Neo Bolshevism for beginners!

That hat must be going to my head!  I came across this article in Pravda - a publication I haven't read since it was free in the Skool Library (Beath High Skool, People's Democratic Republic of West Fife). 

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/30-11-2010/115998-spankin_sarah-0/

Almost as good as Private Eye!  Been and went and got Euros for Monday's wee jaunt to Amsterdam via Sleazy Jet.  5 days flights, bed and breakfast for £256!  Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Anne Frank and the Hermitage Museum on the doorstep - and tonight is my last shift until a week on Monday!!!  Roll on the annual leave!

Beware of the Ginger!

I am more than a little amused at the mess Comrade Deputy Chairperson Harrhumanoid (yer unoriginal Public School socialist wot sends her progeny to fee paying educational establishments) has got herself into over her jest about the Chief Secretary to the Treasury's auburn hair and Highland roots... http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20101030/tuk-harman-apology-for-ginger-rodent-com-dba1618.html It's not like her Party wasn't led to successive Electoral routs by a carrot topped Welsh peer and former Eurocrat/gravy train passenger is it?  Or that the only Blairite Cabinet member with the guts and integrity to resign rather than go through with the decision to invade Iraq was a Scottish ginger?  Or that it was a red headed Hieland alky who kept hammering their tails and costing them votes for years on the same topic? The poor wumman perhaps has reason to be cheesed off at the mighty legion of Scottish gingers - but she should have know that going for them is to invite a mighty and vicious response.  Billy Bremner of blessed memory springs to mind.  And to do it in Oban - well, look what happened to the Duke of Edinburgh when he commented on the Teuchter's drinking habits to a driving instructor!  She's obviously not going to live in No 10!

Union man?

After my 1st appearance in Spiky Mike's in 6 weeks (shifts and covering holidays elsewhere) and a wee spot of overtime yesterday, I took advantage of a back shift to catch up on some Zzzz! So breakfast was a bacon and egg roll in a cafe, followed by a trip up the Bridges to do something work related. I became a Trade Unionist! I have noticed that work is fine if you are on the right side of the Managers, but get on their wrong side and it can become difficult. So having the back up of a Union seems a sensible precaution. Once the paperwork goes through I will be a member of Unison (but my political fund will NOT be going to Labour!). That said I don't feel especially inclined to renew my Lib Dem membership. In truth, I was highly unamused by the treatment of both Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell, didn't vote for Clegg or Huhne as leader, and felt seriously queasy when we clambered into the governmental sack with the Tories. I'm iffy about Labour (fine on social and domestic policy, not brill at economics and their stupidity in getting us into Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with their steady erosion of civil liberties post 9/11 means I'm really not inclined to join them) and whilst I feel more comfy with the SNP, I am emphatically not in favour of independence and doubt their economic sanity. Think I'll hang loose politically for a bit.

The Body Politic

Reflecting on my feelings of queasiness with regard to a Tory Lib Dem pact, it struck me that the Great British electorate tends to go Labour when money is available to be spent to improve life ("Spread the Lurve") and Tory-ish when the economy looks hooky because the Nasty Party will cut back and biff stroppy unions. Really, the idiocy of the unions in striking in the run up to May 6th was a great aid to getting the Tory vote up and out. Sadly, a dose of nasty Tory medicine may be what the economy needs and I can only hope the LD presence will mitigate some of the nastiness. Head and heart are not in sync over the state of the Nation today. Bummer!

Sort of

Food wise a "sort of" day. A very continental breakfast of muesli, polish bread, cheese and cold meat (sort of healthy) was followed by a sort of healthy lunch which consisted of a chicken and sweetcorn wrap (that was the salad bit) and a Reese's peanut bar and a glass of orange juice. Dinner was a Jamaican chicken brown stew with boiled rice and oven chips with fruit squash to drink.

Politically it was also a "sort of" day. Lib Dem I am, but I feel somewhat queasy about an alliance with the Tories. It just wouldn't have happened under Charlie Kennedy - I didn't vote in the Clegg election, as I was disgusted and appalled at the treatment of both CK and Sir Ming. And I'm begining to wish I'd voted Communist rather than for the proto-Tory effect. A protest vote certainly, but I could at least have claimed to have rejected Thatcherism Lite. Yuk!

My antidote will be Recreation Park Alloa for the play-offs tomorrow! C'mon the Beath!

