All entries for May 2007

The Solution To All Your Labour Problems

Follow-up to The Solution To All Your Papal Problems from Hollyzone

I didn’t go and see Gordon Brown at the Arts Centre on Sunday, I was too busy sleeping uncomfortably whilst cursing the underfunded NHS physio service which meant my shoulder problem hadn’t been fixed making it hard to sleep that night. Rarrr. But I should have gone. Not just because some nice people tipped me off and I felt like not going was in some way similar to saying “Yes, I’ll come to your massive party” then not showing up. But mostly because I’ve come to another massive conclusion. Basically I don’t dislike Gordon Brown, and he might do an ok job (albeit in the same manner as a child who has to somehow create a picture in class after their class partner has vomited all over what was a fairly nice, if unfinished, picture) but I honestly think there’s a better candidate for the job of Labour leader and PM.

Me.

Yes, having already declared myself Pope, I am willing to drop the endless rounds of candles, hymns and Bono, to attend to the more pressing problem of running the United Kingdom of Alright-In-A-Funny-Sort-Of-Way Britain and Norn Iron. Yes, three of my grandparents, and one parent, were born in what is now a completely independent nationstate. Yes, I have no popular mandate, have never been elected (in fact have been actively not elected on occasion), and ain’t even a member of the Labour party. Yes, I did once express the opinion that, once in power, my first act would probably be to deport the owner and editor of the Daily Mail, either to Paris or Basra. And yes, I do love Girls Aloud. But since when has any of that been a problem?

This country lacks a risk taking spine. I’m not asking for a revolution because we’re shit at those. I’m asking for you to put the lives, loves and taxes of 60million people in the hands of a complete amateur whose better qualities include the ability to locate her possession despite how messy her room is, and an impressive CD collection. I also have nice hair, although it needs a bit of a cut as there are split ends (I can’t see them but they must be there).

So what will I do once in power? Well, I’ve not had time to plan a proper manifesto, but neither has Gordon Brown by the looks of things, and he gets six weeks or whatever to wander round the nation asking people what they think so he knows exactly how badly Blair shat on people, and how many expectations he has to disappoint. So here are my badly thought out plans:

• More money to NHS physios until my shoulder is fixed. Start with issues which are close to your heart. In this case, the issue is about 25cm from my heart.
• More money for battery recycling. They do it abroad, and it removes that really sodding annoying dilemma of what to do with dead batteries when it says on the damn things themselves not to put them in the bin but offers no good alternative.
• Put a halt on these stupid live music laws. We need to make live music easier to access not harder. Except for Jet. They will be deported back to Australia. Sorry Oz.
• Less money to the Royal Family. Get a job! They’re worse than a room full of chavs, sitting round in their bling, not doing anything. This will require come cooperation from the public, it must be offputting for them to be mocked constantly when they try to get real jobs. Be nice. The Queen is exempt as she was quite good playing Helen Mirren in that film.
• No more top up fees and stuff. Graduate tax. To be applied to all graduates, no matter when they graduated. Ooooooh, it’s almost a serious policy.
• Tag David Cameron. Just for a laugh.
• Tag David Cameron on Facebook. Just for a laugh.
• Tag David Blunkett on Facebook. Bad photos. It’s not like he’s going to see them.
• Legalise the mocking of the disabled in cases of them being sanctimonious ex-government ministers. This is in no way arse covering for other government policies, and is definitely, 100% in the public’s interest.

I’ve not thought much else through, although I like the idea of putting Cerys Matthews, Alistair MacGowan, Ricky Gervais and the cast of Doctor Who in the cabinet, if only so we can keep an eye on them.

So yeah, that’s it. Um, vote for me I guess.

: 23 May 2007 10:00 |  Tags: Politics And Other Things No One Cares About |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Acid Rain

Whatever happened to acid rain? No seriously, what happened there? I can’t be the only person who, as a child, was bombarded with tales of doom concerning this deadly sounding substance falling from the sky and melting Lincoln Cathedral (which I didn’t live anywhere near and have never visited, but for some reason it, and it’s imp, are stuck in my head as being part of the acid rain story). Just hearing about it for the first time was enough to stop an entire class full of children from running around trying to collect as much rain water as they could in their mouths – it was the northwest of England, they made us play outside in anything barring the heaviest downpours.

Now this was the time of the Rio summit, a time when global warming and the like was trendy, was cool, wasn’t being caused by widescreen plasma TVs on standby, office computers left on overnight, or China. Nope, back then it was caused by cathode ray TVs left on standby, CFC filled fridges, or America. To be fair the latter is still largely to blame now. We’re talking early 1990s, and acid rain was going to melt our heritage and our faces.

Which is why I cannot work out where it’s gone.

Now this isn’t a climate change denial train of thought. I’ve seen the difference the last 15 years has made, and the weather ain’t what it used to be. Obviously for the deathly pale like me this has meant increased suntan lotion costs (and duck me (quack), have you seen how expensive it is?!) but it’s definitely noticeable. You can get as many as three whole days of sunshine in the northwest of England, which leads me to suspect the next generation might not be so blase about getting rained on solidly for 50 minutes whilst their teachers sit indoors, laughing.

But nowadays, as I, ahem, I mean, we obsessively turn everything off after use, there’s no fear of anything being melted. Stonehenge, Big Ben, Lincoln Cathderal, they are all safe and secure (hopefully, unless the Cutty Sark was merely the first of many historical objects to be targetted by a mad anti-history arsonist). This leads to the following possibilities:

1) We beat acid rain. It’s safe to play ‘collect as much water as you can in your mouth at break time’ again. But this does not address how we did this. I’d like to know, if only so I can feel good about the human ability to, sometimes, not break everything they are given to play with.

2) We didn’t beat acid rain, it’s still there but we’ve lost interest because we all care more about Jose Mourinho’s dog. Or worse, we beat it here but it’s still in foreign places which means the British media won’t care until it melts a British consulate or something. This would be depressing.

3) It never existed in the first place. It’s not completely unlikely.

I’m not a scientist. Maybe a scientist can tell me. Maybe they don’t know either. Maybe I’ll never go to Lincoln. Oh well…

: 22 May 2007 01:48 |  Tags: Politics And Other Things No One Cares About |  Comments (9) |  Close comments |  Report a problem