Silly Question and other musings of the week

I know this is daft, yeah, and could probably be answered by many hundreds of thousands of people who read The Guardian far more regularly than I (I don't), but I have what to me is a very simple question, and it is this: if there's a credit crunch, yeah, and a recession and that, after years of apparent prosperity, OK, where's all this money gone?

If you go to the shops and you buy, for example, a copy of this week's Jackie, you hand over your 50p to the newsagent, what, does it disappear into the ether? I would have thought, after a brief spell in the shopkeeper's till, it would then somehow make its way to the bank and then off to some other bank and then...where? My point is this: surely there is exactly the same amount of money on planet Earth as there always was, more if you factor in Quantitative Easing, not less, so how come everyone's short of money? Who's got it?

I'm not thick or anything, but I do think it odd that we have these periods of 'boom & bust' and when it's the latter, where is all the cash that suddenly re-appears when the former returns. The dosh has got to be somewhere. Is this how a recession ends - someone goes 'Look! There it is!' and pulls a huge bag of 20p coins out from behind the bookcase? We shall see. I'm usually right about these things.

Why just the other day I was musing with my wife's father that our beloved Great Leader, Comrade Brown, has actually lost his marbles and is in danger of needing the services of the very same National Health Service he has spent the last 12 1/2 years bleeding dry. I truly believe the guy is actually crazy and the truly awful fawning over him at the Labour Party Conference by those who happen to be in front of a camera at the time showed itself to be nothing more than the stage-managed show of affection that it was.

Why do those in public life continue to imagine that, if they show the public something, like loads of ambitious ministers clapping a leader whose job they want, that we're just gonna swallow it and go 'what were we thinking? And there was us imagining that Gordon Brown was an incompetent, unbalanced old fool!' DO THEY THINK WE CRAWLED OUT FROM UNDER A FLIPPIN' STONE?

Anyway, my point was: there I was going on about how unhinged Gordon Brown is, and the next day, right, Andrew Marr asks him if he's on any medication because quite frankly he doesn't look well, does he? [Gordon Brown, not Andrew Marr.] Well, you could have knocked me down with a fork lift truck. I mean, I must be a sidekick or something. Mark my words, dear readers - yes, both of you - if Gordon Brown makes it to the next General Election as leader, I will lean forwards in my wheelchair, stick my head up my poop chute and sing a chorus of 'My Way' to my appendix.

Well, reader, it's getting to that time of year. Leaves are falling, days are getting shorter, the sky is a dull grey [what's new there?] , and the wind has already begun to howl around my chuffy bits. In order to combat the sheer misery that is autumn, I start to ponder the more important matters in life, such as...I don't know...the album of 2009. And this year has seen a bumper crop of contenders, but this week I think I may have found my Album of 2009. What is it, I hear you yawn? Step forward Reunited by Cliff Richard & the Shadows. One dodgy live album from 1979 aside, this is actually their first album of new studio material for an astonishing 41 years! Granted, 19 of the album's 22 songs are re-recordings of their greatest hits, but no matter. When I heard it, I couldn't believe it. Breath of fresh air doesn't even cover it. This album is the chalk to Muse's cheese; the Yin to Porcupine Tree's Yang. Two tracks in, and the sound of 'The Young Ones' in crystal clear stereo played to perfection by the band that influenced everyone from Mark Knopfler to The Beatles was a reminder to every single little oik that's ever followed in their wake and committed their angst to record that this is what pop music was and should be about.

My only gripe with the album is the inclusion of 'Move It' which is not strictly a Cliff Richard & the Shadows hit, now is it, lads? In July, 1958, when the song was originally recorded, not one member of The Shadows appeared on the recording. Indeed, the first single to feature Hank Marvin & Bruce Welch was 'Livin' Lovin' Doll', recorded in November of that year. Drummer Brian Bennett is the relative new boy of the band, having joined as recently as January / February of 1962. Now you've got me started on this subject, you might be interested to learn that Bennett replaced one Tony Meehan, who, along with bassist Jet Harris formed a successful duo after they left The Shadows in December, 1961. It took almost 28 years for them to patch up their differences with Cliff, who allowed them to share a stage with him when he sold out two shows at Wembley Stadium in June, 1989.

One final fascinating piece of information about this album [Reunited by Cliff & the Shadows in case you had forgotten] is that it isn't as 'reunited' as you might think. Yup, in true 'Duets' stylee, Cliff recorded his vocals in Florida, USA, whilst Hank recorded his guitar parts from his home in Perth, Australia. That's three continents for 5 musicians, because 'everything else' was recorded at Brian Bennett's home studio in Hertfordshire, England. But, in spite of that, I am awarded this much-coveted award for The Stephen Butler Album of the Year 2009 to:

Reunited by Cliff Richard & the Shadows!

It would be at this point that I turn my attention to the Movie of the Year, but since I haven't been to the pictures in more than a year I'll not bother.

Did either of you see Kelly Rowland, formerly of Destiny's Child, funk up her recent Number one smash hit single at the MOBO Awards t' other day? Afterwards, she took quite a swing at the event organisers, berating their poor organisation for allowing her to perform with such poor sound, which of course meant that she was unable to hear the backing track. Well, I was so inflamed by this blatant example of i'm-a-big-star bullpoo that I went over to her Twitter page and politely reminded her that, having watched her performance, I heard nothing wrong with the sound and I implicitly put the suggestion to her that perhaps she had simply cocked-up the song good and proper. If the sound was so bad, why was she loudly urging the crowd to wave their hands in the air like they just didn't care, instead of perhaps encouraging them to keep quiet so that she could hear the backing track? I have yet to receive a response from her, which seems odd to me.

