Hiya.
I knew I hadn't blogged for a while, yet I was aghast to load up Blogger just now to find the last time I had scribbled some utter nonsense was almost two months ago. TWO MONTHS! Time to rectify that, I think. I haven't blogged for two months(!) because since my last blog my life has gone a bit mental, and that's not even taking into account the rather lengthy column Nigel Hastilow penned about me in The Shropshire Star a few weeks ago. Thanks for taking my constructive criticism on board, Nige. So what on Earth has been happening? I'm not too sure where to begin, so I'm just going to start typing and hope for the best.
A few weeks ago I was sitting here at my computer when something caught my eye out of the window. It was a cat, wandering around our garden. That wasn't unusual, as Tom Jones might say - our neighbours either side of us have a few cats, and they are always jumping into our garden and being chased by our dog. But I hadn't seen this cat before, and it was loitering by the gate at the back of our garden, which leads out into a neglected field covered in brambles and nettles. I didn't think too much of it, until the next day I saw it out there again. So I went to investigate, and found a gorgeous tortoiseshell who was worryingly thin and had no collar. She wasn't going away, so we put up a bed for her in our greenhouse and fed her whilst we asked around the neighbourhood whether they knew where she had come from. Nobody knew, so we took her down to the vets, where they confirmed that she wasn't chipped...but she was pregnant.
It was a beautiful cat, but with a dog already in the house we couldn't keep her, and she deserved to have her kittens in peace. So after phoning several cat shelter places, all of which were full, apparently, we decided to take the vets advice and "leave her to it. Cats are very resourceful". Meanwhile, our next door neighbours were in the process of moving, hiring a skip to chuck all their rubbish in before they left (can you see where this is going?) The cat disappeared for a few days, and when I next saw her her "saddlebags" had gone, and she was sitting on the fence in our front garden, peering into the skip (which was full of rubbish) before diving down into it. Again, I didn't think too much of that, until my mother saw her doing the same thing. Either the cat was very hungry, and was scavenging, or...but surely not?
Alas, it was true. The cat had gone off and had her kittens in the bottom of a skip, which was filled to the brim with sodden junk thanks to the insane rainfall we'd been having at the time. Any of you ever knocked on someone's door and asked them if you can root through their rubbish? If you haven't - trust me, you feel wonderfully awkward doing so. They probably thought we had gone bonkers, as we stood on their driveway in the drizzle rooting through their trash. We knew what we were looking for, but we didn't find it. The skip went the next day. It wasn't a nice experience, but the cat didn't seem bothered at all. Maybe they were already dead. The cat soon became the newest member of our family, I'm pleased to say - our fears about the dog failing to materialise after the cat whacked him one and then stood her ground after he tried to chase her. They're best friends now.
(God, this is boring. When is he going to talk about interesting stuff and shut up about cats?)
Finally graduating from university was a huge weight off my shoulders, but my mental health still wasn't improving. It turns out that my tactic of "try to ignore it and hope that one day you'll wake up and it'll be gone" wasn't the best, so I needed to re-think things. Against my masculine urges, I decided I needed to go to the doctor. I've had some horrific experiences down at my local health centre, but the doctor I landed with this time was honest, clear, and actually bothered to listen to me, which some of the dickheads down there don't. I'd been on tablets before, but I hadn't really got on with them and I had given up on them far too readily. The doctor listened to my concerns, prescribed me the same medication but in a lower dosage than before and then told me to stop being a knob and actually take them. I've been taking them for a month now and - touch wood - they're working brilliantly. I feel much more content with 10mg than I did 20mg. They're not miracle pills - I'm not suddenly "cured", and it's still a battle sometimes, but I'm fighting.
Away from cats and happy pills, the main reason I've not had time to blog is because I've started doing a course down at my local college. Like the idiot I am, when my advisor down at the Job Centre asked me if I wanted to do a six week SAGE Accountancy course, I said I wouldn't mind. The next thing I knew, I was booked onto their next one. True to form for the Job Centre, their communication was absolutely bollocks. I was told the start date for my course, that it was six weeks long, and....that was it. So on the Monday morning I walked down to my local college for 9am, not knowing: if I needed to be there for 9am or later, what hours I was doing, who I was with, who was taking the course, what room I was in, whether the course was just SAGE or with other stuff included. What a mess.