Food and thought

Woden's day was a healthy start (muesli & toast) breakfast, followed by scotch broth from a tin and a cheese and chutney sarnie for lunch, sausage casserole, boiled rice and Chinese vegetable dumplings (staff food cupboard had a very odd mix of contents!) for evening meal then a late snack of cold pizza (it was a left over and I cannot bear waste!). Today was muesli again for brekkie, cheese and pickle sarnie, Quavers and a slab of Rocky Road for lunch. There was also a pre voting coffee (mocha) and chocolate tiffin then split pea soup with bread and pate (well and a wee bit of Stilton!) for din dins. And some chocolate raisins. Cheese and chocolate feature a lot in this diet of mine - luckily I have never had a migraine in my life!

Today I was actually tempted not to vote Liberal. There was a Communist candidate standing! However, I stuck to my preferred party (though I have developed something of a habit of voting SNP for the cooncil and Holyrood in the last few years). There, it has focused on the candidate rather than the party in all honesty. So "iacta ilea est" and we shall see what comes to pass come the morrow. Please God, not the Cameroons.

A rather lovely quote from Sister Joan Chittister OSB came up in our Thursday night study group: "Work is not just a job; it is our exercise in miracle making". Of course, it helps if you have one. Time to pray for those who will weild power in the next few years methinks.

Days Off.

I went to catch up with Ma today. She's been away in Tunisia (cue Charlie Parker soundtrack) - but her week turned into 12 days courtesy of that danged volcano. First the Cod Wars, then the banks - now the volcano. Why don't we just nuke Iceland? I mean, imagine using Kerry Katona as your Ambassador - you'd almost be as potty as the British FCO (Vatican section)! I cooked tea (seafood stir fry with sweet chili and ginger sauce - Morrison's finest!). Yesterday I visited the chiro and had the back tweaked and I feel much more limber! Missed the 3rd Leader's debate but feel a vague sense of gloom - the thought of a Tory administration just sits ill with me, especially when I was back in the ole home town and remembered school classmates going to soup kitchens during the Miner's Strike - I simply cannot bring myself to consider voting Tory. A broken society - yes, but who broke it with an insane rush to rampant individualism? TBW as Ted Heath called her. I just hope we get a hung parliament this time.

Sympathy for the (non) devil!

I feel a strange sympathy for Gordon Brown tonight. His comment in the car to his aide was certainly misguided (didn't sound like bigotry to me) and his reaction a bit OTT (but he is in a high stress situation just now) but his post apology press chat was simply awful. He went for smiles when a positively sober and grave attitude would have been more appropriate and he called the wumman by her 1st name rather than "Mrs Murphy" It was cringe-making and desperately embarrassing. I quietly shuddered for him because, although I do not support his party, he is a human being, a decent man and an excellent constituency MP for my home town. Poor beggar as they say.

Pastures new.

Since Monday, I've been based at my new (and hopefully long term placement) a mere 20 minutes walk away. Much less laid back, rather more challenging - and better grub! Staff macaroni cheese and chips on Monday, fried brekkie this morning - I could easily get used to this! The 7.30am starts are less of a joy but I will adjust. I'm mildly annoyed to discover that one of the male staff from there is being shifted to where I was supposed to go (so much for HQ's line that it was about rebalancing the gender weighting of the team to meet service user requirements - more like the other bloke hacked off all his colleagues here by being an idle gobs***e).

I am fascinated by the process of this general election. Much raving that the Lib Dems (my lot) will do awfully well. I am ancient enough to remember David Steel telling us to go back to our constituencies and prepare for government. It really depends on the 2 remaining debates. If our Cameronian clone leader performs well, who knows? I still think it was awful the way we dumped Charlie Kennedy. As long as our wee ray of Economic sunshine Vince gets to run the economy, I'm not fussy!

Pardon me, which decade are we in?

Maybe it's the fact the last time we had a winter like this I was still at school, maybe it's having gone last night to see "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll" - the Ian Dury biopic (very good, BTW- Andy Serkis is uncanny, even sings like the Man Himself) but it feels strangely like the Seventies. Rubbish is piling up on the streets of Edinburgh cos the binmen are on strike, Labour's in office, the economy's knacked, unemployment's up and it looks like the Tories will be elected come May.

Part of me wonders if that would be a total disaster for the country. Parties in power run out of steam and a change became both necessary and desirable. But my visceral reaction is not to see a Tory Govt as good. I grew up in a mining area and the Miners Strike covered my last years at secondary school. I won't vote Tory this side of the Parousia. As they say where I come from, "The only good Tory is a lavatory"! (And that's not true I know, I've know some very nice and Christian Tories).

