November/December 2007

Halloween seems a million years ago - the first months of autumn are fabulous - smoky smells, candlelight, the nights' drawing in'. Jams, pickles, cider, homemade beer and rosehip wine. Confident that the winter won't be that bad or that long.




Happy days.

.....It’s more than a year and a half since we left the bright, warm sanctuary of the Emirates for the dark fridge-freezer known as England. Picture, if you will, a lonesome figure stamping his frost-bitten feet at 6am on Avoncliff station, coughing a lungful of icy steam, dressed from head to toe in charity clothes and cursing another late train. This miserable wretch tells you all you need to know about coming back: expect grinding poverty, inhuman weather and a dilapidated transport. infrastructure that is the laughing-stock of Europe.

You’d think we had emigrated to Eastern Europe in the 1970’s, except there’s more inane advertising, trilling mobile phones, soaps, porn, celebrity obsession and dumb American films. I know I’ve made some fairly rash comments about how great British telly is, but 18 months in and we’ve caught up with eleven years worth of repeats and the pleasures of Dog Borstal and Have I Got News for You are beginning to pall.

This winter, while much less rainy than the appalling summer and quite sunny at times, has also been bitterly cold some weeks. Then our house plunges into sub-zero temperatures the minute the central heating is off – so we switch it off for two hours and hop about in scarves until we can take it no more. For Christmas, Sarah kindly bought me royal blue thermal underwear and another for herself to make ‘working from home’ more bearable.

But on the bright side….

We have had a gas fire put installed in the living room so the children don’t have to cling to the radiator in the evenings. This made Christmas really cosy and we watched lots of rubbish and poisoned ourselves with chocolate, food and drink in an orange tinselly haze. And it was great having a real Christmas holiday and the excuse to over-indulge. On Boxing Day morning at the in-laws I walked miles into Savernake Forest with Nog in a desperate attempt to burn a few of the million calories of the previous days. We saw seven grey deer standing quietly in the shadows who then dashed off when they saw us. The countryside is still beautiful, even in winter, except at 7.45 in the morning when it is raining, windy and pitch black and Nog needs to do his business.

Workwise, Sarah is now doing three jobs – at Bath Uni, at Wiltshire College and writing for an ESP textbook. I’m working part-time at Bournemouth while trying to research which is not an easy balancing act. The pay for both of us is cack, but it’s fine because we have enough to eat and can take out any frustrations by screaming at the children.

We spent New Year in London with Sarah’s brother and sister and saw in 2008 playing parlour games and drinking wine. I disgraced myself by falling asleep on the sofa at ten minutes past midnight. It was impossible to shift my snoring bulk despite the combined efforts of the family so there I stayed until I woke up at 3am, alone, hungover and in the dark - covered in a blanket like a tramp under the arches. Altogether a delightful start to the year.

Other news? Tom is going sub-teenager: subtly intransigent, sarcastic and weird, or annoying, or both. Actually he’s great, but just tries to wear down those who oppose his desire for continuous self-gratification. It is a great burden being aspirational parents - we try to foist self-improving activities on our children rather than allow them 24 hour access to shoot-em-up Star Wars games and CBBC. Radio 3 blares out educationally as Isobel dresses her Bratz © doll in the latest prostitute outfit. After evening screenings they have to discuss Buster Keaton’s contribution to the silent comedy oeuvre before we can slump in front of a violent, sexist Bond film. Isobel enjoys doing a seductive dance to accompany the nude female silhouettes pirouetting on the barrel of a Walter PKK pistol during the credits. Isobel turned seven this week and we had a swimming pool party - very Al Ainesque (except Trowbridge pool isn't quite the Intercon).

Now to the embarrassing review of my predictions for 2007, most of which were wrong…

In 2007….

