Reading about Cam's plans for discounted prices for first time buyers under the Cons, I'm stating my objections now.  I don't want my taxes funding lower prices for home buyers, i want them to pay for education, heath services and the welfare state.  It's no wonder the Cons are so into home 'ownership', along with 'marriage'  they are the pillars of capitalism. Keeping your nose to the grindstone to pay for you 'death pledges'.  Once the ring is on, the next step is buying the house after which your life becomes centred on paying the mortgage.  And what does that mean in reality, you get a large loan and over the 20 to 40 years it takes to pay it off, you will have paid for your property twice over.  Then you either end up having to sell it to pay for your care or else you'll leave it to your children to fight over!!  How can you own anything? Everything we have is borrowed, our lives are finite, we can't take any of this with us, we might delude ourselves that we 'own' stuff, but we don't own anything, everything is temporary and all that we have for our use in this lifetime will eventually be like ourselves, dust.  I know so many people who got caught up in the property boom (trap) and are now sitting with huge mortgages and negative equity, we've been conned people!!  If you want to help in the fight against capitalism and greedy bankers, don't buy houses, don't give them your money, keep as much of it to yourself as your can and use it to enjoy your life as much as possible. And if you want to be with someone, just be with them, you don't have to get married!  But if you  have children, DO take care of your responsibilities!!  A happy childhood is the foundation to a good life, and pays better dividends than bankers!!  After all, your children get to decide on your care home!

I was in Letterkenny on Wednesday night to see this show, it was as the title suggests 'fabulous'.  It's a production between Liam O'Maonlai and the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre performing to Liam's solo album Rian.  They have toured venues all over Europe with this show and it is definitely worth going to see.  They are in Longford tonight, Sligo tomorrow night and  Carrick on Shannon on Sunday night, so if you are in the west of Ireland, do yourself a favour and check this out, you won't regret it!

What a let down!  My most sincere condolences to all in the 'Yes' camp, i really hoped you would win. It's really ironic, the 'no' vote was for the status quo but because of the vote, things are going to change anyway!!!  All you 'no's' should just have voted yes......

Things will change for Scotland and the rest of us but i think the real losers here are going to be the working class in England, the possibility of Tory rule forever in England is just too depressing to contemplate, you have my sincerest sympathy!  Say goodbye to the NHS if the Tories get in again!

Good luck to Alex Salmond, he did a great job, sorry he didn't get the result, but i bet there are many today who voted no and now regret it.  Imagine that, you voted AGAINST your own country, that is something you have to live with!

If there is one thing I've learned about life, it's that you never really get over anything. Whatever trauma, sorrow or heartbreak you may have suffered, you won't fully get over it, the best you can do is to try and find ways to live with it.  Over time you will cry less but no matter how well you may appear to be, it doesn't take much scratching at the surface to realize the pain is still there, hovering somewhere below the surface and then there are always those dates, songs or other triggers that remind us of our losses.  And that is the hardest lesson to learn in life, how to cope with loss, whether it's saying goodbye to those we love or recovering from trauma, continuing through the daily grind is the toughest battle of all.  

A while back i was given poems that were written by a young man callled John Jones from Enniskillen in Co Fermanagh who died in 1979, aged just 22.  Tomorrow is his anniversary so I thought i would put up one of them.  This is my favourite one and perfectly captures the dark misery that was 1970's N. Ireland.  It was dated Oct 1978 and this month also has deep resonance for me as it was one of the darkest periods of my life.

The Town I Love So Well

They sipped from cups of steamy welcome tea

and fag ends hissed as they hit the water.

The traffic lights were amber, the cinema closed

As they plunged once more with twilight sneaking.

The peckish crowds drew lots for a better view, 

Their consensus instability, despite his tender years

and that Daglish would surely hit the thirty mark.

The paper boy dripped when they brought him up.

His feet were encased in two large pumpkins

And already the pike had nibbled at his flesh.

He left no note and no one mentioned murder.

Going back to the politics,  I've been doing a lot of thinking about the problems, economic and otherwise that are afflicting the UK at the present time, and the biggest and least acknowledged obstacle to improving life for the majority, is the class system. This hierarchy of privilege is what is stifling the entire country and stopping any real progression both socially and economically. So in order to get the UK moving, real action is needed and the place to start is the House of Lords.  

Firstly, every county would have one representative and the 20 largest cities one representative as well.  London, being the capital would have two, one from North London and one from South London. One of the criteria for representing your city or county would be that you would have to be permanently resident there.  Next, I would have a representative for the top 10 religious groups, ethnic minorities, charities, unions and a couple of representatives from business, farming and the industrial sector. There should also be a representative from the NHS and the armed forces. Then, there would be past Prime Ministers and one representative from all the political parties with seats in the House of Commons. I would also give a seat to the monarch and their immediate heir because, although i completely disagree with the whole business of monarchy, I would still leave that decision to the people in a referendum. I also feel that as the Head of State, they should be entitled to a say; all voting in the Upper Chamber would of course be by secret ballot.

