Every morning whilst I am swimming - by the by, have I mentioned that every . . . oh, right, I'll move on then, shall I? - anyway, as I paddle up and down I mull over various possibilities to write about when I get home. However, before I write anything I usually skim through my favourite blogs including EU Referendum the blog of Dr. Richard North. As I have mentioned before, it is a blog only suited to the brave and the hardy because it is rather like stepping into a freezing cold power-shower! If you are feeling rather pleased with yourself and the world, believe me, Dr. North will blast the feeling away within seconds. But my complaint is not against the icy winds of realism that whistle around his blog, it is against the number of times he has pre-empted my thoughts. Is he a mind-reader? If so, I'm thinking of sending him an invoice - unless, and this has only just occurred, perhaps it is a case of 'great minds with but a single thought'. Yes, that's more like it!
Anyway, I have become more and more irritable because for the last two days (and for the next two, as well) I have been unable to watch or listen to the news because it is filled with nothing but vacuous ramblings about what's in, what's out, what's up, what's down, in the farce which we still continue to call our 'Budget Day'. Driving back from the pool, and switching radio stations to avoid the aimless budgetary chatter, I determined to write a really cranky piece about what a complete waste of oxygen it all was but then, clicking on EU Referendum, I see that Richard North has already done it and, bugger it, done it much better than me. So I might as well quote him:
Today, I am told, is Budget Day, when the preposterous George Osborne is going to tell us how our administration is going to screw us this year. There will be some changes around the margins, and some people might end up being slightly less screwed than they have been, while others will suffer more.
As such, the actual budget speech has largely become a media event, missing from which will be any serious indication that Osborne and his merry little men have any grip at all on our public finances. And those who need an illustration of this need look no further than the Proverbs 26:11 type situation with carbon capture, where £1 billion of our money is poised to make its final nose-dive to oblivion.
For you ignoramuses, er, like me, unable to remember quite what words of wisdom were written in Proverbs 26.11, allow me to inform you and suggest that they are entirely appropriate:
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.
Dr. North finishes his post, and believe me it is by no means the most severe I have read, thus:
Such is the nature of the media circus, though, and the triviality of its coverage – together with the administration's ability to set the agenda – that the news headlines today (and tomorrow) will be dominated by budget fluff, while our wealth pours down the drain virtually unrecorded.
And, hard though it is to believe, very few people will even notice, preferring as they do the soap opera to the cold wind of reality.
See what I mean? Er, about Richard North, that is, as well as the useless MSM dancing to the tune of the government's puppet-masters.
Now, my problem is, what the hell do I write about next?
"Now, my problem is, what the hell do I write about next?"
If it's request time, I'd like to suggest that you address the topic of John Berk-cow and his kaleidoscope queens.
Open goal. Just tap it in to keep us happy...
Posted by: Whyaxye | Wednesday, 21 March 2012 at 12:14
Has he put up the tax on cider? Because if he has we'd better hotfoot it to Messrs Majestic (who stock a fine Suffolk cider).
Posted by: dearieme | Wednesday, 21 March 2012 at 14:25
'W', I do try to please my customers, so to speak, but that is a request too far!
DM, sorry, but I wouldn't cross the road for a glass of cider whatever the price - and 'Oi lives in Zomerzet, too'!
Posted by: David Duff | Wednesday, 21 March 2012 at 17:31
"Now, my problem is, what the hell do I write about next?"
Back to 'Homeland', matey.
P.S. a ciderphobe? Shame on you.
Posted by: dearieme | Thursday, 22 March 2012 at 19:48
Oh God, DM, I've just remembered I have a recorded episode unwatched which is, I suppose, an unspoken commnet!
Sorry about the cider, but "it's all according to taste as the man said when he kissed the cow"! An old saying of my Ma's and she was a 'Jockette'!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 23 March 2012 at 13:21