£3.50 for a cup of tea guv?

'Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.' So wrote Charles Dickens in his 1849 novel, David Copperfield.

How I can relate to those words. It seems to have been a financially ruinous time just lately, notwithstanding I am earning less in my current job than I used to. The MOT, insurance and road tax on my car was all just about budgetted for but then my hot water tank decided to split (which my insurance won't cover as they consider it a 'wear and tear' issue) and my laptop decided to go haywire and one of my back teeth decided it needed a crown. Meantime my home insurance is rapidly approaching, my home needs reinsulating before the winter and the telly has now decided to go on the blink! And did I mention the five faults they found on the car which whilst not preventing it passing its MOT will need attention before long? Then there was the unfair parking ticket which I failed to get repealed and which mounted. As for that defunct garden pond with no water remaining in it, well that is last on the list.

Despite not smoking, drinking or indulging in designer handbags or exotic travel, and inhabiting cheaper housing than many, I seem to be spending money at a much faster rate than I am earning it at the moment. If I had a child I would probably have to sell it to a wealthy American couple.

All get rich quick ideas gratefully received...

Unfortunately I was rejected as a People's Peer, where I could probably have lived off the expenses alone.

I do find myself spending an inordinate amount of time watching people in city centres lately and wondering how they all seem to be able to afford whatever they want. Luckily most current fashion is too hideous and unflattering to possibly tempt me and I am old enough to know expensive cosmetics are no more magical than high street own brands.

Best in Class (or possibly not)

Tomorrow's Prime Ministers

Slack-hipped in slouch jeans, they waddle across the road as if they haven't a care
Contemptuous bovine stare for any motorist who might dare
To urge them to hurry their pace or perhaps deign to look before they cross.
It's as if the Green Cross Code Man never was, as if they don't give a toss
For their own lives or yours, even without substances filled,
Kamikaze cyclists whizz past just as badly in need of Highway Code drilled.
Yesterday I affixed a student chaser to my front grille
To avoid another garage bill
When I got home I found a brace of students neatly scooped
Which I will hang until gamey and tasting of goose.

LS King 2010


Rather worryingly I have seen increasing numbers of older people seemingly just as blase about their health and safety and regarding cars rather as a ruminent might if one entered its field.

Flu, Food, Fat & Footie

For the past three weeks I've been afflicted by what can only be described as the adult version of Whooping cough, so very little sleep and a throat so sore I've needed painkillers to brush my teeth! It's proved resiliant to all attempts to treat it though it seems to be finally passing now, along with accompanying eye infections which also make it hard to sleep or concentrate. The good news is that a diet of fruit and ice cream at midnight (when I wake myself coughing) has led to shedding a welcome half a stone!

Which brings me to the subject of supermarkets. I seem to have been visiting mine more than usual lately in search of cool and soothing things to tempt my non-existent appetite and have more than once felt like the last thin person walking around, aside from a few obvious anorexics and students who haven't lived long enough to pile much on. I've even seen some body shapes in my local Tesco which appear to defy physics. Worse still the body-hugging vests and leggings many obese individuals choose to wear are even crueller and more unforgiving than this blog post. They're also starting younger - a growing number of youngsters seem to have no waistline at all these days and look podgy from the age of about 6, much though I wouldn't want us to go back to some of the freakily small waistlines of the 1950s. Then there's the strange rolls of fat many seem to develop in the place they might once have expected to find a waist, even if they still have flat stomachs. Is evolution really bowling along at such an alarming rate, or is some kind of foodstuff responsible for this?

Is this a legacy from GM food? Of course food and booze are impossible to escape these days - every second retail outlet is a cafe or cafe/bar in Oxford and the trend is spreading across every town and city. TV food porn programmes are rife and so are ads. None of us dare leave the house without a bottle of water and a chocolate bar at the very least. Food is literally being shoved down our throats wherever we look and sedentary lifestyles in front of PCs and Playstations are rife.

This has all happened in the last 10-15 years. There was no such emphasis on food when I was growing up in the 80s and food certainly wasn't 'sexed' up in any way. Nor were painfully slow and basic steam-driven computers much of a temptation from a healthier lifestyle. As for drunkenness, that was a shameful thing which only students and alcoholics indulged in. For the rest of the populace a couple of 'jars' or an occassional glass of wine (a much smaller glass than today) was more the norm.

I've now formulated a theory that the reason there are such a disproportionate number of disproportionate people in supermarkets is that for some, the trip to their 'dealer' for their next fix is their only outing of the week and they are more or less housebound the rest of the time, either through self-imposed exile or simply not being physically fit enough to go out much (and did any of us ever expect to see a TV advert for a cream to prevent 'chafing' as you walk?). You can apparently actually claim benefits too for being 'too obese to work'. More time to devote one's life to looking for BOGOF's then, though one wonders in what perverse way it suits the government to have such a policy rather than regard it as an individual's own responsibility not to get into such a state.

It is certainly ironic that being fat was historically a sign of wealth as only the rich could afford to gorge themselves, but in this day and age it has become a sign of poverty and reliance on cheap filler foods of low vitamin content (hence the body's continual hunger until it reaches its minimum nutrient quota, many portions later). Either that or there's one heck of a lot of undiagnosed thyroid conditions around.

Anyway, never mind all this, when is she going to mention the football? I hear you cry! Doesn't she know there's a world cup on? (bloody TV repeats!) Well what can I say? Overpaid, overlaid, they're minted whether they win or lose, so why would they care? They don't even care enough to learn the words of their own national anthem for goodness' sake. But since my fellow countrymen are even more obnoxious winners than they are losers, I for one am delighted there wasn't a cat in hell's chance of 1966 happening all over again. That'll teach John Prescott for selling off all the school sports fields (did I really read that the A-hole was going to be honoured with a knighthood the other week?) Though doubtless England's devastated (never merely 'disappointed') fans went out and drank just as much to lament as they would have done to celebrate.

Life's Too Short To Wax A Lemon

But I'm sincerely wishing fellow blogmate Kaz all the lemon-waxing time in the world. If you've never visited Kaz (Idler), she is one of the wittiest, most stylish and youngest pensioners around who takes her inspiration from AbFab's 'Patsy' but there's so much more to her than that.

Kaz is currently battling ovarian cancer, so is sometimes too weak to blog, but appreciates all your messages of support, so please do pop over and pay her a visit.

And if the more religiously-inclined among you would like to pray for her to confound her doctors with a spontaneous remission of miraculous magnitude, I'm sure she'd appreciate that too.

However sometimes our endlessly merciful Lord does have his limits....


















(recently spotted at Little Walsingham Shrine)

Grandparents

These are my paternal grandparents Ernest Sidney King and Lilian Rose King who hailed from and lived in Coventry all their lives. However every summer they climbed into their Bedford Dormobile and followed John Betjeman's Shell Guide exploring various corners of Britain. They held little truck with 'abroad', though they once managed a weekend in Versailes and on another occasion, a day trip to Calais. They flew only twice in their lives - to see we grandchildren in Northern Ireland when they were getting on a bit to manage the long drive up to Scotland to make the ferry (and they were pushing 70 by the time we were born)



One of the high points of their travels was reaching John O'Groats.



















