So the festive period is done and life is returning to normal but it seems most of society has decided that life is much more fluffy in cloud cuckoo land and they've decided to stay there for an extended holiday, warm weather, cheap beer and plentiful sunbeds included. The more I think about it the more I've come to the realisation that a rather large slice of the population actually live in the land of cuckoo's and only rent a small weekend holiday home here in sunny England.
I haven't written for a while and I'm sure my desire to mini-rant about the things I see has been dulled by the general goodwill to all men that abounds during the Christmas holidays, but my "how can you be so stupid" threshold has been compromised and it's definitely time to vent one's spleen.
Honesty is a great thing, but reality is something all together more powerful and practical. What people say to someone with a camera or microphone is completely different to what they really feel like because the honest truth is altogether too selfish and scary. Andy Gray ponit in question. Today lots of people have been banging on about the NHS and what they think is right and best for us. What people say is they want the best service in the world, but if you asked them to pay for it you would be met by a chorus of sucked teeth and the mechanics "well....." The fact is if you asked almost everyone what would you like more, lower taxes or a better health service you know what the answer will be and it won't be more plasters and consultants earning £150K a year.
People are just looking after themselves, it's not wrong, it's just natural. It's just the way it is, most of the population are more interested in football, beer, posh shoes and who Katie Price is divorcing this week. Not alturistic thoughts of improving things for the greater good. Some people do think of others first, they become politicians and as soon as they get some power they just feather their own nests and fail miserably like the rest of us. They can't help themselves they just have a higher selfish overload alert default overide level to most, but they nearly all crumble given enough time. Even John " The Gray" Major succumbed. He was the most boring prime minister ever and an upstanding pillar of society, but he still found time to sort out the right honourable Edwina Curry whilst still managing to run the country.
If you lived in a shoe box in a back water northern mining ghetto as a nipper where your dad worked 27 hours a day and your only childhood toys were a bike tyre and a barbie doll with no head what do you expect will happen. You get to the Houses of Parliment on the back of your mining buddies union, full of brother comrade idiology and heart felt principles, then you get a strong whif of crisp £20 notes and you're game for just about anything as long as it doesn't involve rectal penetration. How many poor Labour MPs are there after they have done their time in the big house, not many.
But I digress from the NHS. Look I know that the best way is to do things, for the common good, but it doesn't work, it's a shame but it just doesn't. If it did then everything would have stayed nationalised and no one would have invented money. Life is a big game and money is the way we keep score. No man wants to come last and that's the problem. The fact is if you want something done effeciently then you have to motivate the people to do it and the best way is money. If everyone got a cut of the savings you would be laughing, but that sounds way to capitalistic for anyone to agree with. As I said it's honest and practical, but no one would agree to it on TV.
Here is something my old papy said to me when I was young and it's as true today as it was then. If I want to spend £1 I can walk to the shops and get £1 worth of food for my £1 which is a good rate of return. If my government wants to spend the same £1 it needs a shed load of civil servants to decide what to buy, where to get it from and how much to pay for it. After 2 years they finally spend the £1 and get 2 penny chews and 4 cola cubes. It's just the unfortunate truth. Smaller government and less tax is better for just about everyone, but it's not very fluffy.
There is a simple cure for all this, in fact there are two of them, but unfortunately one is highly unlikely and the other is even more so. Firstly get rid of money, stop the game altogether announce a winner and give him a prize, maybe even stretch to a runners-up trophy. Get everyone to do things for that greater good I spoke about and all pull together. What a beautiful picture, but there are 2 major draw backs firstly everyone would need to agree and if you get 5 people in a room they couldn't agree on what pizza toppings to order let alone dismantling the global order and world peace. Secondly the people with all the money and the most to lose are the people with all the power, there is no way they will end the game unless they have all their hotels on Park Lane and everyone else is in jail.