After eventually finding out what room I was in, I walked in with a very pleasant but also very confused German lady called Wera, and we sat down at a table with ten others. At the other end of the table there was a cute brunette, looking a bit nervous and shy. "She's pretty", I thought, but I didn't get the chance to talk to her until the following day, when our employability teacher (as part of our course, we have to do "employability skills". The Job Centre didn't tell me about that, naturally) put us in a group together. With all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, I engineered it so that I could sit next to her, and I tried to make conversation and make her laugh. At the end of the day, we swapped numbers, a process made a little harder than it should have been by me taking half an hour to pluck up the courage to do so. I'm glad I did, however. Things have snowballed a little since then, but we're taking it slowly. I dunno about her but I'm a happy bunny right now anyway.
(That doesn't make any sense - why did they exchange phone numbers when they're doing a college course together and see each other every day?)
Because, my irritating little friend, after two days of the college course I thought I was done with it all. I had an interview for a position at the university, one which I felt I wanted to do and one which I felt confident I could get. The position was to be part of a team, conducting a survey on behalf of the university. Every uni has to do this survey, apparently - getting in contact with graduates and finding out what they're up to now they've left education and (hopefully) in the workplace. Drawing up a survey, sending it out, getting the forms back in and inputting the data onto a computer system for decent money and the chance to work at the university? I could do that! I wanted to do that!
So the interview was going well until the catches began to appear. Catch 1 - we had to hit a target of 80% of forms returned. Catch 2 - the overwhelming majority of people can't be bothered, don't want to do it, so don't do it. Catch 3 - it'd be my job to phone up these people, and go through the form with them on the phone. Catch 4 - there'd be roughly 3,000 of these people. Catch 5 - some people, unhappy with the fact that they're unemployed, get emotional/upset on the phone. Catch 6 - some people, unhappy with the fact I've phoned them up, get arsey on the phone. Catch 7 - the university would be setting up a "call centre" for us to do this job. It was the second that the words "call centre" were uttered that I mentally bailed out on the position. I still tried my best at the test they gave us, still tried to give a good interview, but I walked out of the university a bit despondent. This wasn't what I thought it was. This wasn't what I wanted to do.
I had a tough decision to make. I was unemployed after all, and it was decent money. I was secretly hoping they'd turn me down, but no, there was the email - they had offered me a graduate internship. So the choice was a stark one - a job and money, but a job I had lost interest in before I had even started, OR no job and no money but the chance to complete a £600 course (which I was getting for free via the Job Centre), which will look good on my CV, which might open some doors and which I could do alongside a girl I fancied like crazy and wanted to get to know a bit more.
What would you do?
I finish the course next week, and whilst I'm not assured of passing the exam, I feel confident that I can iron out the little problems I'm having with SAGE and get it licked. Then it's back to the daily grind - applying for jobs, not hearing anything back, applying for jobs, not hearing anything back....
So that's roughly why I haven't blogged for a while.
The other day I was sitting on a train when a weird sensation came over me. I realised - for the first time in 7 years - that I was happy. My soul felt....happy. It was a nice feeling. Life isn't perfect - never is, is it? - but it's getting better. Slowly. And that's all I can ask for.
Until next time knuckleheads!
Monday, 19 November 2012
Friday, 21 September 2012
Oh-Oh, Hastilow!
Well, well, well, what do you know? You wait over a month for a blog entry and then two come along at once. TRAROTL is the blogging equivalent of buses, something which Will Self so eloquently whined back when I met him at a drinks reception in 2010.
Regular readers will be familiar with me analysing stupid letters that have been sent in to my local rag, The Sloppy Star, for many years now, so this blog entry is something an ickle bit different. On Page 8 of yesterday's Slop we have a column written by a man called Mr Nigel Hastilow (more on him later. Much more) which is possibly the worst thing I've ever read. I know I say that every week but, seriously. Let's go:
Complaints by us lefties wouldn't be right
That's the title, and it's one that caught my eye because, based on his previous muck, there's no way this dude is a "leftie".