1) Iraq descends into full blown civil war. Militias fight army and police and British and US forces. Regional powers drawn in further as US and UK begin pull out, which will be completed in three years. Iraq is now a breeding ground for massive regional war within a decade involving Iran, Israel, Syria, Lebanon etc. This will come as soon as Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear power plant which could happen in 2007. No, if we are to believe the hype Iraq has got a bit better – but the last sentence is still likely in 2008. (0)

2) Castro dies and Cuba changes quickly towards becoming US `first choice for senior citizen dance classes, cigars and (within five years) prostitutes, crack and casinos. Your last chance to sample socialist paradise. South America builds coalitions with Africa, China etc against US interests. No, Castro is alive if not well. (0)

3) New Orleans hit by another hurricane and more damage to low lying areas drives away the last of the poor and the black. Real estate sharks buy up ruins and rebuild luxury accommodation and huge Dutch style tidal barriers are built for the wealthy WASPs who now make up the bulk of New Orleans. No. (o)

4) El Nino hammers Central America and Florida – hurricanes and mudslides cause havoc. Oil production hit badly in Gulf of Mexico – oil touches 100 dollars shortly before Wall Street ‘readjustment’ hits markets and oil price falls back to 70 dollars. Russia using oil and gas as strategic weapon for influence in Europe forces Britain to consider reopening coal mines. Look out for petrol from coal (1980s South African technology revisited). Russian and UK relations hit new low with tit-for-tat diplomatic explusions and some very threatening but funny insults from Putin about Gordon Brown. Yes on 100 dollars a barrel and Russia-Uk relations. (1/2)

5) US and UK debt catches up with us and house prices fall by 20% in three months. Unemployment rises as it dawns on everyone that we don’t produce anything in the UK anymore. The British companies who have outsourced production now outsource their management and HQs to tax free havens like Dubai, Singapore, China. The German economy (where they still make stuff) steadily grows and will be at the centre of power in a rag bag EU where Britain gets poorer by the year. Invest in pork belly. Grow vegetables in your garden. Not…..quite ….. yet. German economy is powering ahead –watch them this year. House prices have fallen but it will be 20% in 2008. (1/2)

6) Electronic books hit the market – Perspex sheets that can be folded in your pocket display print–style pages that rearrange as you change/download page. Like a PDF on plastic that doesn’t cause eye-strain. No.

7) Bombs in France indicate beginning of new Al Qaida European campaign. Brussels and Rome also targeted. Prominent British politician assassinated. No.

8) Blair suffers health problems and leaves with tail between his legs over Iraq and corruption allegations over party donations. Brown just as unpopular as Blair as everyone realises it is he who has been selling our last state assets all along. Labour support crumbles so badly it can’t muster enough party members to mount a decent election. Cameron wins in 2007/2008 by a narrow margin and is forced into coalition. The compromise is that the House of Lords becomes a directly elected (by proportional representation) second house rather than a cushy number for party donors. No on Blair’s health, yes on Brown’s popularity. Let’s see on Cameron, I still think he’ll lead a hung parliament or a narrow majority. (1/2)

9) As Nostradus predicted in the Fifth Night of Darkness a huge dragon shall descend in the East breathing fire and leprous fumes. Mel Gibson is booed at the Oscars. Kate Moss falls from a balcony at a party and breaks her back while her husband Pete Doherty goes to another party. Prince William whacks a photographer. No. (0)

10) A huge ice sheet drops into the ocean in Greenland and everyone realises we are really fucked. Britain starts emergency reforestation – and EU subsidies move from animals to trees. Every farmer has to plant five trees per acre. Aviation duty of 50 pounds in 2007 budget, 100 pounds in 2008 budget. The Green party proposes digging up non-essential roads and replacing cars with mules and dog carts. The slow return to British cottage industry and Medieval working practices begins. All feast days are holidays, 3 day working week (four hour days). Plastic shopping bags banned. Paperless office enforced, condoms recycled, candlelight across the UK as energy bills become unpayable. ITV stops stupid cheap gameshows under Grade and begins to bounce back. Madonna adopts a girl from China to complete her set and then divorces Guy Richie in 2008. Well, yes. Ice 8 times the size of the UK melted unexpectedly in the summer of 2007 way, way ahead of computer predictions. Energy bills have risen dramatically. ITV is bouncing back a bit. The rest is wishful thinking. (1/2)

= 2/10 rubbish!