My grandfather (second right) enjoyed chess. He also acted in plays put on by his engineering company Brico, and had roles in JB Priestley's 'An Inspector Calls' among a number of other productions. He was a quiet and highly dignified man who announced his presence with the sweet scent of a herbal tobacco pipe, but if you asked him something he would immediately light up and go to great lengths to explain it to you. No one dared to open the Coventry Evening Telegraph each night before he had read it and commented wryly on what the powers that be ('they') were up to now. He handled all his possessions with a kind of reverence, as if they were the most precious objects, and was of that generation who would warm up the television set (never the TV) for ten minutes before watching it. He once became quite animated when I used his Parker pen nib to slit open the cellophane around a jigsaw - as if I had committed the greatest act of negligence. I was careful to ask permission to use his things first ever after. I know now that he grew up in a very impoverished family, often going to bed hungry as a child, though many who survived WWI went on to make quite a success of their lives including my grandfather. When he retired from work as a factory Foreman he was given a huge music centre in an unwieldy walnut cabinet and a large early colour box television set in matching walnut, so they must have thought a lot of him.


This is my grandmother Lil in her younger days. She always had a lucky streak with the bingo and won at least as much as she lost, including sometimes bizarre prizes such as candlewick bedspreads. Each of her sucession of cats was trained to walk down to the end of Loudon Avenue to meet her at 4.30pm precisely and accompany her the rest of the way home. She liked to fancy she had a sixth sense and told me that when she and Ernest were walking home one evening after a wartime bombing raid, she had a bad feeling and insisted they walk a mile out of their way to go home. Grandfather was reluctant but eventually agreed. Later on a bomb went off in middle of the street they would have normally walked home down. She was full of stories about everyone in the street, who'd died and who hadn't, how the bodies were laid out on the green after the bombing raids, and was somewhat proud they were the last original residents from when the street was built in 1926, though I took her story about having a miscarriage after the hun flew low over the garden and smirked as she saw his swastika, with a pinch of salt as the explanation for why she'd only had my father. One of her proudest moments was getting a job in the Co-Op department store Offices at the age of 64, when they didn't take on anyone over 60 at that time. This she had done by claiming her birth certificate had been 'lost in the blitz.'

My grandparents were also very green

The cornerstone of their marriage seemed to be the joke that one year Grandpa asked Grandma what she would like for her birthday. She had replied 'a goblin', meaning the brand of vacuum cleaner. What she got was a garden gnome.

Like most of their possessions the vulgar fellow was lovingly tended with a fresh coat of paint every year, presiding over their garden pond for more then 40 years. Like most of their possessions, it saw them out.

SplutterSplutter (the new name for TalkTalk)

Ever since I ran into a highly personable female TalkTalk rep who stopped me to admire my earrings in a shopping centre just before Christmas and then proceeded to convince me my life would be transformed by saving £2 per month over my previous internet provider, I have lived to regret it. My home broadband has become unreliable and as slow as hell. Any sort of internet activity has become a slog requiring the patience of Job.

Complaints to TalkTalk either fall on deaf ears or solicit the bland script-inspired response that the area I live in must be at fault.

Must be that new mountain range that's sprung up in the middle of Oxford then.

I have now escalated my complaint to Ofcom pointing out it is most unfair to hold customers to 18-month contracts if little or no service is being provided and the contract is therefore being breached on the service provider's side first. They promptly referred me back to TalkTalk, not quite fulfilling the suicide risk criteria needed for Ofcom's consideration.

Checking my broadband speed against 'the internet's leading Broadband speed checker' the other night I am getting 2344 Kbps download speed out of the 1Mb-5Mb I should be getting for my postcode location.

Meanwhile there's the matter of all those hours of my life I will never get back trying to do the simplest things. And my poor much-neglected blogmates.

And did I tell you the one about the new LG camera phone which won't download pictures to my PC and how many hours I've wasted on that only to discover it is probably a software fault inside the phone all along and not my own bumbling incompetance (as inferred by those oh-so-helpful LG call centre staff)???

I'm an artist I tell you, an artist!!!!! I shouldn't have to concern myself with such triviata as battling telecoms companies. Isn't it bad enough I have to work for a living rather than gazing from my garret all day long, quill in hand? What would Lord Byron do in my shoes I ask myself?

Totter a bit. Probably.

'Mirrie'

I have just returned from a parental visit to Northern Ireland, where access to the internet has been very sporadic indeed and half the £1-for-10-minutes public terminals don't work. To amuse myself amidst the dispiriting chaos of my parents' home and lives in which no one is allowed to intervene except for washing up and sharing the driving, I tracked down the family photos, which had rather shockingly been consigned to rot in a broken 30s suitcase in an outhouse, many stuck together or ruined by mould and both maternal and paternal families mixed up to the extent that if there was someone we couldn't identify, they could not even be narrowed down to which side they might be from. Very few were labelled. Luckily 'Mirrie' survived.

'Mirrie' was the glamour girl of my paternal grandmother's family who could have almost been a 30s film star, but became a doomed air hostess instead. Gold-watch deserving readers of this blog may recall the narrative poem I wrote about her here At the time I had no photographs to go with it, so it is nice to put some up at last.

I learned that she was the daughter of Walter and Miriam Gunn. Walter served in WWI and was an ARP warden in WWII, before rising in civvy street to become Manager of Pearl Assurance in Broadgate, Coventry. After their daughter Mirrie was killed in a plane crash - I'm assuming sometime in the 1940s since she evidently lived to be a Wren in WWII, her parents left Coventry to assuage their great grief by running an antiques shop in Brighton, their daughter's belongings locked in the attic having been sent back from the African Cape where she died.

The battered old familial bible states Walter Gunn's date of birth as 12th January 1894, so I will endeavour to order a copy of his death certificate and see if I can dig up some more family information. Unfortunately anyone who might have known the family is likely to be dead and my father has never taken much interest in his family, even before the onset of dementia.

Like Steerforth at Age of Uncertainty, I always think it compounds the tragedy of human loss when that person is entirely forgotten down to the last photograph being disposed of or carelessly allowed to moulder out of existence. Whilst I don't kid myself any of my ancesters had an easy time of it, there is a charm about old photographs and the lost grace and sense of Britishness they portray. Few photographs taken today are likely to be as evocative. In fact I regard old family photographs as the nearest thing to family silver.

Redundant Times

I am wondering when new PM David Cameron will take the opportunity to make Nick Clegg redundant on 'cost-cutting' grounds (ie that there is no need for two of them to do the same job). Mr Clegg is yet to pass his six months probation or qualify for full employment rights (two years) after all, so he could get away with shafting him without paying him a bean over whatever half day Mr Clegg has had time to accrue.

And while it might not be the most popular move amongst a less predictable electorate, it is better surely than starting another war - the usual means by which a PM or President asserts their masculine iron rod and assures their place in the history books, whilst distracting that same electorate from the fact that they are actually doing bugger all to make their country a better place or honour their election promises. Mr Clegg would do well to take a data recorder to every meeting and refuse to meet him without a 3rd party of his choice in the room methinks.

Secretly I wish their coalition well (I'll be a bit more positive than 'hung parliament') and hope they save cheques and marmalade and all the other residue of being British worth saving before that 74% of the population enact their expressed Mori poll threat to emigrate from the good sinking ship Britannia. Unless of course the percentage concerned is of the calibre we used to send to the Colonies anyway.

But I fear cynicism will get the better of me.

I have just one thing to say to all politicians - at least care about your statues if you're not going to be sincere about your statutes.

This was supposed to be a nice fluffy post sharing lovely photos with you incidentally, as I realise I've gone a trifle political lately, but I still can't get my new LG cameraphone to recognise my PC after many nights of tinkering/endless software downloading. Needless to say LG are being less than helpful.