There's nothing sinister about it. I am left-handed and the world's against me. Who can I sue?
Ah. Left-handed.
It's the ginger-whingers who finally convinced me there must be money in it.
As you read this column, please note one thing - I'm left handed. Yes, I'm left-handed, and even I think this is the shittiest thing I've ever seen since Lord Charles Shitty took a shit on a shitting toilet.
In Milton Keynes.
So, a few people call you carrot-top? Get over it. You really don't know what discrimination's all about. Try being left-handed, cack-handed or simply gauche.
Could you excuse me for a moment?
*taps out unnecessarily long phone number*
HEAVEN: "Thank you for phoning Heaven. For the Big Man Himself, press 1. For a guest, press 2. For a saint, press 3. To be re-directed downstairs, press 666."
HEAVEN: "Thank you for pressing...2...you are now on-hold. Your call is very important to us. Please hold."
They're playing "Abide with Me". Don't you just hate on-hold music?
ST PETER: "Hello?"
ME: "Rosa Parks please. Fifth floor, I believe."
ST PETER: "One moment."
"Little Donkey" now, for fuck sake.
ROSA PARKS: "Hello?"
ME: "Rosa, it's me, Ewar!"
ROSA: "Yes?"
ME: "We met before, a few years ago. I was just wondering if you could tell me your story, you know, the bus one. I love to hear it."
ROSA: "Of course! Well, one day I was sitting on a bus, and, you know, there were awful problems at the time. This was 1950s deep south America, you see, and on the bus there was a "coloured section" and a "white section". A white person wanted to sit in my seat, in the "coloured section", and I refused.
ME: "Hmmm."
ROSA: "Yes?"
ME: "I was just thinking...were you called 'gauche' though?"
ROSA: "What? No!"
ME: "So what do you know about discrimination?"
ROSA: "...."
ME: "I mean, why don't you look up to and revere Nigel Hastilow? Why do you and everyone else discriminate against him, just for being left-handed? Hmm?"
ROSA: "It's not because he's left-handed. It's because he's a fucking cunt."
Fair.
There was a huge fuss recently when Wolverhampton's Laura Payton was given an apology and £150 compensation by the Halifax because she took offence at a bit of a joke about the colour of her hair. Mrs Payton complained a member of staff told her: "I bet your daughter is glad she isn't ginger like you."
Now, OK, maybe this is just me, but I think that's pretty damn appalling. "I bet your daughter is glad she doesn't look like you, you freak"? If someone said that to my wife I'd poke them in the eye. An apology and £150? Good! I'd want that employee sacked as well. Why would you even say that to somebody? I've already laboured this point but "I bet your daughter is glad she isn't black like you" - would that still be "a bit of a joke"?
When I read about this I'm sorry to say I wasn't outraged on Mrs Payton's behalf.
You're not sorry.
It just made me chuckle.
Really? This is probably the unfunniest thing I've ever read in my life, and I've watched "Citizen Khan" AND "My Family". Saying that to a stranger isn't humorous, it's incredibly disrespectful.
But it turns out most of the world's redheads are happy to moan about how badly they were bullied at school and you think: "You're having a laugh." Or, in the words of John McEnroe, one of the world's famous left-handers :"You cannot be serious."
Nigel Hastilow's advice to children who are currently being bullied at school: "Just shut the fuck up."
I have nothing against redheads. Some of my best friends are ginger.
Did we have a sweepstake for how long it'd take for that sentence to get an airing?
Obviously you have to be wary of them, given their notoriously bad tempers.
I'd be wary of the Irish, given their tendencies to gun British people down.
Even so, there can be something distinctly alluring about all that flame-coloured hair. What really isn't on is for this group to complain it's discriminated against. Reddism is nothing compared with leftism, discrimination against left-handers.
(Here comes a really boring bit. Sorry. It does get better later on though.)
The world isn't designed to make life difficult for ginger-nuts but it certainly is for us lefties. We can't even sit at a computer without having to move the mouse from the right hand side of the desk to the left (assuming the wire is long enough) or we have to try manipulating it with our right hands. I'd like to see you right-handers try it left-handed. Institutionalised leftism is rife. For years, I found it completely impossible to use chopsticks. I just couldn't manipulate them in any way which conveyed food to face.
