No music with this post today, just wanted to let you know that I won’t be posting any new posts for a while as I’m going to New Orleans Louisiana tomorrow for a week, there will be no time for anything while I’m there as the week is already full of tours, parties and all kinds of adventures.
NOLA, as anyone knows, celebrates Hallowe’en like no other city on the planet for the entire month of October. Going to be full of ghouls, witches, wizards, vampires and the walking dead. I will be taking lots of pics while I’m there so expect a few posts on my return to tell you of my adventures.
No music video with this post, sorry if you feel left out but I have had a mare of a few days. Started the week off with listening to a Partly Political Broadcast on behalf of the Ruling Class read by the biggest scrounger of them all, Queen Elizabeth II. Sorry but they are not the Ruling Class, they only think they are. We have been sold out by every Tory Government since 1979, and Blair’s New Labour party forgot their Socialist roots when they swept to power in 1997.
Since 2010 what we used to take for granted would always be there (libraries, schools, hospitals and GP’s) have been eroded by cuts to spending, increased taxation of the working man (working and middle classes) while giving massive tax cuts to the tax avoiding classes. When Cameron said in 2010 “We are all in the same boat, we’re all in this together and all have to tighten our belts” He was of course NOT talking about the tax avoiders, tax scammers with their off shore accounts, or the Government. Again he CONned the British Public. During the campaign ahead of the Scottish Independence Referendum he told the Scottish people that a vote to remain within the UK would mean their currency was safe and would be accepted as legal tender throughout the UK. Another big fat lie, even here in Newcastle (very close to the Scottish Border) it is becoming increasingly difficult to find shops, buses or any one else who will accept a Scottish note without giving you a discount.
We really need to face the facts in the UK, a Tory Brexit deal is not going to come, the Prime Minister will not ask for an extension unless he attaches strings to it in order to ensure there is no extension. He will then crash the UK out with a no deal, renege on the already approved divorce bill, and splinter the UK since Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly in favour of remain. He has no back stop ready for Northern Ireland which will protect the Good Friday agreement (incidentally the DUP voted against this and also campaigned to leave so they will back him up). Ireland will then re-unite and Scotland will have another ally when they seek re-admission as an Independent country. Once Wales declares itself independent from England, BoJo will finally have what he and his supporters in the English Defence League have been seeking for years, an isolated, bankrupt England at the bottom of everyone’s go to list.
Of course, he is still claiming that the people decided in 2016 that they wanted to leave the EU, based on lies, half truths and not knowing what they were really voting for. No party (apart from Labour) is prepared to extend Article 50 (the divorce bill), call a General Election and then negotiate in good faith with the EU before putting this deal to the public so they can decide whether to accept as good a deal as we are likely to be given with Remain as the other option on the referendum. They realise that for a democracy to thrive there has to be a chance for the people to change their minds.
I know this post has denigrated into a political diatribe but Leavers lied, cheated and stole (defying UK and EU data protection laws in the process) to achieve their victory in 2016. If we could have a free and fair referendum then everyone would back the outcome, however, only bigotted idiots choose to ignore they won a slim majority after saying that slim a margin should be used as the basis of a second referendum during the campaigning. Then they wonder why there are so many Remainers shouting about cheating liars winning anything.
A feel good song to make your feet dance and your day brighten. At least it works for me every time. DeBarge from Motown’s Classic Anthems. Video is courtesy of YouTube so apologies if it doesn’t play where you are.
People keep saying you should just ignore everything going on around you, count your blessings and concentrate on the things that make you happy. This song is one of the hundreds of Motown songs which have healed my soul for a few minutes at a time ever since the days of my youth.
Staying with that topic for now since the political landscape is still looking bleak, I enjoy listening to music, even when the radio plays a song I’m not particularly keen on I won’t change the station or switch it off as it will change in a few minutes and that one might be a classic that I haven’t heard for a while. I bought an old compilation from 2017, which I am listening to on repeat at the moment, 101 Motown Anthems. A lot of the songs are from the 1960’s but there are lots from every decade since then and it is one of those compilations with 101 absolute gems, no fillers.
There were a few groups around in my youth who delivered with every single release, albums and singles contained absolute gems and there was no filler anywhere. Unfortunately there were more who delivered an album where the first side totally knocked your socks off but the second side you could leave since it was all filler. I suppose the same is true today, I have yet to hear an Adele song which isn’t a toe tapper, sing along, feel good piece of artistic genius. I know that Ed Sheeran has delivered on every album, so far, so what am I getting at? I haven’t listened to a full album by Eminem, Jay-Z or Kanye since some of their music released as singles I haven’t been able to “get” not their fault I’m just not a huge fan or Rap or Hip-Hop.
That doesn’t mean they haven’t released songs that I have sung along to (or rapped to) same with Aerosmith, Manic Street Preachers, Julian Lennon or Sean Lennon. I listen to albums by the likes of John Lennon and Wings today from time to time but I do try to keep up to date with new music. That’s why I will listen to radio stations on my laptop from time to time, not just Gold or Smooth, but Kiss and Heart as well. If we don’t do things we enjoy from time to time wouldn’t life be incredibly boring?
In today’s political climate, where the USA and UK are being led by criminals working on behalf of Vladimir Putin trying to destroy democracy for who knows what, making time for something fun is a must. If we didn’t do something we enjoy how many more of us would end up so depressed we’d be contemplating (or attempting) suicide? Things are black enough in the wider world so I have decided not to dwell on the blackness for more than an hour a day. (No news channel, just watch my face drop when the news comes on the radio channel) but at least it only lasts for a couple of minutes at a time, generally on the hour.