For 2008.

1) Recession for the UK. Acknowledged by March, fairly serious by October. Pound almost level with Euro by the end of the year. House prices down 20-25%.

2) Close race for White House. Hillary will beat Obama but lose narrowly to McCain who will be dogged by poor health as President.

3) Electronic tagging offered for your children (in case of kidnapping etc). Like dogs, prisoners and children will be the first to get the rice sized micro transmitters that one day (within two decades) everyone will have in the earlobes and which will double up as mobile phones/communication devices/ personal PCs.

4) More wierd weather – very cold weather hits Europe in the winter and more floods in UK.

5) Dubai has tallest tower in the world and shortest HCT conference on record.

6) Britney Spears is committed. Andy Kershaw is released from prison and goes teetotal.

7) Mugabi replaced as ZANU leader. (I can’t believe he’s still there)

8) Oil falls to 80 dollars as world recession hits.

9) Flares and handlebar moustaches are back. The spirit of 68 and a whiff of revolution in the air.

10) Scotland moves closer to independence which will come within 5-8 years.

Post your predictions in comments below folks. Have a great 2008!

September/October

I have moaned a good deal about rain in recent months. September and October have made up, just a bit, for the crap weather we had the rest of the summer in England. It has been beautiful - sharp sunlight days with cool breezes tinged with the smell of bonfires. I've been walking the dogs with a 71 year old neighbour who has explained the difference between rosehip and hawthorn and pointed out where you can can find good elderberries or sloes. She has supplied recipes for jams, pickles and wines and the greenhouse and garage is stocked to the rafters with apple and blackberry jams, fiery pickles, sloe gin, gallons of home brewed beer, rosehip wine and my latest discovery - homemade scrumpy.

I suppose it was only a matter of time living in the west country before I discovered the true genius of scrumpy.

Recipe for Homemade Scrumpy

Ingredients:

Apples
Water


Pick apples from park or garden - windfalls will do. Don't wash (you lose the natural yeast on the skin) - leave for a week until the skin gets a bit wrinkly. Core and mash up apples in water. Leave for two weeks in plastic laundry bucket. Strain and leave liquid for another two weeks in bucket. Siphon into demijohns and seal. Leave four more weeks. Bingo - you are a drunken wurzel.

It's that easy. I'm not talking about the sweet fizzy stuff you drank as a teenager and then threw up again. I'm talking about cold, flat, cloudy and deadly potion sold in demi-johns with improbable labels. I'm hoping the home made stuff will rival Westons a scrumpy I have becoming alarmingly partial to in recent weeks. I know it's special from the early sips I've had.

There's that and the prospect of sloe gin at Christmas with stilton and elderberry pickle. Hmmmm.

It was Tom's 11th birthday in September and he celebrated by shooting up his friends at Laserquest in Bristol. Absolutely brilliant. Then we were outnumbered by about fifty 9 year olds who trapped us on a balcony and the lasers were crisscrossing the room like something from Battlestar Gallactica. Pure adrenaline. BTW - I have been reliably informed that the latest TV version of Battlestar Gallactica is a critique of American imperialist disasters in Iraq but as I don't have Sky so I can't check it. Can anyone confirm this?

The sad news from October is that Nelly is no longer with us. She has always been strangely aggressive with other dogs and this has become worse in recent months and she started to get untrustworthy with people. She bit a lady at the kennels she was in for two nights before the summer and after long consideration we decided we couldn't take the risk any more.

The children were very upset as I took her to the vet one day while they were at school after Nelly went ballistic at a dog in the park and almost turned on me. We tried training and even paid for a dog psychologist but I suspect that Nelly always had more desert dingo than dog in her and reform was not really ever going to happen. While we mourn her passing Nog seems untroubled and possibly rather happy that he's getting more scraps from dinner, fuss and attention than before.

I'll sign off now - write with the news please.