Now, Books I Have Got on the Go Part I:

These are the books I am reading at the moment. They are:

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. The World's Funniest Novelist Ever returns with yet another book which focuses on a dweeb with no friends who has an obsession with obscure seventies music. I'm only on Chapter Two at the moment. Chapter One was quite funny, if you like reading about hopeless dweebs with folk-rock fixations.

The Fears of Henry IV by Ian Mortimer. This guy Henry the Fourth was King of England from about, oh 1387 or thereabouts, a long time ago anyway, and came from a time when people, men usually, fought like cat and second cat over who should be King. With me so far? Well, Henry beat the shit out of some bloke called Richard the Second, and took over Kingship for a while. He did quite well at it, lasting a full nearly 14 years before he breathed his last. He was succeeded by Laurence Olivier, who of course film buffs will recall was played by Henry the Fifth in that flag-waving World War II epic of 1944.

Prince Rupert by Charles Spencer. Spencer, as the man who used to be Princess Diana's brother, is already more famous than anyone on the planet outside of the Jackson family, so why he bothered writing a book about Charles the Second's cousin or nephew or something is beyond me. Still, you don't get many Prince Rupert biographies to the pound, so this one is at least welcome, if a little pedestrian, read.

Hester by Ian McIntyre. Samuel Johnson took a liking to this lady called Hester who didn't seem to mind his Tourette's. She also didn't mind his habit of barking like a doggie and writing dictionaries.

Got plenty of others lined up, so more later. x

How is this possible?

Hello again, dear reader:

Not a single blog for three months, and now two in as many days! Just like London buses! This day, my ire is directed towards young Michael Owen, former Liverpool / Newcastle striker, now plying his 'trade' with Man Ure. On Sunday afternoon, Man Utd played a tense thriller against arch-rivals Man City, which finished 4-3 in United's favour. Three times United took the lead, and three times City equalised. That is, until six minutes into stoppage time when United scored their fourth. the goalscorer being - you guessed it - Michael Owen. That's his sixth for this season, very nearly as many, in two short months, as he managed in four seasons at Newcastle. How, as my title suggests, is this possible? Has his move to a super-rich world-class club on a free transfer coincided with a miraculous return to full fitness?

I don't doubt Owen's credentials as a world-class striker. But there must be more to this story than meets the eye. My verdict is that he is a time waster. He has wasted over half his career getting over injuries very slowly indeed in order to get out of a contract he is unhappy with. He did it at Liverpool, at Real Madrid and Newcastle. I'm not saying he hasn't had genuine injuries. Anyone who saw him hit the deck a few minutes into an England game in the 2006 World Cup would have winced, as I did, knowing that that was going to hurt. In the end, he was out for pretty much the whole of the following season. And who's to say that, as soon as he has his first tiff with Sir Alex Ferguson, he won't do the same at Manchester United? I'd get as much mileage out of him as I can now, Sir Alex.

It's a Crazy World Part 1

How do you enforce a rule that is basically unenforceable? The other day I was in Sainsbury's with my wife, and we bought two packets of their own-brand paracetamol each. Except that the staff at the checkout wouldn't let us - the rule is only two packets, unless bought at the pharmacy. The reason being that the staff should be protected from making the decision whether someone is likely to kill themselves with it. To be fair, this is not an issue with Sainsbury's - all the major High Street supermarkets operate by the same tenet. There are, however several flaws:

1. If my wife and I had not been talking to each other, we could have given the impression that we were not related, bought the paracetamol each, and sailed through.

2. Each time I have questioned the staff about it, they have not been able to provide one shred of written documentation of this policy or clarify the regulation clearly enough to determine whether the rule is two packets per person or per household.

3. Had my wife and I gone to the self-service checkout separately we could have easily purchased the medicine without question.

4. If we went to the same store the following day, we could have found a different member of staff who would not have stopped us from buying the medication.

5. Suppose we did just buy two packets a day for a week? Would that not be enough medication to kill myself with, if that was my intention? And am I right in thinking that there is nothing that their legislation could do about it?

6. Since the medication is on the open shelves, you would think there would be some form of notification of the limitation, right? Wrong.

Someone needs to get some consistency in this, because people like me who need the stuff for pain relief are treated like criminals when there are far more potent items on the shelves that I could buy and do myself in with - bleach, cough medicine, or Tesco Value Bakewell Tarts.

In the blink of an eye

In the Blink of an Eye

Isn’t it funny how history repeats itself? The death of Michael Jackson, on June 25, 2009, will have, if what I fear took place actually did take place, many parallels with the death of his hero and one-time father-in-law, Elvis Presley. Firstly, it was a shock but not a surprise. It came out of the blue all right, as Presley’s death did in 1977, but, if we’re honest, how many of us didn’t actually see it coming? Second, the singer’s family tried to go into immediate damage limitation, with a press announcement stating that he ‘probably’ died from ‘cardiac arrest.’ Third, there is the involvement of a ‘dodgy’ doctor, who, after Jackson’s death at which he was allegedly present, went on the run, and it took the LAPD over 24 hours to track him down. Fourth, it seems that the police seized bagfuls of prescription medication from Jackson’s rented mansion. Sound familiar, Elvis fans? Granted, in Presley’s case, it wasn’t the police; his friends and family got to Graceland and cleared the place from top to bottom before the police even got there. But you get the picture. Fifth, you have the concept that Jackson was so much larger than life that even his own family couldn’t believe that he could die. Family members were heard to shout at the hospital ‘You’ve got to save him!’

