Money Well Spent?

Every week I read the Stourbridge Chronicle (for that is where I am from) and a local story has recently caught my attention. The annual Stourbridge Harvest Festival - enjoyment for all the family - has been cancelled because financial resources have instead been ploughed into Diamond Jubilee celebrations and Olympic fanfare. I imagine this type of cancellation is happening in other areas also. So it’s nice to know that the apparent ‘trickle-down’ effect from big events to local businesses is clearly in effect … or, in fact, not. The demonstrations of national grandeur have actually hindered more regional community enjoyment. It’s almost as if London takes priority! No surprise there.

And in a separate development, I’ve recently discovered that local housing authorities in England are only legally obliged to help homeless people if the destitute are in ‘priority need’, e.g. have dependent children, are victims of domestic violence or natural disasters, are disabled, etc. So if I (who would not fall into a ‘priority need’ category) were to become homeless, I would be left for muggers to gladly beat the shit out of me on the street! I’m not saying it would be easy in these austere times to find funding for everyone, but even a safe room to squat in would surely be better than a cold pavement. Good old right-wing Britain: don‘t bother to help everybody because a few of them might sort themselves out and the rest hopefully won‘t get noticed!

Five Olympic Dreams ... Kind Of

So, the Olympics are upon us, and I’m not really bothered. Well, I’m bothered that the B.B.C. Parliament Channel has been temporarily replaced by Olympic coverage; apparently politics - you know, the governing of the world - is less important than sport. And I’m bothered that the opening ceremony is being given a two hour countdown programme; I don’t mean the show that used to be hosted by Richard Whiteley, I mean literally two hours of counting down. Therefore, here are five suggestions for alternative activities that you could be doing instead of watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

1. Go for a walk. It may sound simple, but most vapid members of society will be watching the ceremony with simplistic awe and fascination, so you would probably only be sharing the streets / countryside with other cool folks.

2. Have a drink in a local pub. Of course be sure to pick one without a television set in order to avoid the deluded pomp and grandeur; then strike up a conversation with another fellow drinker and advance local community spirit.

3. If you know someone who is willing to have sex with you, try to break Olympic records for duration!

4. Phone up your local M.P. and inform them that national identity has more to it than just sport. Rant on about all of your concerns for this country until they’ve missed at least half of the ceremony.

5. Just enjoy the sunshine - you know it’s not gonna be here for long.

One Of The Greatest Poems Of All Time

By A. E. Housman

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbor to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.

Reform Hypocrisy

House of Lords reform has thankfully hit the rocks this week. Some reform is required, of course: woefully outdated hereditary peerages do indeed need to be abolished; Lords who do not turn up to work on a frequent basis should have their title stripped; and as far as I’m concerned all new members should now be appointed by the independent House of Lords Commission in order to avoid party political cronyism which has plagued the House in the past. But the reforms that have recently been suggested went too far: electing most members will all but eradicate any Lords being appointed due to expertise, and vitally important cross-benchers will be diminished; the frequent petty bickering of the Commons may quickly edge itself into the Lords as the two houses would become more similar; and the bishops (even though reduced in number) will still have too much influence - I mean they can’t even agree on equal employment opportunities for women! So before reforms are implemented that would apparently ‘democratise’ the House of Lords, perhaps it is the House of Commons that actually requires modernisation in order to bring it more in line with most other workplaces in society. Therefore, here are my three suggestions for the Commons: 1. M.P.s are only allowed 28 days holiday per year (including bank holidays), and each holiday has to be authorised to ensure that there aren’t too many other Members holidaying at the same time; 2. Absence through sickness for more than a week requires a doctor’s note if wages are to be paid, and frequent absence may result in a disciplinary hearing; and 3. Parliament may be forced to sit at weekends if the Speaker arbitrarily decides that it is necessary. Yes, those reforms would certainly give the country more of the feeling that we are all in it together!

Portrayals Of Unreality

Soap operas (or as they’re now pretentiously called, continuing dramas) are bad for society. In order to continue the soaps in perpetuity, the writers portray characters - which are apparently meant to represent people you might meet in real life - as leaping from one scandal to another in a reactionary, overly emotive fashion, to the extent where people have taken this hot-headed and hyperbolic attitude so much to their hearts that most reality TV nowadays goes out of its way to copy this behaviour. Any Big Brother or X Factor contestant seems to convince themselves that they’re in a soap opera and accordingly overreacts to pretty much anything! I think people should calm down a little in general and realise that escapism can be found in much more realistic, intelligent and aspirational aspects in programmes that do not go on for ever and do not require a weekly phone-in. And on the subject of realism or lack thereof, wouldn’t it be refreshingly honest occasionally if someone on Facebook didn’t constantly pretend that their lives and relationships were rosy? Every now and again I’d prefer it if somebody just updated their status as: “Had a massive row with my partner last night about whether to get engaged, it was bitter. But still, that‘s life, we‘ll probably make up in a couple of days over a pizza and a shag.” Relationships are not perfect, and blindly attempting to convince all seven hundred of your ‘friends’ that nothing ever goes wrong is self-delusional.

Finality

It has been reported this week that a man from Britain has been convicted of supplying cannabis in the United Arab Emirates; he is now facing the death penalty. Regardless of whether this man is innocent or guilty, and regardless of the issue that perhaps people shouldn’t really be travelling to countries with backward legal systems, I fundamentally oppose the death penalty. As a civilised human being I do not believe it is my place, or anyone else’s, to take another human life against their will. Even for those criminals who have taken a life themselves by committing murder, I feel it is important for a decent society to rise above those criminals by not performing similar acts. If an enraged relative or close friend of a victim took lethal action against the perpetrator of a heinous crime, I would have a significant degree of empathy, but for a country or state to sanction killing outside the confines of warfare / self-defence is, in my opinion, taking things to a lower level of morality that we should all be trying to avoid. I am proud to say that in the United Kingdom nobody has been executed since 1964.

Right To Die

In 2005, Tony Nicklinson had a stroke which left him completely paralysed but with a fully functioning mind, a condition termed locked-in syndrome. He is married, has two children, is now 58 years old, and is contemplating assisted suicide at some point in the near future. But as he is a considerate man, he is seeking legal protection for any sympathetic doctor who would do the decent thing and help Mr Nicklinson to end his life. Yet the Ministry of Justice believes such a ruling would authorise murder. Seriously?! That would be classed as murder?! Mr Nicklinson, who communicates (I imagine very slowly) through a computer system, says he is living a nightmare of indignity as other people have to do everything for him. He describes his life as “dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable”, and that it is gradually getting worse. Anyone who says that this poor man should have to endure this traumatic level of existence against his will should be ashamed of themselves. Also, isn’t this discriminatory against the rights of disabled people who can’t control what happens to them? Most people hope never to have to contemplate suicide, but those that do have a choice, except Mr Nicklinson! I sincerely hope that he gets what he is seeking.