Charity Begins At Name

The charities formerly known as Age Concern and Help the Aged have just amalgamated into a conglomerate known by the meaningless and rather sinister brand name of 'Age UK'.
A quick Google uncovers a rash of recent charity makeovers, all ostensibly executed by the same re-branding agency.

Instead of reassuring terms such as 'Association', 'Campaign', 'Concern', Trust,
'Foundation' or 'Action' next to our major charities, we are now seeing the reductionist;

Asthma UK
Heart UK
Meningitis UK
Disability UK

It can only be a matter of time until Cancer UK and Oxfam UK join them. Is it just me or does this make charities sound more like faceless corporate entities who no longer give a stuff about the public interest, rather than the charitable institutions that they were founded as? Would anyone now feel inclined to leave all their worldly goods to Age UK when it doesn't sound like a charity on their side any longer, or even a charity for that matter? Recent rumour of their strong-arm tactics on 'persuading' the very elderly they are supposed to advocate and protect, to leave them large sums of money using coercive door-to-door bequest 'salesmen' hasn't helped.

And which re-branding agency is receiving all this money for the same one-trick pony concept on each charity?

I mean I've just predicted all the main cancer charities amalgamating into 'Cancer UK', so where is my £2m re-branding consultation fee please? In fact I'll make a similar charge to add 'UK' to the end of any charity yet to be UK'd, slightly less for the smaller charities - I'm not greedy. My website designer friend Dan can come up with a funky logo for each no doubt. And who needs a Focus Group anyway since they seem to ignore the views of their supporters irrespective?

Several years ago it was proposed that the Leonard Cheshire homes and day centres for the disabled should lose the name 'Leonard Cheshire'. Who after all still knew or cared about the mouldly old heroic WWII air ace who once decided that severely war-disabled servicemen need not regard their lives as over, but could still be helped to lead productive and rewarding lives with the right TLC, training and support (a charity which has since expanded to serve disabled people across the board)?

Luckily, enough people still remembered who he was to defend the retention of his name in the charity formed by him and there was sufficient outcry to persuade the re-branders to mollify their efforts to the masterstroke of adding 'disABILITY' to 'Leonard Cheshire'. Will his late (and no less amazing) wife Sue Ryder suffer the same threat in due course?

But every charity benefits from a good story doesn't it? And they don't come much better than the true love and inspiration story of Leonard Cheshire and Sue Ryder.

We certainly need at least a few charities left we can still Trust.





Sue and Leonard
(left more than a park bench)

We Shall Frighten Them On The Beaches - exclusive election special

Today on Brighton beach, an extraordinary sight beheld me. An elderly lady in a bathchair pushed by two attendants proceeded to knock the Punch and Judy man out with her walking stick and take over his tent for an exclusive election special. I didn't have a camera on me, but managed to record the following on my phone...



Naturally there was pandemonium and at one point parents proceeded to throw small children at her, but the elderly lady continued on until the end, whereby she was re-muzzled and strapped back into her bathchair for the short ride to the adapted Daimler waiting on the promenade.

On a less surreal note, earlier in the weekend I had the great pleasure of meeting fellow blogger Steerforth of The Age of Uncertainty, who was just as lovely in real life as his blog suggested - the sort of first rate human being you might expect to meet when they introduce an Upgrade Friends service for mobile phones (any friends reading this blog excepted of course, being my true friends!)

Marmalade and Cheques

Marmalade and cheques. Just two of the things that made this country great. Both at risk. I also miss asterisks. Rude words seem so much less f***ing rude without them. The more in-yer-face society gets, the more it loses its power to shock, and let's face it, its power (though I must own to a sneaking temptation to succumb to this t-shirt when I saw it at Camden Lock the other week).

We have a society now which lets us 'vent' - ie rant and rave about its injustices using as many rude words as we wish to get it out of our system, whilst stealing back by stealth our historically hard-won civil rights to peaceful protest and other restitution under the guise of 'terrorism prevention' and then does what it always intended to do - either ignores us, turns into an inflexible Big Brother extorting money with menaces whether we owe it or not, particularly from those who might be law-abiding enough to pay whatever fine our overweight wheelie bin chip has grassed us up to the council for, or pacifies us with a load of empty politician speak (ie ignores us) - the first thing I would ban if I became PM by the way. Any colleague who had been tutored to appear honest by a presentation coach would be out on their asterisk.

And while it seems like a cop out, my second action as Prime Minister would be to save everything we currently have that is at risk such as post offices, analogue signals, pubs, free cash dispensers and the aforementioned cheques, without which it is not only OAPs who would be lost - some of we younger voters still write a fair number of them too. How else do you send money through the post for example when it is not appropriate to open an online account with that party or individual and you wouldn't want them having that much personal information about you anyway? What will charities do when they want a big f***-off cheque for someone who's just abseiled down the local hospital to raise it proudly for the presentation photograph? Not only was my first cheque book a meaningful rite of passage into the adult world, I went on to process cheques as one of my first jobs - and dispute it costs as much as banks are trying to l** it does - well I know I was paid peanuts for processing in excess of £3m a day anyway. Plus what about all the years banks sat on the money for 3 days creaming off the interest until it appeared in the payee's account? Delays continue to this day I believe, not to mention the massive charges imposed when they bounce or render an account accidentally overdrawn. Then there's the charges to stop them. Far from being some altruistic gesture the banks have bestowed upon the customer out of the goodness of their steel-vaulted hearts, I would have thought cheques have until now been a nice little earner for them and am astonished they want to do away with them. Credit cards are no more secure after all, though perhaps more lucrative for the banks with the interest rates charged and some with monthly 'reward' or yearly fees attached, not to mention their share of any transaction fees.

Well that's enough venting from me - I'm off to eat some more marmalade. Later on I might write a cheque for an evening newspaper. I'm anarchic like that.

Vote For Me - you know it makes sense

• Googling 'How To Start Your Own Political Party' I find that 53,600,000 have beaten me to it. Almost the entire population of Britain. Are they really all so disillusioned they are each intending to start one?
  
  I have been toying with the idea of calling mine The British Common Sense Party. Or even The British Salvation Party in honour of our fine upstanding friend on the left (but without the religious bit). Among other things, it will stand for:
• Restoring some national pride in being British (minus the racism, ageism and sexism of old)
  Investing in our film, television and music industries (ie the stuff we do best!)
  Preventing the brain drain by nurturing home grown talent and effectively marketing it.
  Manufacturing toasters that fit toast
  Manufacturing underwear and footwear that bears some relation to the female form.
• Subsidising home grown produce and products over imports.
  Children not being dressed as hookers by their parents who then complain that their children are not safe to go out and play.
  Adults not dressing as hookers themselves and then complaining about how they cannot find more than a one-night stand.
  Reverting to 5 TV channels of at least 70% quality programming.
  The promotion of love, friendship conscientiousness, good manners and charitable works as beneficial to all/an antidote to depression from the school yard onwards.
  The reversal of the dumbing down process in education and one period a day of compulsory poetry!
  Banning all dangerous drivers from the roads - in some cases forever.
• Life meaning a life sentence when a murder is committed.
  Raising the driving test age to 21 (the vast majority of accidents are caused by the under 21s).
  Care homes where the elderly can remain unseparated from their pets and spouses.
  Palliative care available to all with terminal illnesses.
  The latest drugs available to every patient/patients allowed to test new drugs upon request.
  A requirement that all immigrants learn English, integrate and embrace British laws and values if they choose to live in Britain (when we remember what our values are, that is) with a 2 year requirement to work and pay national insurance here before qualifying to use the National Health Service.
  A tax bonus for all couples who are married for 2 years before having children.
  £100 per year to each individual who manages to keep themselves fit and out of hospital and not use their £500 per person NHS allowance, thus freeing it up for those who really do need it/have expensive medical needs.
  Childless couples pay for their own IVF since it is not an illness, though women who wish to get rid of their babies may be offered the cost of their abortions as an incentive to consider adoption to couples desperate for a child.
• No further ruination or demolition of any pre-1930s heritage.
  