Here’s basically what I think happened, and we need to back-track a little here. Michael Jackson, showing prodigious talent from the age of five, was groomed for stardom by a bullying and greedy father, who forgot to instil in him the value of money or the consequences of one’s own actions. Cue many years of profligate and irresponsible spending, coupled with lawsuits filed by parents of children that he slept with, and Jackson finds himself some four hundred million dollars (!) in dept with no hope of repaying it, because of the wasteful dogshit that passes for a recorded output over the last fourteen years – a grand total, by the way, of just two studio albums that cost an estimated fifty million dollars to make. Enter some dodgy fly-by-night concert promoter who convinces him to perform 50 shows in London having been out of the limelight for almost eight years. Jackson, being the sort of guy that he was, must have jumped at the chance to reclaim some of the love that he craved from his fans; and will no doubt have worked his can off to try and get himself in mental and physical shape for this extraordinary run of concerts.

Allow me to digress a little here, but it is at least partially relevant. Much has been made of the possible mental and physical strain that Jackson may have endured as a result of the upcoming concerts. I don’t believe a word of it. Indeed, since I am inviting comparisons between the death of Elvis Presley to that of Jackson, allow me to throw in a few contrasts between the careers of the two men. Jackson’s run of 50 shows was to take place over a massive eight-month period, and yet Elvis Presley, between 1969 and 1973, performed 57 shows in four weeks in Las Vegas, twice a year. That’s 104 shows in two months. In fact, in 1972 that total went up to 110 shows and, on September 2, 1973, Presley performed 3 1-hour shows on the same night. At the time, Presley was 38 years old, and nowhere near as fit as Michael Jackson. He [Presley] was one month away from his first two-week hospital stay in a series of ultimately futile attempts by those close to him to detox his system of drugs. So, despite Jackson having hit the half-century last August, I don’t believe he was physically incapable of completing the run. Just ask Sir Paul McCartney or Sir Mick Jagger about the pains of performing in one’s advanced years.

But it is all too easy to come to rely on medication to see oneself through even the slightest of pain and stiffness. It is a reliance upon which I can speak from personal experience. If I take my painkillers even an hour late, the pain throughout my whole body is intolerable. For someone like Michael Jackson, who was surrounded by people whose sole purpose is to grant his every whim, the temptation to get hold of the most serious painkillers known to man must have been to hard to resist. Enter the unscrupulous doctor with the BMW, and you have a recipe for disaster. Give me that shot of Demerol or I’ll find someone who will. ‘OK,’ says the doctor, ‘but…’ and before you can say ‘Bubbles!’ Michael Joseph Jackson has been blasted into the middle of next week. The doctor panics, does a runner and that brings us right up to where we are now. Sadly, nothing about Michael Jackson’s life was ever simple, and his sad and tawdry death will have been no different.

Perhaps the saddest part of all is the fact that, between approximately 1970 and 1988, Michael Jackson, as an artist, was unstoppable, with every single thing that he did, except The Wiz, a lesson from a master on how it should be done. What a gut-wrenching shame that he spent the next twenty years pissing all of that up the wall. You’re a long time dead, someone so rightly said, and now that Jackson is himself in that state of eternal nothingness, he might as well have lived for five seconds as fifty years because it has all passed by in the blink of an eye.

This One's For the (Music) Lovers!

Hello, dear reader:

In a break from my traditional rantings, I would like to begin by bringing to your attention a small vignette concerning my musical activities of the last twenty years or so. Back in January, 1990, I was given the opportunity by a lecturer at my University (it was a plain old 'college' then) to make use of a recording studio that was sitting idle in the back arse end of the Music Department. I was utterly overjoyed. I unlocked the door (I have by-passed the fact that I was first given the key), to discover a whole new world which, at the time, seemed like a paradise to me but that I now look back upon with amusement as the equipment list in this 'studio' was basic, to say the least. In addition to an upright piano and monophonic synthesiser, there were 2 Otari 2-track reel-to-reel tape recorders, a cassette deck and quite a bit of fungal growth around the skirting boards.

Over the next two months, I proceeded to spend as much time as was humanly possible recording what was to become my first proper 'album.' In a way it proved to be the perfect statement of everything that's good and bad about being left to run riot entire on your own in a recording studio.

First, I had no knowledge or experience of anything at all to do with music recording. I didn't know how to work a synthesiser, and I sure as hell had no clue about the tape machines. I had to supply my own acoustic guitar, and a cheap microphone, plug it directly into the tape machine, and go. Nobody showed me how to work anything. I don't think anyone else knew, to be honest, which is why the studio had lain idle for so long. The first song I recorded was a song that my friend Michael and I had written several years before, entitled 'Whatever Happens.' It seemed appropriate, somehow. I recorded a basic rhythm guitar track on one of the tape machines. But wait - I had no bass, so I used the acoustic and thumbed out a bass line on the lower strings and hoped for the best, whilst simultaneously playing the acoustic guitar track from one tape machine to the other I 'laid down' the bass line.

