The meaning of "Choice"?

When I was a kid electricity, gas and water aka ‘utilities’, were owned by the state, paid for by ‘rates’ which was tax by another name, either way the people paid.  These rates paid not only for the cost of the utility and its supply but also for the infrastructure that provided it.  Then it was all privatised to give us “choice.”

Now we have a situation where these utilities are run for profit and one of these PLC’s, Thames Water, has reached the situation where their practices are so shoddy they regularly dump sewage into our rivers, this comes after decades of shareholders taking their premium and putting nothing back into the business.  To put this right will need investment which the owners/shareholders refuse to fund unless prices rise by 40%, so Thames Water want the public to pay to clean up their shit while the shareholders maintain their wealth.  I think I need someone to explain this “choice” to me again.

I heard about this today on BBC radio news and found myself deeply uncomfortable because I actually agreed with a Michael Gove soundbite in which he attacked Thames Water.  I expect he’ll have forgotten this opinion once the election is over, whichever way it goes.  And on that subject, either way it’ll just be the same old shit.

Hypocrisy

I have no love for the Windsors but I can’t help feeling sorry for the P.O.W. who was bullied by the media into revealing personal details about herself.  In the aftermath the same media then elevated her to sainthood, a haunting example of history repeating itself.

In London at the weekend thousands of people marched for Palestine though this was barely reported, then the noble US of A didn’t veto the UN calling for ceasefire.  As genocide continues Oceania can’t look away any longer even if “our” sympathies are encouraged to look further north.

Terrorism in Moscow and Putin points the finger at Islamic Fundamentalists while simultaneously pointing another towards Kiev.  We are encouraged to mock and forget that twenty years ago our own governments pointed a second finger towards Baghdad.

But none of this can be very important because a fucking boat crashed…

This is Democracy ?

This week in Russia Putin is standing for re-election as a demonstration of Russian democracy although the BBC was quick to point out all of his major rivals are in prison or dead.  Meanwhile suicidally brave Russian citizens are being arrested for acts of vandalism at polling stations.  None of this should come as much surprise because its what we’ve been told to believe about Russia for most of our lives.

On the other side of the world in the land of the free, their upcoming election will be contested between two men who you’d barely trust to drive down the dual carriageway and it’s becoming harder to ignore the fact that Trump is likely to get the top again.  But what Trump probably wants us to ignore is that he’s currently on trial for, wait for it, “election interference”.

And in our own thriving democracy the Tory party thinks it is okay to accept donations from someone called Frank Hester who in turn thinks it is okay to make foul racist statements about Diane Abbott.  When this subject came up in parliament Abbott herself was not allowed to ask a question despite standing over forty times.

This is democracy?

All over in India

The last test of the series would have been predictable in other recent visits to India, the home team winning by an innings in the end with only Crawley, root and Bashir coming out with much credit.  But before the match started I was hopeful of BB England closing the gap in the series.  Well in the end England did lose the series 4-1 but even this eternal optimist can no longer claim we are the best Test team in the world.  To be fair we didn’t do any worse than any of the other teams that visit India and we probably worried them more than most, to go down by this margin isn’t a disgrace.  But when it counted Stokes’ England were not clinical enough and amongst all the brilliant BB cricket this problem has reared up often over the last twelve months.  When England (or anyone) last won in India our spinners; Swann and Panesar, were better than the home team’s and we had a batting line up full of proven test class players.  This time around our inexperienced spinners done really bloody well but were not as good as Ashwin and Jadeja, not that we could reasonably expect them to be.  Also the Indian batsmen scored seven centuries to England’s three, and for once Stokes had a poor series, enough said.

