DIGITAL - WE ARE LOSING OUR HERITAGE.

The descendents of John Law are sitting in the ruins of Mexborough High Street in 2287.  They are dressed in skins.  They are cooking in an old bin, over a fire.  One of them says: "Good job those folk in the 2000,s supped loads of tea and left us all these nice silver coasters".

I have got approximately 2,000,000 digital photos on my PC (or so it seems).  Some of them are quite nice. They are all imaginary. They only exist as a series of 1's and 0's in cyberspace.  When civilisation collapses, as it will, (some say it has already), all these images, along with everyone else's will vanish and we will be left with a load of plastic crap that no one will be able to fathom.

Same goes for all the music made after 1920 when records came along. Only the folk world is maintaining a record of any musical heritage.  All will be lost in the fires of our descent back into savagery.

Artists preserve some of todays world in paint or other media, so there will be something. Perhaps some sort of hard copy record of the world today should be made NOW before it's too late.

THIS ENGLAND.

I have just read a book that made me cry.  Not the first time either, as I have read it quite a few times over the years. It is "England Their England" by A G MacDonnell (Macmillan 1933).    I particularly recommend pages 226 - 243.  It is written by a Scotsman in London, not long after WW1, giving a view of the current state of England, from the point of view of a visitor.

It looks at the upper classes and their games; working class people; The League of Nations and more, but the most moving part is the conversation in a country pub, with the old gaffers, some of whose parents had seen Lord Nelson and the like. Lovely quotes such as:  'There is a list of 24 bowmen from the village who went to Agincourt in 1415, eighteen of the same names are on the village war memorial for the Great War'.  Thaey lament the changing state of the country, the change of sos follwing fathers into such trades as thatching, leaving to be mechanics etc.

Another telling quote: " But can you tell me sir, what national honour ever did for me?  I worked the land all my life and the least I earned was 4 and 6 a week and the most 29 shillings.  In 1914 a man came down and gave a speech about 'National Honour', Mind you Sir I was getting 24 shillings a week for 72 hours, but i had to give three sons and eight grandsons to fight for the National honour. Eleven of them, three were killed and two lost legs and what good did that do to them or me, or Mr Davis, or Mr Darley here. We can't afford our beer or our tobacco and the grandsons that weren't killed can't get work."

There is an equally telling piece about the local landowner worrying about his tenants and others about distinct regionalism and accent,  fading away.

What would Cameron, the narrator, say of today's homogenised blend of Briton, where it is almost illegal to be English and the kids talk in a mid-Atlantic argot, punctuated by squeals and shouts of AWESOME from the girls and monosyllabic grunting from the boys.  A land where free speech is more or less forbidden and holding an opinion that is not blessed by the PC Nazis is tantamount to a crime?

Nostalgia for a lost past is a commonplace facet of all society. The lost past involved ricketts and TB; workhouses and illiteracy. It gave us Fascism and world wars. It gave us slavery and discrimination, not only of race, but class as well.  All societies change, but has ours changed for the better?  In some ways: healthcare; technology (like it or not); integration, but hatred is something that brings England into disrepute. The fairness and tolerance of the Englishman is lauded in the book, but I look around and I see the mindless hatred of the Muslim for the Christian and the hatred of the Fascist EDL and BNP for Islam and I despair for our future.

WHO TO VOTE FOR???

I have voted Labour all my life. I am from a mining background in the Labour heartland of South Yorkshire. The Labour party that brought us the NHS, the jewel in the UK's crown,  and the feeling that even Labour politicians, were in touch with the working class however, has gone. They are indistinguishable from the Tories and the LapDogs.
What we have is a bunch of characterless political beasts. whose CV is mainly full of towels folded and arses licked.  Milliband is a buffoon, with no personality, who was made leader to keep his somewhat more charismatic brother out: no personalities in New Labour thank you, may remind us of the conman Blair.  Balls is eponymous. The odious Harperson and the PC brigade have done much to make Labour a laughingstock in the eyes of the voters.
But; who to vote for?
The Tories, who have shown themselves to be in complete harness to their corporate paymasters and have blatantly favoured the rich at the expense of the poor and needy?  The LapDogs, finished as a political force, after selling themselves and their ideals for a sniff of ersatz power? The joke UKIP?

When will the UK see politicians with ideals and a sense of purpose and fair play for ALL?
As Rich Hall said in his Texas programme the other night: 'Politics, from the greek word 'poli' - many and 'ticks', blood-sucking leeches...

HASH BROWNS.