Anyone familiar with recording techniques, especially in the dark pre-computer days, will know that as soon as you record from one cassette to another you're going to create a certain amount of 'hiss' on the second recording. Then, if you want to record further, as I did, you need to record back to the first machine the two tracks you have already done, whilst at the same time playing a third. This new transfer effectively doubles the amount of 'hiss' you already had. Ultimately, during an afternoon's recording I managed to record 2 chord tracks, a 'bass', a 'lead' piano, synth and voice (with overdubs). The amount of hiss on this final recording sounded like I was singing and playing from the inside of a snake-charmer's basket, and factoring in that I had no drums or any kind of metronome meant that the final recording was a completely out of time, out of tune mess with more hiss than there was music. But I was completely besotted by this recording that I took it home to Jane and played it to her, and took her total indifference to it as a sign that she loved it.

And so it went on for another five songs, which brings me to another down-side of self-producing one's music: there's no-one else to tell you to stop. I was completely and utterly alone during those sessions, a practice I have continued to this day, but none of the six song set finished up under five minutes long and three of them ended up being over eight. And all because of the dreaded popular music device known as the 'playout.' This little passage of music, at the end of a song, can be maybe four or eight bars in length and precedes either a swift fade or a proper end to the song. Some of my 'playouts' went on for four and a half minutes! It wouldn't be so bad, I guess, if a song had so many words it had to go on for six minutes, like 'Tangled Up in Blue' by Bob Dylan, but if the song itself is actually only three minutes or so but you want to keep it going and going and going so you just play the same thing over and over and over and....oh, you get the point.

Trouble is, I still do it. I can't stop myself. Not only that, but I still have that early album, which I aptly titled 'Whatever Happened...?', on my iPod. One of these days I'm going to find some dark corner of the internet willing to take my back catalogue and shove it out there as an abject lesson to you all - don't do it, kids!

MPs' Expenses Published Online

It appears that Parliament has at last published, on its own web site, the 'details' of the expenses claimed by each and every MP that we voted to represent us in the House of Commons. However, some details have been withheld, such as those MPs who 'flipped' homes - alternating between their first & second homes - for the purposes of claiming mortgage benefits and other payments. Although the dust appears to be settling in terms of the media furore over this story, I still call for a General Election. It is the only way that this can be solved.

But Gordon Brown has survived this and clings on to his determination that we wait until the very last minute - i.e. Spring 2010 - before he calls this election. It's extraordinary how he can sit at 10 Downing Street and effectively say to the country that he will run the country whether we like it or not. It's also extraordinary that Labour, having polled its lowest in any major election since the First World War, can still remain in power today. It just goes to show that their motives are for their own gain rather than for the good of the country, in spite of their rhetoric.

It also goes to show that there is one man in all of this who is the most dangerous in the whole of the political spectrum - Peter Mandelson. That man is greasier than a chip shop on a Friday night. In one of the most insane moves seen in British politics ever (certainly in my lifetime), Gordon Brown brings him back into Government, unelected, makes him a 'Lord' and he then proceeds to dictate to his own Prime Minister who should be in the Cabinet. So to add to my list of demands from an earlier blog, may I respectfully suggest that Peter Mandelson be kicked on his arse, very publicly, on the doorstep of No.10 and shown on his way. Out of respect, and because I'm not all bad, I would certainly not begrudge Brown giving him his bus fare home and perhaps an extra couple of quid to buy a sandwich at a petrol station.

And don't think I'm anti-Labour, because I'm not. I'm anti-them all. I forget exactly how many MPs there are - some say 635, some say 646, but frankly it doesn't matter - every last one of them should do the decent thing and stand down at the earliest opportunity and force an election. But of course, they won't do that, because they value their own jobs over the needs and issues affecting their constituents, which of course stands against every rhetorical statement that any MP, regardless of their party or political standpoint, that we should focus on the issues affecting hard-working families of this country. That's exactly what is happening, if only they would take off their blinkers and see for themselves. Hard-working families of this country are completely cheesed off that they cannot exercise 100% faith in their elected representatives (and Peter Mandelson) who are flipping homes for profit, making the taxpayer pay for home repairs, cleaning, meals and God knows what, while they fight to keep their jobs, houses, and families; and they are forced to watch while the NHS goes down the pan, the schools fail their children, bankers swan off with hundreds of thousands of pounds of their customers' money, half of Europe dashes in through this country's wide open back door and take any jobs going right from under their noses, as well as child care, health care and other Government benefits.

But, as citizens of this country, I firmly believe that we should shoulder our share of the blame for this mess. The cause can be summed up in one word: apathy. Where are the protests? There are none. Why? Because what's the point? Cast your mind back, if you will, to March, 2003 when Tony Blair sent our soldiers in to Iraq because George Bush told him to. At that time, hundreds of thousands of protesters marched on London to protest. It was an open secret that the toppling of Saddam Hussein was not the primary motive for this invasion. Some say it was for oil, some say Bush simply rode on a tidal wave of 9/11 and got many 'Western' governments on his side to help him settle some of his old man's scores. But whatever the reason, a fair proportion of the British public said No thanks, old chap, we'd rather you didn't put the lives of our troops at risk in some Middle-Eastern foreign land, we'd rather you focused on putting our own house in order. But Blair ignored these protests and went ahead anyway. This was a turning point, in which Blair realised he could actually do anything he wanted. Sure, people might protest for a while, but it'll soon go away, so let's just do it anyway.

And Brown now faces the same carte blanche. Not only that, but the voters (for that's what we are, primarily, to our MPs), can't even be bothered to protest any more. Environmental protestors, once regularly chaining themselves to trees to stop motorways being built through our beautiful countryside, were simply removed and thrown in jail for a night and the road got built anyway. When the price of petrol shot up to over £1 per litre, we saw lorry drivers take to our motorways and protest. Now, we find petrol once again well over the £1-a-litre threshold, and there is not a soul protesting.