For the first year of the Stokes/McCullum tenure England consistently fielded the best possible XI but from the start of the 2023 English summer this has not been the case.  We’ve got to wait until July for another England test match by which time we have to expect Harry Brook will be back in contention which means realistically either Foakes or Bairstow will have to make way.  Obviously coming from the Wicky’s union I would pick Foakes every time because he keeps with the effortless excellence we would normally associate with batsmen like Gower or Lara.  Fair play to mad Johnny for reaching 100 caps but compare him to all of the other sixteen Englishmen to have reached this milestone and he isn’t in the same class.  Maybe the selectors will decide to take a punt on a new face entirely which might be the best course of action.

With the retirement of the great Stuart Broad and the great Jimmy Anderson surely winding down, (despite looking fresh in taking his 700^th test wicket this week) there are opportunities in the pace bowling line up.  Chris Woakes will surely be in the mix this summer as will Mark Wood but these two are in their mid thirties so in the final stages of their careers?  For a while Ollie Robinson looked like he was going to be an automatic choice but his fitness appears suspect.  There are a few around the fringes like Potts and Tongue but what would we give to have Jofra Archer fit and in rhythm?  The biggest plus from the Indian tour however is the spin bowling options, all of a sudden we have a handful that can step up in test cricket.

Still on the subject of sport I watched some brilliant rugby this weekend, (obviously Union, not the headbutting competition practiced by convict colonies and northerners) in particular the England-Ireland match which meant the six nations will go down to the final weekend.  But although we call it the six nations I’m not sure this is entirely accurate.  Ireland’s two tries were scored by a New Zealander and in the Italy – Scotland match tries were scored by South Africans and an Australian.  I suppose this trend started in cricket and England have been as guilty as anyone but for some reason I think it devalues international rugby.

Tonight all the worlds’ media obsessed will be tuned into the Oscars beamed around the world from Hollywood.  For anyone who has been in isolation for their whole lives this is an award ceremony for people who are really good at playing ‘pretend’.  To complicate things further these famous pretenders pretend they like each other and everyone pretends the results aren’t fixed.  Or as we say round these parts, it’s a load of old bollocks.

Fourth Test

The fourth test was a belter.  Joe Root went back to playing his normal game and scored a great unbeaten ton, with crucial support from Foakes and Robinson.  Then the young spinners got stuck in and Bashir took his maiden Test five for.  After five sessions England were cruising, at this time I was listening to Talksport which was just rubbish. Whole overs went by while the “commentators” just waffled amongst themselves and failed to inform us what was going on in the middle.  At close of play the team of “experts” had totally written off any chance of an Indian win even though the beginnings of a fight back had already stared.  Day three was all India who not only fought back but found themselves favourites by the end of play.  On the fourth day England scrapped but India hung on to clinch the match and the series.

Another defeat for England but one which didn’t smart as much as the previous one because this was not a poor performance, it was just India were better.  The home team has an inexperienced batting line up but on these pitches they have the edge over England’s inexperienced spinners which is not to say Bashir and Hartley have bowled badly.  Picking these two and Ahmed has been an inspired choice and further endorsement for the Stokes / McCullum method.  England may lose this series 4-1 but we are still the best Test team in the world.

Uproar

The House is in uproar because the Speaker broke protocol over a vote.  Of course, of all things, this vote was about a call for a ceasefire in Palestine.  Now over fifty MPs are calling for the Speaker to resign, which is probably fair enough.  But if all inside the House are held to the same standard, how many Tories would there be left?

Third Test

As soon as I proclaim England as the best Test team in the world they have arguably their worst performance of the Stokes era.  A game that thanks to Ben Duckett was pretty even after two days swung dramatically in India’s favour.  Duckett aside all the outstanding individual performances came from Indian players; Rohit, Jadeja twice and Jaiswal who looks like a future star.  In the second England could take pride in defeat but not so here, this was a piss poor performance.  Going forward it would help if Joe Root would just play his own game, his current batting shows about the same intelligence as his captaincy and hopefully someone in the management will realise Barking mad Bairstow’s golden 2022 was an anomaly.  There I said it.