I have just seen a comment on Facebook concerning the traditional 'Full English' breakfast, that asked: 'where are the hash browns?'

Hash browns?  Hash fucking browns?  How long have hash browns been part of the English breakfast?  I'll tell you how long...

Hash browns are part of the trend that makes every young person in the UK think they were born in fucking Springfield; say 'AWESOME' every ten seconds and squeal while tottering about in Keds.

It is why the spell-checker on British NATIONAL newspapers is set to American and asks you if you mean 'realize' when you type realise.

It is why people refer to their butt instead of their arse and why we have Proms FFS!!!! Proms... the kids look nice, but the expense and the overriding sense of smugness is direct from the Great Satan.

As for Trick or Fucking Treating - AAAAAAARRRGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!

It is people giving you the fucking finger instead  of flagging you off. Bastards.

It is why MTV and its ilk have transformed our kids into clones of Sabrina the Fucking Teenage Witch.

It is why they watch films like Tangled; Epic and all the others, that feature the same young, American teen, with exactly the same persona and annoying voices that our kids emulate.


Get this straight:  hash browns are no more part of an English breakfast than Bart Fucking Simpson goes to Mexborough Comp (although there are quite a few of the little twats that try to be like him!!!!)

BLOODY SCHOOLS

Schools and teachers get a terrible press. I was a teacher and am glad to be out of it. The kids have taken over the asylum.  There is no punishment for anything; no one can win, because that means that some feckless little toerag might lose.  Most of the money schools get goes on making excuses for the disruptive; the stupid; the ignorant and the just plain thick... oh, sorry - the government says there are no thick kids, just bad teachers. Well fuck me, but at my school there are loads of the stupid little tossers. This is the same government that insists that every child shall be above average!

The parents are just as bad. They either don't give a fuck, or are convinced that their little angel couldn't possibly have done anything wronG and anyway the teachers are picking on him. NO THEY ARE NOT; HE/SHE IS A STUPID LITTLE PILLOCK WITH A BAD ATTITUDE.  Oh, but he/she has dyslexia/ADHD. NO THEY DON'T BECAUSE IN MOST CASES THESE ARE JUST A CRUTCH FOR PARENTS OR ARE IAGNOSED SO THE FECKLESS FUCKERS CAN GET MORE BENEFITS.

Don't get me wrong, most kids at school are nice and trying to do their best, but these disruptive little arseholes are ruining everyone else's chances and the system is allowing it, nay, encouraging it!

COLD COMFORT

                        It’s Cold Comfort, when the bitch makes you wait,

                        Just shrugs you aside, when your Giro is late.

                        You’ve no cash for the rent and the kids need their bread.

                        But you need condescension like a hole in the head.

                        She tells you you’ll have to re-take the Means Test:

                        While she’s dripping in gold, on her hands and her chest.

                        And she fucks you off quickly so she can regain,

                        The thoughts she was having of her fortnight in Spain

                        And the marvellous folk on the Costa del Sole,

                        Who’re superior by far from the scum on the Dole.

                        It’s Cold Comfort when the arrogant twat,

                        On the desk at the hostel reminds you that:

                        You can’t have a bed if you’re twenty pence shy

                        Of the two pounds you need for a bed in the sty.

                        He’s no time for grovelling;  cajoling or pleas,

                        As he fiddles about with his new Volvo’s keys,

                        And fucks you off quickly so he can go home,

                        To his semi-detached and his new mobile phone

                        And his pretty young wife who just can’t understand,

                        Why there’s so many homeless in Cardboard Box land.

                        It’s Cold Comfort, when you’re watching the telly,

                        You don’t have a licence or food in your belly.

                        Then a well-fed rock singer starts singing a ditty

                        About Children in Need, or the tough inner-city.

                        He’s chock full of shite about helping the needy,

                        And although he’s got millions he’s so bloody greedy,

                        That to fuck off abroad’s his contingency measure,

                        In case Labour gets in and curtail all his pleasure.

                        Then he’d get in his Learjet and head for the sun.

                        And he’ll try to forget about his roots in the slum.

                        It’s Cold Comfort, when you’re trying so hard

                        And Society seems to be marking your card.

                        You can’t get ahead, no one seems to encourage,

                        The dregs of the System, we’ll never flourish.

                        Though what would the owners of Water or Gas

                        Do if ten million poor put a kick up their arse,

                        And claimed what was theirs from the wealth of the Nation,

                        A decent existence and pride in their station

                        And a chance to aspire to a place in sun,

                        And to stop eating shite while the Fat Cats have fun.