Am I the only one who wants this country to be run by its people? Who cares what political 'party' is in power, just so long as they listen to the people and actively do as those who voted for them ask? And don't be fooled next time you hear your 'elected' representative (and Peter Mandelson) tell you that they are listening. They are not. The only thing they hear is the sound of smug laughter and the silence of millions like you and me as we sit back and let it happen.

Life is not always black & white

Dear Readers:

First of all, apologies to both of you for the delay in providing you with your daily rant-filled sustenance.  I can only put that down to not having written anything.

But, where to start, where to start?  Several of this week's key news stories have had a direct and profound effect upon me, largely because I was watching them at the time.

Let's start with the biggie, those naughty MP's and their expenses claims.  Now, it seems, since I last blogged you both, a select number of our Westminster masters have not exactly quit their jobs, but they have said that they will not stand for re-election whenever it is that the Prime Minister calls a General Election.  Oh, by the way, we also know that Brown is holding out until the last possible moment before calling the election (likely to be June 2010).  It was pointed out on the BBC's Question Time (May 28, 2009) that Brown is Election-phobic, citing:

• His unwillingness to call an election when he became Prime Minister, to see if the country wanted him
• His inability to fulfill a promise in the Labour Manifesto of 2005 and hold a refurrendum on the subject of Europe
• His apparent inability to grasp the concept that the country wants a General Election now.

What almost slipped under the radar was the fact that, by choosing to stand down at the next election rather than go now is that they get some sort of golden handshake deal from the constituency, something like that.  I don't quite understand it all myself but what it shows is that MP's simply cannot help themselves when it comes to sticking their grubbly little fingers into the taxpayers' pot.  It just beggars belief that, at any opportunity, these theives will take what they can for themselves whilst at the same time judging our morals and standards, filling the streets and roads with dreadful Brussels-led rules and signs, making us sweat blood and tears over the simplest of benefit-claimant forms, telling us where or when we can or cannot smoke, etc. etc.

...

The next target for my rantings is my beloved Newcastle United Football Club.  In a moment, you will see that there is actually a link between footballers and MP's, but we'll come to that.  Firstly, though, I am sure many of you, probably up to half (that's a whole person) feel absolutely gutted that, after 16 years of coming so close, the Toon finally achieved their dream and got themselves relegated.  And how many of Newcastle's high-earning, Ferrari-driving wasters can hold their hands up and say that they played a massive part in their downfall?  You guessed it, step forward Michael Owen.

When Owen signed for Newcastle United in September 2005, it was one of the brightest days in the club's history.  Sure, he had a bad injury record, but those days were all behind him, right?

Wrong.

In his four, yes four, years at the club, Owen has managed just 26 goals.  Alan Shearer, Owen's current manager, scored more than that in his first season!  In his first four seasons, Shearer scored 86.  Over three times more.  And, though not a betting man, I'll wager that Shearer was not "earning" the massive fee that Owen is.  

Here's the thing:  during the last game of this season, away to Aston Villa, Owen was brought on in the second half, as he is coming back from yet another injury.  And, to all those watching the game either in the stadium or on TV, Owen looked like he was playing for his relegation get-out clause.  No-one seems to be able to recall an occasion when he so much as touched the ball.  That is a criminal waste and Owen ought to be brought before the Premier League on a charge of fraud under the Trade Description Act.  It is, to my mind, a criminal act, it's that serious.  So we all (myself included, obviously - see above) bang on about how criminal the situation is in Westminster, but what about St. James' Park, and in other clubs with similar situations?  It's outrageous.  Of course, Owen is playing within the rules, but that does not make it morally justifiable.  He should pay back every last penny of his fraudulently-taken salary and donate it to the poor season ticket holders who, in the midst of a recession, still go to see their "heroes" "perform" in a bid to escape their own misery.  Somehow, I think the sham that is his description as a "Premiership striker" only serves to compound that misery.  

Owen, of course, will believe that somehow he has a Divine right to play in the Premiership, and, as a result of that, play as first choice striker for the England squad.  As my brother would say, "He's 'avin' a giraffe!"  Sack him from Newcastle, sack him from England, and let him play for Rushden & Diamonds or someone, on the bench.

Actually, the one good thing about the Toon's relegation is the fact that, as long as the club doesn't go into freefall, it should weed out all the overpaid, hundred-grand-a-week dead wood like your Owens and Duffs (never was a player more accurately named) and bring in some hard-working, more honest players.  Sure, they might not be as talented, but I would much rather see less talented players giving it all they've got and more than 11 supremely gifted wasters who float across the pitch, preening themselves for the cameras, wearing makeup and their own perfume, Police sunglasses or their kids' names tattooed across the back of their necks, wasting their lives and talent knowing full well that their agent will get them a good relegation clause or some sort of tax-free expensive perk that people who earned less in five years than a week of their wages could ever hope to see.

...

Right:  Jeremy Kyle next.  I'll be the first to confess that I am a big fan of the show.  Like most of the other two million or so people who watch the show every weekday, there is a certain guilty pleasure to be had in getting a small window into people's lives, so long as they are willing to parade themselves on national television.  People are always willing to do that, this country is full of them, that's up to them, and to some degree Kyle and this show exploit that.  He often ends up shouting at them that (for example) if they can't be parents for whatever reason - they are too young or on drugs or alcoholics - they should have thought of that before they had unprotected sex.  But if they did that, of course, Kyle wouldn't have a show and therefore not have a vehicle for venting his particular view of British society.  Mind you, I can't help agreeing with what he says, and if only he were to go into politics....

