Playing Footsie - With People's Lives!

Buy, buy, buy - bye, bye!

When I was alive, many years ago, the Financial Times Ordinary Share Index - the FTSE, or "Footsie" as it is known colloquially - was only ever mentioned, incredibly briefly, at the end of a newscast. A meaningless figure which was either up, down, or unchanged. That was that. No further mention. Who cared? We imagined it must be of some interest to a handful of bowler-hatted, pinstripe-suited pillocks in Esher or somewhere similar but it did not trouble the rest of us.
That other colloqialsim, "The City", only got an airing in Ealing-style comedy films where an army of said bowler-hatted and pinstripe-suited clones were portrayed, marching in line to their train to get into central London, a la The Rebel. They were there to be parodied, after all, and so they were.
My God, how that has changed. Every other bloody programme is either a "business" one or contains more "business" information than a female virgin should contain semen. That is bad enough but how do these "business" types react to news which actually concerns the rest of us? In exactly the opposite way to the way we do, that's how. For instance, you often hear exchanges on these programmes along the lines of "Well, Nigel, good news for ArcherNazi Inc. They've just made 48,398 work clones redundant, on the scrapheap, penniless, without the prospect of a decent future for either themselves or their families, so the stock has soared. Up 9.45609872 points by the close of play today. Great, super, wonderful." Similarly, you might hear "Bad news for Upthestackyougoshithead PLC. They've just lost an industrial tribunal against a 4-year-old urchin who claimed constructive dismissal because be died after being forcibly rammed up a chimney in Bolton and starved to death. Their value is down 9.45609872 points on the 'Footsie' today."
What is going on? This parallel universe seems to be accepted. This bloody Blue Peter-style appealprogress-ometer goes up and down like Michael Jackson's bottom in a creche. Misery for the masses = "Up ya' go, index." Piffling but totally justified gain for the work clones and customers = "See ya' in Hell, nomarks."
This "Footsie" business is just a gigantic bloody boardgame for those all-too-many wankers out there whose only interest in life is money. You know, the types who say "I left school at 3 with only a green swimming badge as a qualification but was a 'miwionairre' by the time I was 8. No, as it happens, I haven't got 2 fucking braincells to rub together and I do know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, as it 'appens, but who cares? Sod the rest of you"?
This "game" costs people their livelihoods, their happiness, their security, sometimes their lives - and that is all it is, A FUCKING GAME!!! When you get onto top table you can up the stakes by buying things which don't exist or by betting on whether people will feel "confident" about something in three years' time. You end up with the obscenity of some braindead kid from some Home Counties grief hole playing with millions of millions of pounds in the Far East as though it was a fruit machine and then "tilt" flashes up, he loses the lot and the whole thing comes tumbling down.
I want Grantham to be listed on the Stock Exchange. When residents joyously celebrate the birth of offspring the future of the whole town is thrown into jeopardy and the prospect of a take-over and asset strip looms large by those venture capitalists in Boston. When there is a mass cull of the populace and everyone is thrown on the dole then the future of the place is safeguarded.

"Iole, iole"?, Lamma Sabachtaani.

For once in my life I am not mad - just sad. Very, very, very sad.
I rescue stray, ill-treated and unwanted dogs. Some people collect stamps, I collect dogs. I work for an animal rescue charity and offer foster homes to canines in desperate need of TLC and a roof over their heads and during my time have also taken in shedloads of dogs who have ended up living permanently at Pither Towers. Currently I have four magic muts, each with an appalling tale of cruelty or abandonment to tell but all now as happy as pigs in the proverbial.
I have always wanted to do more and take in others but The Boulevard of a Thousand Broken Dreams is now full to bursting point and there is just no room to swing a cat, let alone another dog. Then I hit on the idea of sponsoring a dog through the Dogs Trust and, as a result, I was able to pay for a poor pooch called Beavis to be offered a caring home for life at one of the charity's rescue centres. Beavis had had a miserable life and consequently was too mentally scarred to be found a home out in the community. Instead, he played his days away at the rescue centre in Telford, Shropshire, and I was able to go to visit him and say hello.
All was well until a letter dropped through the door today informing me that Beavis, who was by no means a youthful dog, had "passed away" in his sleep. Isn't life shit! Death is not a laugh a minute either. Poor lad. A fellow creature I got to know only briefly has touched me in a way no sodding human ever could, so much so that I can't summon the bile to be sarcastic, angry or witty. I shall just mourn quietly and try to content myself with the thought that Beavis is now in a better place, wherever that may be (anywhere has got to be better than fucking Telford!).
The only glimmer of light in the gloom is that those wonderful people at the Dogs Trust have allotted me another dog to splash out on and home. She is called Ellie and my dosh is keeping her warm, snug and loved at the charity's rescue centre on Merseyside. I shall hopefully see her before Christmas with toys for the festive season.
The point of all this? I don't know. I just wanted to get it out of my system a bit. Does Grantham come into this? No, not at all. I would not wish death or grieving on anyone. No, not even Grantham or the Devil Child it spawned.
Rest in peace Bevis. Take care Ellie.