What the fuck is happening to the world?

What the fuck is happening to the world?  I walked down into Mexborough yesterday, something I won't be doing again for a while.  What has the place become?  First you have to negotiate the piles of dogshit that line the route up Doncaster Road and into town.  Loads of it.  Then, after walking past the raft of pizza/kebab/shite shops (yes, the same ones that insist on posting loads of leaflets through your letterbox, even though you are never going to eat any of the noxious crap), you come to town.

Litter and fag ends coat the roads.  Hordes of kids roam round, that are obviously of school age. The 18 year old mothers, fill up with pasties and sausage rolls from Gregg's, then waddle back to the pushchair (where the baby has no shoes and socks on, even though it is freezing and mam is wearing three coats ), she goes straight into baby's gob with the Gregg's Dummy or sausage roll as it is known.

Let's look at Typical Mummy.  She is nineteen years and stone. She has three kids by three different Dad's who all left because the kids were 'doin his ead in'. One is brown.  She has greasy hair in a ponytail; fatlass joggers (or jimjams and dressing gown, at times) that show her arse antler tattoo. Improbably high heels that her arse causes to overbalances, (well, it is the size of Cleethorpes).  She has a fag on and a steak bake half eaten in her hand.  She has kids called Jaden; Jordan and Jastra and she wants to be a pop star... She looks towards the light of her life and the father of her next Giro Booster - Ratboy!!!

Ratboy, well what can you say?  thin and pasty, with dirty trainers; dirty joggers; dirty baseball cap and can of Special Brew in hand and fag on. Ratboy is seventeen. He hasn't been to school since year nine because it 'did is ead in'. He cannot read or write to any great extent and has never had a job.  He has rotten teeth and one at the front is missing. As well as having Fatlass up the duff he already has one 'up Swinton' that he has never seen; 'well, she worra slag wa'nt she?' He has several large and poorly done tattoos and two hundred quid a time and an air of slightly menacing dullness.  He calls softly to his beloved, 'Gerra fuckin move on yer fat cow am fuckin freezin, it's doin me ead in'. She bows her head, stuffs the rest of the steak bake into her gob, past the bad teeth and follows him.

There are 52 pairs of Fatlass and Ratboys in the High Street.

Move on past the Bull, where Skint Eastwood holds court in all his Wild West glory, then past the Cheap Shops; charity shops; cash converters; pawnbrokers; market stalls full of tat; amusement arcades and bookies. This is the Great British High Street we are meant to be preserving...  A smell of dope wafts from the tattoo place and a teenager who should be at school wheelies through the crowd, followed by his gran, with her dyed scarlet hair, fag on and driving an invalid motor erratically along the street.

A cry lingers through the balmy morning, it is the cry of the stupid and the feckless; of the lost and the dull: "GEREER JADEN YER DOIN ME FUCKIN EAD IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A TEN YEAR PLAN

Tomorrow will see the culmination of a plan a decade in the making.  Some years ago a plan was made to walk the entire Yorkshire coast from the tip of Spurn Point to the South Gare in Redcar. We set off (Roy Machin and I) and walked over three days up to Brid. The next stage I did from Brid to Flamborough, then over the years: Flamborough to Filey; Filey to Scarborough; Scarborough to Ravenscar; Ravenscar to Whitby.

Tomorrow I will be doing the South Gare to Saltburn bit, leaving only the Saltburn - Whitby left to do.  Good eh?

Some good memories from the way: Finding filter coffee in a shed in Withernsea; 1500 breeding pairs of Sand Martin between Spurn and Brid; having to walk round the bombing range at Cowden; finding out I was old when I realised it was easier walking uphill than down in the cloughs near Scarborough; dropping on and playing at a music night in Hornsea, etc.

What to plan next though?  Spurn to home along Humber etc (on bike maybe)?

BLOODY PARTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Took four hours to take out monumental pile of bottles and two binliners of fag ends, THE TIDY UP. All booze gone and all settings on PC changed to somebody else's - TOP NEET.

Good turn out from mates, birders well in attendance. Much drunkeness was displayed by all concerned.  Went to bed at 3.30 and left em too it!!!

Well here I am. Bloody sixty years old!!!!!  Where did it all go? Well: Birding; playing music; boozing; travelling; having as good a time as possible. Work came as well, but mostly not too bad. I have good friends and a lovely family. What more could I want except to be 25 again, but not now, not now. In 1974 perhaps...
I am just waiting for my family and close friends to get here for a drink prior to a piss-up of MONUMENTAL stature.  Wish me well...