...which brings me on to this:  two things have struck me about Jeremy Kyle today (Friday 29th May).  The first occurred to me during his show.  Much of Kyle's modus opperandi reminds me of the charismatic preacher, whom many will associate here as the American-style TV evangelist.  You know the type, that "Thunk-ya Jayyyyyysusssssss!" variety.  Sky TV has about a dozen Christian-related free channels, and tune in to any one of them and it won't be long before one of these evangelists appears on the screen.  And Kyle works in the same way.  Charismatic, neatly dressed and presented, Kyle likes to RAISE HIS VOICE AND SHOUT at his guests before suddenly becoming calm and paternal, reducing many of his guests to blubbering wrecks (the women too).  "I understand you've had a tough life BUT YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE YOU HAD UNPROTECTED SEX WITH THREE MEN IN THE SPACE OF ONE NIGHT although I know it must have been hard when your boyfriend walked out and took the kids..."  Kyle clearly is employing every tactic in the Preacher's Handbook to make sure that he keeps his audience's attiontion.

The second thing that occurred to me about Jeremy Kyle occurred during a rare interview with him on ITV's This Morning during which he was promoting his new book.  Kyle sat there, the interviewee on this occasion, with one leg crossed over the other, arms nonchalantly leaning on the back of his chair, and he looked like he owned the place.  It was also notable how Kyle used certain words and phrases, hooks or catchphrases if you like, from his show in his interview, like "thanks, guys," or "if I'm being honest," etc.  In answering one of the questions put to him, he said that that he would not rule out entering into politics...  And then it all became clear:  Kyle is not only a potential political candidate, MARK MY WORDS - he is a potential Prime Ministerial candidate.  I guarantee you one day he will be going for the top job.  I'm not suggesting he'll get it, but he has all the credentials already in place:  he has admitted to his mistakes, he talks about his family alot and some (though not all) of the unsavoury parts of his life a lot, he is highly opinionated and, crucially, likes to remind people constantly that he is highly opinionated.  He is charismatic, looks people in the eye, raises one eyebrow a lot, uses what I call the Preaching Technique (see above), is smart, neat and tidy.  The man wants to run the country, his way.  And I guarantee you he will try.

With that, folk, I will leave you for now.  There is much more about which to rant, but I will spare you for now.  Thank you for reading, both of you.   

Out Like a Light

Sorry for the lack of action these past few days, dear reader.  I have been trialling a new drug, Mirtazapene, designed as a supplemental anti-depressant, but which also acts as a muscle-relaxant, I believe, and it has sent me to sleep for most of the day today.  

Thus, in my unconscious state, I have not been keeping up with the news and I find that, on examining the BBC News web site today, that the latest on the MPs expenses has been relegated to some of the minor stories.  This is a sad yet predictable reflection of media interest in such affairs.  Indignation and then ignorance.  And this was after the Mail on Sunday, and one or two other Sunday publications, gave us hope by reporting the fact that the Queen was said to be "unhappy" with Gordon Brown over his handling of the affair.  

I repeat:  The Queen should dissolve Parliament now.  If you wait for the politicians to do it themselves, you wait for at least a year, or until they themselves feel that it is politically convenient for them to do so.

I have not much else to report at this time.  My brain is so slow at the moment, I swear I just saw the rest of my body overtake me.  I suffered from what they call the "fibro-fog" before; now it is positively a "fibro-pea-souper."  Today I watched an absolutely brilliant episode of Scrubs called "My Musical," about a patient who wakes up and everything that she sees takes the form of a Broadway musical.  Utterly fantastic, and I take my hat off to the genius that wrote it.  I only wish that I had that level of creativity in me.

Speaking of levels of creativity - did any of you (singular) see the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday?  The only surprise is how high the United Kingdom entry finished, given that the song ranks as one of the poorest songs that Andrew Lloyd Webber has ever had the audacity to foist upon the unsuspecting public, and that's saying something.  Overall, the attempt by the organisers to re-vamp the competition worked, and, one or two offensive entries aside, the standard was much higher than usual and voting was more or less song, rather than political, based.  Which makes Lloyd Webber's "song" rank as one of the worst on the night.  

Even on the night, when interviewed, Lloyd Webber seemed barely able to disguise his contempt for the competition, though his singer, Jade Ewen, did display some of the star quality that could promise her a future in "the business."  But the song is completely, totally and utterly dreadful and in that respect sits nicely with Lloyd Webber's entire output since 1987.  Fair play to him, he did write four or five half-decent musicals back in the day, but The Phantom of the Opera really did it for him, as it dawned on him that he could write any old crap in his sleep and turn it out as a musical.  There were so many great songs in Phantom that he seems to have used up his whole entitlement in one show.  

In spite of his best efforts to cripple our chances, Jade finished fifth, our highest placing since 2002, apparently.  

Well, I must now go and lie down, I appear to have worn myself out with that particular rant.  See you on the other side.

You Couldn't Make This Stuff Up

Hello dear reader, today has been a pretty difficult day for so many reasons, maybe partly due to our beloved British weather, which has turned to poopy virtually overnight.  That awful misty, drizzly rain has begun to rear its ugly head again.  One bonus, however, when driving through the Forest of Dean, is that the forestry itself becomes very green and lush.  It looks lovely and my wife and I went for a drive through it today, remarking that it reminded us of the time we drove through the forestry of the South Island of New Zealand.  That was beautiful and so is this - easily the most lovely part of England.