So that's the starting point, none of these ideas are set in stone as yet but it starts the debate. I would also get rid of all the titles handed out by the Queen, it only gives people delusions of grandeur and promotes division is society. The Queen, if she was still there, could hand out medals or something instead.

I would also introduce fair employment legislation to Britain, we have it here in N, Ireland because of all the problems in the past/present, and it was news to me that it didn't exist in the rest of the UK, so that would be one of the first steps to creating a more meritocratic society and it would help to break up the 'old boy networks' that discriminate against the working classes and deprive them of opportunities to advance.

So that's the starting point for my political alternative, comments as usual are always welcome.

I haven't posted much on the blog in the last year. I had to defer my course DD203, from last year too but i'm picking up again now and can't wait to get started.

I had a bad year, the worst for quite some time, from heart-break to sickness and death, it was a tsunami of grief which hasn't quite ended yet but life goes on and so must I.

I'm looking forward to getting back into politics, the world is shifting and last year saw the balance shift from west to east when Russia and China usurped the US over Syria. I think history will see this as the turning point.  

Russell Brand editing the New Statesman was interesting too, although i don't agree with his call not to vote, the usuals will still get in because their supporters will still turn out, and if we give up our right to vote, then you get minority governments (like the present incumbents) getting it all their way. If you don't like it, do something about it, start a new party maybe, (something which has been on my mind). I'm working on a restructure of the House of Lords which I'll post shortly. And our vote is the only voice we have, maybe at the next election we should all turn out and vote for the candidate who is the least likely to do any harm.

I've been decorating all week and the muscles are feeling it, I haven't done anything much for months and the shock of some activity has made me realise how I've let my fitness go.  Time to get back to something!

This poem is dedicated to all those lost loves who have broken our hearts and sometimes their own too.  The title comes from a text message I received from my daughter one day, the sky was very heavy and dark and she had said in her text the clouds were skyscraper black.  I don't know if she mispelled something or if she meant that but it struck me immediately as a great description, and this poem just poured out it.

Skyscraper Black

Searching across a moon dark shore

Leaving midnight traces in the sand

I follow the trail of my lost love

To this distant other-worldly land

I feel the grief of other lonely souls

Moving in shadowed circles around my head

Crying for life and dreams not realized,

For hopes and wishes now long dead.

For I was loved, though he is now gone,

My heart remains clasped firmly in his hand

And feeling his presence still, I follow

His ghostly foot trails across the sand.

Now, standing alone along this darken'd shore,

Lost between his reality and my dream

I wait for the sun to rise and lighten

The skyscraper blackness in my soul

If rumours of a possible appearance by Noel Gallagher as a judge on the X Factor are true then all I can say is ‘NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! Please Noel, don’t do it, pulleeeeese!

If this turns out to be true, then it will go down as another black day in the history of human kind, like the day the first McDonalds opened in Moscow or the day Robert Plant accepted a knighthood. It’s a bitter disappointment when your heroes sell out, Plant I could overcome to some degree, at least he was English but Bob Geldof will never be forgiven.  His honorary knighthood, for Live Aid, was just too much. Firstly, because he was Irish but mainly because he came to fame on the punk wave of the late 70’s, this made it doubly unforgiveable. You sold your soul Geldof, but not to rock and roll, shame on you!!!

My first big music hero, like many others, was none other than David Bowie, and recent reports of a comeback were a surprise to me because he’s always been a regular in my music collection so, for me, he has always been there. David Bowie was my first love and I still love him, even more so now because I read recently that he turned down both a CBE and a knighthood. Way to go Bowmeister, I’ll luv ya forever!!!

My favourite Bowie album is Hunky Dory but my favourite song is Drive in Saturday from the Aladdin Sane album, the saxophone on that song raises the hairs on the back of my neck every time I hear it.  Aladdin Sane was my teenage rebellion album, songs like Time, with its sexually provocative lyrics used to drive my mother nuts, her being ultra Catholic, so I used to ramp the volume up whenever it came on.

The TV is so crap these days, I’ve been listening to a lot more music recently, George Harrison has been getting a lot of play round my house and I’m awaiting the arrival of a Sparks CD, Kimono My House, remember them from the 1970’s, I loved the strangeness of the Mael brothers.  I’m going to stick my neck out and predict a renewed interest in them.

By the way, none of these albums belonged to me, they belonged to my older brother who had great taste in music and it was through him that I was first introduced to Bowie. He still has all his albums too, now there’s a collection worth robbing!!  Although, I probably have most of the same albums now, anyway. My brother didn’t allow us to play his records and used to keep them locked up in a case but my sister and I were able to open the lock with a hair clip and played them when he was out, well, what’s the point of having older siblings if you can’t borrow their stuff!

I didn’t have the money to buy LP’s when I was young but I got a job the summer I turned 13 and bought my first Bowie single, Young Americans. I haven’t bought the new CD yet but it’s on my to-buy list. Bowie has so much symbolism for my generation, he was never just a singer, he was an artiste, and he drove the parents crazy! 

