The ukip election manifesto is a work of genius

I HAVE A CUNNING PLAN

With the general election now less than four weeks away the various elements of the party propaganda machines are chugging towards full bullshit speed.  Not least the Scottish political powerhouse that is ukip, who have launched their manifesto in the presence of the ever popular Farage, a man with his finger on the pump of our.... beer presumably.

Now at first glance this carefully crafted work of legislative fantasy looks to be just as much of a total fuck-up as you'd expect.  But look again.  Underneath all that bluster and regressiveness lurks genius, a cunning plan that Baldrick would give up his deodorant for.  We all know kippers aren't overly keen on immigration.  Or change of any kind come to think of it, but lets stick with the problem in hand.  Who hasn't come across a ranty kipper on social media telling them it's a "fact" that 'Britain is full'.  (Evidence?  Don't be silly....)  But now they've decided if they can't stop immigration then they'll have to reduce the population by other means.  And what better than a form of natural selection, encouraging far more of those premature deaths we used to have in the good old days.  It's brilliant.

So they'll raise the drink/driving limit to ensure that we have a decent rate of road accidents again.  With the added benefit that this 'liberalisation' can encourage Scots back where they belong.  Topping the tables for alcoholism.   There's to be smoking in pubs again, just to make sure our lung cancer rates are up there with the best.  Free parking to encourage more cars into city centres, ensuring that pollution levels are the health hazard they should be.  Every new respiratory disease victim is one more contributor to lessening the impact of immigration (better still, some of the dead might be immigrants, killing two birds with one smog).  Not only that, but all these breathing problems integrate brilliantly with the increase in smoking to reap the greatest possible benefit.  It's all been fully thought through, hasn't it?

At first glance the promise to provide easier access to airguns doesn't really fit the pattern.  I mean, airguns are rarely powerful enough to actually kill people.  But you underestimate just how clever these ukip people are.  A few misguided pellets, a few eyes being put out, more blind people traversing our streets equals better targets for all the drunk drivers.  You couldn't make it up, could you?

Of course no manifesto, well not a ukip one anyway, is complete without a policy so crazy you know someone put it in as a joke to see if anyone ever read it all the way through.  Ukip want to legislate to prevent something called 'political correctness' being taught in schools.  Not a subject I'm familiar with, but curriculums are a mystery to me these days.  Anyway, good luck to them trying to ban something that only exists in the crumbling minds of elderly straight white males who're wedded to the 1950s.

It would be depressing if any of this garbage ever had a chance of coming into effect. Fortunately the chances of ukip being in government in Scotland are about as likely as David Cameron admitting his dad was a crook.  Or David Coburn managing to speak three whole sentences without revealing just how much of a prat he is.  At least they bring a bit of comedy to the scene.

An unexpected route to fitness

WHEN YOU HAVE TO DO IT....

You do it.

Enjoyment comes in many forms, and the ability to take part in fun activities is an important part of a good life.  Often that can depend on having the money, or the time, or someone to do it with.  But more than any of these it requires good health.  Health problems, both physical and mental, are often the biggest limiting factor in what we can or can't have a go at.

I'm lucky.  As my sixties approach I feel I'm generally in good shape and able to do the things I want to, as is my life partner.  There are minor niggles of course, that comes with the ageing process.  We didn't go out to many gigs or plays in January and February because one or both of us had an annoying cough and didn't want to be the people in the audience everyone glowered at.  That gone, I've only just made a start at returning to the gym, trying to get back a bit of the stamina the virus deprived me of.  And as part of that regime I've been trying to make sure I climb the stairs to our fifth floor flat at least once every day.

It's all very well taking on something like that because you want to, and can make sure that it doesn't involve carrying a load of shopping with you.  But this week has been different.  The lift is broken.  All week (it's due to be fixed tomorrow).  Having been away for the weekend I've made the climb with suitcases, bags of shopping, and plodding determination.  I've paced myself carefully and have yet to arrive in a state where I couldn't manage to utter a word (it's been close, but not quite).  Yesterday I made the trip six times.  And I'm still alive to write about it.  Amazing what the body can do when it doesn't have the choice....

I don't mind being manipulated

TAPED

I got taped today.  But manipulated first.  And welcomed both.

For a few weeks I've had odd sensations in my shoulder and neck.  A sort of pins and needles tingling, often followed by a numbness that feels like a mild paralysis.  It never hurts, it doesn't really restrict my movements, but it is annoying.  Especially when I'm trying to get to sleep and my neck has a disagreement with every angle I try out.

