Bleak Midwinter

The first snow of this year's winter is falling.It's grey and cold.Economic news is depressing, the most depressing its been since I was a young man. You wonder how your children will survive in this new world order of austerity and no work for the young. This Government seems to have  run out of ideas  and now keeps simply keeps repeating the cuts cuts cuts mantra. On the other side we have the two Eds and their spend spend spend mantra which we already know didn't work.  Neither side seems to be able to move on. 

Capitalism is in crisis but where is the change going to come from? The answers are in history. Good article by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian yesterday on that subject. Economics though is like religion you either believe or you don’t and  the other side  is damned to hell for eternity.


What I do know though is that we borrowed too much, paid too much to too few , regulated the financial sector too lightly, went to war too quickly, exported manufacturing jobs too readily  and  thought too easily- because we were told- that boom and bust had ended.  

Another Song You Should Hear

This song popped into my head the other day. I dug out the vinyl and played it. Still so powerful 30 years on. Maybe it is all the reports into the riots, blaming the Police and their "oppression" that made me think of this. As a middle aged, middle class white male I never have any problems with the Police. Even as a youngster my contact in suburban Hertfordshire was minimal and mainly confined to a couple of times when names were taken for being young and out late at night. I work closely with the Police in my job and my impressions of them are that they are decent men and women , not too bright mostly but very world weary and cynical.

I was moved to hook up the record player to the PC and make this the first song I have transferred from vinyl  for your enjoyment.

I saw Linton Kwesi Johnson the year this came out (1979). My memory is more of Rico and the brass section than the rather serious and sombre Mr Johnson who looked ill at ease performing his poetry to a mainly white audience at The Marquee.

This pre dates rap and is closer to "toasting" that many reggae artists did at the time. The song is from the album Forces Of Victory which is well worth buying. 

I didn't  know what happened to Linton Kwesi Johnson after this so I Googled him here.

Sonny's Lettah ( Anti Sus Poem)- Linton Kwesi Johnson

STRIKE!

It has been a long couple of weeks since my last post. My wife came down with two  very heavy colds, one after another, which made her (more) irritable and grumpy. To be fair she hasn’t been well since she had the flu jab in mid November.

Late autumn in North East England has settled into its grey, damp darkness. This time last year we had the snow. I am sort of missing that. At least it was bright and sunny with beautiful Clear Blue Skies. Now we have darkness in the morning, and darkness from late afternoon.

I am running home from work at least twice a week still. This is good and I have put on only half a pound since the Kielder marathon. We are coming up to food fest time of year so I need to be careful I don’t overdo it during December.

My daughter is working hard at college on her degree. My son has been his usual uncommunicative self but says things are fine in Bordeaux .

This week is strike week for us so an interrupted week.I don't mind working longer, I don't even mind (much) paying more towards my pension. I do ,however, object to my extra contributions going to reduce a deficit I didn't create. It's a pay cut really on top of three years of a pay freeze with 4-5% annual inflation. 

Is It Too Soon For that Christmas Feeling?

 

I only ask because work wise things have slowed down as if Christmas is next week not still 5 weeks away.

 

The wife and I went for our first Christmas foray into Town on Saturday. Fairly busy but no one as yet has the mad look of panic in the eye.

 

The busiest road in Newcastle (in my opinion) runs by my office and that has already started to have the mid morning Christmas tail backs. I suppose for those of us lucky enough to still be in jobs in the pubic sector and the North East there is only one more pay day before Christmas and two years into our pay freeze we need to spend over a longer period rather than leave it all til December.

 

Daughter is back from Portsmouth and from welcoming sailor boy back to Blighty after seven months at sea. Our son is in Bordeaux and has booked his flights home for Christmas so we know he is coming home but not sure for how long.

 

Not started listening to Christmas music yet but have discovered Smooth have launched a Christmas radio station playing only Xmas hits. No ads. Wife is already watching the Sky Christmas Movie Channel

 

But I’ll hold off on the Ho Ho Ho for a few more weeks. 

Technology Changing

We all accept that things change in the world of technology. 25 years ago CDs made vinyl old hat overnight. And 10 years ago Apple revolutionised the small portable  Walkman digital music market with their IPod and  CDs suddenly seemed old fashioned.

Before the late 1990's the majority of people only had access to the Internet at work and then mostly for emails. We bought our first PC  Christmas 1999 and had a dial up connection via AOL. The memory on the PC was 8GB! My current desktop has 250gb and I have a separate external Hard drive with an additional 250gb and I still worry about running out of space for my “must have" data! And near universal Broadband has made dial up almost obsolete. I can take my laptop to Costa or Starbucks and numerous other places and browse the Net  on their wireless service for little or no cost and at  speeds undreamed of 15 years ago.

My new (Smart) HD TV has access to the Internet (wireless connection to my router) and I watch BBC iPlayer and HD You Tube videos on my 42” TV from the comfort of my armchair.Picture quality is superb

Even mobiles (and my kids cannot comprehend how we managed before mobiles especially when I tell them that my first mobile was issued after much pressure from me via work only in 1993)have changed too and it is commonplace to access the internet on them. In fact I can often be found watching You Tube music videos on my  HD TV Googling the band’s website on my wife’s Blackberry.

What has brought this all on is a couple of recent Skype chats with our son who is in Bordeaux. Now I know Skype is not new and in some senses old hat but it still impresses me. Growing up and watching Dr Who and Star Trek we dreamed of this sort of technology and now here it is. I wonder how soon before we get “beamed up” to our destinations rather than drive/fly?

So there we were sat in our kitchen in suburban Newcastle, me, the wife, sister and brother in law chatting to our son in suburban Bordeaux. Sound quality as good as most phone calls, picture quality more than acceptable (we could see that his spots had cleared up). Via his Web Cam (built into his laptop) he gave his Aunt and Uncle a tour of his apartment and we all sat there in Newcastle marvelling at it all.

Then we signed off and ordered a curry from the local excellent takeaway which got delivered to our door. It's not just technology that has changed