  These and other policies will partly be financed by massive fines for spitting, drinking, dogging or dropping litter in public, taking drugs, careless driving etc, though common sense becomes up to a point self-financing as it reaps its own rewards (ie fewer hospital re-admissions when patients are given the latest drugs for example)

Perhaps I should start with a straw poll among you, though I must firstly apologise for being such a terrible blogmate of late - getting ready for a string of OxFringe shows took over somewhat. But I am back and ready for round 1 in the hustings!

Everyone Wants A Relationship With Me

Apparently customer service managers in banks are now known as Customer Relationship Managers. Conversely it's getting harder to google products and services without being required to 'register' on every website - a surefire way of scaring this potential customer away, unless the product is truly unavailable anywhere else (having first ruled out locally, in real life).
Which got me to thinking, how come the semantics get fancier and the customer commitment demanded gets higher as the service gets worse?

Shopping Around

I don’t want a relationship with my car insurer
I don’t want a relationship with my car rescuer
I don’t want a relationship with my zero interest bank
I don’t want a relationship with my patchy reception mobile phone company
I don’t want a relationship with my 1.5mbps home internet provider
I don’t want a relationship with my council tax department, gas provider or electricity supplier
I don’t want a relationship with my local supermarket
I don’t want a relationship with the company currently doing the best price
on Canon printer inks
I don’t want a relationship with the local Police
Or the fashion emporium I ordered one ill-fitting bra from five years ago.
I don't want a relationship with all the companies I've NEVER bought anything from, who won't take 'Unsubscribe' for an answer.
I particularly don’t want a relationship with the Union which sold me down the river when I was made redundant, but who won’t accept that our relationship is over.
A pox on your endless unsolicited newsletters lovingly e-mailed and mailed to me
Your advertising incontinence spilling out of magazines, leaving only glossy covers
And your multi-ways spreading my intimate details to all and sundry on the net, despite my wishes, the Data Protection Act, rampant identity theft and an imploding environment of mailshot waste.
Just call me a commitmentphobe
Though you’ve got to admit, the sex is pretty rubbish too,
And you’re always cheating on me with new customers
Showering them with all your gifts and favours, though here's news for you
For I've started cheating on you too
When you can't keep me satisfied
And my loyalty is rewarded with contempt in your eyes
I surf for new consumer partners who might add value and adore
And give me the customer servicing that has me coming back for more
For shopping is voting and I'm getting cannier who I elect
When I select.
One day, I'm hoping there will be wedding bells
When I find the company who offers lifelong heaven without any added hell
Meantime I think my local MP wants to sever his relationship with me
Making him work so hard on my behalf for his salary.

©LS King 2010

A Singular Man

This weekend I went to see 'A Single Man', a beautifully sensitive portrayal of a gay College Professor in the early 1960s secretly mourning his partner of 16 years who has just been killed in a car crash, but to whose funeral he is unwelcome because that's how it was in the 1960s.

There are various poignant flashbacks to their idyllic life together replete with a couple of dog 'children', juxtaposed with the progress of a momentous day in Professor George Falconer's life where his emotions are writ large against a day of extraordinary happenings and burgeoning awareness for George, even amidst his normal fastidious routines. All set against his beautiful designer house - surprisingly see-through for a man in the closet - his beautiful vintage car with a walnut dash to die for, his exquisite English-tailored suits and an early 60s California re-created down to the brave new architecture of the College he works at. Every human encounter, however brief, suddenly takes on a new meaning from greeting his (you suspect equally repressed) attractive housewife neighbour to the girl in the bank with a hopeful lilt in her welcome. Everyone exudes an early 1960s lushness. No one's latent sensuality is ignored, whether male or female, the relentless sunshine enhancing it even more, and contrasting still more starkly with George's inner mourning, despite being slightly cheered by each distraction and proof that perhaps he is not alone if he doesn't want to be. As the film goes on, you realise George's heart is broken in more ways than one as he downs an alarming number of pills amidst the drinks, yet outwardly he remains impeccable and impassive, until a concerned male student begins to perceive all is not as it should be and makes it his business to interfere.

Having started off by thinking 'How sneaky of director Tom Ford to cast Colin Firth as George to lure we heterosexuals into the cinema to see a film we might otherwise not have seen', I came to realise what a perfect choice Mr Firth was for the role with his understated elegance and disarming ability to switch from dry, nondescript College Professor to dewy-eyed romantic lover, brimming with a heady mix of longing and loss. Mr Firth is also at that perfect age - still physically handsome, but with an emotional maturity that makes up in male beauty for not being 25 any more.

Naturally George has a straight best friend (SBF) he turns to in times of trouble in the form of the stunning Julianne Moore, who plays the hapless, semi-alcoholic but amusing and devoted Charley, who has trailed him from England, seemingly in the forlorn hope he might again bat for the other side one day, having herself been married and deserted by someone else/the American Dream along the way.

The film carried echoes of Mrs Dalloway in the subtle dreamy quality of the filming, but with less surrealism. In A Single Man, you know exactly what is happening, although the end comes as somewhat of a surprise. And like Mrs Dalloway it is based on a classic novel, if by Christopher Ishwerwood rather than Virginia Woolfe.

But I won't spoil that ending by revealing it. Go and see this rare film about true love. It's more universal than you might imagine with its demonstration that love is love, whatever one's sexuality. And loss is loss. It has no need to bang any drum and it doesn't. As a breathtaking cinematic experience, it also takes some beating.

I Was A Teenage Hunt Saboteur

Since it's still that season, I thought this might be a timely post...

