Five Miles Out

The winter winds will be much colder

It is always stated that the UK has a two-party system like they are equal. The British system is not really two equal parties if you look at how long they have been in government. Since 1979 Labour have only been in power for 13 years, the Tories for 28 (though five of those in coalition with the Liberal Democrats).

The 1970s started with The Tories surprisingly beating Harold Wilson’s Labour Party. They did not serve a full term in office as the Oil Shock of 1973 (when Arab countries decided they should make the money off their own resources rather than being exploited) and miners strikes led to the energy crisis (that was the 70s ongoing issue). I remember the regular power cuts and the prospect of petrol rationing (it did not affect us as Dad was worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board). Ted Heath chose to go to the country asking who governs Britain. Labour won 301-297, but was that short of the 318 needed for the barest majority.

(Petrol crisis)

In September Harold Wilson dissolved Parliament to try and get the majority to govern effectively. He got it, but only just, winning 319 seats to the Tories 277. Wilson only stayed in office for two years before stepping down (much later revealed that it was for medical reasons). He was replaced by Jim Callaghan, the last UK Prime Minister who had fought in the Second World War.

As is usual in British Parliaments by elections are very rarely won by the incumbent party and the tiny majority was gone very quickly. Labour governed with the help of the Liberal Party. But the situation was fragile. Inflation was rife and there were constant strikes, especially in nationalised industries. The winter of 1978/79 became known as the Winter of Discontent as rubbish was left to pile up on the streets. The country looked ungovernable, with Callaghan making a terrible misjudgement when returning from a winter holiday abroad denying there was a crisis.

Labour lost a vote of No Confidence, with critically ill MPs coming to the House of Commons to vote and 18 years of Tory rule started.

Perhaps even more importantly though were two other things. The first was Labour splitting and a breakaway Social Democratic party forming. Due to Britain’s electoral system their near 25% share of the overall vote was rewarded with few seats and the Tories got huge majorities with well under half the vote. I will be writing about the electoral system in another post.

The second thing was that Labour were fixed in public perception as the party that could not govern properly. A reputation that somehow still sticks to it. There had been the deflation crisis in 1967 and the bailout from the IMF as well, but the Tory party were responsible for recessions in the 80s and 90s – including the crashing out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Somehow that never stuck.

This came back to haunt Labour in 2010 after the Global Financial Crash of 2008. It was widely acknowledged, even by the Tory Party, that Labour had done a good job of managing the fallout, but Labour got the blame again.

We can only hope that the mess of 2020 makes an equally lasting stain on the Tory Party. They have done a terrible job and being on an island means that they had one of the easier jobs of a national government in a pandemic.

Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds was a prog rock album a bit too late. A mixture of songs and speech it retold the classic novel with narration from Richard Burton. It is performed to this day and includes several classic tracks. This starts it off.

The Eve of the War

They Said I’d Be Impressed

After Cairo (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1896 ) we flew down to Luxor. It would have been great to be able to start the cruise from Cairo, but the desert was full of bandits and it was not considered safe then. You can do it now.

We were on the MS Tulip. The boat was designed for over 100 but there were only 27 of us from our party on board, plus two other people. We were told that there were usually hundreds of cruisers on the Nile at any one time. Due to the Arab Spring there were less than a dozen.

(Deck of the MS Tulip)

We had hibiscus drinks on arrival (disgusting) and our tour guide, Randa, said that she would be on deck while we were on the boat to talk about anything Egyptian – including politics, which was not allowed before the revolution.

After lunch we took a coach to the nearby Karnak complex (as seen in The Spy Who Loved Me https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1627 ). It is the second most popular attraction in Egypt after the pyramids. The complex is really large and even in November the Sun was beating down. I learnt that baseball caps (that had been de rigeur for me on holiday since 1991) were not good enough in the hotter climates south of the Mediterranean.

We had been warned about touching our mouths as the Egyptian money is filthy. It actually feels greasy and dirty because it is kept in circulation far longer than it is in the UK. Most of the places that tourists visit will accept American dollars too.