We’ve been here before, a chastening defeat sees all of us thinking “BB couldn’t really work…” but so far under Stokes England have managed to bounce back. Being 2-1 down away should be a bridge too far anywhere, let alone in the most difficult conditions a visiting cricket team can face.  We’ve seen recent England teams crumble in Australia and here in India many times before.  But if there has ever been an England team that can turn it around then it’s this one.

Concerned

David fucking Cameron was the PM that gave us austerity and promised the Brexit referendum in an attempt to control his own party now he’s Foreign secretary he twiddles his cock while genocide is committed in Gaza.  He is “deeply concerned” apparently…

All square

The second test has been and gone, another really good match but this time India got on top early and didn’t release their grip. In the end the home team won comfortably enough on paper but England fought back hard and the hosts were never comfortable until the last wicket fell. This time the key individual performances all came from Indian players; Jaiswal, Gill and especially Bumrah.  But even in defeat England still look a good, confident team, the brave selection of young unheralded spinners has been a success and Stokes’ team doesn’t seem to feel any pressure.  If England can get ahead of the game at any future stage we know India will definitely feel it.  I still fancy England to win this series but whatever the final result it’ll be fun.

I actually tuned in to Talksport for the final session and it was even more awful than I remember.

Subtle

When the US and UK drop bombs in the middle east, presumably people die and we are told this is done in the name of “Defence”.  When in the same region, US troops are attacked and killed, the media reports this as if it was murder.

Test cricket returns!

Test cricket had been away so long that it has taken a while to re-enter my routine, although Talksport having the radio coverage doesn’t help to be fair.  England away in India, the hardest tour of all because nobody beats India at home, not since 2012 at least and who won then?  One of the last great performances by an England team that had recently been number one in the world.

With two days gone India were well on top after their spinners bamboozled us and their batsmen demonstrated how it should be done taking them to an innings lead of 190.  The rest of the match should follow a predictable course to an inevitable conclusion but one thing we know about Stokes’ team is they are capable of turning things around, we may not expect them to but we know they can.  Even so at this point there was little motivation to tune into the audial faecal treacle that is Talksport’s coverage.

The fight back started on day three, led by a brilliant innings from Ollie Pope, very much a forgotten man.  It was great to see Ben Foakes back in the team too, a typical gritty 30+ in the second innings to help put on 112 with Pope when the match was in the balance. The tail wagged along with Pope too, did England have a defendable target?  Yes! someone called Hartley bowled us to victory on the fourth day!  The Foakes fan club must mention the two stumpings at the end as well.  England had won another brilliant test match, this was almost unbelievable but then again we’re not really surprised anymore. 

Last time England toured here we won the first test then crumbled but I can’t see this happening again and whatever the final outcome I think England will be competitive.  I certainly won’t be surprised if we go on and win this time.  India are a damn good team and incredibly difficult to beat on their own wickets but England are the best Test team in the world at the moment, whatever the rankings say.  It all starts again on Friday…

Elsewhere another pleasing and unexpected result saw West Indies bowl out Australia to win a test match and draw that series.  Only India have left OZ undefeated over the last decade so that is a an excellent result, but WI have a habit of winning games like this then going mising again.

Defending the Realm

Today’s headlines concerned the Big Bully and his annoying little side kick picking on someone far smaller and weaker than themselves.

Or as the news would have it, the US and Britain sent aircraft to bomb targets in Yemen.  In a statement that could have been written by Orwell himself, Little Rishi claimed that dropping bombs on (what we once called) a third world country, thousands of miles away was an act of “self defence”.  The “self” we are apparently defending are merchant ships heading through the Red Sea towards the Suez Canal and Europe.  Old pissy pants Joe Biden was more honest saying “the action will protect the free flow of international commerce…”  What the bullies are actually defending are the interests of the super rich, it is in no way about protecting you and me. 