Desert Fox Hunters?

A desert fox, pictured yesterday.

I am going to write to Anthony Whatwar Blair with a little idea which came to me today as I was listening to the wireless. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly want to help the smug, plastic-grinned, right-wing, not-so-closet Tory tit who heads our nation but I do feel two groups in our society are deserving of my cerebral gem.
There was a feature on my non-digital receiver about the families of squaddies who feared for the sanity of their sons and daughters out in Iraq because of the horrors they were witnessing. This was followed by another feature, this time on committed (if only) fox hunters who were bemoaning their lot now that they no longer had judicial backing to go around slaughtering wildlife.
Hang on, I thought. So we have a group of men and women whose mission in life is to ride around in silly uniforms chasing a perceived enemy in the middle of nowhere and they are unhappy that they HAVE TO massacre fellow creatures in the name of a totally unjust and unpopular cause? On the other hand we have a group of men and women whose mission in life is to ride around in silly uniforms chasing a perceived enemy in the middle of nowhere and they are unhappy that they are NO LONGER ALLOWED TO massacre fellow creatures in the name of a totally unjust and unpopular cause?
You've got it. Bring our Brave Boys and Girls home, Tone, and send the fucking fox hunters out to Iraq. Birds and stones? Everyone's happy. It's a belter.
In the meantime, let "the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable" police the streets of Grantham.

Puberty Passage, off Desecration Street.

Is nothing sacred? After another mindless day yesterday of making money to buy bread to keep me alive so that I could get up the next day to earn more money to buy bread etc I thought I would unwind with some harmless, televisual wallpaper, aka Coronation Street.
I haven't watched "The Street" for years. We fell out some years ago - I think it was when the show sold out to Cadbury's - and so I decided to stay away from the Devil's Lantern on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7.30pm thinking that my stand would shake up the Weatherfield bosses and panic them into a reversal of their advertising policy.
Last night I was sickened but not surprised to find that the Chocolate Barons are still there, plugging their teeth-rotting, corpulence-inducing, bowel-bashing chick comfort munchies but it turned out that was the only familiar thing about the whole soap.
During my absence, Coronation Street seems to have been transformed into a 50-yard-long fucking creche! It is just overflowing with bloody pre-pubescent teenagers doing what yoof of that ilk do best - falling in and out of "love" with each other, items of furniture and their pets, shagging, bitching, talking mindlessly about who's got the best spot-removal cream and getting up the duff. It used to be a gritty and yet often highly amusing snapshot of life in an industrial town, with all the ups and downs of which we all have had experience, featuring adults to whom we could relate. Not anymore! It's Neighbours By The Canal now. That, of course, is what the brain dead programme editors intended. "Cooeee! Jacasta. I say, that Neighbours show features lots of adolescents and so gets simply oodles of schoolkids watching it, pretending to be adults. Lets get simply loads of spotty types on the prog and then our ratings will be as good as their's." It's like repainting the Last Supper so that it now includes a KFC party bucket, 28 Goth kids hanging around a fountain outside, Judas with his MP3 player and Boyzone doing the fucking cabaret! These people evidently turned a deaf ear when their mothers told them "Don't fiddle with it dear, it will only get worse!" Give me a break. Another institution gone. Another rock in the sea of life worn away by the onrushing waves of obsession with youth. They had it about right in Logan's Run. A vision of the future in which everyone is topped once they have a completed thatch of pubic hair and no longer think the G Spot is a "wicked" club.
Not only is this rubbish thrown at us, they have extended it to three pigging nights a week and a bloody omnibus edition at weekends. Presumably that is the "the more shit you throw, you more some will stick" policy of programming which has engulfed us in recent years.
Coronation Street! Three times a day, every day of the week in Grantham. See how they like it.