(Entrance to Karnak)

After Karnak there was an optional carriage trip around Luxor town. Like a lot of the optional trips there was not much to do if you did not want to do it. Some of our group were upset by the poverty they saw, but Egypt is not a fairy-tale tourist paradise – it is a real place and a lot of it is incredibly poor.

(The coaches we took – you had to hold on securely)

(Backstreets of Luxor – the carriages only just made it through)

We saw the avenue of Sphinxes which was still being excavated. It is likely that this connected the Karnak Complex to the Luxor temple.

(Avenue of Sphinxes)

We were at the Luxor Temple at dusk – which was particularly beautiful. Again it was really quiet compared with what it was like before the revolution.

There were a lot of hawkers at both sites and you had to be really tough with them. They would start with a tourist price which was at least ten times the proper price. The British are particularly bad at bargaining, but I grew to really enjoy it.

After the light went it was back to the boat. It was not moving until the next afternoon but we were sleeping on it.

Luxor and Karnak are essential parts of an Egypt trip.

Siouxsie Sioux was one of the original punk fans that followed the Sex Pistols. Siouxsie and the Banshees were a good singles band, but their albums were not for me. This song was related to the Death of a Princess scandal in Saudi Arabi, where one of the ruling family was executed for her adultery. As usual at that time the furore with the Saudi government was a big issue due to the Saudi control of OPEC and the fear of an interruption to oil supplies. That control of the huge amounts of oil in the Arabian peninsula gives Saudi Arabia a significant free pass when they do things like extra judicial murder or war crimes in Yemen. Plus ca change.

Arabian Nights

Playlist:

Playground Twist
Love in a Void
Hong Kong Garden
Happy House
Christine
Israel
Spellbound
Arabian Nights
Melt!
Slowdive
Fireworks
Dazzle
Swimming Horses
Overground
Candyman
Cities in Dust
This Wheels on Fire
The Killing Jar
The Last Beat of My Heart

And I’ve travelled many days to reach this place to make my stand

The Electric Light Orchestra were everywhere in the 1970s. Jeff Lynne’s love of The Beatles manifested itself in the band – originally Roy Wood was the “biggest” member but after two albums (imaginatively titles ELO and ELO2) Wood left and Lynne fused classical music with melodic pop (including a lot of strings) to make On The Third Day. Not their most famous album today but one of their absolute finest.

Eldorado was their first concept album and features the song that cemented my love for them when I heard a song from it on the radio one Sunday afternoon – Poor Boy (the Greenwood).

The first time I was aware of ELO had been when Mike had bought the single Livin’ Thing in 1976. With their big hair they looked like typical members of the glam rock era, which could hardly have been further from the truth. By this stage rather than using overdubs they were hiring whole orchestras to play on the albums.

I really became aware of them again through their involvement with the terrible film Xanadu – a musical so epically awful that no one mentions it. Ironically the title track (a collaboration with Olivia Newton-John) gave the group their own UK number one, naggingly it was not as good as the occasional older track from them that I heard.

In 1981 Clive Hook (again) lent me Out of the Blue – a double album that features a couple of the group’s most famous tracks – Mr Blue Sky and Sweet Talkin’ Woman. The whole of side three was a concept piece called Concerto for a Rainy Day. This was more like it and posters for their next album were appearing with the slogan “The waiting is over, it’s Time” (as the album was called Time). Imagine my shock when the lead single was a rock and roll song – Hold On Tight – wholly different from their other output. It may have been well timed as the UK was in the middle of a small rock and roll revival led by Shakin’ Stevens and the Stray Cats, but it was their worst song to date.

Time itself is a concept album about a man who may have time travelled. ELO had dispensed with their string section – a source of much rancorousness with those band members who were fired. A concept album was not really right for 1981 and I was largely disappointed. The strings, their defining sound, had gone. It was as if they wanted to be relevant and uses synths, but ELO were never going to be trendy in the early 0s.

1983’s Secret Messages in better and the title track is a real success. ELO had lost their distinctiveness and they felt obliged to do another rock and roll track as the lead single, but the rock and roll revival was over. This was the time when the record companies put extra tracks on cassettes over vinyl to encourage the purchase of the former. The missing track was not worth it – it was released as a B side and I had to buy that to satisfy my completeness obsession.