So I went to the osteopath.  The regular MoT for my back was about due anyway.  She could feel some tension in my muscles, suspected the damage came from the extended period of coughing I had earlier in the year, but could see no long term problems.  She moved bits of me around in the just-short-of-torture way that osteopaths and chiropractors and physios seems to delight in and reckoned it would all heal with time.  Then decided to experiment on me with her newest toy.  (This is not as kinky/exciting/depraved - delete as applicable - as it might sound.

The 'toy' was a roll of bright blue tape, of the sort increasingly prominent on a lot of sports people, especially in tennis.  Like Aga Radwanska's natty knee number here.

A bit of measuring up, some crafty scissor work and a few strips of blue later and I was ready to go.  "Keep them on for the next three days or so" she says.  Presumably to allow as many people as possible to have a good laugh.

I've become the type of person who just throws on a t shirt in the morning and forgets what I'm wearing thereafter.  But the positioning of this tape may make me reconsider.  Here's why.

I'm not quite too sure what kind of image this projects to the world.  Ailing sports star?  Cracked Android?  Or just Frankenstein's Monster?   Maybe I'll wear a shirt with an actual collar for a bit.  If you see me looking a bit posher than usual this'll be why.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

There again, if it helps the recovery along, I don't really care what I look like.  T shirt it is then.

The weather is letting me down

BLOODY SPRING, COMING HERE AND TAKING OUR CHANCE OF SNOW....

British Summer Time is here, there are buds appearing on the trees, even blossom in places, and the parks are ablaze with the colour of daffs and tulips.  I have to accept that it's Spring and that Winter has gone.  This is supposed to be a cheerful sign of better times ahead.  But for me it means acceptance of defeat.

So ends my second cold season back home in Scotland.  But still not cold enough.  After twenty five years spent in Southport, where snow is an alien concept, a bogey man that can close the world with half an inch, I was looking forward to getting out in some proper white stuff.  Walking and driving in snow were skills I grew up with and enjoy exercising.  If I can still remember how.

But defeat is mine.  There's been the barest hint of powdery whiteness seen from the window, but by the time I get out there it's just a memory.  I am doomed to walk damp but flake free streets, missing out on the pleasures of breaking fresh snow.

In the grand scheme of human affairs there are many potential threats to humanity from the impact of global warming.  And one minor annoyance for this particular Scot.

Writing for writing's sake

SOME DAYS....

I try to write something every day. Indeed it's become something of a mild addiction. I've mentioned before the impact of the 750words.com site on my habits, and that motivation continues. Most of the time I'm content just to write what comes into my head. There's nothing very joined up about the process, so don't expect to see any lengthy works coming from my keyboard. It's all just done for enjoyment, and very occasionally that turns out to be something I think might be worth posting on this blog.

But some days the inner drive to turn out words is stronger than others. On those days it feels like there is a real physical need to sit down and watch the words flow on to the screen. They don't have to mean anything in particular, they don't have to tell a story or describe an incident, they don't even have to put forward an opinion or point of view. It's enough for them to be, to come into existence as sentences, paragraphs, a stream of thought which may or may not have any relevance to the outside world.

As addictions go, as urges go, this feels to be a healthy example of the species. Human beings have a need to communicate, to impart their thoughts to others. But there are times when the desire to say outruns the need for an audience. If a tree falls over in the woods, and there's nobody there, does it make a sound? In one sense yes, for the action will result in a disturbance in the air generating sound waves. In another, no, for what we recognise as sound is active, not passive, and it only becomes a sound if there is a means of perceiving it as such - like the human ear for instance. Without that receptor there are only sound waves, but no sound. It is the transforming ability of the ear which turns those waves into sound.

So if I write, and nobody reads it, is it still writing? Unlike sound, the written word has some degree of permanence. Even if nobody has read it the potential for someone to do so will exist, until the medium on which has been created ceases to exist.

Whilst the previous paragraph would have been unarguable a couple of hundred years ago, it has become obscured through the advance of technology. The advent of recorded sound means that sounds can, it seems, be heard more than once. Or can they? The recording is created from the soundwaves that were originally produced, but when reproduced the molecules of air are not the same as those from which the recording was made, and the ear which then turns those disturbances into actual sound is not the same as that which heard the noise being created live.

So what of writing? To read a sentence our eyes receive reflected light. As with the air molecules, the light is not the same for you as it is for me, the instruments of translating that light into images, our eyes, are not the same either. If this has always applied to the written word on paper, it was then changed by the invention of printing, and further revolutionised by the ability to store words digitally, in the form you are reading today. These words you see now are the same, in one sense, as those I type, but what you see has no real physical link to action of writing.

