of, so badly in fact that they’ve put serious pressure on the Russians to hand him over into their custody for trial, has now been offered temporary asylum there despite the increasingly hostile noises coming from the Obama administration. So what information does the young security analyst have about his country’s official spying practices, and ‘official’ is a key word here, to make them want him in their custody so badly which of course means shutting him up. It begs the question, what has the security apparatus of the American government been doing that it needs to hide for it to be willing to risk damaging its diplomatic relations with Russia and other countries it regards as friendly?      

The question indeed is serious because it not only concerns issues of spying on friends WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE but in the case of Britain at least, liaising with this country’s official spying apparatus at GCHQ and together using it to spy on other governments such as those in Europe WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE. Little wonder then that the governments of France and Germany have appeared seriously aggrieved in recent weeks along with the Parliament of the European Commission. In fact Germany has just pulled out of a long standing Treaty on security issues it had with Britain and the United States while the German people themselves are reported to be furious about this betrayal of trust.

To the Americans the prospect of Edward Snowden releasing more information through Wikileaks to the world is simply frightful. The key word here is TRUST. If governments around the world believe their diplomatic-security arrangements with the United States to be one thing, when in reality they are being spied upon, then it is in actuality another and not what they believed it to be. To put it bluntly, such a thing completely undermines the key premise on which international relations are based. No trust, no confidence. Or likewise, no confidence no trust, so the weight of what Edward Snowden may yet have to reveal is pretty deadly.

An equally serious question is WHY have the Americans done such a thing? If you can’t trust your friends it’s serious. If you can’t trust anyone at all it stinks. There are those who might call it paranoia. Others might say it was sad. Those working in Government security organizations however are much more likely to consider it as plain common sense reality because, in truth, it’s what international political relations are all about i.e. PLAIN POLITICAL POWER which quite frankly means TRUSTING NO-ONE. In short, if you want your country to stay ahead of the game in terms of world politics you trust no-one. That is precisely what it means to be the world Superpower. You are out there ahead, controlling international relations because of your secret knowledge and because you trust no-one. It’s really not that difficult to understand so why should everyone be so astonished? Oh how horrid! The Americans are spying on us!

Of course they’re spying on you! Only a fool might think that they weren’t! Much more interesting is this. Think about American society please and ask yourself what kind of place it is! A society where no one cares about anyone else, where people who are ill have to pay a fortune for medical treatment, a place where almost anyone can buy a gun and kill whoever they like… This is the society that is leading the world yet is spying on everyone! AND THEY THINK THAT EDWARD SNOWDEN HAS ANY REAL SECRETS TO TELL THE WORLD… Why if you think about it hard enough you might actually guess the whole lot!

That said, why should Obama’s administration be so fearful? Are you afraid that the people of the world might think you are any the less such a lovely bunch of people? That we may think any the less of you and how delightful you all are just because a disillusioned  young man turns colors and decides to reveal a few truths? But really, we’re so surprised! Don’t you know that anyone with a thinking brain knows all this stuff already and that Edward Snowden is just pissing into the wind? If you keep on making all that fuss about him then people might start thinking that he really does have something to say when he actually doesn’t because we know it already. America doing this or that? Well of course it is, just like everyone else. What do think we all are? Virgins?

And it’s the same with Bradley Manning. Another young American about to be locked away for breaching trust but NOT FOR REVEALING SECRETS TO THE ENEMY. For this charge against him he was found innocent. Please think about it for a moment. Charged with revealing secrets to the enemy. Okay, so what enemy were they talking about? For the legal administration of his country to put such a charge automatically assumes that it sees itself as having an enemy. Maybe even more than one… so who are those enemies? It’s a pretty strong word. They’re guys you really don’t like. Think they’re out to get you. Like the Chinese or the Russians but even so you do business with them! Even though they’re trying to steal your secrets, undermine your economy and oppose you politically on the world stage, you still do business with them! In the case of China, especially, they’re a serious financial threat! So what does it take to be an ACTUAL enemy and who are they? How do you define one? And when are they on or off the list?

Bradley Manning has been found not guilty of revealing any secrets to enemies but it’s still almost certain that he’s going to jail. He became sick and fed up with living in a world of secrets and spoke out to keep himself sane. Somehow along the way he just couldn’t take anymore. To the State security apparatus he served it was a betrayal but in pure human terms it’s actually a triumph of the human spirit. That human beings find that they still have something deep down inside them that gives them the courage to stand up and tell others the truth.

This week there’s been a big fuss In Britain about fracking, a process of drilling for oil or gas involving the fracturing of rock and pumping water under pressure into holes to release these potentially important sources of fuel. It is believed that this country has large deposits such fuel which could be cheaply extracted by this new rock fracturing technique so providing Britain with an economic bonanza equivalent at least to North Sea Oil in the 60’s and 70’s. Such exploitation however comes with a number of problems. Firstly fears about the technology itself. That rock fracturing might produce serious seismic disturbance. Secondly that of water pollution. Then there is the strange coincidence that all this lovely economic wealth seems to lie in areas deemed to be of outstanding natural beauty.