The people being bombed are the Houthi, a group in the war ravaged country that I know little about, except they are enemies of Saudi Arabia and are attacking ships in solidarity with the Palestinians being slaughtered by the state of Israel.  It’s a confusing world we live in, Saudi Arabia has an appalling human rights record and Israel is currently practicing genocide yet the US and Britain look the other way.  Some boats get attacked and we drop bombs on a desert state.

It’s also ridiculous that we find military action affordable yet we can’t fund our public services, what would do more to protect ordinary people?  Also we don’t have to go back very far into history to see what the result of western military action is, thousands more refugees crossing borders.  While this is going on the arms trade flourishes and a small group of people will be adding a few more billions to their personal wealth.  If you were a cynical person you might conclude that was the real point to it all.

Scandal

The Post office scandal!  We love a good scandal don’t we?  And when it’s ordinary people being shafted by an institution then little Britain is in uproar!  And rightly so.  This went on for twenty years (if you don’t know you need two minutes and Google), innocent people ended up in prison because of defective software and people at all levels of the Post office organisation covered it up.  Politicians dithered, lie piled on top of lie so certain people could continue pursuing a career while the little people were dragged through court.  But through the persistence of some of the victims who fought back eventually the wall of bullshit crumbled and the truth escaped, I had a brief recollection of celebratory scenes outside a court a year or two back.  Then it all went quiet again.  Until the other day when ITV screened a dramatization of the events and it is this is when the country went into meltdown.

This has been the headline story for the last couple of days which has given grateful politicians something to get rhetorical about but thankfully more will be done to help the victims of what is basically fraud, the very thing many of them got done for.  The former CEO of the Post Office may lose her CBE which is a bit much as most* of the people who receive these gongs are in some way fraudulent anyway.  It’s right to call these innocent people ‘victims’ because they were fucked over in clear sight by an organisation that was once owned by the state.  What concerns me is we’ve got to this point not because of the British justice system but because some TV execs saw an opportunity to make a few quid.  But at least we, or should I say ‘they’, got there.

What time is it?

This time last week it was New Years Eve, which is the most over-rated day of the entire year.  In my pub dwelling days Christmas eve was always happy and fun, in those days most of the country still shut down for a week so we were celebrating the beginning of a weeklong liquid drug binge.  New year’s eve signalled the end of fun and back to work once the hangover had cleared, the mood was different and it nearly always turned nasty.

It’s probably thirty years since I last went “out” on New year’s eve, a mellow mood and Jool’s Hootenanny is just the job most years, although this year’s show was savaged by that cunt SIR Rod fucking Stewart.  I’m not a fan.  We used to go outside at midnight to listen to the church bells but nowadays all you can hear is fireworks, to say it sounds like a war zone is probably in poor taste in this current state of mad worldness.

Why do people celebrate the turning of the year or rather what exactly is it we celebrate?  Survival?  Another twelve month period negotiated (or maybe in my case just getting Xmas over and done), if so then surely our birthday is more appropriate.  Come to think of it do we celebrate survival twice?  Side tracked…  We go mad on New Years eve because we are conditioned to do so, most people obey without question because they just do what everyone else does.  In following the herd to the pub we spend a fortune on booze, generate a bit of tax revenue and line the pockets of the brewers and distillers.  I wonder who does own the breweries?

According to Google, it was the early Christians who began measuring the years since the birth of Brian in an attempt to distance themselves from the Roman calendar, which makes sense.  However it seems the earliest recorded mention of an AD date is by a monk called Dionysius Exiguus around 525 and it didn’t become widespread in Britain until the eight and ninth centuries.  Presumably in those days most people got by quite nicely without any concept of time?

But not now!  in order to function in any way in our enlightened world the measurement of time has to take place and our accepted method works.  Some clever bugger sat down and calculated moons and months then broke it all down into hours and minutes.  Chuck in a few leap years here and there, jobs a good un.  We gave them all names for convenience and through the course of what we call a year it all works remarkably well.  But on New Year’s Eve we commemorate a measurement of time that has an arbitrary starting point (the birth of a largely forgotten prophet) just over two thousand years ago.  Or to put it another way, someone plucked a point in passed time and said “that’ll do”.