At the end of which I feel I've confused myself sufficiently not to be able to come to any sensible conclusion. The tree only makes a sound if someone, something, is there to create the sound from the air. My writing exists for as long as the relevant digital storage medium exists and there is a means to access it. It only makes a 'sound' if someone, which might only be myself, reads it.

But whether or not someone reads this there is still a purpose in creating it. It was fun to do so. Sometimes that all the purpose you need.

Terrorist or Banker?

HOW DO WE JUDGE?

On what basis can you determine if someone is acting in a 'good' or a 'bad' way? Is it through their actions, or the motivations of those actions, or the resulting consequences? In legal judgements all three get taken into account, but usually the greatest emphasis is placed on the consequences, above the other two. This is especially the case involving crimes against the person. If you hit someone and they fall over you can be charged with assault. But if the same action results in them hitting their head on a sharp object and dying, the charge becomes manslaughter. And if there were any way to prove that the motivation for the action had an underlying intent to kill then the charge would be upgraded to murder.

But, away from the strictures of the law, how do we judge someone, according to our own personal morality and ethics? Does motivation play a greater role in determining our views?

These thoughts have been prompted by the novel I'm currently reading, A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. Set in the week preceding Xmas 2007, it follows the lives of various characters who are all loosely connected in different ways. One of these, Hassan, is a young muslim man who has been radicalised and is now involved in a plot to carry out bombings in London. Another, John, is a hedge fund manager who has become extremely wealthy by exploiting loopholes in financial regulations.

Let's be clear, neither is a likeable character, and as the reader I find myself wanting to see each of them suffer some form on downfall as the plot reveals itself. As I write this I have only read the first quarter of the book, so there are plenty of revelations still to come. But what has already surprised me is the difference in my reactions to those two characters.

For John I have nothing but contempt and distaste. He is amoral, selfish, greedy, driven by nothing except his own advancement. Ethics are things for other people, less 'successful' people, in his world. On the page he comes across as a character without a single redeeming quality, and someone who has done a lot of damage to many lives.

But for Hassan I feel a great deal of sympathy. Given that he is involved in plans which may result in the deaths of innocent people this feels like a curious inversion of morality, and I had to ask myself why I should feel this way. On the face of it you would think Hassan the less deserving of any fellow feeling, given the possible consequences of his actions.

The answer lies in motivation. Hassan is performing his actions in the belief that they will help bring about a better world. He is utterly misguided of course, but also sincere. There is a sense of a decent human being lurking within, someone who, if removed from the pernicious influence of his mentor, could be persuaded, through reason, so see his mistakes for what they are. It would take much work, for has been very effectively brainwashed, and faith in religion can be hard to overcome, but the potential is there within him.

I see no such hope for John. He is not only convinced that he is right, he wouldn't care if his wrongs were pointed out to him. If they get him what he wants then they are not wrong, not in his eyes. John is the archetype of the legacy bequeathed by Thatcherism, the 'greed is good' mantra and the reckless profiteering that crashed the economy in 2008, and with it ruined, or at least made a lot worse, the lives of so many people who played no part in bringing about the problem

Of course Faulks is a fine writer and he knows exactly what he's doing in manipulating the emotions of the reader. This is fiction, not real life. In reality we react more strongly towards physical violence than to crimes (and here I use the word outside it's strictly legal sense) which enrich the few at the expense of the many. It's part of our genetic and sociological makeup to abhor brutality. Financial crime is often too abstruse to evoke genuine anger. It's the skill of the novelist to make us go against our natural instincts, to react in ways we didn't expect and thus challenge our own beliefs. And to recognise that motivation is often the best determinant of the real worth of a person.

The Fascists are still out there

YOU KNOW YOU SHOULDN'T....

But sometimes it's just so hard to resist.  You know it's all too easy, you should try for something more ambitious.  But you can't stop yourself giving in to temptation to have a bit of fun.

Yes, it's so easy to find yourself taking the piss out of far right loons who post gibberish on a public forum.  Especially when they are repeating, and actually give every indication of believing, something that's been discredited so many times you wonder how they can type when they must be in the foetal position out of sheer embarrassment at behaving in so crass a manner.  (Presumably Farage has a broom handle stuck up his back to prevent his spine spontaneously rolling into a ball whenever he says that 75% of our laws are made by the EU.... total bollocks of course.)