You Can Look But You Can't Buy

I had to go to the supermarket today to get all the stuff for Sunday dinner I hadn't got yesterday because I made the mistake of popping in for a livener en-route - there really is no such thing as a quick pint.
Not used to Sunday shopping, I checked on the net to see what time the supermarket opened, noted that it said 9am, and so popped down just afterwards. I went in, grabbed a couple of baskets, zoomed round the aisles collecting what I had to and then made for the checkouts. Nine minutes flat - not bad I thought (man shopping, see) - and what's more there was no-one at any checkout. Suspiciously, no-one was manning (or womanning or yoofing) any of the checkouts either. I waited, and I waited, and I waited until I eventually spotted an assistant who was hovering up one of the aisles and frowning at me. "'Scuse me love, is anyone serving?" "No sales 'til 10am," she replied. "Yeah, right. No, seriously, is anyone going to come and serve me?" I queried, trying to press home my point. "Browsing hour from 9am," she said. Browsing! FUCKING BROWSING!!!! Who, in their right mind, wants to "browse" round a supermarket. If you're going somewhere to buy a new car I can imagine you would want to have a bit of a look around first before you handed over your hard-earned. Buying a house involves a lot of "browsing" and no doubt Al Faed shopped around (literally) before buying Harrods - but food shopping! What do these tossers envisage us doing? "'Scuse me love. This leg of lamb here. Could I try it on?" "Certainly dear. Just follow me to the freezer." Or maybe "Oi, mate! These bananas. Do you do them in a blue?" Perhaps "Do you mind if I take these Saccharino Cornycrunchflakes out into the light to see if they match my curtains?" Give me a break. Three quarters of a sodding hour I had to wait until someone was prepared to take my money off me. I'm going to write a book - '101 Things To Do While Waiting to be Served at a Supermarket Checkout'. I'd better warn in advance, it will be a bloody short book.
Browsing hour! I say let all of Grantham's shopkeepers open up early and then refuse to sell anything.

SPOT THE ODD ONE OUT.














Answer: Picture 3, Gurning Man, aka Walter Traincrash, of Ottery St Mary, Devon. All the others are named after parts of either the male or female body.

Interest-Free Loans To Powergen

"Oo, look darling, those wankers at Powergen have stiffed us out of £130 and the interest."

I received my "power invoice" today from Powergen. Paying as I do by monthly direct debit, I never normally read it. I only check the colour and if it's not red it just gets filed in the "Gunna Come In Handy For The Court Case" pile of crap I have amassed in the slightly enlarged airing cupboard I laughingly call my study.
A colonic stirring came upon me after I opened the envelope and, being a man and so unable to just sit and stare silently at the back of the toilet door while nature takes its course, I took it into the loo to read.
Shit!! (no pun intended). Turns out I am £94-something in CREDIT. Not only that, the previous quarter Powergen had been into me for £130-something I had overpaid for gas and lecky used. I double checked the contents of the envelope to find leaflet upon leaflet plugging more ways of bunging the firm cash - but no cheque for the dosh I am owed, let alone the interest accrued on it.
Let's just play role reversal for a moment. Imagine I was busy burning their gas (wasn't it OUR gas once?) and plugging in to tap their electricity (ditto) and ran up a bill of £130 without paying them a brass farthing. Would they let it ride? Would a Powergen letter arrive saying "No sweat Chucklebunny, give us something when you've got it. I know the run-up to Chrimbo is a difficult time. Take it as an interest free loan to tide you over until you're less strapped. Hugs 'n' kisses, the boys and girls at Powergen"? Would it bollocks! Their bloody solicitors would be in the post faster than you can say "Die debtor, die!". You would immediately be plunged into freezing darkness by a flick of a switch at their end and then threats of court action, treatment with leeches, castration and piano wire round the knob would ensue!
What is the resort to justice they offer me? "Oh, chill man (unfortunate choice of words). We'll knock it off your next bill in three months time." In the meantime, no doubt, the capital and interest built up will probably be used to pay bailiffs to evict all the hard-pressed pensioners who fall behind with their payments as they attempt to stop their gonads beginning to ice-over with the onset of winter while surviving on the £4 8s 6d they get from the state in return for the £84 billion they have paid in to the pension pot over the years. There again, the sneakily acquired windfall is probably used to pay for handjobs and "rabbits" for all Powergen's shareholders. They MUST cum first.
Gits! Isn't it time all of Grantham's billing services were run on these lines?

Virgin West Coast Main Line

"Ok driver, have it your way. I haven't got off at Watford and this isn't a fucking Virgin train."