I kind of get why people would celebrate more natural phenomena like Solstice or Equinox, there is something tangible going on and it’s no coincidence that these events fit almost perfectly within our twelve month calendar.  So why did we change?  Bloody Christians.

Horrible Histories 2023

January is always welcome.  I think most of the reason I hate December, apart from the obvious, is the darkness, every day forward takes us deeper into the gloom, shorter days and more dreary dampness.  By the time January gets here the sheep have finished troughing and the Solstice has passed, now every day forward the days are a tiny bit longer and we’re marching towards warmer days.  Although it’s still several weeks away spring is tangible now, it feels real again.

This place of optimism is the ideal vantage point to look back at the river of shit we’ve just waded through that history will call 2023.  With the new year came old problems. Covid was still a thing but it was no longer allowed to stop the wheels of industry from turning.  The former royal known as the Ginger Prince had a book published and there were rumours he may have written it himself but whatever or whoever the sales graph rose like Covid deaths and the overall goal of keeping the whining prick in the news was achieved.  The other tainted prince AKA Randy Andy spent most of 2023 lurking in the shadows which may be sensible but it’s the last place you want to find someone with his form.

In February almost half a million people went on strike which divided opinion but I never missed an opportunity to toot the car horn, power to the posties.  The Royal Mail, once a proud and efficient public service now just another crap courier company paying shareholders while raping their staff.  Talking of sexual offence, serial nonce and inspiration behind many rhyming gags Gary Glitter was locked up again.  You never hear his songs on the radio these days, unlike Michael Jackson.

In March we were talking about Covid again or more to the point the lockdown files which no one was in a hurry to handover to the inquiry staff and provided journalists with an easy buffet for several weeks.  Also another Gary, Lineker on this occasion, had pissed of the fascist media by daring to have an opinion different to theirs.  The former footballer, spud peddler and all round nice chap then played chicken with the BBC and in one of the great sporting fairy stories, actually won.

Spring came with warmer weather, freshening greenness and Extinction Rebellion reminded us of their presence.  They pissed off a lot of people with their form of action and were widely condemned but like their mad cousins Just Stop Oil, I can’t help sympathising with them.  This adverse publicity didn’t stop the Green Party winning its first ever council here in Mid Suffolk and I hope and pray this is the just the beginning.  You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.

The big news of the spring after much head scratching and planning, a massive effort and millions of pounds culminated in a bizarre and pompous ceremony, barely changed since the dark ages, the climax was a massive piece of bling being plonked on Charlie Wing nut’s head.  Royalty, FFS just take a minute to yourself, try to comprehend the concept of royalty.  I know!  They’ve been getting away with this shit for centuries!

Now summer was upon us and the Clown DePfeffel was found guilty of being a cunt and received no kind of censure but TV golden boy Phillip Schofield certainly did.  After surviving last years queue jumping scandal the press got their revenge by accusing him of being a sex pest then a few weeks later bagged a brace by pointing their shit stained fingers at Huw Edwards.  There were certainly fires beneath the smoke surrounding these two TV stalwarts but nothing illegal was ever mentioned.

An Ashes summer should mean it dominates the sporting news for as long as the sun shines and we did get a very good drawn series but it was all squeezed into second billing behind cricket’s bastard offspring the Hundred, I mean can anybody remember who won?  Actually it wasn’t a bad year for international sport; The England women’s football team were world cup runners up behind an excellent Spanish team.  Later in the year England flopped at the 50 over world cup which was eventually won by the bloody Aussies and England’s rugby team done better than anyone expected by reaching the semi final.  We were beaten by the saffers who were the eventual winners but honestly, how did New Zealand not win the world cup?  And while I remember it was a good year for boxing, after much frustration in recent times it looks like the big heavyweight fights will finally happen in 2024.  The British heavyweight champion comes from my own home town and our football team finished the year a division higher and ended the year having won more points and scored more goals than any team in England. 

