Post 269. FILLED WITH DESPAIR AND ANGER.

WHAT PRICE AUSTERITY?

A nationwide investigation.
It has already been discovered that in cities all around the country (among them Portsmouth (above), the city where Mo and I were born) tower blocks have been cheaply and often illegally clad in the type of panel that disastrously accelerated the Grenfell Tower conflagration. Apparently this has been going on for years.
The news has to fill anyone but the most crooked businessman - or uncaring autocrat - with despair and anger.
Many questions will be asked and, were I charged with an investigation, I would certainly put the following three queries to all the councils involved:
(1) Were the inspectors who failed to immediately recognise this as a danger unqualified or incompetent?
(2) How many jobsworths actually recognised the danger, but wouldn't - or didn't dare - speak up? 
And finally, the one to which I might even receive a straight answer:
(3) Did funding cutbacks imposed by Westminster cause your council to relax, shelve or abandon the inspection of new high-rise builds in your area?
I do just wish councils and governments would sometimes disprove my increasingly cynical opinion that they're there for their own good, not for ours. If they stopped playing politics and gave their all to whatever concern they claim to serve, it would be a start. It would be unbelievable, too.
Those who do try locally - mostly decent Independents - are shuttled to the sidelines or, like the worthwhile ex-councillor Jonathan Bacon on the Isle of Wight, voted out by party plonkers at the first opportunity.
Incidentally, the new blue ribbon voted in as MP over here, sought election on the avowal that he was 'standing with Teresa May.'
For how long, I wonder, might that be?
MUSIC.

Non PC listening?
As I write I am listening to a tape recording made at Abbey Road, London in 1962, the year my Leader and I were married.
It is by one of my favourite pianists of all time, John Ogden (above), and he is playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.
Both pianist and conductor were British, white and male.
That may define me, in the eyes of the browsing PC feminist, as 'a racist and misogynist.' 
Y'know, I'm far too old to care.
CALL THIS ONE WHAT YOU LIKE.
He is still a bloody head case.
Doesn't matter how mentally stable, or otherwise, he may be proven to be, it appears that the 47 year old father of four (poor little buggers), who ploughed a hired van into innocent Muslims coming from worship at Finsbury Park (one victim dead, ten injured), was a terrorist. The police said so right away, so it's official.
What's in a name?
Call him what you like. A terrorist by whatever name is still a bloody head case.
Imam Mohammed Mahmoud, clearly a good man and true Muslim, prevented furious captors from doing serious damage to him before the police arrived at the scene.
The hate-crazed attacker should be given the longest possible prison sentence. 
Mr. Mahmoud should be given an award.
That's my lot for this month.

 

 

Post 268. LOTS OF READING.

TOO LITTLE WRITING.

 Still struggling.
Unless you are one of those gifted chaps who churns out words with infuriating ease (and actually knows the derivation of every one of them), the thing about writing, or even rewriting, a book is that, from the outset, you have to be irrevocably obsessive.
That means you don't stop to make the tea, or help fold the duvet for ironing, or answer the door bell, or put the dustbins out/get the post in, or traipse out to buy a daily paper, or heed telephone calls from anybody (International what?), or spend hours tolerating tiresome twats on tele, or give a toss what needs to be done in the garden.
No! No!No!
It means you do commit yourself to eyes-down, key-tapping, sod-everybody, self-obsessed, prescribed-number-of-words-a-day, complete and utter lunacy.
When you've spent years giving way to the former, the latter comes extremely hard.
I am still struggling with the rewriting of The Badgers of Deep Wood (working title of a book for children aged nine to ninety nine), wrestling constantly with the opening of that too-long-imagined thriller and concurrently trying to turn out regular blog posts.
It's a self-inflicted struggle and, at my age, I should know better.
My rate of knots has diminished considerably over the years and I am currently writing as much as I can - which is far too little - in what time (and I do sometimes ponder) I may now have left.
And that's enough of the morbid stuff, thank you.
READING

The very readable.
Bearing in mind the rate of knots comment, there has been quite a lot of reading recently: this has come about because daughter Roz kindly handed me three more of her Terry Pratchett books to read and, the late Sir Tel being as readable as any writer has ever been or ever will be, I set about the task right away.
In quick succession I saw off The Truth (a wonderful Discworld evocation of a Fleet Street starting up in Ankh-Morpork) and The Amazing Maurice - and his Educated Rodents (which is clearly a book for children aged nine to ninety nine, so I loved it).

 At the moment I am about fifty pages into Thief of Time, about which more when I have ticked to the end of it.
To add to my marathon, I re-read Graham Hurley's The Perfect Soldier.

A story fraught with landmines. Went to it for a reference and finished up reading right through it again; gripped by the wicked, beautifully written truth of it.
To the question I posed in Post 267 (What are the Americans, the British and the French doing in the Middle East?) this book provides the awful answer.
Encouraging those who profiteer off misery, that's what.
No point in seeking to stop it. It has gone way beyond that.
The Devil has the reins.
LONDON AGAIN.

Another calamity in the capital.
Apparently complaints had been lodged, concerns expressed, and warnings given for years, about the disaster waiting to happen at Grenfell Tower.
The sympathy of the entire nation goes out to all hurt by it.
It could and should have been prevented.
Now the Prime Minister says lessons will be learnt.
No they bloody won't. Not all the time we kowtow to corner-cutting councils they won't.
All for now.

Post 267. A QUICK RETURN.

THE GOOD.

Well done, Ariana.
In common, I'm sure, with many another Brit of mature years, I had never heard of Ariana Grande (above) before a bomb-happy nutcase blew himself and twenty two of her fans to death at Manchester Arena on the 22 May, 2017.
She could have taken off right then and never returned. Nobody but the right wing press would have blamed her for that.
But, bless her, the girl came good. She took a quick breather, returned to visit many of her injured fans and those in grief at the loss of loved ones, and finally put two fingers up to terrorism with her brave One Love Manchester concert (held at Old Trafford on 4 June), which so far has raised over £2 million for the families of the Arena victims.

 Well done, Ariana.
Those of us who had never heard of you will never forget you now.
And the buddies who appeared with you at Old Trafford weren't a bad bunch either.
THE BAD.

More maniacal mayhem.
Now at London Bridge and Borough Market.
This time three of the lethal bastards drove a stolen van, from side to side across London Bridge, deliberately mowing down pedestrians.
Armed with knives the three then left the van and, killing as they went, made their way into Borough Market to savagely attack everybody they met.
Eventually, and with commendable speed, armed police shot them dead.
On their way they had murdered eight innocent citizens, three from France, two from Australia, a Briton, a Canadian and a Spaniard.
There was no provocation for any of it.
It was just further proof that the lunatics are hellbent on taking over the asylum.
This three have now been named. I wouldn't give them that much publicity.
They were worthless shits.
THE UGLY.

Why constantly meddle?
I know I have asked before, but in face of what could, from all the obvious signs, finish up becoming the third world war, can anybody tell me why, other than selling arms and procuring cheap oil, America, France and Britain are still meddling (frequently with bombs) in the affairs of countries in the Middle East?
My plaintive query may be simply the disquiet of an ordinary old Brit who lived through the last world conflict and, for his kith and kin's sake, does not want it all again, but I think it is a pertinent one. Think on. It's an ugly business.
AND THE FUNNY.
So Mrs. May had her snap election and it backfired on her.
Good.
Trouble is, hard on its heels could come yet another election when the handling of a hung parliament becomes too much.

 Sorry, Brenda.