I’ve given up with the BBC now as well, Jeremy Corbyn is trying to get a Green Deal going in Parliament and is against war, anywhere, Johnson on the other hand is trying to get his people to riot in the streets and is using the police to break up a group of protesters trying to highlight the danger of fossil fuels and fracking to the environment and planet. According to the BBC the biggest threat to national security in the UK isn’t Johnson it’s Jeremy Corbyn.
The BBC is funded by the public, or to put it another way, the 99% in the UK. We deserve a fair broadcaster since we fund it, instead their allegiances lie with the 1% who get tax relief at every turn from the likes of BoJo and tRump. Again that’s it, light relief coming up again or I will get so down I will spiral out of control into the darkness again.
Music has just changed to The Mary Jane Girls (who I had never heard of before listening to this compilation). Just what the doctor ordered, funky music with throw away bass lines and a drum machine keeping the beat. Who doesn’t enjoy music with feel good lyrics? As my good friend once said “Never trust anyone who doesn’t tap their feet or move their hands when listening to Motown or rock music.”
Okay, maybe I paraphrased that slightly he actually said “rock ‘n’ roll music” but you get my gist? Anyway, listening to all the rhetoric from the USA since the announcement of an Impeachment Inquiry would make the blood boil in a snake, if it understood what was happening. That’s why I don’t want to keep on about politics over in the USA just now because there is a big man-baby who keeps sulking every time he gets someone standing up to him. In the immortal words of Mr. Stan Lee (Captain Marvel) ‘Nuff Said!
It’s strange isn’t it that employers today claim to be inclusive and non-discriminatory, until they come across someone like me. I am not like the normal employee where I will remain quiet in order to keep my job. If I see something wrong I report it, if nothing is done I become a whistleblower and then the smelly brown stuff hits the large whirly machine in the corner and I ended up being fired.
This is why whistleblowers are now protected under the law yet the tRump-ster still wants to know the identities of whistleblowers coming forward against him. With his history of sending Barr in to talk to anyone capable of bringing him down in order to tamper with their testimony or, in one case (Epstein) to kill them to shut them up, this should not come as a surprise that he wants to know so he can threaten them in order to prevent them telling the truth about his crimes. Crimes he openly tweets about, then realises they can have him removed from office so deletes them, problem is they are still out there.
On a lighter note since I don’t really want to get bogged down with American politics (not living in America I don’t understand why someone will vote for an independent candidate when the only winners have ever been either GOP or Democrat). Here in Britain at the moment we have a media trying desperately to convince people that the biggest threat today is Jeremy Corbyn, yet when he spoke in Gateshead yesterday there were 5,000 people who couldn’t get in to hear him. Does that sound like the enemy of the people? Of course not, I bet that no major newspaper, the BBC or ITV report on that tomorrow, and they haven’t reported on it at all today.
BoJo has, once again, been found guilty of providing public funds to his American girlfriend yet that will also go unreported. The wonders of propaganda, yet the Conservative Party here is still denying it is doing anything wrong. BoJo was also entrenched with a Romanian delegation last week before announcing that he was going to go to the EU and ask for an extension on 19 October unless they have agreed to his negotiation demands so it kind of looks as though the Romanians have agreed to veto this request (not sure if they can do this since the entire EU council have agreed unanimously to give an extension to Article 50, if requested.
Is this the last ditch attempt of someone desperate to hold onto power come what may? Only the die-hard Brexiteers will accept a no deal on the back of this collusion and tRumpery. It’s now come to light that a lot of those who voted to leave did so to “recreate the British Empire” I wonder how well Americans will be to be conquered (again) in the name of the British Monarch? Come to that Australians, Canadians, Indians and the Chinese in Hong Kong?
If you want to listen to the song (Iron Maiden) connected with this post’s heading then you can find it online. I am not embedding the track from YouTube because I’m not sure whether or not you share my penchant for all genres of music. Besides this post is going to be short and sweet.
I was reminded today of a poster I designed for my wall as a youngster in 1969, it simply read “Today is the first day of the rest of your life!” In turn this reminded me of another poster (words no pictures hence the reason for putting it here) from the Council Office in Leven Council.
It had the heading Why Worry? and went on to say:
You only have two things to worry about:
Either you are well or you are ill.
If you are well you have nothing to worry about.
If you are ill you have two things to worry about:
Either you will recover or you will die.
If you recover you have nothing to worry about.
If you die you only have two things to worry about:
Either you will go to heaven or you will go to hell:
If you go to heaven you have nothing to worry about.
If you go to hell you will be too busy shaking hands with friends who went before you to worry.
So Why Worry?
Profound words indeed, of course, as an atheist I don’t believe in Heaven or Hell, apart from us making them while we are still alive. I accept that I may well be wrong, however, until someone comes back and tells me that they do exist I will continue to believe that we live, not once, but as often as required until we can live a perfect life for the benefit of others. As soon as we do this then death is permanent.
In my honest opinion, since no one knows what happens following death, we can say whatever we like about the after death, no one can ever prove their theories and no one can disprove them either. Why then do we fight wars based purely on religion? One could be just as wrong as any other, or else they could all be right. Who knows? Who cares?
Here in the world today we have more pressing scenes than any one nation acting alone can change. Because of this, I can see no benefit to Brexit only disadvantages. A lot of people are with me on this, if we can try a universal approach rather than an individual approach we can move mountains. Alone we can work to correct the mistakes of the past for ourselves, together we can correct the mistakes and build a future for everyone.
barclaydave 