Sensible politicians spend their summers hiding in tax havens but Greenpeace tried to lure little Rishi out of hiding by climbing onto the roof of his country pile where they unfurled a banner.  Little Rishi managed to survive the year with help from governmental colleagues who deflected attention by dramatically revealing their own stupidity.  All little Rishi had to concentrate on was to avoid saying or doing anything too stupid and the fact he managed to mostly achieve this shows he’s an improvement on his predecessor.  Yup that’s all it takes these days.

Early September was unseasonably hot just when I wanted to go fishing but after the sun came the rain, rain in more rain.  In fact in East Anglia it didn’t stop raining for the rest of the year and we’ve been doused by a succession of named storms and surely the wettest period of my life time?  Another celebrity found himself in bother this autumn and it was no great surprise when the sex pest tag was hurled in Russell Brand’s direction.  There has always been something vaguely slimy about this man but it has to be pointed out that he’s been a vocal critic of the British Establishment and he has about as much chance of a fair trial as Julian Assange.

In the autumn the latest in a long line of “look at me, I’m a cunt” style Tories began her campaign to become the next party leader, taking for granted that little Rishi is a dead duck.  After a succession of foul pronouncements, the pantomime fascist Suella de Vile talked herself out of a job which is exactly what she’d been trying to do.  Little Britain has a new figurehead.

Having grown bored of Ukraine, arms manufacturers needed another shop window and obligingly the whole Israel/Palestine shit storm kicked off again.  It looks like a Hamas suicide mission turned into an Israeli genocide excuse and all manner of horror has befallen since.  In the UK and around the world there have been millions of Pro Palestine supporters marching on the streets.  A new generation has been forced to immerse itself in the troubled history of the region but still many people think saying “FFS the Israeli’s have gone way too far man!” is rampant anti-Semitism, it isn’t.   

As the year drew to a close we lost two great poets in Shane MacGowen and Benjamin Zephaniah and our latest literary sensation, the Ginger Prince was locked in a court room battle against factions of the fleet street scumbags.  I tried to tune out but I think he finished the year how he started it, name making headlines with a few more quid in the bank.  The Ginger Prince vs Fleet Street, unfortunately they can’t both lose.  The Covid inquiry was still ticking on and all the major players were hauled in for an uncomfortable grilling which made it obvious that the British government in 2020/21 were frighteningly inept and obviously corrupt.  It’s a shame nobody pointed that out at the time.  But will they actually get punished?

So, 2024.  What do we have to look forward to? An election in which the Establishment friendly version of the Labour party should win in order to maintain the illusion of democracy.  If Labour wins it won’t be because they’re any fucking use but because the Tory corruption is so transparent even their own supporters are embarrassed.  This should be the end of the Etonians for a while but it’s worth remembering that their grandfathers genuinely believed they were genetically superior to the rest of us, we can’t take our eyes off them.  But wouldn’t it be good if people actually realised this two party face off is nothing more than theatre designed to distract and make us fight each other.  I like to think the generation coming through are smarter than we are and have sussed out that nothing will change if we keep voting for the same old shit.

But apart from that and aside from the wars, famine and poverty that are ever presents of the twenty first century there is still loads of good stuff to do.  Most of this good stuff is seldom mentioned in the news, outside of a two minute slot before the weather at least.  Test cricket starts again in a few weeks, five tests in India and by the time that’s done it will be March and we’ll be able to smell spring. Later on in the year we have home test series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as the arbitrary pyjama cricket.  With longer warmer days the colour will return to the countryside again, time and space to keep doing the things that we love, the things that really bring meaning and happiness to our lives.