Based on what we'll see later, I'm a little surprised Mr Hastilow eats that foreign muck, but we'll get to that.
Then - and you may say this shows just how slow-witted left-handers must be - one day it occurred to me to try transferring them to my left hand.
And the award for "World's Shittest Anecdote" goes to....
Suddenly a whole new world opened up. The miracle of chopsticks. Why hadn't I tried them in my left hand before?
You're a bit thick?
Because they are laid out for right-handers and the obvious solution to my problem never occurred to me.
As you're clever people you already know that this is bollocks, but take it from me, a leftie - this IS bollocks. If there's a pen to my right, I'm not going to pick it up and try writing with my right hand. I'm going to transfer it to my left. Now either Hastilow is the thickest man EVER, or he's just writing this to fill space and praying that this backs up his point. Not that he has one anyway.
Thick, I know, but we lefties are used to life's little inconveniences. Try, for instance, cutting your fingernails with a pair of scissors using your left hand. It is more or less impossible. Discrimination starts early, of course. When I was at school, they still held to the antediluvian
Great word, I'll give him that.
view that all kids should be right-handed. Lefties were, as the Romans used to say, sinister. So I was taught to play cricket right-handed and kick a football with my right foot. Worse, of course, was the requirement that I should write with my right hand. It was very difficult and my handwriting was awful. We had to submit examples of our work to be assessed by the teachers. Mine were so consistently terrible I took to writing things out secretly with my left hand and then swearing blind it had been done with my right. What a terrible little liar I must have been. But the alternative was to have my work thrown back at me time after time because my (right handed) handwriting was so poor.
That's all very interesting, Nigel, but I don't think that sort of attitude has prevailed in our schools for many years now, so why reference it?
I don't think that sort of attitude has prevailed in our schools for many years now.
Yes.
But unthinking leftism remains a daily difficulty for the 10% of the population blessed with the talent, creativity, and originality to make the best of our unfortunate predicament. Even my dictionary defines left-handed as being "awkward, unlucky, dubious."
A biscuit to anyone who can remember what kicked off this weird little rant in the first place. Wasn't it about a woman being abused in a bank? It's been so long now, I forget.
And if you think a laughable lefty is as bad as a ginger whinger, consider this: Research in America shows that even left-handed surgeons are themselves frightened of being treated by fellow left-handed surgeons - because all their training and equipment is designed for right-handers.
We've still got about four paragraphs of this nonsense left, fucking hell. I'm as bored as you are.
Still, this is not intended to be another moan from a supposedly oppressed minority. Quite the opposite, in fact.
You could have fooled me.
Mrs Payton should have laughed off the Halifax worker's little joke just as rich redheads like Lily Cole or Nicole Kidman should just get over it.
Fuck Nicole Kidman. I'm serious. Aren't you sick of her, constantly whining? I walked out of the cinema halfway through "Moulin Rouge!", such was the frequency of her moaning "Wah wah wah I have red hair, boo hoo everyone fucking hates me".
My advice to Lily Cole and Nicole Kidman - just, like, get over yourselves darlings!
And, whatever inconveniences we lefties have to put up with, you won't find us queuing up at the bank for compensation because all those pens-on-string are positioned for right-handers.
Because A) They extend across for left-handers and B) They don't verbally abuse you.
Yet the prevailing sense of victim-hood knows no bounds. Any group of people can find reason to moan - and most of them do: "Oh it's so unfair they're calling me fat or Welsh or too tall, or too thin, or a Scouser, or too old, too young, a social security scrounger, a rich banker..."
Am I wrong or did I just read about a million fucking words from someone complaining about holding chopsticks in the wrong hand, or something?
We are all eager to portray ourselves as hard done-by. I blame the compensation culture.
We're almost done, I promise.
People will always give each other nicknames, make snide comments and rude remarks or unthinkably ignore the needs of left-handers. But we lefties wouldn't dream of complaining. It wouldn't be right.
End of bollocks.
Hastilow's article caught my eye because I read some utter nonsense from him a few weeks back which was crowned off by the charming sentence of "What's good about the NHS anyway?" Last night, I was intrigued as to who he is/what his background is so I Googled him and H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T.