There was the terrible Calling America album which brought the curtain down on the group – I was actually embarrasses to play it to Dave Carter at university and forced him to listen to earlier material to show that I was not insane. Jeff Lynne went onto producing and the Travelling Wilburys (working with a real Beatle must have been his dream). Drummer Bev Bevan formed ELO2 with other former members but really it had been Lynne’s band since 1972 and this was just a karaoke version of the real thing.

ELO were terminally untrendy for over 20 years, but during the 21^st century they came back. Like Abba who were ignored for a long time, a generation of fans made it into media positions. Don’t Bring Me Down was featured in the Doctor Who episode Love and Monsters (shame it was a track from Discovery, or Disco, Very as the fans dubbed it – in retrospect that was the start of their decline). Jeff Lynne played live again as ELO and the songs were out there again.

This is that B side to Livin’ Thing.

Fire On High

Playlist:

Bluebird is Dead
Daybreaker
Ma-Ma-Ma Belle
In the Hall of the Mountain King
Can’t Get It Out of My head
Boy Blue
Poor Boy (the Greenwood)
Laredo Tornado
Eldorado
Fire on High
Poker
Down Home Town
Tightrope
Telephone Line
Rockaria!
Livin’ Thing
Shangri-La
Turn to Stone
Sweet Talkin’ Woman
Summer and Lightning
Mr Blue Sky
Wild West Hero
Last Train to London
Xanadu
Yours Truly, 2095
The Way Life’s Meant To Be
Secret Messages
Danger Ahead

Well There’s So Much You Have To Learn

I never meant to be involved in the Battle of Brightlingsea. I was living in London by 1995, only going back there at weekends. There had been a growing protest against live animal exports that meant that small ports like Brightlingsea had been brought into use to circumvent the main ports. I had seen there were protests in the press plus Dad and Anne had told me about the tailbacks past their house.

Brightlingsea is a port, but it is not a major port. The road leading down to the dock is narrow and has terraced houses either side where the residents park their cars on the roads. It is thoroughly unsuitable for big lorries at the best of times.

There were animal rights protesters who came to town, but they were a tiny minority of the people protesting. The issue of sending live animals abroad raised a broad coalition of protesters. The British famously will do more for animals than they do for people. This was an issue that roused the Middle Class, women and pensioners – all of which were in plentiful supply in Brightlingsea.

This particular Friday I got to Dad’s around 7.30pm to find the house empty. I decided to take a walk down to the Seaview Chinese takeaway to get some dinner, only about 5 minutes away. I was not even half-way there when I saw a massive protest blocking lorries going to the port. The Railway Tavern was doing roaring trade as people brought drinks out.

Brightlingsea was not the liveliest place in the world and a lot of residents may well have decided that this was the best thing on offer than night. Friday nights were always a big night out in the town and I saw, and chatted to, a lot of people that I knew.

The police were very ostentatiously filming the protesters, there were spotlights shining onto the crowd and cameramen slowly panning across the lines. The Police would warn you twice to leave the protest – on the third warning you either moved or were arrested.

I joined in with people I knew, cradling a pint of lager in a plastic pint pot. After some time I was on the front line and asked to move twice. As I refused a second time the officer who had asked me grabbed me by my jacket and threw me into a wall. Then asked me again – I protested at the violence but was told that it was my fault. None of the officers were wearing their numbers so it was impossible to identify who was committing the plentiful acts of extra-judicial violence. He asked me to move again so I did.

That was the end of the Battle for me, though the protests continued for months. The Police were not viewed in the same way again in Brightlingsea for a very long time. For Middle Class people, unused to, and disbelieving of allegations against the Police, this was an eye-opening experience.

I complained about my treatment and the lack of numbers to the Chief Constable of Essex. There was a very long apology. It also stated that there would be an investigation into the lack of badge numbers on the officers concerned. I never heard anymore about that.

The Police do lots of good things, but there is more than a minority who are keener to use violence than they should be. Remember that when you hear allegations about them. In many cases the Police get their side of the story out first and it turns out to be lies – look at Hillsborough (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1188 ) or the BLM protests where they said protesters attacked an officer on a horse – it turned out to be lies.