The consequences of utilizing the new rock drilling technology are as yet unknown which is why any exploratory drilling to date has produced such a wave of fury and protest in what may best be described as the professional protest movement, a well organised revolving collection of regulars with tents, camping gear, handcuffs, cutting equipment and banner making facilities who appear whenever and wherever necessary to protest and complain of anything that smells of technological modernity. They want the natural world to stay as it is and regard themselves as the nation’s unappreciated instrument of sanity.

Well good for them I say yet I am genuinely worried about a deeper, unseen hidden motive in all of this. Not in their warm kindhearted intentions on our behalf let me hasten to say, but about all these intentions being deluded in ways they are unaware of as yet! Suddenly it’s all such a hot topic. Rock drilling in the heart of rural Sussex! All those well-heeled gentle country folk joined by the kind of people they’ve ever only seen on the television, protesters with beards and boots, badges and flags, staying with them in their country cottages and all talking about the same thing… the ruination of their little bit of rural paradise with oil wells and ‘nodding donkeys’! Can you imagine it? Rivers and ponds full of oil and slime dams just about everywhere! And who is the enemy, it’s some wretched company that no-one’s ever heard of before called Cuadrilla. Like something hot and Mexican that goes in a tortilla wrap. The name seems to be all over the place like there’s oil and gas under every blade of grass all over England.

Yes it’s given the protest movement a new lease of life. A chance to unite with the rural folk of England all over again. Not so long ago it was Airport Runways, Nuclear Power Stations, climbing fences, using chains, police arrests, intimidation and all. Now it’s fracking for what could mainly be gas with everyone in the village now talking. Can you just imagine The Archers? The little tune and all that talk in the pub. It’s not farmers anymore Dan but all those men and their drill! And all those nice policemen with numbers on their uniforms putting all those posh protesters from the upper part of the village in the their vans along with them their hippies!

Well come to think of it, had anyone heard of a company called Cuadrilla until recently. It seems to have suddenly appeared out of nowhere to do all this experimental drilling and apply for its licensing. Strange that! One would have thought it might have been any of the giant energy exploration and refining organizations such as Shell or BP, Exxon or Mobile, with their vast financial resources that might have been interested in any on the spot great new energy bonanza but nothing so far from those with a natural interest in such a project. Instead it’s been left to a company that’s only recently been in the news. It seems peculiar at least until you consider the matter more deeply. Why this small unknown outfit and where did it come from?  

I have my own thoughts on the subject. Far-fetched they may be. Unlikely to many, all those journalists and so called financial experts paraded in the media for being ‘in the know’. You know, the kind of people who foresaw the whole financial crisis coming and forgot to tell anyone, and maybe even made a mint out of it themselves! And especially unlikely to all the anti-fracking demo mob out there, those friends of the Earth who dismiss anyone else’s opinion as rubbish. However I’ll put the view nonetheless. Cuadrilla is in effect a brilliant political wheeze. Thought up secretively by a highly specialized team within one of the departments of government of which the public is quite unaware. Maybe Ministers themselves have no knowledge of it but its existence as a political project surely goes all the way to the top.

The outfit is indeed a masterly political piece of ingenuity. The reasoning behind it as follows. In recent years there have clearly been too many causes for people without any real political affiliation to demonstrate about. Young people in particular along with the soft left middle class have been up angry about one thing or another and demonstrating about this and that all over the place, encouraged by the complacency of the official political parties who all seem to stand for the same thing. It’s all so simple really. With the great economic and financial crisis upon us, causing a diminution of the standard of living for so many, particularly young people, students and the middle classes, people who wish to protest have nowhere to go so they demonstrate. It’s been a major feature of life here in Britain over the last 5 years. The REAL trick is to give them something to demonstrate about! Something that will focus their attention like never before.

Okay thanks to the Green, Friends of the Earth, Save the Planet, Environmental Cartel, everyone knows all about spoiling and damaging the environment through mining and energy resource exploration and drilling but the idea of fracking is something quite new. It’s come out of the blue as it were. Appeared out of nowhere, or has it?

Suddenly it’s the talk of countless campaigners. Demonstrations, sit ins and protests planned for just about everywhere! It’s become the focal point of day for environmental good cause. Nuclear power stations… brown site development… genetically modified crops… This and all the other stuff has simply fallen away! The magic new word and technology has taken over the lot. It’s become the new focal point for protest, as those who created the idea hoped it might be. YES, LET’S GIVE THEM ALL SOMETHING ELSE TO FOCUS THEIR MINDS ON! A brilliantly phony good cause that’ll keep them all occupied! And concentrated around a few dozen out of the way rural sites that will make them all less of a pain in the arse than if it was happening in urban areas. All less connected with large population centres and much easier for the police to deal with if necessary.

Fracking! What a very clever idea! Focus all the minds of the demo mob. Let them make a racket that has no useful effect for something that doesn’t exist anyway. But above all else, don’t let them know. They can all have their fun protesting about some fucking illusion while guys like us are laughing our heads off buried deep and well out of it all behind the scenes. As I said, simple! A new kind of specialisation in dirty tricks. Give them something big to get all excited about! With their eggs all in one basket making the noise our friends at the top will be able to push through anything political they like.