The second cure is what I like to call the Will Smith effect. We need some world wide catastrophy, a disaster of biblical proportion or an alien invasion. Something that kills most of us or leaves us so shit scared of what might happen that we forget about all the petty stuff, reject the need for greed and Simon Cowell and live a better life and what is left of the scorched planet. This option is a touch extreme, but slightly more likely than the first.
It's a shame, but Gordon Geeko was right
Tuesday 25 January 2011
Jacknifed Reindeer on the M25
Christmas is a time of cheer and happiness and a time aimed at those on the right side of 20 rather than those of us well over 35. Most the the seasonal magic is lost on those of us that have finally decided that perhaps the fatman in the red suit isn't real and that the scarlet nosed flying wonder is about as realistic as a liberal election pledge. Christmas is a time that usually divides us into our little interest groups which invariably leads to conflict over the holiday break.
The youngest are mainly interested in the magical visit on the 25th and the sack of well earned presents that appear mysteriously at the end of their bed. They happily believe that pixie dust not only stops time to allow Santa to visit 2 billions kids in one night but also allows Santa to deliver the presents even if you don't have a chimney. All mum and dad think about is firstly how are they going to pay for all this stuff, secondly if both kids have exactly the same amount of gifts with each pile being absolutely equal in both cost and weight and thirdly if the 20lb of turkey that would usually feeds 30 people will be enough for the 8 people sitting down for lunch on Christmas day. For those in-between the break is an excuse not to work for nearly a week and the only time they use advanced mathematics all year. They have to carefully calculate exactly now many Jagerbombs they can consume allowing for a kebab chaser and maybe even a bottle of very cheap champagne substitute and still be able to make it to boxing day lunch without emptying the contents of their stomachs into uncle Barry's brussel sprouts.
This year I've experienced a couple of small events that have lead me to stick two fingers up at middle aged boredom and flash my buttocks at those who think that life is all about working hard and putting away something for a rainy day. Now these weren't moments of great joy or some kind of religious epiphany but just little moments in my week that made me smile, feel good for a few minutes and gave me a warm glow. The first was the best made of a bad situation.
Picture this, Tuesday evening, it's raining, not hard, but a constant drizzle that forces you to keep switching the wipers from on to that delayed thing that either leaves a horrible dirty streak that needs constant washing or makes that wretched scrapping noise. The M25 is crap as usual and as you enter the road works you hear on the radio that the road is blocked at your junction. Taking this bad news in your stride and rather than shouting at the lorry in front you you do something positive and text the radio station to let them know it's got worse and you are in fact stationary and have been for the last 15 minutes. Now you are happy that you've shared your pain and that would be enough, but imagine how you would feel if the lady on the traffic report actually reads out your text and tells you that you, yes just you, that the accident has been cleared and that you and only you will be home in time for your tea. I smiled like the proverbial Cheshire cat and I carried that joy all the way home. Now I know it's a little sad and almost no one knew other than me, but it was a moment of childish giddiness. I was on the radio.
My second moment was even more touching in a completely insignificant way, but it made me feel great. A different day, a different road, no road works and no break lights, but an average drive home. I'd left work a little early, the snow was coming again and as Michael McIntyre said I didn't want to get snowed "out". It was not completely dark, but it was getting that way. Everywhere was covered in snow, the fields were covered in a fair dusting and the street lights reflected off the whiteness to give that strange semi dark effect. The roads were passable but way too dangerous for school run mums in their massive 4x4s, so there were only a few cars on this stretch of road. Then on the other side of the road my attention was grabbed by a bright red lorry with it's main beam piercing the gloom. As it came close I realised it was a Coca Cola lorry, but not any old delivery lorry, but the American style Mac tractor unit with a large bright red trailer on the back, bedecked in lights on all sides and with a massive picture of Father Christmas on the side. It was the lorry from the adverts, from the tele all those years and it was here and it was magical.
It was the bollocks and it instantly turned Monday into Christmas eve.