In this case it was that old favourite of the desperate fascist, that Nazism was a form of socialism.  The clinching argument always being the word 'socialist' is part of the party's name.  I can only assume they also believe that the DDR was a fully functioning democracy and the TPA actually represents taxpayers.

But this nutter was taking it to another level.  His justification was just that bit more towards the fruitcake end of the spectrum.  He believes it because.... Hitler said so.  Which is perfectly reasonable when you recall the one thing we all remember about wee Adolf was his inability to tell a lie.  Or was it something to do with cherry trees?  I'm always getting those two mixed up.

When you're still pumping out this level of nonsense, even when a right wing historian writing in a right wing paper is able to point out why you're talking out of your anus, you really are outing yourself as a genuine fruitloop.  He compounds it with his ever-so-modest nomenclature, a Twitter persona of 'Richard Lionheart'.  No, nothing narcissistic or egocentric about this chappie, he has his feet firmly on terra firma.

So I gave in a took the piss.  Just a little.  And settled back.  Wondering if he would be daft enough.  Maybe he'd just laugh.  There must be somebody on the far right who has a sense of humour, I mean look at the illustrious line of famous right wing comedians we see so often.....

No, me neither.

Sure enough, the bait was taken.  Clueless as to what was going on, he followed the usual pattern.  Gets irate, becomes abusive, then puerile.  Followed by smug at having 'vanquished' another' lefty', and seeking the approval of his sycophantic fascist mates.  A kind of virtual mutual masturbatory session.

But out of this amusing little encounter I did have a more serious thought.  The main stream media will tell you differently, because it's not in their interests to say so, but possibly the greatest threat we may be facing right now, even more so than climate change, is the gradual rise of fascism in what we refer to as The West.  In some cases it's overt, with the likes of Golden Dawn in Greece.  In most it's far less obvious, coming in under some cloak of respectability.  I used to joke that ukip was just the BNP for people who didn't want the neighbours to think they were racist, but they have proved to be a more insidious influence on UK politics, dragging it towards the extreme right.  It's a relief to see support for them steadily falling, but that tendency towards fascism remains worrying.

There's no clearer illustration of this than what's happening in the campaigning to be the next US president.  Two men are commanding most of the headlines, both viewed as extreme by US standards.  On the one hand there's Donald Trump, becoming increasingly more racist, increasingly more outlandish, and increasingly closer to what we understand as fascist.  Although most of us over here would view him as a caricature, he's being taken seriously by an awful lot of people over there.  They seem to have forgotten what the fight in World War Two was really about.

For a country with their dark history of McCarthyism it feels like a huge leap forward that so many people are beginning to look at Bernie Sanders as a possible president.  An avowed socialist, he stands for many progressive values that have had little opportunity for expression at the top level of US political life.  Like we do in Europe, he believes that healthcare is a right of all, not a privilege of the wealthy.  Radical stuff by American standards, when they are so used to doing without many of the rights we enjoy here (or do for now, but that's a whole other story....).

And therein is the dichotomy that gives the lie that fascism has any link to socialism.  Trump's popularity is based on raising fear and hatred, of defining people as 'other' so that there is an enemy to focus on, obscuring the empty rhetoric behind it.  Whilst Sanders offers hope.  Hope of change, hope of a fairer society and a chance to start  reducing the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy.

Hope of hatred?  I'm with Bernie.


PS  Now, do I send a link to this post to 'Mr Lionheart'?  I know I shouldn't, but....

A Shop out of Time

M&S TIME WARP

I am not a Marks and Spencer kind of person.  Never have been.  We do go in there occasionally for food.  But if I was shopping for clothes it wouldn't be the first place I'd think of.  Or the second, third or tenth.  I don't pretend to be the snappiest of dressers - but M&S?  Please....

Yet the other day I found myself in an M&S Outlet store.  Only because Barbara wanted to go in and see what they had on offer, since the prices are a fair bit cheaper than in the normal stores.  To pass the time I had a wander around the men's clothing.  And, as I'd expected, found little to interest me.  I'm only a few months off turning sixty myself, but everything in there looked like it was aimed at old men, much older than me.  Or at younger men who are prematurely middle aged (Tories?).

No surprises then.  In fashion terms M&S looks locked into a bygone era.  But there's another reason, besides appearance, why it felt like going back a few decades.

I'm not especially tall, around six feet two.  However I am disproportionately short of torso, long of limb.  Gibbon like.  Thirty and more years ago getting sleeves that were long enough and, even trickier, jeans and trousers that didn't expose my ankles, wasn't straightforward.  I always had to shop around a lot.