Young Girl is the most famous track from Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. Part of a late 60s movement that had groups named after their singer and the band, like Paul Revere and the Raiders. They dressed in Civil War uniforms and were a decent enough band. When I got a 60s compilation album from Martins in Colchester (100 tracks for £5.99) they had Young Girl and this track, which is even better and not problematic lyrically.

Lady Willpower

Just To Help Me Dry Those Tears I’ve Cried

They built the Grafton Centre after I left Cambridge University. It was on the other side of Cambridge from my College so I probably would not have visited it much anyway but it had a Forbidden Planet, so I would have made some trips. At the end of my PE2 revision course (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/10/16/to-reach-too-high/ ) I went there to buy something to reward myself and cheer myself up before the looming exams.

I bought two volumes of the collected Omaha – a comic I had seen reviewed in fanzines. It featured anthropomorphic animals, but with a lot of nudity and sex scenes. It was in black and white and was a comic that was certainly not for children, but then Forbidden Planet’s customers, at least back then in Cambridge, did not appear to be children. It is a good story – though the sex scenes seem more of a hangover from the underground comix of the early 70s than necessary to the story.

My other purchase was a best of Cat Stevens. I had first heard of him at an assembly at Greneway school (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/520 ) in the 70s when my form tutor, Mr McDaniel, played (Remember the days of the) Old Schoolyard in an assembly. He briefly told us that Stevens had been a successful singer/songwriter (part of that early 70s boom that came out of folk music) but had given up recording after converting to Islam and changing his name to Yusuf Islam. The assembly was about a new movement for the school called Elfsyoru. (The full name was Doin gthing sfor elfsyoru – doing things for yourself). He appointed Mrs Nickson, the deputy head as the high priestess of elfsyoru and a lot of school activities focused on it. All I remember about it after that was Mrs Nickson’s tearful farewell speech as she was seriously ill with cancer.

I heard Matthew and Son on a 60s compilation and that is a great track, which led me to the compilation several years later. It was not a disappointment in any way whatsoever and I have all of Stevens’ CDs. The music is gentle but the lyrics are deep and affecting. If you want somewhere to start try Tea for the Tillerman or Teaser and the Firecat.

Fast forward and Islam changed his views on his religion and music. His comeback was in 2006 and I missed it. His 2009 album, Roadsinger, is a beautiful album showing that none of his talent had been lost in the 30 years since his retirement. My regret is thinking about how much great music this man would have made in those years but we have to appreciate the talent of the man and the beauty of his songwriting.

Rod Stewart’s cover of this is more famous, but the original is best.

The First Cut is the Deepest

Playlist:

Matthew and Son
I love My Dog
The First Cut is the Deepest
Lady D’Arbanville
Where Do the Children Play
Wild World
Hard Headed Woman
Sad Lisa
Father and Son
Tea For the Tillerman
Rubylove
Moonshadow
Peace Train
(Remember the days of the) Old Schoolyard
Roadsinger

The Mind Has a Reason for Talking Aloud

In 1992 the government of the day decided that Further Education Colleges should be removed from Local Authority control and become independent. No one is entirely sure if they mean the same thing to happen to sixth form colleges, or whether it was a quirk of the legal definition. Whichever it was from 1st April 1993 over 100 sixth form colleges became independent and able to strike out on their own.

Initially funding was based on what each College had been given by their Local Authority prior to incorporation, but this was normalised to a standard rate over a period of five years. Funding systems have been radically overhauled several times in the last 22 years, but they always end up depending on a number of factors. At NewVIc we did pretty well out of that as Newham Council had been generous to us.

(NewVIc summer 1994 – Jacqui Mace gives Chandannai Bhalla flowers; Peter Kelbrick, Barbara Alexander, Clare Williams and Sid Hughes in the background)

Each time a government minister decides it is too complex and a new system is drawn up that is simpler than the previous one. Then it is consulted on and it is explained that extra funds are needed for students with Special Educational Needs; more is needed for students from deprived areas; more is needed in London due to the higher salaries (from the higher cost of living); more money is needed for expensive science and engineering courses, and so on. Inevitably the new formula ends up as complex as the old one by the time everyone has finished.