While other teenagers were enjoying all-nighters with assorted contraband and unsanctioned strangers, I was often to be found shivering in the back of some ropey white Transit van in the early hours, stomach lurching queasily, desperately trying not to need a wee. Last to leave the van in whatever misty wooded bit of copse we had managed to conceal the vehicle, crampy-legged, I half fell out onto the moist forest floor, fastened the back door padlock hasp and set off with my Citronella spraycan to spray my area of the map territory. The purpose of this was to throw the hounds off the scent and confuse them. I comforted myself it was the most useful thing I could do in the name of saving the fox and that it was quite alright to abstain from the nastier stuff later on where confrontation and physical obstruction and distraction of the hunt were involved. And in the days before camera phones, where video cameras were as large as sideboards and pricey as cars, anything could happen. At around that time a member of a fellow group was killed on a hunt sab when he jumped onto a hunt trailer to unhitch it and was allegedly pushed off to be crushed beneath the moving wheels. Unfortunately images either didn't exist of the incident or were too grainy for anything to be proven. He was not the only casualty.
So did I care about the fox?
Dare I say - it's never been my favourite of creatures, heart wrenching though the idea of a vixen being ripped apart by hounds was, when her cubs might be left to starve to death in their den without her.
No, I was actually more affected by the hounds being shot the moment they could no longer run fast enough (usually around the age of six) and the cubbing that preceded a hunt - where the hunt would train the hounds in bloodlust by encouraging them into dens to drag out fox cubs to rip apart.
Eventually though, I just couldn't go on hunt sabs in any capacity. They shredded my sensitive poetic nerves and I saw some very unpleasant sights when the hounds did get their fox.
So what did I learn from these experiences - except that I was the worlds' most pants hunt saboteur?
Well primarily that fox hunting as a valid form of pest control just doesn't stack up economically, no matter the valiant excuses made by huntspersons.
Urban legend has it that a lady in the Isle of Wight looked up Pest Control in her Yellow Pages to get rid of a fox that was taking a little too keen an interest in her chickens. A Master of the Hunt, six men in hunting pinks and ten women in black turned up within the hour.
This formation then proceeded to take the best part of four hours to seek out the fox, eventually finding nothing but a domestic cat, but causing damage to four boundary fences and a pool of Koi carp as they traversed private property in their pursuit.
Their customer's face was said to be a picture when the invoice dropped through her letterbox
Hunt master @ £90 per hour x 4 hours + travel
Whippers-in x 2 @ £60 per hour x 4 hours + travel
Assorted Pinkcoats x 6 @ £50 per hour x 4 hours + travel
Blackcoats x 10 @ £35 per hour x 4 hours + travel
Followers x 50 @ £10 per hour x 4 hours + travel
Hire of 20 pairs x hounds @ £5 per hour x 4 hours + travel
Damage to fences, 5 x replacement Koi and 1 x replacement cat
Policing bill to beat up saboteurs = £25,000
Subtotal: You must be joking
VAT: Never!
Total: Aaaaaaaaaaarrgh!!!!
(and that’s not counting the champagne buffet she was expected to lay on for the hungry huntspersons afterwards!)

Whether these pest controllers bothered to inform her there were no foxes in the Isle of Wight until they were purposefully introduced there for hunting purposes over a century ago is dubious, since that would mean that really she should have just sued them, rather than paid them.

The Right To Why

A major debate currently rages over whether legalised euthanasia should be introduced for those with 'life-limiting' illnesses (other than life itself, that is!)

It strikes me as quite shocking that what should be a last resort is blatantly being advocated as a first resort, in view of the fact that at least half the country has no access to proper palliative care, let alone in the speciality of geriatrics (a vastly understaffed field to begin with). Therefore the majority of patients in extreme pain have no effective means of pain management in order to gain the mental equilibrium necessary to arrive at such an irreversible decision. Still others are simply depressed and may not realise it, so this too needs to be ruled out as a factor in their decision making, particularly if treatable.

And no one in the country seems to have access to such a thing as cognitive therapy specialising in the treatment of those with dementia (many of whom couldn't give their consent in any case, even if the highly vocal author Terry Pratchett is choosing to give his ahead of time.) But if there is such a thing as the Peto Institute in Hungary to aid neurologically-impaired children into becoming more functional using conductive education, why not an equivalent rehabilitation system for dementia utilising this, perhaps combined with cognitive therapy? And why are drugs such as Aricept costing only £2.50 per day - considerably cheaper than 24/7 nursing care if it retards or plateaus the condition - being stinted on or outright refused to save money because the patient 'is not yet ill enough'?

Now we hear that for every £144 spent on cancer research, a mere £12 is spent on dementia research, no matter that dementia actually costs the nation a great deal more in care costs. Furthermore 60% of dementia has actually been linked to vitamin deficiency if an older person suffers from mild to severe malnutrition owing to their diet narrowing and liquid intake falling due to an inability to cook once widowed or lack of appetite owing to pre-existing medical conditions. Even long term hospitalisation where nursing care is inadequate is proven to leave patients malnourished, which means dementia could theoretically be a temporary and reversible condition for many sufferers, not least those who go into hospital with their marbles and come out without.

And even if a patient has had the luxury of being able to exhaust every alternative there is and has met every last legal and good practice criteria decided upon to be passed fit for assisted suicide, what right does he or she have to ask of a medic trained to heal rather than harm, to become a killer? There is no right to die, merely a perception that there is. Although not religious myself I still acknowledge that life is a gift and therefore not necessarily mine to take, however dire it may become.

My father (although not malnourished) has dementia but is lucky enough to live in Northern Ireland where you basically get whatever you ask for when you enter a Doctor's surgery and they don't seem to have heard of drug budgets. My mother requested Aricept for him and within the day was holding his first prescription of the stuff. It is early days in terms of knowing whether it is doing anything yet, but at least he has been given the chance and has not suffered any adverse side-effects. Meanwhile I have sent my mother a hypnosis CD on developing a better memory which I have suggested she tries playing softly under the bed as he sleeps and have also found a book optimistically entitled The Alzheimers Prevention Plan, which looks like it might be quite useful for people of any age. Though having been a bit of a late developer in life, I'm rather hoping I will be a late developer re my diseases as well!

Though just in case you thought life was becoming a little too disposable, at the opposite end of the spectrum you can always take this,solving all your health problems and living to 100 at a stroke.

Tragic Lives

Darn it! I knew I should have persevered with my leading-tear autobiography

I Was Locked In A Cupboard For Longer Than You










Only one thing for it. I shall have to devote the rest of my days to a worthy
cause and make sure my life hasn't been in vain...

It Ain't Easy Being Unemployed, Middle-Class Trailer Park Trash

A bitter comedy poem about being unemployed from last year (and yes I really do live in a Park Home, if not the one in the picture.). Only now can I share the pain of the discrimination I faced, not least by my local council, who while happy to take my council tax off me whilst in a job, point blank refused to grant me any Housing benefit, as their computer wouldn't compute my abode as being a proper house or get its head round the concept of 'ground rent' despite my production of the rent book. It took WWIII to get any Council Tax benefit out of them either, the b***ards! Simultaneously I was failing to get job after job at the time, though thankfully I finally got one in the end. Performing this poem relieved the pressure somewhat and raised a few laughs from fellow maligned (and sidelined) middle-class.

It Ain't Easy Being Unemployed, Middle-Class Trailer Park Trash

People think posh voice, must have cash
If only they knew I was the unfortunate victim of
10 elocution lessons for my 7th birthday
Though it never won me a Home Secretary's pay
I also suffer from the handicap of being half-classed
My father was middle class, and my mother was wirking class!
So to upper classes I'm just a fraud
And to lower classes, a female lord
I complained of my plight to the Minorities Commission
But they seemed disinterested in my distressed condition
So I told them I was a zoroastrian, Esperanto-speaking, metrosexual celebrity trapped-in-a-nobody
Desperately seeking a grant for trans-status reassignment surgery
And hey presto, they started taking me seriously
Now I'm fourth in line to be the next Jade Goody
Meanwhile on Equality and Diversity monitoring forms I tick every box
Get invited for every interview, attend, just to pop their vox
When they see I'm not differently-abled, ethnic or elderly
Just everyday unreconstructed wirking class bourgeoisie
With a few ideas above my station, admittedly
(Well, have you seen how the railways are being run these days?)
It grieves me to say they turn a funny colour, swell up, implode their hidden agenda
As I challenge them to prove they're not using this form as a discriminatory filter.
Before hinting I may be an Employment Tribunal 'mystery shopper'
It Ain't Easy Being Unemployed, Middle-Class Trailer Park Trash with a penchant for egalitarianism
Especially when there's no box for it.