Google Nigel Hastilow. First thing you see is this:
"People also search for: Enoch Powell"
followed by several articles about him quitting as a Tory (of course) PPC because of his belief that "Enoch Powell was right". You then go onto his Wiki page, which tells us that he's an "active member of the TaxPayers Alliance and a supporter of the Freedom Association".
In short (and I bet he is short as well) Hastilow is mad, bad, and very dangerous to know. How fucking appalling it is that local newspapers are giving him space and money to spew his filthy bile out at us.
Regular readers will be familiar with me analysing stupid letters that have been sent in to my local rag, The Sloppy Star, for many years now, so this blog entry is something an ickle bit different. On Page 8 of yesterday's Slop we have a column written by a man called Mr Nigel Hastilow (more on him later. Much more) which is possibly the worst thing I've ever read. I know I say that every week but, seriously. Let's go:
Complaints by us lefties wouldn't be right
That's the title, and it's one that caught my eye because, based on his previous muck, there's no way this dude is a "leftie".
There's nothing sinister about it. I am left-handed and the world's against me. Who can I sue?
Ah. Left-handed.
It's the ginger-whingers who finally convinced me there must be money in it.
As you read this column, please note one thing - I'm left handed. Yes, I'm left-handed, and even I think this is the shittiest thing I've ever seen since Lord Charles Shitty took a shit on a shitting toilet.
In Milton Keynes.
So, a few people call you carrot-top? Get over it. You really don't know what discrimination's all about. Try being left-handed, cack-handed or simply gauche.
Could you excuse me for a moment?
*taps out unnecessarily long phone number*
HEAVEN: "Thank you for phoning Heaven. For the Big Man Himself, press 1. For a guest, press 2. For a saint, press 3. To be re-directed downstairs, press 666."
HEAVEN: "Thank you for pressing...2...you are now on-hold. Your call is very important to us. Please hold."
They're playing "Abide with Me". Don't you just hate on-hold music?
ST PETER: "Hello?"
ME: "Rosa Parks please. Fifth floor, I believe."
ST PETER: "One moment."
"Little Donkey" now, for fuck sake.
ROSA PARKS: "Hello?"
ME: "Rosa, it's me, Ewar!"
ROSA: "Yes?"
ME: "We met before, a few years ago. I was just wondering if you could tell me your story, you know, the bus one. I love to hear it."
ROSA: "Of course! Well, one day I was sitting on a bus, and, you know, there were awful problems at the time. This was 1950s deep south America, you see, and on the bus there was a "coloured section" and a "white section". A white person wanted to sit in my seat, in the "coloured section", and I refused.
ME: "Hmmm."
ROSA: "Yes?"
ME: "I was just thinking...were you called 'gauche' though?"
ROSA: "What? No!"
ME: "So what do you know about discrimination?"
ROSA: "...."
ME: "I mean, why don't you look up to and revere Nigel Hastilow? Why do you and everyone else discriminate against him, just for being left-handed? Hmm?"
ROSA: "It's not because he's left-handed. It's because he's a fucking cunt."
Fair.
There was a huge fuss recently when Wolverhampton's Laura Payton was given an apology and £150 compensation by the Halifax because she took offence at a bit of a joke about the colour of her hair. Mrs Payton complained a member of staff told her: "I bet your daughter is glad she isn't ginger like you."
Now, OK, maybe this is just me, but I think that's pretty damn appalling. "I bet your daughter is glad she doesn't look like you, you freak"? If someone said that to my wife I'd poke them in the eye. An apology and £150? Good! I'd want that employee sacked as well. Why would you even say that to somebody? I've already laboured this point but "I bet your daughter is glad she isn't black like you" - would that still be "a bit of a joke"?
When I read about this I'm sorry to say I wasn't outraged on Mrs Payton's behalf.
You're not sorry.
It just made me chuckle.
Really? This is probably the unfunniest thing I've ever read in my life, and I've watched "Citizen Khan" AND "My Family". Saying that to a stranger isn't humorous, it's incredibly disrespectful.