The terrible thing for post 16 education in the last ten years has that funding has barely increased, it was totally frozen from 2015 to 2020. Worse than that, for students who were 18 years old at the start of the academic year, funding was cut by 20%. There was no justifiable reason for this, just that the Department for Education had to save money and the Post 16 sector has less political clout than other parts of education.

We are now in a situation when students between the ages of 16 and 19 are funded at a 24% lower level than those in schools and around 40% lower than those at university. The result of this has been a reduction in the amount of teaching time for students and in extra-curricular activities.

Sixth Form Colleges have the added disadvantage of not being able to reclaim VAT, unlike schools and academies. This quirk of the system was nearly overturned in 2015, but at the last moment the Treasury blocked it. Conversion to being an Academy would save the average College around £300,000 a year but would mean loss of autonomy and no guarantee that provision would continue to exist. Schools also have business rates, copyright fees and insurance paid centrally, on top of their funding. This has meant that since incorporation student numbers matter to Colleges as the provision of services is easier with a bigger cohort.

Another consequence of the funding cuts has been the withdrawal of funds for adult education. Not just the evening classes “for fun” like pottery and basket weaving, a staple of Colleges in the 1970s and 1980s (famously seen in an episode of The Good Life) but even courses in vocational subjects to enable people have left school with minimal, or no, qualifications to obtain high level employment. Now these have to be funded by personal loans.

There were a lot of unsavoury funding practices that happened in the 1990s and early 2000s – like subcontracting. This involved colleges claiming funding and employing private sector companies to deliver the work, skimming a large amount off the top. This practice was eventually discontinued as so much of the provision was low quality or even non-existent. Institutional memory at the DfE is short and sub-contracting has returned with the same issues.

After incorporation in the 1990s there were many cases of dubious use of public funds. Outreach centres being built on the Caribbean; fact finding tours to the Greek Islands by senior managers. Senior managers staying in expensive hotels, flying first class and indulging in meals that cost over £100 per head. Sadly this is another thing that has crept back in recent years as the DfE has less resources to oversee the sector.

None of the lessons were learned when the government introduced Academies. New generations of Civil Servants and SPADS knew better than people working in the sector. I have worked in Finance as long as anyone in the sector – yet no one at the DFE thinks to ask me, or the others like me, if things have been tried before and what happened.

That is the problem with UK government in general.

In our sixth form Graham Irwin was a big fan of Secret Affair. No idea what happened to him.

My World

I Never Will Forget Those Nights

After Kom Ombo (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1969 ) it was cruising again – to Aswan, site of the famous dam and as far up the Nile as you can get on a cruiser now.

I woke early as we smoothly docked – it was Eid and incredibly quiet. It was an early start as we went on Felucca around Elephantine Island.

Two boys in a small skiff tied themselves to the felucca and sang songs, they made good money form tourists.

We went to the unfinished Obelisk, which was quite a climb and not really that impressive. It did give a good view across the Necropolis where families were leaving cake for their dead. I tried to get a good photo by climbing on a rock. I slipped when I landed and hurt my left ankle, but it did not hurt for long – at least not until I rested and it swelled up.

(Literally an obelisk they never finished excavating)

There was a bookshop on the site and I got a book on myths and legends as well as a modern Egyptian classic (well that was what Randa said) The Yacoubian Building. It is a great read, the style different from western novels.

(The Dam)

It was getting hotter and hotter and the next trip was to Philae by motorboat. Philae is another example of history being saved, as it had to be relocated from another island after the construction of Aswan Low Dam in 1902.

(Philae)

In the afternoon there was an optional tour of Aswan, starting with a Nubian café above the city (Nubia was southern Egypt in the old days and they are the non-Arabic residents of Egypt – I am not sure of the correctness of using the term but that is how it was used by the locals).

(Views from the café)

We went to a mosque going past the amazingly named Ahmed Hitler’s shop and one with a Del Trotter theme.

(Randa explains Islam in Egypt with Dad right behind her)

Finally we went to the Bazaar. It was fully dark now and it was not very well lit. One of the party, Derek, was a bit of a lothario and two women in a party vying for his attention. He was wearing an outside money belt and while he was distracted it was taken, then returned. Tom (another member of the party) and I were there to help but all seemed ok. Only later did he realise than over £100 had been stolen from it between the theft and return.