Liberal? Until recently that was a no brainer. I joined the Libs at 18, was President of the Aberdeen Uni LD's and Senior Vice Convener of the Scottish Young Lib Dems. But I was mightily unamused by the dumping of both Charlie Kennedy and Ming Campbell, the current leader seems to be a bit of a David Cameron clone and I think the Scottish leadership were daft not to stay in Govt with the SNP and get more of our policies into effect. Voting Green isn't for me (partly because I think nuclear power is here to stay, so work to make it as safe as poss) and the SNP I disagree with because I think we need to be part of the UK.

I remeber the late George Henderson, Bishop of Argyll, Primus, Labour Lord Provost of Fort William and firm disliker of women's ordination and nasty new things like the Blue Bookie once describing himself to me at lunch in the Western Club in Glasgow as a "Prayer Book Communist" - maybe that's what I'll become!

(The cartoon just appealed to me and has no connection with anything much!)

Justice Secretary = Gutless windbag.

Faugh! The Scottish Justice Secretary is flipping and flopping over the Lockerbie bomber like a filleted halibut because Bill Clinton's wife is nipping his bonce on behalf of the Land of the Free and Home of the Crazed. No harm to HC, doing her job and failing to accept that oddly British concept of compassionate release rather than die in the slammer as a legitimate response to mass murder. But our mannie is being so dithery from day to day it make you despair. Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay...oh, hang on, he works for Alex Salmond. Question answered.

Made it to and through the therapy session. Big relief feelings on the bus back. If it doesn't kill you... it might heal you.

A day at the office.

Well, plenty of telephone work today. A funeral on the go (which will be delayed until February as the next of kin are in New Zealand for a bit), plus a major requiem for Friday. Plus a session with my local MSP. Partly I went to see him to say yes to his proposing me to lead the time for reflection at the Parliament in Holyrood, partly to ask him to support the proposed Aggravated Offences Bill. This is a private members bill which will put assaults on LGBT persons into the same category as racist or sectarian attacks. This means they will be recorded as such, rather than simply lost in general crime figures and that judges will be required to take the aggravated nature of the assault into consideration when sentencing. It would mean that defence lawyers could no longer use the "I thumped him because he made a pass at me" defence, because if they did, they client would get a heavier sentence, not a reduced one. Happily, my local MSP was broadly in favour of the Bill which the Govt has indicated it will support, although it may simply incorporate the Bill into other legislation to speed up the process, rather than let it saunter through on its lonio. So I feel like a virtuous citizen today! Hassling your reps may well be a worthwhile activity.

Clerical queries

Well, here's some stuff from my in-tray:

1) An invite to celebrate communion in a local C of S Kirk on Lent 1. Whilst I will dress Episcopal and use the 1982 Eucharistic Prayer, how do i celebrate with the elements in individual cups in the pews and in baskets at the pew ends? Is the Epiclesis going to reach beyond the table and do the biz on the bits?

2) will I let my local MSP nominate me to lead Parliamentary prayers at Holyrood?

3) What will I say to the MSP when we meet with regard to the Aggrivated Offences Bill on Monday?

Answers on the virtual postcard please.

Funny people fascists!

Yesterday's Sunday Herald had an article on some eccentric bloke who teaches the idle rich to shoot arrows at Gleneagles and who has appeared of TV programme "Ladette to Lady" (which I have never seen BTW!). Evidently he thinks it might not have been so bad if we had been conquered and ruled by the Nazi's! Possibly not if you're a right wing bloke, but hardly the case if you were Jewish, black, gay, left wing or Christian. That wasn't what set me off on a wee think, really. I've been reading a book on the relationship between Churchill and Lloyd George and had got as far as the run up to the War. LG visited Germany and came away very impressed with Adolf. Churchill was a vehement opponent from early days. Isn't it odd how some very intelligent people can be fooled by the apparent glamour and social programmes of the far-right? After all, Lloyd George along with Churchill effectively started the modern welfare state with the 1909 People's Budget. Not the type you'd have thought who would have been fooled by the Nazi's.

Another day at the...

office. And Church. And hospital. And not at the football. What happened to "6 days shalt thou labour", eh? Never mind, it comes with the territory. Doing the pew sheet, sorting out the sermon etc.

As to Labour, despite my totally never having voted for them and having voted SNP on a regular basis to stump the Socialists at Council and Holyrood level, I am really quite pleased that Irn Broon's place man won in Glenrothes. It at least temporarily silenced Eck the Smug, our glorious leader and showed the arrant stupidity of his economic arguments: "Arc of Prosperity" - Phooey! Plain fact is, we're far too wee to survive on our lonio, the oil is running out and we can't use it to pay the pensions and fuel economic growth at the same time unless we spend it twice - which is the sort of fiscal dumbness which would have us all jobless, homeless and benefit less in short order.

And so, to preparing a Remembrance day sermon. Oh joy! Oh rapture! Oh...never mind!