For a variety of reasons, I have made three trips to north London in the last three weeks. I chose, wrongly as it turned out, to make the trips by train. All the journeys were made at around 2pm on Fridays and, as far as I am aware, the capital has neither moved further away from where I live nor crept up closer while my back was turned. Over the said three-week period there was no volcanic activity in the middle ground which could have thrown up large mountains or gaping chasms in the path of the train. Teleportation was not adopted by Virgin as the new way of getting about, the Royal Train did not run on that line and a hot and a cold running naughty maid service was not introduced for the enjoyment of those in either Cattle or Thatch Class. Why, then, did the same bloody journey at the same bloody time of day in the same bloody manner each bloody time cost a bewildering array of different bloody amounts?
The first trip weighed in at £27 for a return to Euston. I upgraded to Thatch Class when I was told that the Cattle Transportation Wagons were stuffed to the rafters and it would cost just an extra £10 for a seat in one of the plush, half-empty fucking "this is the way it should all be" carriages. I had, in the meantime, decided to get off at Watford (long story) but was told that the train didn't stop at Watford. When it DID stop at Watford I got off! I overstayed my return journey and so had to buy a single to get back home two days later than planned. I opted for Thatch class, as it had not been as expensive as I had imagined the last time I travelled. The cost? £94!!!! How does that work? Single Thatch is more than twice the cost of return Thatch!!!!!
The third trip I asked for a return to Watford. "None of our trains stop at Watford," said the blood-red suited Virgin woman (irony was apparently lost on her). "One did the other week," I chirrupped. "This one, in fact." "No it didn't," she persisted. "Yes it did," I maintained. "No it didn't," etc. etc. "Then how the bleeding Hell did I get off at Watford?" I inquired, beginning to lose it. "Did I leap from the speeding carriage? Do I look like that bloke from the Black Magic advert?" Anyway, to ward off the onset of retirement we agreed that she was right and I was wrong. I hadn't got off at Watford. That must have been the "other me" in our parallel universe. "A single to Euston then, please." How much this time? £10!!! I kid you not, £10!!!! Same day, same time remember.
The return? I got on at Watford for my trip back, again a Friday, again about 2pm. How much this time for a single? £35.90!!!!! Not only is Watford nearer to my home than Euston, why does covering the distance in the same manner cost almost four times as much?
I am convinced Virgin ticket machines are in fact salvaged Enigma coding devices from the Second World War. Staff just key in the destination and the machine belches out one of 23,457,986 different possible ticket prices. Where is Alan Turing when you bloody need him?
Virgin West Coast Mainline has to be diverted through Grantham!

Binmen with M.E. and no spacial awareness.

"Oi! Gitface! You 'avin' a giraffe or what? That mother's 90 degress out!"

I have just recovered from "bin day". You know, the alloted day of the week when you put your bin out for collection and emptying. I dragged mine out to the front of the house just as the bin trolls were ambling up the road. I left said bin at the side of my drive, on the pavement, and was walking back to my front door when there was a cry of "Oi! 'Andles!" My crime? I had left the wheelie bin with its handles facing towards my house and NOT towards the road.
Jesus H Christ! This is apparently policy! You have to leave the bloody bin with the handles facing the road so that the binmen can just grab them, without having to endure the massively strenuous task of walking round behind the bin to grip the handle. Energy crisis! You're not bloody kidding. Does this policy aimed at reducing joule burning by binmen extend to how they then deposit the bin when it has been emptied? Does it buggery! You return after work to find the bin slap, bang in the middle of the entrance to your house so that you have to pull up outside your home and get out of the car to move the bin aside so that you can get onto your own drive.
Bastards! Grantham can definitely have my brain dead, ME afflicted binmen to block up all the drives in town.

SO, WHAT EXACTLY HAVE I GOT AGAINST GRANTHAM? WELL, I SAY, SURRENDER UNTO GRANTHAM THAT WHICH IS GRANTHAM'S.

This country! I can't take no more. I have found that everything from the supposedly simple task of putting my bin out for emptying to complex exercises such as phoning a former public utility to query a "power invoice" of £2.457 million for the quarter leaves me deeply irritated and with the desire to punch someone involved hard!
Punching, and for that matter kicking, stabbing, garrotting and shooting, are all illegal, as I understand it, and so what is one to do? I have thought long and hard about this frustrating fact of life and have come to the conclusion that I have to take out my angst at all the shit which I come across on a daily basis on just one target - I have chosen the town of Grantham.
I intend to export to Grantham everything which I find appalling from the moment I wake in the morning until that blessed moment when I fall unconscious at night. I will note each irritation down and build a list of "Grantham must haves" with a view to creating a new town, one which its most famous child can be held directly accountable for and which will illustrate in microcosm what has become of Grate (sic) Britain over the last 30 years.
Why Grantham? Let me explain.