Morals of the tale – money belts can be good, but not worn outside. Stringing along two women will get you bad karma.

In the evening we were entertained by a belly dancer (in a full body stocking – it was Egypt) and a whirling Dervish.

After I got to bed I could hear the children playing in the park near where we moored, happy as it was Eid. I found the sounds comforting and fell asleep easily.

This is the ultimate summer driving song by ex-Eagles (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1035 ) Don Henley.

The Boys of Summer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWXPRadYytQ

Your beauty and virginity used like toys

My brother Michael loves the Manic Street Preachers, but I found them first and I still have the CD single of Stay Beautiful to prove it (ok it was their second single but that is not bad as their first was not heavily played). The band is almost two bands – the first three albums are more intense and then bassist Richie committed suicide and the band continued as a three piece, but I found them less interesting.

Their first album, Generation Terrorists, is a tour de force of a debut – the only flaw being two version of the weakest track (Repeat) being on there. It is packed with top songs which made everything that came afterwards seem a pale reflection (though their third album was pretty grim – typified by The Intense Humming of Evil about the concentration camps).

(Young Traci Lords)

Little Baby Nothing is one of the standout tracks from their debut and was co sung by Traci Lords. The song is about the exploitation of women and Lords was the perfect co-singer. She looked older than her age and made her debut in pornography at just 16 years old. This was illegal in the USA and her career lasted just two years before she was busted in an operation that seriously threatened the adult industry, that the Reagan administration had serious issues with anyway. Her work was child pornography and had to be completely withdrawn. It remained legal in some parts of Europe, though not in the UK where hardcore pornography was illegal, but 16-year-old girls were allowed to pose topless in the tabloids.

(Traci Lords at the age of 24 in the video of Little Baby Nothing)

Both the US and the UK attitude to sex work flies in the face of what really happens. There is a lot of illegality that is totally ignored because the police do not have the resources to deal with it. Like drugs, leaving it illegal allows the government to state that they are strong, but denies protection to the people (and it is mostly women) who work in the industry.

We all hire ourselves out to earn a living. Either our brains, our strength, our dexterity, or a combination of them. Attractive men and women are allowed to hire their bodies out for modelling, some of which is practically nude. So why are people not allowed to hire their bodies out in other ways? In a regulated and safe way with legal protection. There is still a moral view persistent in society that sex work is morally wrong.

On the other hand, someone once asked me what my reaction would be if my sister/ mother/ daughter told me they were going to strip, be a prostitute or a porn star. I had to answer that I would not be happy. I do realise that it is not my choice about what anyone chooses to do with their lives, but my disquiet remains.

The argument against sex work is the how women are compelled into the trade and how much drug addiction plays apart (though there are counter examples like Belle De Jour). Undoubtedly there are women forced into the trade due to human trafficking, others are compelled by financial circumstances. The best way to deal with the latter would be to ensure that benefits were high enough to prevent women having to do this to support their families (watch I Daniel Blake for a sad fictional example) it is a fact that prostitution rises in recessions.

If sex work was legalised police resources could be focused on human traffickers and regulating the sex trade to make it safe for the workers. Maybe if prostitution and drugs were legalised and regulated organised crime would find new money-making avenues, but why persist making it easy for them?

As opposed to the 1990s when pornography was relatively mild in the UK the internet has made the worst and most degrading material freely available (approximately 70% of internet usage is supposed to be for pornography). In the very early days of internet availability two gay friends had a subscription only website where they posted pictures and made a lot of money. They thought they were set up for life. Yet within a few years it was all available for free and their careers in porn were over. Work has to be done on ensuring young people, in particular boys, do not have access to this material.

Women should have control of their bodies and the power of choice. The women’s movement is split between those that want sex work legal, so that women have choice and those that want sex work outlawed as all paid sex is a crime against women.

I have no magic solution, but legislation and regulation looks like the best bet. Keep sex work away from residential areas and off the streets. Have medical standards and drug tests. Tax it – not just the workers, but the business. Tobacco tax has been part of how smoking has been reduced. A better benefit system, police focus on human trafficking and taxes could mean a reduction in sex work along with a reduction in poverty and human trafficking.