© LS King 2009

Why We Had To Kill Gyles Brandreth

The short story reproduced below was inspired by British TV celebrity Gyles Brandreth publicly declaring that the English language and its literature should be simplified, suggesting that we take our cues from txt spk. Mr Brandreth also studied at Oxford, so it seemed a fitting place for him to meet his literary nemesis.

Why We Had To Kill Gyles Brandreth

Dear Mother & Step-Rather

I trust this missive finds you both well. And Patches too. Is his tail still outrunning him?
Silly hound. How I miss his stupid face and lopsided run. I wish we were allowed pets. On the plus side you will be glad to hear I am progressing well on the Masters front. Might even finish with time to spare and do something else next term. A little C&G in something useful for the real world perhaps. English Lit only begets English Lit teachers and the odd impoverished writer as we all know. Of course this place has its temptations, but they don't tempt me. Curry night in Hall on Fridays is about the high spot of my week. No honestly. You don't want to believe everything you hear. You must stop worrying about me, both of you. I'm a big boy now and you must know I am not into being a party animal. Nor do I watch copious quantities of SkySport – decidedly lacking in chess. But it’s a rum enough place as long as you keep your nose clean. I joined the Book Club last week, though naturally I am the most sophisticated one there by a mile. I can’t believe anyone still thinks Dan Brown is good. I would say they must need lobotomising, if they hadn’t already been! ; - ) But I might be able to do something with them I suppose. Thanks a mill for the extra thermals by the way. It does get somewhat parky in these old buildings at nights, despite the radiators on at full blast. I know. Why don’t I ask for the latest iPod just like any other son? As if your other sons aren’t expensive enough. Mind you I suppose it’s true to say I’ve cost you a fair bit in other ways.
I wish for your sakes I could say that I didn’t mean to kill Gyles Brandreth. But for what it’s worth my agent says the after dinner speaking engagements are stacking up for when I get out. I’ve even got a six-figure book deal would you believe? Apparently a murderer who can string more than a marketable sentence together, never mind wield a best-selling pen without a ghost writer in sight is a real rarity. They are hoping to explore the inner recesses of my murderer’s mind like few others.
Perhaps I will tell them I did it for Rag Week - that will shut them up!
Actually we did it, myself and three keenest co-conspirators from my Facebook Group 'Banish Gyles Brandreth' for Queen and country. Or rather the Queen's English and the good of the country. A country which is now rewarding me it seems, cursory obligatory sentence notwithstanding. Even less if I can convince the shrink I don't pose a danger to other celebrities, though it's hard to promise anything on the Alan Titchmarsh front (sorry Mother). And Matt is quite keen to see the back of Graham Norton when he gets out according to his sister. Chloe's always been sweet on me and confided the other day in the visiting room that she thought the BBC might be saved if only it weren't for Jonathan Ross. I told her no. It's almost as if Gyles Brandreth has given them a taste for blood and now they want more.
It was all meant to be so innocent - an invitation to a Teddy Bear's picnic on the Parson's Pleasure preceded by a short punt from the Cherwell boathouse, conversation and Pimms flowing. Once there, we knew he would make a beeline for the 1937 Steiff bear and sniff its head which would be saturated with chloroform (snuck from Matt's laboratory). Then it would be a simple matter of putting him over the side of the bank and letting nature take its course. Quite romantic. Pre-Raphaelite you might say, but for his want of flowing locks.
Then we realised that Teddy bears alone probably wouldn't be enough to lure him up to Oxford and put his name forward to the Oxford Union to head the motion 'Why Spelling Doesn't Matter Anymore' against Professor Maurice Holbrook's English Laboratory lot with dinner in his old college New College, beforehand. I don't mind admitting my fingernails were quickly bitten down to the cuticles. Worse still, Mr Brandreth was utterly charming at dinner, to the point I almost lose my nerve. It was only all the celebrity namedropping that galvanised my resolve.
As I suspected he used his habit to good effect, convincing the chamber that the likes of the late Willy Rushton, John Wells and Ted Hughes agreed with him that there were far too many words with confusing spelling, pronunciation and nuance, many of them superfluous to requirements, therefore the entire English language should be overhauled and streamlined, and mobile phone texting was leading the way in this regard.
'Esperanto!' heckled a wag from the floor.
'Thanks, but I've got an Expresso' retorted Gyles smartly.
When the general snorting had subsided, Professor Holbrook countered that it was outrageous to suggest that England should simplify its language when other countries such as France, Italy and Spain to name a few, seemed perfectly content to confuse us with theirs without compromise and where was our national pride?
'I suggest you ask Margaret Thatcher about that.' replied Gyles, ‘since for better or worse she instigated the rise of the 'me first' individual and thus, the self-expression of the 'me first' individual. I am proposing we regain some national pride by leading the way in language matters.'
'Or look complete nincompoops when no one follows our lead and we are left with chav text speak in lieu of our once rich linguistic and literary heritage.' retorted Professor Holbrook.
'Hear hear!' I scarcely restrained myself from shouting.
It was such an evenly-matched debate I was on the edge of my seat throughout, not least as we were unlucky enough to have a fairly tipsy and easily-swayed (in more ways than one) crowd in that evening.
Suffice to say that the English Language won by a margin rather than the landslide I had hoped for as the Nays passed through to be counted. Little did Mr Brandreth know that the hanging jury had already ruled. Afterwards we insincerely offered Mr Brandreth our profuse commiserations.
He then enjoyed a private drink in the President's room, regaling him no doubt with accounts of the good old days when he himself served as President and showing him the panelling wherein he had etched his name and the window out of which he had pissed into the rose bushes beneath, unwittingly soaking two homosexuals as they illegally canoodled in the mid 60s, one of them Nick's father (long story).
Nick, Matt, Richard and I ostensibly returned to my base, St John's College, but in reality around the block. Once we had ambled past enough CCTV cameras to convince we really had gone home, we put up our hoods for the final leg and chose our doorway to lie in wait. How splendid we all agreed it would have been to have a Brandreth burning in the Broad in the style of Bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer, tied to a stake and surrounded by all the books he'd ever written. Regrettably Oxford's streets were not as quiet as they once were and Oxford's shops no longer the mass producers of surfeit cardboard box kindling of old.
Two hours we waited. The skies began to drizzle. Was the man going to gas on all night? Highly likely since he had once tied with Nicholas Parsons on a 12½ hour continuous public speaking World Record breaker.
No risk of lock outs these days anyway. With 24 hour porterage, Mr Brandreth could get back into New College and his Fellow's Guest Room any time he wanted. Not that he would have need of such a facility after we had finished with him. Finally at 2.30am with the Union now in virtual darkness, Mr Brandreth emerged, escorted to the front gate by the President who pressed a complimentary Union umbrella into his hand. We donned our Scriptum Viennese ball masks and as soon as the President was out of earshot we pounced, throwing Richard's extra cloak over Mr Brandreth's head.
'Aaaaargh!' was his muffled response before he bit the nearest thing to hand, Richard's forearm through the fabric as Richard held the cloak around his neck.
'Aaaaaaargh!' was Richard's rather less muffled response.
'Ssssshhhh Richard!' hissed Nick. Just get on with it. Remind me why we didn't use chloroform again?'
'Well you can't kill someone without telling them why they have to die. It's the least they deserve.'
'Yes, it's the least I deserve.' nodded the cloak as vigorously as it could under the circumstances.
Despite our Literary pretensions (and in some cases degrees), we were all addicts to re-runs of the Saint and any Bond film going (a separate Facebook group) and could only nod in silent acquiescence, despite the dangers inherent in a conscious Gyles Brandreth.
'Righty ho. I'll tell him', I said, anxious to get the business over. 'Mr Brandreth, despite losing tonight's debate on your motion effectively proposing the deliberately engineered dismantling of the English language and ultimately, its literature, we feel that such heresy deserves underlining in red ink to truly make the point. We further believe that this can only be achieved by your deliberately engineered demise for the benefit of those who don't listen to debates, but enjoy reading about murders in the Daily Mail. As well as being a strike for our language and heritage, it will also serve as a strike against celebrity culture and pedestrian murder, for we intend to be creative about it.'
'What a brilliant concept' opined the cloak. 'How will you kill me?'
After a stunned silence, I replied 'Well we considered a number of ways Mr Brandreth but we finally settled on the kidnap, the stabbing through the heart with a 19th century dipping pen nib in parody of the pen being mightier than the sword and the replacement of your blood with Quink's finest in lieu of embalming fluid. We were then going to leave you on the steps of Oxford University Press as a horrible warning.'
'Immortality gentlemen. How can I ever thank you?'
'What?' at least two of us spluttered.
'Well you profess to hate me, yet here you are offering me the career move of my life. All my out-of-print books would be back on the shelves within a month and my obituaries at least five column inches wide. In fact my demise could run and run.'
We were so shocked we lost sufficient grip on the cloak for Mr Brandreth to wriggle free.
He stood before us dishevelled in penguin suit with his bow tie undone, but defiant, despite a nosebleed. 'Yes I suppose I am vainglorious and insufferably smug. All that and I read minds too.' he said as if he could divine our crestfallen faces beneath the masks. 'I also laugh at death, along with the obituaries of my friends.'
'We had one ready for you in reduced English Literature for the Oxford Student newspaper' I offered.
'Oh yes…?' He asked, smiling now.
'It said 'Gyles Brandreth Woz Here 1948 - 2009'
He laughed, open merriment in his eyes. 'Suppose I told you all this dumbing down was Nicholas Parsons' idea and I nicked it. You've got the wrong man you know!'
'We wouldn't believe you' I said, feeling humiliated.
He grew more serious 'Well your faces might be obscured but I can see you are all young men on the rise, anxious to make your mark. Me too. From the opposite end of the spectrum. I was a young man who made my mark (admittedly with the luck of the devil, notwithstanding hard work with a following wind) and now I am anxious that my mark should survive me. Deal gentlemen?'
'Www what do you mean?' asked the first of us to be able to speak, Matt.
'What say you carry on with your plan to kidnap me but instead drive me to an isolated holiday home where I can camp out incommunicado for six months, safe in the knowledge that no one will visit until at least April. If one of you gives me his credit card I can have all my groceries delivered online. Not only will faking my death give me the publicity boost I need to take me to the end of my life and beyond but enough peace and quiet for six months to finally knock out that saga that's been taking up headroom for so long.'
'How did you know my family had a pad?' asked Nick
'A calculated guess old fellow. One of you was bound to have a scarcely-used second home in the family.'
'And what about us. What do we get out of it?'
'The realisation that you don't have to kill your least favourite celebrity to become famous. And an easier conscience.'
'I for one must admit I didn't really want to kill him.' whispered Richard into my ear.
'Naturally you could still get into hot water' warned Mr Brandreth. 'Sent down twice as it were, once from Oxford and thence to prison.'
'I suppose it won't get any harder to find a job afterwards than it is after here in the current climate' mused Nick. 'And we could finish our degrees for free.'
'We have a deal then I take it?' proffered Mr Brandreth.
No one took his hand so I made an executive decision and took it, shaking it firmly.
'Now let me put that cloak back on, lend me a mask and we will masquerade as party goers wending their drunken way homewards. Presumably one of you has wheels…?' Matt being the eldest lived in a small terrace off Botley Road complete with that holy grail, a resident's parking permit for his Alfa 156. The coast being housemate-clear, we had a quick pee and tea break at the house before setting off for Sidmouth. Mr Brandreth was in high spirits for someone contemplating his own end and regaled us with stories of four decades of social climbing derring do, opining that 'the cheek shall inherit the earth my boys, that other adjective was just a Pythonesque mishearing on the Mount' to the extent that entertained as I was, I was ready to stop in Axminster to find a piece of carpet to wrap him in. And however much I began to warm to him, my large dipping pen nib remained immovably poised against his back and ready to pierce his heart should he try anything. I began to regret the dutch courage I had earlier imbibed on an empty stomach in the form of Balkan vodka shots, which made me feel nauseous and paranoid by turns.
As it transpired, it was a heroin addict in a speeding car who did for Mr Brandreth. The punk came out of nowhere flying over the inky hills in his beamer at well over the 40mph limit, smack bang into the back of us lurking in the dip of a hill. We four escaped with whiplash and cuts, but poor Mr Brandreth was inadvertently slain by the dipping pen nib, as I was thrown against him. 'Identical to Byron's best pen. I chose it especially.' I whispered comfortingly as he gasped his last and I peed myself.
'Tell it to the judge' said Richard as we foolishly fled the scene, inspired by the heroin addict who had already gone, having divested his spare tyre of its stash of gear. Needless to say I did. Frankly I got the distinct impression I was not believed. So here I am dear parents, hoisted by my own petard, as Shakespeare would have it.
But you are wrong in saying I have let you down. You will dine out on this for the rest of your lives. As indeed will I.