When the bad weather strikes, so does what Churchill describes as "The Black Dog."  My body aches still more, headache, foggy head, extreme fatigue.  The pain of moving is like the pain of pulling a very large truck behind me with my teeth.  It's not only down to the weather, I can feel like this on sunny days too, but certainly it appears to have been set off today by the arrival of this horrid weather.  

Both my wife and I have been stressed today.  Sadly I am unable to venture into the reasons for it here, but stress never helps matters.  I am very proud, however, to call this woman my wife.  Next month, we celebrate 21 years since our first date, and at the end of July will be our 18th wedding anniversary.  Still every day the feeling of marriage to her gets better and I love her very much indeed.  Corny though it may sound, she is the rock on which I lean and she is, in many ways, the reason I am as sane and well as I am, even though it is still not good.

Any road, back to the shenanigans at Westminster.  Today, former minister Elliot Morley was "outed" as having claimed £16,000 on a mortgage that had already been paid off.  This worked out at £800 a month for 20 months!  Then, of course, when this was discovered and threatened with publication by the Daily Telegraph, he claimed that this had been an error, he had paid the money back, and he felt terrible about it!  Yeah, sure, mate, you didn't realise that the mortage had already been paid off a year and a half earlier!  Anybody, and everybody I have ever met, literally counts down the days until the end of their mortgage and for him to say that he had discovered the mistake 2 weeks ago (when this whole stink was surely already in the air), paid it back and already begun the process of feeling terrible about it is taking the insult to our intelligence to a whole new level.  WHO DO THEY THINK WE ARE?  DO THEY IMAGINE WE CAME DOWN IN THE LAST SHOWER?  This is utterly dreadful - these are the people who tell us how to live our lives in this NANNY STATE - they tell us what benefits we can and cannot claim and put measures in place to stop benefit fraud including making disabled people fill out 60 page forms for the sake of a few quied a week.  Is it any wonder that not only is our trust in these people destroyed, but in actual fact these people should be sacked and hauled through the courts.

One gentleman whom I believe has been stitched up by the Telegraph outings has been Conervative MP John Maples who used a private members' club as his residence while he waited to move into another property.  The difference here is that he cleared this with Westminster officials at the time, and they agreed it at the time.  Maples even produced all of this correspondence for the benefit of the Daily Telegraph.  They ignored it.

These are my demands:

1. That there be a general election immediately, with every single MP of every single party in Westminster getting the boot, and facing re-election to their jobs.

2. That Gordon Brown be ousted as Prime Minister.  A more weak and ineffectual leader there has not been since the one before last, a certain John Major.  Come on, Margaret Thatcher was in a better position than Brown is now when she got kicked out of Downing Street.

3. That when MPs are returned to Westminster, they receive the salary that they receive, already pretty high in my opinion, and nothing more.  Everything they do, buy, live in, eat, drive or cook their barbecues on must be paid for out of that salary.  That salary should be subject to the same rate of tax that everybody else pays.

4. Every Cabinet Minister should be forced to go on a training course before taking up their post.  And they must pass a certification before being allowed to sit round the table with whoever becomes PM in Brown's place.  This prevents young upstarts with a particular chip on their shoulder taking up 6-figure salaried jobs for which they have no experience or aptitude, simply because they all want the top job (even though they cannot say that).

5. And while we're on the subject, those who pay their new tax rate should have a say in where that money is spent.  Nobody, it is well known, would object to paying tax if it went towards improving their schools, hospitals, roads and housing, instead of fighting wars in oil-rich foreign lands or bailing out banks that got into difficulties while their CEO's took 7-figure retirement packages.

All MPs are barking on about changing the system, but they would hate it if that change involved them losing their jobs.  But that is what is needed.  Get rid of this corrupt Parliament, & change the rules from the outset.  These people should be their to serve their constituents, and not the other way around.  The Queen ought to seize the reigns [just my little pun] for once and dissolve Parliament, sending every single one of them home and calling a General Election.  

Oh well, until then, I'll just watch another episode of South Park...

What a difference a day makes...

...24 little hours.  So sang Esther Phillips back in the early 80s.  How true her prophecy is.  Just 1 day after I posted my tirade against our political embezzlers, so David Cameron took the lead in telling his party to start paying back their "expenses" claims or face the sack as a Tory MP.  A brilliant political move, it set off a wave of MPs across the two main parties waving cheques at the camera that they had just written to "the British Taxpayer."  The most hypocritical of these hypocrites was Hazel Blears, the very woman who had laid into Brown's appearance on YouTube over the "expenses" issue, who told anyone that would listen that she was paying back the capital gains tax she had fiddled when selling a property.  

I can modestly claim that all of this occurred as a direct result of my blog appearing on the internet yesterday morning.  I can only assume that Cameron must have read the blog early yesterday, thought "oh poop," and set the wheels in motion to start paying the cash back to the humble tax payer.  You are welcome Britain, it was the least I could do.

However, none of this lessens the fact that we are seeing our politicians, from all the main parties, at their most sleazy, seedy, tawdry, slimy and nasty.  Even today, as MP after MP dragged whatever unsuspecting cameraman who happened to be passing into their offices and said, "Look, I'm writing a cheque!" one just couldn't help but be hit by the hypocrisy of the whole thing.  Get them out!  Still!