A History Lesson.
On October 13, 1925, a baby girl was spawned in the picturesque, little town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. This seemingly harmless tot would go on, in her supposedly adult years, to cast a shadow over the United Kingdom and throw a large part of the world into darkness as well. Her name? Margaret Hilda Roberts.
At the height of her powers this woman would famously declare "the lady's not for turning" but Miss Roberts was a long way from that mindless soundbite when she changed her name to Thatcher, for marital purposes, and, in the first of a litany of cuts she was to oversee, had her Christian name shortened to Maggie. Later still, when her reign of error was over, she would be renamed yet again - this time her monica was to be Baroness Thatcher.
Mrs T - yet another of her pseudonyms as the cuts really began to bite - first entered the House of Commons in 1959 as the Conservative MP for Finchley, was elected Tory leader in 1975 and then four years later became the nation's first, and as a result probably last, woman Prime Minister.
She began a career of desecration and destruction in the top job, unrivalled since Mr G Khan by-passed the electoral process in the late 12th Century to spread his unique brand of Conservatism across most of the then known world.
Maggie's grip on power lasted for an unbelievable 11 years and 209 days - try to find someone today who said they voted for her! - until she was metaphorically stabbed in the back by her underlings but, whereas Mr Khan took more than 40 years to royally bollocks everything up for his contemporaries, she had managed to wreak her own brand of havoc in a quarter of that time.

A Lesson from History.
"My name is legion, for we are many." The Biblical quote could well apply to those of us who believe that Thatcher was behind the dismantling, destruction and desecration of so much that was precious, morally sound and beautiful and the introduction of so much that is ugly, mindless and just plain irritating.
* The miners - All-but gone. Terrorised by The Met, almost starved. Crushed! Yet everything their admittedly barmy Brillo Pad-hairdo leader predicted about mass pit closures, political motivation and not-so-cheap imports was correct.
* Union power - "The unions are too powerful!" they screamed. Maybe so in the '70s but was it really good to usher in a new world where you look from union boss to "management executive" and can't tell the difference, a la Animal Farm? Is a sound democracy where you have to have a full retina scan and a rectal scrape before being allowed to even to consider calling industrial action? Do we really want kids to think unions are groups of pinko-Stalinist-hippies and for our yoof to continually belch "there's nuffink in the union for me so why bovver"?
* Rabid privatisation - the shambolic railways service, water companies which have run out of water, school meals services which have produced our chip and blue pop-obsessed future citizens, prisoner transport firms whose unifying motto seems to be "better out than in", police cars sponsored by Lillets, buses which you now expect to be driven by Terry Thomas with a mob of St Trinian's girls on board. The list goes on - so much bile, so little space.
* Deregulation in the media - I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here? How about "I'm a Viewer, Fuck Off!"?
* The market economy - Told you it wouldn't work in the health service, but would you listen?
* Wider share ownership - Yeah, right! So everyone who has a job leaving them with disposable cash (that's millions out of it for a start) runs out to buy their 100 NaziElectricity Inc shares and then sells them the following day to make £18 profit. They sell them unwittingly to major insurance firms and global companies who now own what we ALL used to own. A further reward? Sod anyone who works for a company or the poor buggers who use its services - it's shareholders who count, no-one else.
* "There's no such thing as society." - Fuck off!
* "We are a grandmother." - I told you, fuck off!!

The Problem.
I could go on but the plate in my head starts to shift at times like these and so I have to withdraw and think happy thoughts - like a nuclear attack on Noel Edmonds.
The point of this rant is who do we have to blame for all this? The Thatch woman will go the way of all flesh eventually (assuming she is not, in fact, an alien lifeform which has discovered the secret of immortality) and so there's too much to dish out in too short a time. Her parents are no doubt culpable but the same problem is involved. Then it came to me. Grantham! Grantham hosted her birth and so is partly responsible for all the crap which we have now been saddled with (can you be saddled with crap?) so isn't it time we gave something back?

The Penultimate Solution.
I want to give Grantham a new lease of life and give it as much as it has given the rest of us. It could be a service, a person, an attitude, a moral code, a politician, a television programme, a celebrity, a twin town, a business, a Government initiative, a council policy.....the list is, I fear, endless.
One doesn't have to search high and low for candidates to be "Granthamed". They metaphorically shove their arses in your face every day and so I shall blog their indecent exposures. Hopefully, a new Grantham will emerge as time goes by, a Grantham the Thatch Creature would no doubt delight in. If, on the other hand, she would find it unbearable, ugly, awful, cheap, irritating, debasing and futile, so much the better. The nation has been lumbered with it all for too long. It's time to give, give, give. Render unto Grantham that which is Grantham's!