Do visit soon.

Your etc son

Brett

©LS King 2009

Sinister Product

My jaw nearly dropped to the floor upon finding THIS in a health food cafe!!!

In just what way is a product endorsing people to 'tox up' after its consumption and actually implying by its very existence that it will save its consumer from harm either responsible OR a health food? (I wouldn't care to be their insurance company either when the legal suits start rolling in from numerous hospital beds.)

And who can afford to pre-tox, tox and then de-tox? If I had that kind of spare cash I'd sooner splash out on a new sound system for the car.

I know there'll be lots of people toxing up tonight, it being New Year's Eve and all that, but let's not lose sight of our cynicism here. Lest such cynical operators seek to take advantage of us by out-cynicising us.

Which brings me to the Pre-Cyn drink I am developing in my head - a new range of drinks called 'I Can't Believe It's Actually Part Of My 5-A-Day And Will Genuinely Make The World A Better Place'

No more a case for the Trading Standards Authority than Alibi, surely?

My secret ingredient...? Now that would be telling!

Happy New Year to you all - in the most genuine sense of the word 'happy'. Who needs substance abuse to be happy (aside from lots of cake, obviously)?

The Ghost Of Borders Past

Don't forget folks - only one Christmas day left until shopping days again!
Will you survive?

Only don't expect to find next year's Yoga For Cats calendar in your local Borders store as Borders (UK) is no more.

Innovative calendars were not the only thing Borders brought to these shores. I well remember the time about 10 years ago when my-then boyfriend telephoned to say he'd seen these amazing new bookshops on a business trip to Canada where you could drink a cup of coffee whilst reading the merchandise. 'But what if you bend the covers or spill coffee on them?' I asked incredulously. 'And how do they make a profit if no one buys the books?' My boyfriend did not know the answers but said the bookshops also seemed to host events and be open long after other stores had shut.

You could have knocked me down with a feather when a year or two later the first Borders appeared in Oxford Street, quickly followed by branches in every major city.