BTW if you like African beats like Dollar Brand check Gilles Peterson's show this week - its one of his best:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/gillespeterson/

August 2007

Driving down to France is an endurance test relieved only by the astonishment of how good food can be. Last year Sarah drove with the dogs and I flew with Tom and Isobel, arm still recovering from Al Ain hospital tomfoolery. That excuse wasn’t going to wash this year so I kept Sarah company on the long drive down and Irish Granny was responsible for our delightful children on the Easy jet route to Lyon. Some people love driving huge distances, others enjoy watching cricket, listening to the Archers, or eating at Pizza Hut. They are all nuts.

Our friends who live very nearby in France have worked miracles on the ruin with a budget you might replace two windows in England with. It now has working bathroom and kitchen with enough hot water to keep 13 guests happy … or at least fairly clean. It has beds with duvets. It has new floors, ceilings and stairs that don’t unexpectedly give way with rot. You can now walk around the house without the serious risk of plunging to your death, except one hangar where we occasionally had to keep dragging young children back from a lethal precipice onto the garden below. It even had a woodburning stove with a temporary chimney out of a window. This came in useful in the first week when we remembered how cold it can be at 950 metres above sea level in freezing mist. One night we watched an old (fabulous) Chaplin talkie called Limelight and my mother who was wearing four jumpers and a coat as the fire crackled pathetically at the other end of the house said how much our house reminded her of life in rural Ireland in the 1950s.

This was the week when we were a little spooked by the sound of large country rats on our roof at night, or the discovery of several beautifully patterned grass snakes in the wilderness of nettles that was our back garden. The children also had fun chasing bats from the upper galley at night. We soon made short work of the nettles with a few days working the scythe and we decided that the snakes would keep the mice and rat population at a manageable level. Our biggest job was the colossal pile of wood at the back of the house which we sorted into slightly less massive piles of good wood to keep for the fire and rotten wood to burn. In the third week - with the help of unsuspecting friends who thought they had come to France to relax - we had a monstrous bonfire and burned a wicker man (sounds more occult than burning a 'guy'). A large gaggle of wild haired and dirty children laughed demonically as the guy’s stripey black and white French style t shirt and twig ribs burned with an unearthly roar.

I have painted a slightly alarming picture here but we had a really good month especially after the first week when the weather got much better. Despite working continuously moving piles of wood and walking in the countryside we came back fat as ever from the delicious wine and cheese and other food delights. The kids had great fun and we saw lots of friends and family. It’s a great place for reunions because there is so much space and it is so secluded – the kids call yell away. So if you have the nerve for roughing it in the hills of the Auvergne in August with unlimited supplies of baguettes, goats cheese and Ricard and two overweight hosts, you know where to apply.

July 2007, I think

I'm writing this with the summer already disappearing from view like a speck on the horizon (in September), but if I recall correctly in July we decided that the only way to discipline our children was to set birds of prey upon them as the picture here shows.

It also stopped raining briefly enough for us to see a marvelous display of falconry at a local castle by a couple dressed in medieval costume.

What else happened in July? ...End of school events, like a Chinese dragon procession through the streets of Bradford and also a fine musical at the school with Tom playing a member of a jury. This is all an eternity ago so I'll just post some pictures instead...



Note the huge spooky owl in the middle.



This picture misses the lady's groovy platformed clogs.



Chinese dragon and, er, English flag waving event.
(Sarah reliably informs me this was in fact St. George's Day which is in April.)



Tom found God and then lost him again,
so he tried ringing..

June/July 2007

It has been the wettest May and June in England since 1738 - which is when records began, so it may in fact be the wettest May and June since the Cretaceous Era. The rain just hasn’t stopped falling out of the sky and half of England is underwater. Fortunately, we are on a big hill so we’ve been spared the horror of sewage flowing through our living rooms which has happened to thousands of people from the Cotswold’s to Hull. Friends on holiday from the UAE have grimaced and thought to themselves, ‘God I’m never coming back to this.’ We’re constantly apologizing to them for the rain, just like my mother does whenever we visit her in the west of Ireland (where it really does rain all the time).