Traci Lords is no angel. It was widely suspected that she reported her age so that when she made adult films after her 18^th birthday she controlled them and made a lot of money. Irrespective of that a 16-year-old should never have gone through that and for her, and others that are forced into this business, it should be seen as a failure of society’s responsibilities.

Little Baby Nothing

Playlist:

Motown Junk
Stay Beautiful
We Her Majesty’s Prisoners
Slash ‘n’ Burn
Born To End
Methadone Pretty
Crucifix Kiss
Motorcycle Emptiness
Little Baby Nothing
Another Invented Disease
Theme from MASH (Suicide is Painless)
Sleepflower
From Despair to Where
Drug Drug Druggy
Of Walking Abortion
Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayit’sworldwouldfallapart
The Intense Humming of Evil
A Design for Life
Everything Must Go
Australia
Tsunami
You Stole the Sun From My Heart
If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next
Mr Carbohydrate
Dead Trees and Traffic Islands

Extremes of sweet and sour

The first time we went exploring in Kos was on mopeds, but we had not been able to get round the island so in the second week Dave and Andy found a place to hire jeeps. This necessitated an even earlier start than the 9am for the mopeds – we were there at 8am. Everyone except Neil had to go so we could drive. The jeeps were not very high quality – Dave and Andy were in one (the better one) and the rest of us in jeep two. Neil was in a terrible state that morning after a good night out and we poured him into the back.

(Leaving the petrol station, Neil in the back, John driving)

We had a very poor breakfast (egg, bacon, cucumber and tomato) – I was blamed for the choice of venue but John admitted it was his recommendation.

We tore down the island, far past where we had reached with the mopeds, to Kefalos at the south of the island. We pulled up on a sandy plateau and Dave got his jeep stuck. It took three of us to get it out of the sand. Kefalos was the third biggest place on the island but was still just a sleepy village in those days.

(Dave and Andy are stuck)

A twisty stretch up into the hills was really beyond my skills (I never got the hand of driving the wrong side of the road) and John had to take over as conditions got worse. We got to the southernmost point of the island on foot as the jeeps could not negotiate the tracks anymore – the ruts were so huge that we had to get out to help the drivers get round some of them. When we finally got to Cape Krikelos there was no way down to the sea from where we were.

(Neil and Andy set off on foot after we give up on jeeps)

On returning to the jeeps, we realised that we barely had any liquid – the hungover Neil had necked most of it. Very dehydrated we went back down as fast as we could looking for a taverna or a roadside seller. We got some watermelon and then found a taverna in Kamari. It was full of a German coach tour and we looked terrible. Suntan lotion, dust and sweat.

(Andy, Dave, me and John after the hike to the Cape)

After this we tried a couple of beaches – including the legendary Paradise Beach. Neil and Andy tried the wet bikes, Dave wanted to windsurf, but none were available.

Kardamena is now the place for British tourists in Kos but in 1991 it was a very, very minor resort. We posed on the harbour wall in the late afternoon.

(Me, Neil, John and Andy on the harbour wall in Kardamena)

As we were in a different town we had a very early evening meal in a street taverna. We look quite bedraggled – check out Dave’s hair.

(Andy, John, Dave and Neil with his back to the camera)

We used the jeeps to burn up and down Kanari Street in Kos Town when we got back, followed by a dip in the pool. For some reason I got totally drunk that night and whilst I made it to the nightclub Kalua, I ducked out early enough to get a huge ice cream sundae back at the harbour.

Great day.

This song was a huge anthem in the early 90s.

Sit Down

The wildman, he laid the thunder down

I am sure that people are annoyed with me banging on about Brexit. I am absolutely happy to accept the one that was promised – £350 million a week better off, no downside, continued access on trade with no tariffs and where they need us more than we need them. The “deal” that Johnson brought back – does it come anywhere near what was promised? No.

That Brexit has not been delivered and Remainers were called out for Project Fear?