As I've aged the problem has reduced greatly and finding the requisite leg length - thirty four inches - is simple enough.  Hell, even Primark have that as size 'long'.  Evolution has moved on and in today's generation my gangly build is far more commonplace, and the clothing racks reflect that change.

But not in M&S.  To this day it seems they still think 'long' equals thirty three inches. Or, as I like to think of it, far too bloody short.  Not only they do produce clothing that surely only the terminally conservative would want to wear, but they don't seem to have realised that shapes have changed too.  Didn't I hear they were losing business?  It's not hard to see why.

Oh, and Barbara, who has past the sixty mark, felt that most of the stuff she looked at was for old ladies who wanted to look like old ladies.  I don't think either of us are M&S kind of people....

David Bowie's dead

ON THE BOWIE BANDWAGON

I noticed that David Bowie died today.  I couldn't help but notice really, since all the news programmes and all my social media timelines have been about little else.  Big event, eh?

Well it seems to be for a lot of people.  Cue much wailing and fearfulness and a great gnashing of teeth.  Or something like that.  His death is a sad event, but all deaths are.

OK, I sort of get it.  Most people have songs or albums from their past they associate with particular moments in their life.  Sometimes they feel the artist was talking just to them and helped them through some difficult patch, usually in their teenage years.  And Bowie did turn out some good songs, and was amazingly long lived as a pop star.

But that, when all is said and done, is all that he was.  A pop singer.  An influential one perhaps, but he's still just someone you either liked or didn't, or just found to be a background noise to your life.  And if it's the former you shouldn't really expect everyone else to feel the same way you do.  Yet I suspect many will find my words objectionable.  (I saw one tweet that linked to a video of his last gig and said that everyone - yes, everyone - had to watch it.  Or maybe I could make my own mind up?)

I looked at one article that claimed to list his seven most important songs.  Right enough, I'd heard of six of them, and really liked a couple.  The seventh meant nothing to me.  It's noticeable that the latest of the six was recorded in 1983, round about the time I realised I no longer felt any need to pretend I was taking an interest in pop music.  Much as I think Space Oddity is a great song, some of Bowie's stuff I found a bit annoying.  He had, to my ears, that slightly whiny quality you get with some London accents, and that could be off-putting.  So I was never going to be a fan, was never tempted to buy his music, even though I was fully aware of who he was.  Many people weren't, and what's wrong with that?  Yet there are articles out there on the internet wondering how anyone could not have heard of him.  It's not that hard to figure out....

A few days ago there was a similar, albeit far lesser, outpouring about the death of another singer called Lemmy.  (Sorry if you're a fan of his, but I'd genuinely never heard of him.)  If someone dies who was an important part of your formative memories then such events are upsetting.  Shortly before that I heard of the death of a singer who was important to me when I was developing my own musical tastes - Andy M Stewart.  I'm well aware that hardly anyone who reads this will have a clue who the guy was, but he mattered to me.  Bowie didn't.

We're all different, we all have our own tastes, memories and heroes.  Let's not expect everyone to share them.

Ironically, from what I do know of Bowie, I think that's a message he'd have approved of.

Looking down on the Graves

LIFE ABOVE DEATH

And that's a year gone by, living above 'our' cemetery.  We had all the jokes about it being the dead centre of the city, the neighbours are dead quiet, people are dying to live here etc etc ad nauseam.  But the reality is that it's been not just peaceful, but surprisingly interesting as well.

With so many tree varieties out there the view changes greatly across the seasons.  There's the odd bit of wildlife as well, with many birds, a few squirrels and the occasional fox.  But it's human activities to the forefront.  Funerals of course, because it remains an active graveyard, visitors to gravesides and out of general interest (there's a historic memorial on the far wall), plus the people involved in the general upkeep of the place.

This is Rosebank Cemetery, just a mile or so to the north of the city centre, it's over a hundred and sixty years old, and I have to admit to finding it fascinating.  To illustrate the changes that tkae place over a twelve month period I'm kicking off a new weekly photo blog.  This will contain weekly pictures taken from our fifth floor vantage point - some standard views each week, then anything of additional interest I come across - so I can look back at this time next year and see how the sights from our windows advance across the course of 2016.

The new blog is called A Year in the Life.... of Death and I will be trying to post every Friday (or the nearest day possible if I'm away) throughout the year.  Do have a look if you think it might be interesting.  Or even if you don't.