On a lighter note, I have been feeling particularly rotten today.  I may have forgotten to mention yesterday in my rush to berate our political system that I have been suffering from a number of medical conditions which warrant my spending a lot of the time in a great deal of pain throughout my once lithe body.  It's called Fibromyalgia, defined as pain in the fibrous or connective tissues of the body, or something like that.  Basically hurts all over.  Imagine being out on a Friday night in Swindon town centre and having the shit kicked out of you by a pack of thirty or so drunken youths, repeatedly kicking, punching, whacking with hard wood baseball bats, and you begin to get the rough idea.  Plus I suffer from the effects of the kind of depression that makes Leonard Cohen sound like Kylie.  Keeps me up at night, it does.

Good Morning

This, folks, is my first blog and I am somewhat new to it, so please bear with me.  It is approximately 2.50 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday, May 12, 2009, and I felt that, at long last, I had been bitten by the blog bug (how hard is that to say?), and wanted to begin ranting and raving about many things: things that make me happy, things that make me sad, things that make me throw junk mail at the telly, all sorts of things.  The rule is there are no rules, as someone who I can't remember once said.  

Let's begin by telling you a little about me.  My name is Stephen Butler, and I am currently 42 years old, although I don't intend to remain that age much beyond my 43rd birthday (which is in September).  I am married, sorry girls, to my wife Jane, and have been since 1991.  We have no children, and we once had two cats who have both now sadly passed away.  I have two brothers whom I shall not currently name lest they should be forced to hang their heads in shame amongst their local communities.  My mother still lives and breathes, and I live near the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire.  If you haven't been, I recommend a visit as soon as is convenient for you, as it is, in my humble opinion, just about the most beautiful spot in England.

Right, that's the introduction over with, I would like to begin ranting, if you don't mind.  The subject of my first rant is our beloved Members of Parliament and their "expenses claims."  This might not surprise you, as of course there has been much made in the media (how hard is that to say?) of how they "acted within the rules."  Did they frig.

Check this out.  One MP whom shall remain nameless (because I can't remember who it was) actually charged the British Taxpayer £100 to have 25 lightbulbs changed in his house.  These, remember, are people who force us to pay tax out of our hard-earned money, telling us that it is going to pay for our schools, hospitals, roads, anti-terrorist bombing campaigns, whilst neglecting to mention that it is also going to pay for these greedy embezzlers' paint, tampons (true, eh, Phil Woolas?), food, cars, dogs, cats, cleaning -  you name it, they charged us for it.  

Imagine the audacity that it must take, even in the theatre of politics, to actively look for ways to get things for free from those who put them there, while at the same time preaching and pontificating that people should respect law and order, and have, as Gordon Brown so often tells us, a "moral compass."  Hypocrite.  I truly believe that, at the very least, it is time for a General Election to get these thieves out of parliament.  At worst it is time for revolution.  I think it was the Daily Express who put it best the other day when they said that if the Queen were to dissolve Parliament right now it would be the best and greatest act of her entire 57-year long reign.  

Unfortunately, Government ministers in particular, continue right up to this moment to try to bluster their way through it and hope that the storm will soon die down, as so many other scandals have in the past.  But this one should stay right in the face of Gordon Brown until this unelected clown is kicked out of Downing Street so fast he won't even have time to say "fiscal stimulus."

Of course, this particular controversy affects politicians across all parties, but it is Gordon Brown who rightly took the flak for it and finally apologised on behalf of every political persuasion.  But this vote-licking apology has basically only come after they all got found out.  Now they're all running around saying that they acted within the rules, but of course it has been pointed out that these rules were created by parliament and are self-regulating.  And there is no moral high ground in changing first homes to second homes so that they can get the tax payer to pay for everything and then change it back again.  And as for those MPs charging us for homes that they own within, let's say, the M25 corridor is unspeakable...

Keith Vaz owns a flat in Westminster, and a "second home" in Stanmore.  He also owns a home in Leicestershire, but the fact that he charges us for the Westminster pad which he justifies by saying that he doesn't feel he should have to travel from Stanmore to work is outrageous.  Why not?  What about the millions who are expected to pay for their own "transport" to and from work, and be there on time in spite of the pitiful nature of the aforementioned transport?  It's no wonder that MPs don't care a toss about the appalling standard of our rails and roads because they've got loopholes to make sure they don't have to use it.   Self-serving, hypocritical, insensitive, money-grabbing and out of touch, that goes for every single Member of Parliament, whether they make use of these "rules" or not, because if they didn't do it, they knew it went on, and didn't speak out about it sooner.  They got found out, and this makes the whole thing appear even more sordid than it already is.  

In the 22 years since I was first eligible to vote, I don't remember anything quite this sleazy from our seat of democracy.  Sure, bad things have happened - didn't Jeffrey Archer get banged up for some financial crime or other, yet what makes that worse than what's going on now?  

It's still worse that, now that they have been found out, they are not falling over each other to apologise or pay the money back, they are falling over each other because they are afraid that they will lose our vote.  Some think they will do that by repeating the "acting within the rules" mantra, others by saying "yeah, it was wrong," but only Gordon Brown, even though he will have been forced to do it, has actually said sorry, so I have to give him credit for that.  But as I said earlier the apology now simply rings hollow.  

But Gordon Brown must go.  New Labour must go.  Exactly what can replace them that has any higher moral standard, I don't know.  Answers on a postcard, please.