Brexit was Project Lies. It used the well-tested nationalist formula of blaming problems on something overseas rather than facing up to the fact that the problems were of our making. Nationalists use patriotism and jingoism to unite the discontented against some mythical establishment. They get upset if the people actually turn against them though.

Let’s look at legality, costs, coalitions and promises.

Legality first. The referendum was non-binding. A judge said that Vote Leave broke the law and if it was a binding referendum it would not have stood. Because it was non-binding there was no power to nullify it, yet the Government have treated it as binding. Some say both sides were equally guilty to try and overcome this objection but Remain were not even charged with any offences.

https://greenworld.org.uk/article/court-rules-electoral-commission-enabled-vote-leave-overspending

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44856992

Costs. Bloomberg has calculated these at £130 billion at the end of September 2020. There is no doubt that by the end of 2021 Brexit will have costs more than we ever put into the EU in our entire membership.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/-170-billion-and-counting-the-cost-of-brexit-for-the-u-k

The £350 million a week was a blatant lie – it took no account of the money we get back in EU spending. More here https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-10/-170-billion-and-counting-the-cost-of-brexit-for-the-u-k . Even the Leavers admitted this was not true, after the referendum.

Leave and Remain was not even a proper choice. Remain was clear but Leave ran the gamut of remaining in the European Free Trade Area all the way to a No Deal exit. If a second referendum had been held on EFTA, Chequers or No Deal then EFTA would have had over 70% of the vote. Leave benefited from a coalition where most people have not ended up with what they wanted.

I have covered the £350 million and the rest of the graphic highlights over lies from vote leave.

I do not see Turkey joining the EU – anyway there are rules on joining and the authoritarian Turkish regime will not make it. Using Turkey as an example was just more Islamophobia and racism on behalf of the right.

Border control is hilarious. In the pandemic it has been shown that it can be done. I found it funny that all the memes at Christmas asking if France had forgotten 1940. Seemingly the people posting them had forgotten 2016 when we told the EU that we did not want to be with them. Actions have consequences (plus, and I cannot say this too often, if you were not actually at least 7 year by 1945 never mention the War – you were not part of it and using it as an argument makes you an arsehole). Priti Patel is now claiming she wanted to close the borders in March 2020 (actually she has always wanted to), but it was the one time she kept quite about it. The government was quite happy making isolation exceptions for senior business leaders too.

So this was garbage.

Food costs are going up on leaving the EU rather than costing us less.

The Irish border was changed at the end of 2019.

The rules on subsidies did not stop us supporting industry – it was Tory government choice. Boris Johnson has mendaciously lied about what is EU policy and what is Tory policy ever since he was a journalist in Brussels.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/24/bill-for-boris-johnson-brexit-is-coming-punishingly-steep

We are now stuck in a worse position in the world than we were before. Any Leave voter should consider this all and ask what they really wanted. It was meant to the easiest deal in the world where they needed us more than we needed them. It was not as easy deal and whereas 48% of our exports go to the EU only 4% of theirs comes to us. Not hard to guess even without details. Even the best possible deal with the USA replaces about 1% of what we will lose. With Biden in charge our position is worse – especially after all the arse licking the Tories did to Trump.

Johnson was even lying on Christmas Eve 2020 saying there would be no barriers to trade. The barriers are enormous and people who are paying import duties on purchase are seeing that problem too.

Brexit was a right-wing project and the way we will compete is lower workers’ rights, worse environmental standards and lower tax on companies.

The country was lied to for decades by the right-wing press (Johnson in particular who was a journalist in Brussels and just made-up stories) and some people have bought the turd. Shame we all have to eat it now.

This is Stewart Lee (a very deep-thinking man) performing at Southend – the heart of Brexitland. Not something for sensitive leave voters to watch..

Roger Daltrey is a famous leaver – now musicians have got a terrible deal on touring as Britain rejected an offer of tourist visas (see https://www.facebook.com/derek.dick and scroll for his post on 22 January for a full explanation) or Someone you loved: how British pop could fade out in Europe | Music | The Guardian . He was an all-round arsehole long before that. Great track though – dedicated to the wildest man in rock – Keith Moon. It took two very talented drummers to duplicate the sound that Moon got on his own.

Under a Raging Moon