The idea of fracking then is phony. A total political put up job. And furthermore, just wait and see how it’s all going to get bigger. More and more demonstrations and police activity and news media coverage. If I wasn’t in the know I’d say it was gorgeous! All those demonstrators being taken for the ride of a lifetime!

A final word about the news this week of the police increasingly arresting those they say are posting offensive messages on media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. I want you to seriously consider this recent happening. The British police arresting people for making what they call offensive communications! Firstly, the most horrific thing in all this is that it isn’t some kind of joke. It’s true, they’re actually doing it! Making moral and ethical judgements about what people say… and making value judgements on its character!

Secondly, they are actually taking action on their judgements and depriving people of their liberty as a result!

The first reaction of most intelligent people ought to be this. The police themselves, nearly all the way through their occupational structure are definitely not noted for being clever, particularly literate or highly intelligent. Many have basic problems with literacy, grammar and spelling. Their educational standards are low, many falling within a basic GCSE framework, a percentage of others of GCE ‘A’ level standard. Few have university degrees. So who are those, one wonders, who are supposedly competent in making serious intellectual ethical judgements on the stated opinions of others? How is it, and because of what knee-jerk political reaction has society allowed the mainly semi-literate State force of law and order to act as if they’d suddenly elevated to the status of moral philosophers.?

Now you might think that this is a joke but actually it’s not because as I’ve said, such people with only a basic level of literacy can actually detain you in custody for saying things THAT THEY regard as offensive. Therefore, one should ask, from what kind of standard are they permitted to make such judgements?

The ability of the police to make objective judgements is a matter of particular concern to the many people who are members of ethnic and religious minorities. In recent times the Metropolitan Police have been described by a judge as institutionally racist. Furthermore, many people who have had contact with the police have experienced the fact that they are not singularly intelligent. This is by no means a crime and would not at all harm their professional training. Besides, many learn fast and brighten up on the job which itself is tough, often unappreciated and not at all well paid. I’m not really talking here about problems of basic intelligence but them having the ability to make complex intellectual judgements and upon these deprive people of their liberty.

There is something wrong here. The police aren’t supposed to be judges. Their function is to maintain the peace and uphold the law. Often hard enough in itself. But to give them an additional highly intellectual burden, very serious in itself, is ludicrous. Most simply don’t have the capacity to judge what is offensive and many are, in the experience of the public, often highly offensive themselves, the generalised complaint being that they just don’t know how to talk to people.

Quite frankly, putting a policeman through a University degree course won’t make him Aristotle and most wouldn’t want to go anyway. It’s a tough people centered profession where skills are often acquired the hard way so why make it harder for them by giving them tasks they’re just not equipped for?

In that case who else is to make judgements about the offensive nature or otherwise in electronic communication? Physical threat against the person is relatively simple to judge. Judgement incorporating moral evaluation is altogether more difficult, particularly when separating opinion from such evaluation. Both may be factually wrong, but nonetheless should not necessarily detract from the wisdom of any statement. Trouble is, when you put a policeman in any such minefield you’re going to have problems.

The Home Secretary kindly take note!

My next post, for your enjoyment, will be all about the Churchill Dog!

 

_________________________

If you've enjoyed reading this post and others in the series, why not try reading some of the novels I've written? One is a highly enjoyable black satire about the English Literary Racket and what unknown writers have to do to try and get their work published. It exposes the whole dirty world of literary agents, celebrity writers, journalists and publishers and it tells you the truth. I know, I've been through it all.

A CONSPIRACY OF TRASH is a story that Rupert Murdoch's book publishing company Harper Collins, the largest in the UK, refused to publish. You can download the Foreword on Amazon for free if you like, and if you want to read more it will cost just 99 cents or around 75 pence. Above all I hope you enjoy it and that it makes you laugh because I enjoyed writing it.

The story has many different characters and one or two heroes. It also has a serious message. About the people who really control publishing and the kind of books they allow you to read. All the publishers refused to give this black comedy a public hearing. They pose as liberals, believers in free speech but they're nothing of the kind and the thing they fear most is satire. If you read A CONSPIRACY OF TRASH you'll understand why.

Another great read is my Science Fiction novel THE ADVENTURES OF A MAROONED SPACEMAN told in two parts. It’s a story about a human being’s struggle to survive after being dumped on an alien world after his Starcruiser is attacked by space pirates. It’s a real thriller about human endurance and the triumph of a man against all the odds.

Finally you’ll really enjoy my exciting human interest drama THE BROTHERS PAGE, A VERY ENGLISH NOVEL, about a working class family up north, two brothers and their sister, who make it out of a tough grinding background to achieve happiness, fame and fortune. Through it all the guiding spirit is Ma Page, who nurtures her family through many adventures. This is a story full of happiness and romance where true love is found. A great family tale full of hard work and ambition, optimism and hope. Something that will warm the hearts of those who find life tough and dispiriting today. You can likewise get some free download from Amazon to experience the spirit of the story and to buy it is cheap. I promise you’ll enjoy it!