So when you are feeling a touch on the old side, when you feel that your life has passed you by just find any reason to enjoy yourself. Children smile five times as much as adults because they are having more fun. Take some time to roll back the clock and do something for shits and giggles, not because you have to or need to just do it for the pleasure of being able to smile. Come on people all the crap we get wrapped up in is exactly that, crap. You live this life just once, it's about the journey not the destination and you might as well smile all the way there.
The youngest are mainly interested in the magical visit on the 25th and the sack of well earned presents that appear mysteriously at the end of their bed. They happily believe that pixie dust not only stops time to allow Santa to visit 2 billions kids in one night but also allows Santa to deliver the presents even if you don't have a chimney. All mum and dad think about is firstly how are they going to pay for all this stuff, secondly if both kids have exactly the same amount of gifts with each pile being absolutely equal in both cost and weight and thirdly if the 20lb of turkey that would usually feeds 30 people will be enough for the 8 people sitting down for lunch on Christmas day. For those in-between the break is an excuse not to work for nearly a week and the only time they use advanced mathematics all year. They have to carefully calculate exactly now many Jagerbombs they can consume allowing for a kebab chaser and maybe even a bottle of very cheap champagne substitute and still be able to make it to boxing day lunch without emptying the contents of their stomachs into uncle Barry's brussel sprouts.
This year I've experienced a couple of small events that have lead me to stick two fingers up at middle aged boredom and flash my buttocks at those who think that life is all about working hard and putting away something for a rainy day. Now these weren't moments of great joy or some kind of religious epiphany but just little moments in my week that made me smile, feel good for a few minutes and gave me a warm glow. The first was the best made of a bad situation.
Picture this, Tuesday evening, it's raining, not hard, but a constant drizzle that forces you to keep switching the wipers from on to that delayed thing that either leaves a horrible dirty streak that needs constant washing or makes that wretched scrapping noise. The M25 is crap as usual and as you enter the road works you hear on the radio that the road is blocked at your junction. Taking this bad news in your stride and rather than shouting at the lorry in front you you do something positive and text the radio station to let them know it's got worse and you are in fact stationary and have been for the last 15 minutes. Now you are happy that you've shared your pain and that would be enough, but imagine how you would feel if the lady on the traffic report actually reads out your text and tells you that you, yes just you, that the accident has been cleared and that you and only you will be home in time for your tea. I smiled like the proverbial Cheshire cat and I carried that joy all the way home. Now I know it's a little sad and almost no one knew other than me, but it was a moment of childish giddiness. I was on the radio.
My second moment was even more touching in a completely insignificant way, but it made me feel great. A different day, a different road, no road works and no break lights, but an average drive home. I'd left work a little early, the snow was coming again and as Michael McIntyre said I didn't want to get snowed "out". It was not completely dark, but it was getting that way. Everywhere was covered in snow, the fields were covered in a fair dusting and the street lights reflected off the whiteness to give that strange semi dark effect. The roads were passable but way too dangerous for school run mums in their massive 4x4s, so there were only a few cars on this stretch of road. Then on the other side of the road my attention was grabbed by a bright red lorry with it's main beam piercing the gloom. As it came close I realised it was a Coca Cola lorry, but not any old delivery lorry, but the American style Mac tractor unit with a large bright red trailer on the back, bedecked in lights on all sides and with a massive picture of Father Christmas on the side. It was the lorry from the adverts, from the tele all those years and it was here and it was magical.
It was the bollocks and it instantly turned Monday into Christmas eve.
So when you are feeling a touch on the old side, when you feel that your life has passed you by just find any reason to enjoy yourself. Children smile five times as much as adults because they are having more fun. Take some time to roll back the clock and do something for shits and giggles, not because you have to or need to just do it for the pleasure of being able to smile. Come on people all the crap we get wrapped up in is exactly that, crap. You live this life just once, it's about the journey not the destination and you might as well smile all the way there.
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