Last week we spent a night at the Village Pump Folk Festival which is just two miles from our house on a farm by Farleigh Hungerford. The rain actually stopped for a few hours so we could put our tent up and wander across the lovely farm land to the performance area. There after getting the obligatory plastic wrist bands we enjoyed music by Martin Carthy, The Levellers and some very good local acts. Isobel and Tom danced to a 10 piece Madness style band until one in the morning and then we walked back to our tent just before the rain started again.

It rained all night and at 7 in the morning we decided to pack up before the fields turned into a Glastonbury-style disaster zone. We took down our fiendishly complicated tent around the sleeping children and then put them and the sodden canvas into the car and drovc gingerly out of the waterlogged fields. Later that day they had to use tractors to tow the cars out of the festival. The joys of summer.

In other news Tom was an extra for a day and dressed fetchingly as a 19^th century country yokel for a BBC production of Lark Rising to Candleford, so watch out for a glimpse of a long-haired bumpkin in a cloth cap amongst the crowd of villagers if it ever reaches your screens.

June 2007

I can just see the queues at Dubai and Abu Dhabi airport now, the overpowering smell of aftershave and perfume, the moment of tension as the border guard’s manicured hand taps your passport number onto the computer keyboard and the bored expression as s/he waves you through. And then the smile as you know you have six weeks, an exotic destination or two and a bank account full of money to spend. You lucky dogs. And then the thought – just two maybe three more years of this and I’ll have saved enough…. Just one more contract…..

We’ve been back almost a year now and the report card is looking ok – no-one has starved to death, our house has not been repossessed yet and the sun has shone on brief occasions in the last few weeks. Yes, even the odd flash of sunlight in between the heaviest rainfall in recorded history in Britain for June and devastating floods across the nation.

The things we still miss are friends, salary cheque, swimming pool, barbeques, camping, and Trudy’s parties. But these are balanced by… … er, balanced by what? The friends and family we left behind, English pubs, the seasons, countryside, culture, not biting your lip every time the latest psycho manager adds some new humiliation to your day; not having wankers flashing their lights in your rear mirror as they drive at 160 miles per hour two inches from your bumper; escaping the tedium of the 1,000 km long mall; ‘Freedom!!’ as Mel Gibson screams before his heart is ripped out in Braveheart.

After a year there is no profound advice to give except ‘save, save, save!’ It’s scary how much money you get through resettling. Money has been the only worry – obviously getting a job has been difficult but it can be done, if you are prepared to start on two hours a week at the local FE College, or work full time shovelling cement alongside Polish labourers.

We’re still not been getting out that much, but we did have a glorious day last weekend sailing on Sarah’s sister’s husband’s yacht down the river Ex from Topsham to Exmouth. The sun shone all day and we slept overnight on the yacht after mooring by a pub and drinking the local beers and ciders. West country cider, mmmmmm. As regards sailing - I love the bit where you sit on the deck with a glass of something, watching the light reflecting off the estuary. The stuff with all those ropes and sails seems a bit of a distraction from that side of things. Young Tom only seemed to like the ropes part of it – so hopefully he can be trained up and I can just snooze like a pensioner on a cruise ship if we ever get invited again.

This week TV continues to take up the best part of the evening after a hard day of walking the dogs, hanging out endless baskets of washing and reading Robin Day’s or some other overpaid BBC journalist’s turgid autobiography. Everyone moans about the telly but I think now is a golden age. There certainly is more rubbish than ever on the box, but if you are handy with a remote you can see all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. When we left England 11 years ago there were just 4 channels so if you didn’t like Coronation Street, Eastenders or American sitcoms the chances are you were stuck watching the likes of Floyd getting drunk while cooking a delicacy in some sun-drenched corner of Europe (on a good night) which was no comfort in mid-February in Manchester when it had not stopped raining for two months.

