The bride wore a navy blue suit and a pill box hat. I wore the same suit I wore to dances. The reception was held in the bride’s home – booze in the garage, sandwiches in the kitchen. Continue reading Monday Memories – September 1963
The idea of people living together before marriage was still anathema then. Continue reading Monday Memories – The Summer of 1961
For me it was becoming a shop-keeper. I’d taken up politics in a big way and took the opportunity my employer provided to take voluntary redundancy. What to do with that lump sum? Why, open a shop, of course! Nothing wrong with the idea in principle, nor the detailed plan – if only we’d stuck to the plan! Instead we were seduced by a man who had a small shop selling his home made ready meals. He was moving into larger commercial premises and needed someone to take on the lease of his shop and continue to sell his products … Continue reading What Would You Do Differently if You Could?
Today another extract from Transgression seems appropriate in view of recent allegations concerning MPs and the young women who work in Westminster. During the 1987 general election in Britain a woman comes to a local journalist in the constituency of a Conservative MP seeking re-election. This extract has been edited to fit the space but contains her allegations and his response. I had no ‘inside knowledge’ to inform this imagined scene. However, I had often enough witnessed the way some men – too many, in fact – behaved towards women in the workplace and it seemed to me when I … Continue reading Men With Power and the Women They Disrespect.
When I look skywards, it is not to be reminded of “the greatness of God” but of the futility of human attempts to appeal to a deity for the relief of their suffering Continue reading Watching Spiderman
This recollection is provoked by the news that the MP for Tatton, George Osborne, has been appointed to edit the London Evening Standard whilst maintaining his seat in Parliament and his other highly lucrative, if part-time, jobs. In the 1980s I decided that, if I wanted to change the world, it was time to stop moaning and get involved in politics. I joined the Liberal Party and stood for election to the County Council. I didn’t make it at the first attempt but four years later – in May 1985 – I was successful. I became one of four Liberals … Continue reading Saturday Sound-off: Mixing Politics With Other Work
I don’t generally give much credence to conspiracy theories. But in these times of “fake news” and “alternative facts” it’s becoming increasingly difficult to avoid them. George Monbiot is a journalist and commentator that I trust. He references all his claims to well documented real facts. So when he writes about a long term plan to undermine the European Union and promote the agenda of corporate America I believe him. And the tragedy is that, in order to achieve their aim, this small but powerful group have conned the most disadvantaged citizens of both Britain and America into supporting their … Continue reading #Brexit and Trump: Two Great Confidence Tricks
Thanks to Stevie over at https://steviet3.wordpress.com/ for nominating me for the ‘Three Quotes for Three Days’ challenge. The rules of the challenge are: Three quotes for three days. Three nominees each day (no repetition). Thank the person who nominated you. Inform the nominees. For my 2nd contribution I am quoting Margaret Thatcher: There is no such thing as society. Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister, 1979-90, in an interview for Woman’s Own, September 1987. Often quoted, frequently misunderstood, this single remark is held up as an example of her government’s belief that the state had no role to play in the … Continue reading Society: what is it exactly?
Time, I fear, for another rant. I’ll start with the assertion that work is not a right, it is a duty. Consider this: nothing of use exists without work. The most precious metal has no value until someone digs it out of the ground, someone else refines it, yet another shapes it into something desirable. Consider, too, the most primitive form of human existence, the hunter-gatherers. Are hunting and gathering not forms of work? Maslow’s hierarchy of need places food and shelter at the bottom of the pyramid. They are the things without which we cannot survive. If you have … Continue reading Work and Wealth: #atozchallenge
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