The new mantra.

There is a phrase being spouted by politicians. It isn't a new one, in fact I'd say it's been making regular appearances in the circle of professional politics for the last five months but in the run up to this weeks budget, it is everywhere - "Open for business." 

The three-word mantra is the basis for the bulk of the legislative agenda being hurriedly pushed through this year and will serve as a bedding for more to come. 

If you think this is the ramblings on an inebriated malcontent then watch this weeks news coverage, read the soundbites of every politician this week and you're guaranteed to hear something along the lines of: "taxation must be cut to show foreign investors that we are open for business", or "in order to boost the economy, we must do away with red tape, so that Britain can be seen as open for business.' The cosmic quality of that chant is that it justifies ideas and decisions that previously, would have been questioned and quite possibly would have met their death in early committee meetings. But its real power is that it shouts from the rooftops that everything is "for sale" and by everything, we mean all things public, schools, health services and soon roads and motorways.

I read an article in The Telegraph by a clergyman, he expressed concern over the governments decision to temporarily suspend Sunday trading laws. The root of his concern was that such an experiment was merely a litmus test for the eventual eradication of Sunday trading laws, something he believed would result in society spending the Lord's Day worshiping in retail dungeons, lapping up buckets of Costa lattes while shopping for boat shoes and iPads. What hit home about his frustrations was his dismay for the idolatry of 'the economy', the slightly confused patriotism of throwing all political motivations into being 'open for business'. 

As I watch the Budget announcements on Wednesday and read the final draft of the NHS bill, I'll take stock of the clergyman's anxieties. Hopefully others do too.

I want to be Vin Diesel

I watched Fast Five over the weekend and enjoyed it immensely. For those unfamiliar with the film, it’s about a team of Top Gear enthusiasts who use their knowledge of sparkplugs to exploit the criminal underworld of Brazil – or something of that nature. Any who, as I sat through ninety plus minutes of high octane car chases and urban slurs (big up Tyrese), I found myself slowly warming to the character Dominic, a moody protagonist, played by Vin Diesel, whose monotone exchanges and bland face make him the human equivalent of the colour used to decorate prison walls. That aside, there were three reasons why I gravitated towards him:

1) Bad dialogue notwithstanding, Dominic is a criminal with conviction and has an unbreakable allegiance to his team of chiselled bandits.

2) Beyond an endless supply of white tees, white vests of white jeans, his desires are minimal, the sign of a man who has mastered himself.

3) Dominic, like many a shaved head psychopath, is a man of his word. Whether it is enacting revenge on enemies past, or sharing his Tesco Petrol Points, he prides himself on being a man who lives by a set of self-compiled standards.

Another day at work.

You can't open your eyes without being bombarded by countless calls for changes in education. The calls are not unjust. It's a shambles. It's been a shambles for the last 15 years and then some and the proposed changes, which essentially see state education becoming a privately funded entity are worrying for many reasons. But that tirade I'll save for another moment in time. Today I'm more concerned with early years provisions.

I work in a nursery, in a ward that has two very concerning trends, one is high unemployment and the other is a high birth rate. At present, every nursery in this ward has nothing less than an 18 month waiting list, a list that once a child reaches the top of, they are in the final stages of eligibility for said nursery place. Independent nurseries in this area have closed due to funding cuts and due to staff and space restraints, contingency services such as crèches are next to non-existent. Which means there are a growing number of children who will begin school at age 5, without having any real stimulation outside of the home and minimal interaction with children their own age.

I had a conversation with a colleague about this and she was overcome with dismay. As a parent and a champion of education, she was saddened that children would be thrown into the schooling system in such a raw state, asserting that having a proportion of students in a class who are new to social interactions, new to formal learning and new to routines outside of the home, can affect not only their social development but also their examination progress, the bullion of today's education system. She laboured this point, wondering how this proportion would affect a teachers expectations and the overall development of a class. I agreed but before I did. I trawled through the folder of families that are waiting for nursery places, analysed their social circumstances and then wondered if this level of inadequate provision was prevalent in all wards across London.

There is a £45 million jackpot on the table for tomorrows lucky lottery winner. I'm thinking of buying a ticket and if I win, I'll open a nursery.


- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:The office.

On being an ass.

I have a tendency to act like an ass. A colossal ass. I can't help it, it's the result of my inability to complete thoughts before acting coupled with a lack of fundamental understanding of the consequence paradigm. Whenever I behave in such a manner, my mind instantly creates a back story for my actions - a flamboyant and fictitious work of art so full of inaccurate facts and hyperbole that it warrants a place on the cover of some tabloid.

I think the reason my mind does this is because it hold a certain image of me, an ideal K, and whenever I behave in a way that contradicts this ideal, my mind becomes dumbfounded and in order for the ideal to be preserved and to avoid my mind entering a state of implosion, a world of tales is created. My mind appears to have an undeserving delusion of grandeur. Unhealthy? I think so.


The ideal K, like all ideals, is nothing more than a projection of hopes and a rummage through the possibilities of a situation. Nice. However the downfall stems from knowing that you are several thousand leagues below this ideal and it is that inescapable truth that my reality confirms but my mind cannot compute.





- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Three things I learnt this week (insomniacs edition).

1) Hard and impossible are polar opposites. 


2) Distraction wears many masks.
 

3) Sleep isn't a human right but it should be. 








- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking. 

Monday Thought

Going to the gym is always an exercise in humility for me. Why? Because:

1) Being worked into a sweaty, breathless pulp by a machine that neither recognises or responds to sarcasm or insults, always ends the same way - me, skulking away from the treadmill, with my head hung low in a Bill Bixby homage, as the Incredible Hulk's 'Lonely Man' plays proudly over the tannoy,


2) My local gym is where those who lost their homes during last summers riots had to reside for a period of time. A gym that is usually busy with badminton enthusiasts, played home to distraught families, while the nation listened to the pedantic and trifling response of many a politician.

- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Post workout.

Parliament Square

Parliament Square is now almost protestor-free. No longer will it be filled with vocal members of the public as it is illegal to use amplified equipment or pitch tents on this turf. Instead, it will be become politically inane, an island whose inhabitants and intentions lie dormant in history books and press clippings.

One of the things I admired about the placards and statements of change that decorated Parliament Square, was that politicians, the public and tourists alike could not ignore it, on their way to the Commons, in and out of meetings, they would have to glance at the disgruntled dissenter who chose to go beyond the walls of web-domains and bring their grievances into the physical world.

A part of me believes that a moments’ glance of the late and unshakeable Brian Haw - an occupier who without question, inspired and motivated the current wave of occupiers - would claw into the minds of politicians and slowly trickle through to their conscience and over time slowly erode their political ambitions, an internal struggle that might shift their perspective and allegiance.

But to have that catalyst removed is to make their days and their decisions easier, and it doesn’t end there. Eventually, the plan is to have all demonstrations removed from Central London, leaving politicians to make decisions and frolic in a world where their immediate landscape is void of public opposition. Nice.


- I write in order to avoid talking, for you see as a human, I suck at talking.

Location:Dystopia