When Oxford Borders first opened, it couldn't have been more welcoming. A huge range of bookcases right at the front heaved with novels and books by local authors who were promoted to the hilt with generous reviews from the staff. Author events abounded. All sorts of arty and booky groups were invited to form and host nightly meetings in the shop, plied with complimentary coffee. Myself and Back Room Poets had a monthly open mic in the Sports Section. The coffee shop was staffed by staff who did not seem to know how any of the machines worked but were unfailingly smiley and friendly even if it did take 20 minutes to get a cappuccino. It was great to have somewhere to go in the evenings that was not a pub or a club and while I worried at first about the effect of this newcomer on local bookshops, in actual fact the slant of Borders stock was more Stateside and did not cross over as much as one might imagine with the likes of Blackwells. In addition it also did audio, DVD, stationery, magazines and a coffee shop. Rather than putting other bookshops out of business it encouraged them to raise their game by providing coffee shops and customer loos, hosting events and generally moving with the times. People queued out into the street when Michael Palin came to promote his latest book. The nearby Sheldonian Theatre was hired and filled for a state visit from Jane Fonda!

As time went on however, Borders became a little less friendly and more corporate. A pointless makeover resulted in cheaper and more supermarkety-looking bookshelves, ghastly lighting, a worse events area, where an improved one had been promised, locks on the customer loos, a Starbucks franchise in the once-endearingly inefficient cafe. Various discussion groups began disbanding, a hostile anti-poetry manager put paid to our monthly Open mics, lack of continuity among the shift-worker staff, none of whom seemed to stay long became painfully apparent - rumour had it the staff weren't treated very well. And if you ordered a book you would never ever receive it! All interest in promoting local authors seemed to fall by the wayside, even though their books might be doing well in rival bookshops.

Finally the closing scenes above on Tuesday where everything was discounted by 90% and even the fittings were for sale. An obscenely cheerful woman (the liquidator?) urged customers over the intercom to 'buy as many books as possible so that we can all go home' However biographies of Nicole Kidman and Michael Douglas alongside the dregs of the chic lit section did not appeal, even for 10% of cost price. The security guard stepped forward as if to stop me taking pictures, then shrugged as if to say 'What's the point?' Erotica was the last section to be discounted by 90%.

However for all its shortcomings, such as encouraging a more supermarket-approach to book buying, I shall miss Borders as a hang-out place, even if I was seldom inspired to buy very much for various reasons. It was a good idea which should have worked and did at first, so something went badly awry.

Last Christmas Woolworths and Zavvi, this Christmas Borders - what next to disappear from our High Streets?

Just Because I'm Paranoid....

I like to hope I am not overly gullible. I am quite content for example to accept the latest theory re the premature death of film star Marilyn Monroe as the most probable (ie she was so used to taking sleeping tablets to get to sleep every night that her tolerance built to the point that a. she was taking more than most people and b. they no longer worked so well and she woke up one night, woozily forgetting she'd taken any, and accidentally downed a second lot). Not least as uppers, downers and sleepers were par for the course if you were a film star in the 50s and 60s, and many stars including Elizabeth Taylor have memories of being drugged up to the eyeballs much of the time. However I find that some conspiracy theories really do play on my mind.

When 9/11 happened, like everyone else, I was mesmerised by the horror of the unfolding TV news, and that such an atrocity could happen on such an unprecedented and audacious scale to a giant complex I had once myself visited. It seemed inconceivable. It never occurred to me to question my own eyes. I thought I was jarred by the footage purely because it genuinely was so shocking. Many documentaries and some years later, I have grown dispassionate enough to find myself bothered by how neatly and completely (not to mention speedily) the towers collapsed almost into their own footprint leaving virtually none of the expected twisted floors or major debris. I have watched one or two videos by the detractors and listened to foreign demolition experts whistle in admiration at 'what a neat demolition job' it was in their professional opinions. I won't go into all the mysterious deaths and disappearances which allegedly ensued. I would just suggest that presuming one considers the conspiracists' take for one moment, one can't deny that it was indeed a handy excuse to start a war, despite the human 'collateral' damage, if the theory holds any water. Then there is the mysterious and unexplained matter of how the 9/11 bombers were apparently all from Saudi Arabia yet Bush chose to wreak revenge by invading Iraq/Afghanistan. This in turn is now rapidly becoming Pakistan.

A minute later and I feel guilty for even thinking that any government could orchestrate such an inside job on its own people, but then you never know... World powers are not exactly known for their morality, and if you think back to the mid-20th century, have previously demonstrated themselves capable of almost anything. And on a smaller scale we all know top weapons expert and bio-scientist David Kelly, about to expose Tony Blair as a liar on the WMD justification for invading Iraq, did not accidentally fall on that rusty pen knife in those woods to bleed to death from an unfeasibly small wound to his wrist and virtually no blood surrounding him. That conspiracy we know for sure has legs.

The second conspiracy theory that really bothers me is that the whole global warming thing is a myth - supposedly cooked up by world powers to keep us under the thumb and have us living in fear, since religion and educational ignorance has almost lost its grip in this sense. A handy way also to keep control of world resources and manipulate their prices in addition to curbing the development of third world countries to the point they risk becoming serious threats to Western economies.

Lastly I wonder if I should also be losing sleep over Common Purpose, an organisation which apparently seeks to appoint strategic people all over Britain to 'lead beyond authority' - ie to deliberately dismantle all infrastructure to bring the UK to its knees so it is then fit to be taken over by the new EUSSR. This is said to be behind 'Broken Britain', though personally if true, they may not be doing anything that those fine modern British qualities of substance abuse, moral laxity, laziness and unfettered workplace access to Facebook and e-Bay are not already.

So yes, the conspiracy theorists COULD be a bunch of fruit loops (and many undoubtedly are - sic 'Ripperologists'), but I do think they also raise many valid questions that need to be answered, considering the potentially powerful motives of the equally powerful vested interests who stand to gain as a result of many of these extraordinary world events and crises.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't turn down that central heating and put on an extra jumper. Like it or not, oil remains a finite resource and being anti-waste of our planet's resources is definitely a good and worthy ideal to aspire to, whether or not it turns out we are also destroying the Polar Bear's habitat/our own by indulging. And before the Green thing became as ridiculous and OTT as the Health and Safety thing, I must confess I really wanted to be part of that Koala-cuddling, right-on, knit-your-own-compost-bin, feel-good-about-yourself-while-you-work world and land a good job in it (my vested interests at work!)

Dismissing all major issue and event questioners/detractors as 'conspiracy theorists' or 'climate change deniers' as if on a par with 'holocaust deniers' does strike me as a jolly good means of censorship when it comes down to it. Though a sizeable number admittedly do not help themselves in the credibility stakes!

Equality All Areas?

This morning on Radio 4's Today programme, it was reported on the News that new classes were to be drafted into the school curriculum to educate boys from the age of 5 that it is wrong to commit domestic violence against women.

The following news item was the recapture of the former Duchess of York's dresser Jane Andrews who had been on the run from an open prison where she was serving a life sentence for bludgeoning her boyfriend with a cricket bat and then stabbing him to death in 2000 for refusing to marry her. Ironically she had then lied that she had slain him in self-defence after he had attacked her; if the forensic evidence was anything to go by; in his sleep!

Does anyone else feel that both genders might benefit from such classes in increasingly compulsive, vicious and immature times of growing gender equality?

Though personally I would much rather both boys and girls were taught HOW to have a functional, loving relationship in the first place - if they have no example to learn from in their home lives - and that they should either seek professional help or call it a day (like civilised human beings) if they can't.

By the way, to avert confusion (and libel risk), I ought to point out that the murderer is the one standing on the left in the picture above.