Now there’s always something to pass the time. A film, a comedy, a reality TV programme, last night The History of the Barbarians by Terry Gilliam, Krapp’s Last Tape starring Harold Pinter, the Simpsons and Have I Got News for You – still going strong. Even the most mundane looking programme can be interesting and tell you a lot about living in Britain. For example Points West - a dull as ditchwater local news programme got an architect called George Ferguson to look at the multimillion pound regeneration of Gloucester Docks which is about an hour’s drive north of us. The docks only have a handful of visitors a day, despite having a ton of money thrown at it. So the architect went to the centre of two busy, successful port towns: Copenhagen and Amsterdam to see what made them tick. One of the first things Ferguson learnt from his Dutch and Danish peers was the importance of slowing everything down to human speed. In the old centres of both towns everyone either walks or cycles or perhaps gets a tram for the longer distances. Cars are very, very expensive to park and drive in the centre of town and are generally about as rare as a horse on the streets of London. The economies of Copenhagen and Amsterdam are thriving because people enjoy being out and about – chatting, having coffee, browsing in the market stalls, eating in pavement cafes and watching life go by. The old central dockside areas are peaceful, pleasant, pedestrianised areas to be in so people live there, eat there, meet there and spend their money there.

Gloucester by comparison is dominated by car-clogged roads so nobody walks or cycles anywhere or goes within a mile of the docks. So after doing his research the architect presented his ideas for regenerating the old port area to the local council worthies by showing a film of what he had learned in Denmark and Holland on a big screen at night by Gloucester dockside itself. He emphasised that you have to make it people friendly, have attractive spaces rather than concrete squares with the wind howling around about. This bring lots of small businesses, traditional crafts and market stalls to the area. He wanted to change the infrastructure to encourage cycling and walking so that people would stop and stay.

But he might as well have brought a wheelbarrow full of dog shit to the old duffers on the council who sat there with folded arms and sour faces. They didn’t believe that Gloucester had anything to learn from fancy European cities and whinged at him: ‘People may like walking and cycling in Amsterdam, but this is Gloucester and we do things differently.’ ‘Yes, you stupid old farts’ were the words hovering about his tightly pursed lips. I wanted him to grab them by their woollen sweaters and throw them into the dock.

Lets face it England is not and never will be a part of Europe. We love dirty, polluted and rubbish-strewn streets too much. We want our kids to lie around sniffing glue or dart about in hoods spraying graffiti on motorway underpasses. Better still they should learn to joyride cars expertly around faceless estates and then leave them burnt out in the deserted parks for younger kids to smoke crack in. If life was good in Britain what would people have to complain about? We don’t want the streets clogged up with people chatting or riding bicycles. We are a nation of Jeremy Clarksons who would rather sit in a thousand mile traffic jam and run down cyclists in enormous four-wheel drives at the traffic lights than actually stop and get out of our effing cars for a minute to smell the tulips. It won’t be long before we go the way of Los Angeles where you’re liable to be arrested for walking anywhere.

That New European Constitution

Today the EU are busy redrafting the European constitution and one suggestion that has been floated is to have a rotating administration where different countries take exclusive responsibilities for specific policy areas for a number of years each. Then after every country has had a go we’d know which countries do the best jobs and maybe make them permanently in charge of particular departments. The trouble is this could go very well for some years and really badly in other years. In a good year it could look something like this:

Country Area of Responsibility

England: Music and television

France: Food and wine

Italy: Fashion and design

Finland: Foreign relations

Switzerland: Banking and democracy

Germany: Engineering and train timetables

Sweden: Anti-corruption and social services

Norway: Energy and environment

Spain: Art and Nightlife

Czech Republic: Beer and jazz

Denmark: Health and the economy

Hungary: Steam baths and goulash

Holland: Transport and drugs

Scotland: Stand-up comedy and whisky

Ireland: Literature and Guinness

….but in a bad year it could look like this:

Country Area of Responsibility

England: Transport and foreign relations

France: Music and television

Italy: Anti-corruption and democracy

Finland: Nightlife and art

Switzerland: Stand up comedy and goulash

Germany: Food and jazz

Sweden: Beer and whisky

Norway: Whaling

Spain: Steam baths and engineering

Czech Republic: Energy and the environment

Denmark: Wine and literature

Hungary: Social services and environment

Holland: Guinness

Scotland: Drugs and Health

Ireland: Fashion and design

Any other suggestions? I’ve left out dozens of European countries, but what can you say about the likes of Macedonia and Portugal?