That’s one thing I really miss about the changes to how we buy our music, there’s nothing special about downloading a piece of music compared to buying an LP which had its own ritual. Everything was much more expensive back in the day.  You had to save your pocket money if you wanted to buy an LP. Then, when you had the money saved, there was the whole experience of going around your local music shops, and spending a Saturday afternoon just browsing through the records before deciding what to buy. There would be deep discussions between you and your friends before the purchase would be made, as the covers were taken out and examined in detail.  LP covers were like works of art and there were some amazing ones, like Led Zeppelin’s, Physical Graffiti or the futuristic landscapes on the great prog rock band, Yes’s covers. Browsing through the records was probably the teenage equivalent of walking around an art gallery now. Then when you had made your purchase and headed out around town to show it off to your peers. Now, that was a big deal, everyone would ask what you had bought and your coolness lived and died by it, and if your choice was approved you walked tall all day. 

There are many advantages to all our modern technology but it is robbing us of so many great experiences too, and I am grieving the loss of HMV. There are only two shops I love to visit now, HMV was one, the other is any bookshop anywhere, and they’re rapidly disappearing too. If the local bookshop goes, I’ll have no reason to go out again. It seems, the more connections we make online, the less connections we have with real people out in the real world. Sad...

One for the working classes whose political voice is rapidly disappearing, in and out of Parliament.  Free market economics are fine if they apply to all, but workers are forbidden from joining unions and striking, the law is skewed in favour of practices that favour employers. Banks gamble and lose, and the tax payer is left to pick up the bill; so where is the ‘free’ in the free market?  Are we under the Orwellian, ‘everyone is free only some are more free that others’ or are those on top ‘free’ to exploit those on the bottom?  Time for a wake up call.

Alarm Call

Wake up the working classes!

Wake up! Wake up!

Your life is disappearing,

down the drain

While you watch TV

That’s rotting your brain.

A cell killing diet

of soap from the sink.

Until, you no longer know

what it is, to think.

                        2

Wake up the working classes!

Wake up! Wake up!

Your future hopes

Are being cut away,

While you sit dreaming

of stardom in X-Factor

for your son or daughter.

Blinded by celebrity:

wake up and face-up to,

the con of this ‘reality’!

                        3

Wake up the working classes.

Wake up! Wake up!

You’ve forgotten your history

The story of your labour,

What your ancestors fought and died for.

Remember Tolpuddle and Peterloo,

The Suffragettes and Miners

As citizens, not subjects,

This nation is not one class,

It is your country too.

Reading through some of my notes this morning I was drawn to a passage in my politics book, (we’re on ideology at the moment) about Simone de Beauvoir and her book, The Second Sex, where she suggested that the female body made them amenable to being constructed as a man’s ‘other’. Well I was thinking about this, and I concluded that you could say exactly the same about a man’s body, it really all depends on who’s on top!!

Now, for those of you who may not know this, Simone was the long time love of Jean Paul Sartre who wrote The Age of Reason. If there is anyone out there who ever got to the end of this book, then stand up and take a bow because you deserve a gold medal for endurance. I have tried on several occasions to read this and maybe, it’s the practical side of me, or something but I thought this was the most overblown pretentious piece of navel gazing I ever had to endure.

The main character has got his girlfriend pregnant, now this character is not 16 or 18, this guy is, as far as memory serves, around 30, he’s running around trying to get her an abortion and all I could think was ‘grow up and take care of your responsibility, because if you weren’t prepared to face the consequences of your actions then you should have kept it in your pants’. To me this was all a non issue, it was just a story about a man trying to avoid the reality that it was time to grow up which unfortunately IS the reality for 90% of the women in this country.

A friend recently sent me an email extolling all the virtues of Thomas Jefferson and all that he achieved in his life and all the way down reading it, I was thinking, ‘ Well, that’s very interesting, he was able to do all that because there was obviously a woman at home who did all the cooking and cleaning and childcare, leaving him free to think and act.  I bet he never cleaned the toilet in his life!’ Which is not to take anything away from how brilliant he was, but just how brilliant could we ALL be if we were freed from the drudgery of housework?

So, on the question of domestic drudgery and gender equality in the home, here is the argument as to why it should be shared by EVERYONE! I call it the ‘Everyone principle’, well why not, I can be as pretentious as Sartre when I need to.

EVERYONE lives in the house, EVERYONE uses the facilities so it’s the responsibility of EVERYONE to care for and maintain them.  That’s it, plain and simple.

‘If only it were!’, I hear you cry. Now men will argue that the women stand over them and criticise how they do things, fair enough, I accept that does happen. But the thing about housework is this, we’ve been doing it for many more years than you, and there is a method to it which we have perfected from all the practice we have had. 

So, in order to stop this argument, here’s my advice for women, SHOW them how it’s done, don’t just tell them to do it. Show them the method and don’t criticise them if they don’t get it right first time, just recognise that they need MORE practice. For men, just LET her show you how it’s done, it just a job that needs doing, it’s not a threat to your masculinity (whatever that may be) and remember it’s your home too, so take care of it. 

By, the way this advice applies to the children as well, they are quite capable of doing some housework, within reason and depending on age. I mean, tie a couple of dusters to the hands and knees of that crawling baby and get the floor polished as they go along, simple! 

Just use your imagination and maybe some day, we can all grow up to be brilliant.