But it turns out most of the world's redheads are happy to moan about how badly they were bullied at school and you think: "You're having a laugh." Or, in the words of John McEnroe, one of the world's famous left-handers :"You cannot be serious."
Nigel Hastilow's advice to children who are currently being bullied at school: "Just shut the fuck up."
I have nothing against redheads. Some of my best friends are ginger.
Did we have a sweepstake for how long it'd take for that sentence to get an airing?
Obviously you have to be wary of them, given their notoriously bad tempers.
I'd be wary of the Irish, given their tendencies to gun British people down.
Even so, there can be something distinctly alluring about all that flame-coloured hair. What really isn't on is for this group to complain it's discriminated against. Reddism is nothing compared with leftism, discrimination against left-handers.
(Here comes a really boring bit. Sorry. It does get better later on though.)
The world isn't designed to make life difficult for ginger-nuts but it certainly is for us lefties. We can't even sit at a computer without having to move the mouse from the right hand side of the desk to the left (assuming the wire is long enough) or we have to try manipulating it with our right hands. I'd like to see you right-handers try it left-handed. Institutionalised leftism is rife. For years, I found it completely impossible to use chopsticks. I just couldn't manipulate them in any way which conveyed food to face.
Based on what we'll see later, I'm a little surprised Mr Hastilow eats that foreign muck, but we'll get to that.
Then - and you may say this shows just how slow-witted left-handers must be - one day it occurred to me to try transferring them to my left hand.
And the award for "World's Shittest Anecdote" goes to....
Suddenly a whole new world opened up. The miracle of chopsticks. Why hadn't I tried them in my left hand before?
You're a bit thick?
Because they are laid out for right-handers and the obvious solution to my problem never occurred to me.
As you're clever people you already know that this is bollocks, but take it from me, a leftie - this IS bollocks. If there's a pen to my right, I'm not going to pick it up and try writing with my right hand. I'm going to transfer it to my left. Now either Hastilow is the thickest man EVER, or he's just writing this to fill space and praying that this backs up his point. Not that he has one anyway.
Thick, I know, but we lefties are used to life's little inconveniences. Try, for instance, cutting your fingernails with a pair of scissors using your left hand. It is more or less impossible. Discrimination starts early, of course. When I was at school, they still held to the antediluvian
Great word, I'll give him that.
view that all kids should be right-handed. Lefties were, as the Romans used to say, sinister. So I was taught to play cricket right-handed and kick a football with my right foot. Worse, of course, was the requirement that I should write with my right hand. It was very difficult and my handwriting was awful. We had to submit examples of our work to be assessed by the teachers. Mine were so consistently terrible I took to writing things out secretly with my left hand and then swearing blind it had been done with my right. What a terrible little liar I must have been. But the alternative was to have my work thrown back at me time after time because my (right handed) handwriting was so poor.
That's all very interesting, Nigel, but I don't think that sort of attitude has prevailed in our schools for many years now, so why reference it?
I don't think that sort of attitude has prevailed in our schools for many years now.
Yes.
But unthinking leftism remains a daily difficulty for the 10% of the population blessed with the talent, creativity, and originality to make the best of our unfortunate predicament. Even my dictionary defines left-handed as being "awkward, unlucky, dubious."
A biscuit to anyone who can remember what kicked off this weird little rant in the first place. Wasn't it about a woman being abused in a bank? It's been so long now, I forget.
And if you think a laughable lefty is as bad as a ginger whinger, consider this: Research in America shows that even left-handed surgeons are themselves frightened of being treated by fellow left-handed surgeons - because all their training and equipment is designed for right-handers.
We've still got about four paragraphs of this nonsense left, fucking hell. I'm as bored as you are.
Still, this is not intended to be another moan from a supposedly oppressed minority. Quite the opposite, in fact.
You could have fooled me.
Mrs Payton should have laughed off the Halifax worker's little joke just as rich redheads like Lily Cole or Nicole Kidman should just get over it.
Fuck Nicole Kidman. I'm serious. Aren't you sick of her, constantly whining? I walked out of the cinema halfway through "Moulin Rouge!", such was the frequency of her moaning "Wah wah wah I have red hair, boo hoo everyone fucking hates me".
My advice to Lily Cole and Nicole Kidman - just, like, get over yourselves darlings!