Write soon with your holiday news and all the goss.

David

New police vehicles patrol Bristol

It rained here so much for the first half of May that it felt like being on the set of Blade Runner. It’s brightened up a bit in the last few days, but I need to get some bile out of my system now that may have been partly rain-induced.

One problem with living in an English speaking country is you cannot escape the political and advertising bullshit going on around you. It’s as if the Arab language suddenly became utterly clear to you, in all its nuances and you found yourself stuck in a maglis listening to an endless line of toadies singing the praises of their glorious leader, every day for the rest of your life.

A week ago Tony Blair announced his resignation date and the Gordon Brown band wagon trundled out like some fifty storey pig-iron horse on enormous splintering oak wheels. His first announcement was clearly made to counter the impression that the Labour government was a totalitarian monolith – a control freakish, media spinning monstrosity - centralizing power and removing civil liberties at any opportunity. This is what he said and I’m quoting verbatim:

"One of my first acts as prime minister would be to restore power to Parliament in order to build the trust of the British people in our democracy. Government must be more open and more accountable to Parliament - for example in decisions about peace and war, in public appointments and in a new ministerial code of conduct."

He also said:

"I want to lead a government humble enough to know its place - where I will always strive to be - and that is on people's side,"

Fine words which we can all agree on. Except that, without missing a beat, within two days his senior henchmen, the usual party lickspittles and the conservative big guns and backbench arselikains had all voted to exempt themselves from the Freedom of Information Act and the need, for example, for details about their expenses to be made public. You had to be here to see how disgusting it all was. Only a few weeks before a handful of MPs had managed to talk this shameless bill out of the Commons. It was brought back in with unheard of speed (to the shock of all political journalists who said it was a dead duck) ahead of other more important legislation. Then hundreds of Labour and Conservatives zombie drones flooded into the usually empty chamber in a coordinated campaign from the highest levels of both parties to make sure no other troublemakers could talk it out again.

Then two days after that the government did away with the need for the usual planning permission for airports, motorways and nuclear power stations. From now on a quango will rubber stamp these kind of proposals and locals will be able to decide on the colour of the entrance gates if they are lucky. Mind you, if you want a small windfarm, you would still have to apply the usual way. This proposal was accompanied by a little provision that makes it easier for people to build house extensions so that it would be more easily swallowed by middle England.

What’s so depressing is the silence that has accompanied it all. The bill to exempt the British Parliament (not the Scottish or Welsh or N.Ireland Assembly I should add) hardly made the news at all. You had to be a bit of a political nerd to hear anything about it. Okay so I’m a bit nerdy but I don’t watch Question Time or know the names of 7/8ths of the Cabinet so I’m not that nerdy.

But the thing that really did it for me was last night watching television – there was an advert. An advert for a Golf car. The sound track? …..Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood. Cultural smash and grab of the most shameless form. Utterly depressing - and yet, follow the link below and you'll see the Guardian thinks its great!

http://media.guardian.co.uk/advertising/story/0,,2082220,00.html

Good old Guardian – can always be relied on to suck an advertiser’s crock before spitting out its progressive politics.

And the coup de grace today: MPs are coming to the aid of McDonalds who want OED to change their definition of McJob which is currently and quite correctly:

“An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.”

To something about how stimulating and worthwhile it is with marvelous career prospects.

So when you come back to have your iris scanned by the Department of Justice at Heathrow and pass eight thousand CCTV cameras to get to the countryside and find it has been bulldozed to make way for Sizewell C, D, E, F and G, a motorway service station and a teenager with a Prozac grin serving you fries at McDonalds and all the bees are dead because of mobile phone masts and mankind has only ‘five years’ (as the Bowie lyrics go) then don’t say I didn’t warn you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/16/nbees16.xml

(check out the ad ad that goes with it is for Samsung mobile phones)