And, whatever inconveniences we lefties have to put up with, you won't find us queuing up at the bank for compensation because all those pens-on-string are positioned for right-handers.
Because A) They extend across for left-handers and B) They don't verbally abuse you.
Yet the prevailing sense of victim-hood knows no bounds. Any group of people can find reason to moan - and most of them do: "Oh it's so unfair they're calling me fat or Welsh or too tall, or too thin, or a Scouser, or too old, too young, a social security scrounger, a rich banker..."
Am I wrong or did I just read about a million fucking words from someone complaining about holding chopsticks in the wrong hand, or something?
We are all eager to portray ourselves as hard done-by. I blame the compensation culture.
We're almost done, I promise.
People will always give each other nicknames, make snide comments and rude remarks or unthinkably ignore the needs of left-handers. But we lefties wouldn't dream of complaining. It wouldn't be right.
End of bollocks.
Hastilow's article caught my eye because I read some utter nonsense from him a few weeks back which was crowned off by the charming sentence of "What's good about the NHS anyway?" Last night, I was intrigued as to who he is/what his background is so I Googled him and H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T.
Google Nigel Hastilow. First thing you see is this:
"People also search for: Enoch Powell"
followed by several articles about him quitting as a Tory (of course) PPC because of his belief that "Enoch Powell was right". You then go onto his Wiki page, which tells us that he's an "active member of the TaxPayers Alliance and a supporter of the Freedom Association".
In short (and I bet he is short as well) Hastilow is mad, bad, and very dangerous to know. How fucking appalling it is that local newspapers are giving him space and money to spew his filthy bile out at us.
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Never Let Me Go(ve)
By now you will have seen the news that the Government is mucking about with education again. The latest brainwave comes from idiot twerp Michael Gove, who is:
Gove's latest idea is to axe the oft-criticised GCSE and overhaul school testing. In a few years time, rolling assessments will be gone, and a heavy emphasis will be placed on your "traditional" end of year examination. There will be only one exam board, and, according to the BBC, pupils will be 'assessed entirely by an external exam, with proposals for an end to all internal assessment.' In basic language - no more coursework.
So what do I think about all this? Not a lot, quite frankly, although I'm prepared to concede that only having the one exam board for a subject isn't the worst idea in the world. Is there a "race to the bottom" under the current system, with various exam boards competing against each other and chucking out easier test papers? Possibly. Not for me to say, really, but regardless, I think for simplicity's sake just the one exam board is possibly a wise idea. But what about the exams themselves?
Because Gove's problem with GCSEs seems to be all about grade inflation - that the humble GCSE is nowhere near as difficult as the O-Levels he had to endure in his youth. I can imagine this is the case. In my hand right now is my father's O-Level mathematics book that he used when he was 16. I've spent the last 15 minutes trying to find a question in it that I can answer (correctly), and I can't find one. In some places, I have an excuse - the money questions are in shillings(?!), I don't have any algorithms on me, I've forgotten what words like "factorise" mean - but mainly I just can't blooming do it. And I have a B in GCSE Maths, I'm obviously super smart.
So if Michael Gove wants to tell me that exams have got easier over the years, then fine - he can. But for me the slipping in standards of exam papers isn't a reason to tear up the whole structure currently in place and start again, particularly in regards to destroying the notion of coursework. I don't think exams are necessarily bad things, but placing the entire weight of a subject on one exam is a bad thing, because you simply don't know how people will react. There was a girl in my year at college who was extraordinarily smart - far smarter than I was or ever will be - but continually she struggled with exam papers and never got the hang of them. She didn't get the marks she really could/should have got in them, for whatever reason, but at least she was able to fall back on her coursework, which was always magnificent. In short, we know that students learn in different ways, so to me it makes sense to draw out that learning in different ways too. Exams are stressful, which is why they reward those who work best under extreme pressure. It would be unfair to penalise those who don't in such an extreme way.
I hated exams when I was at school - who didn't? - so I've tried to block out the memories of them, but what I do recall, particularly in my favoured subject of English, is how the exam always went one of two ways. Either:
1) We opened the exam paper to find that it was indeed the question our teacher had predicted it was going to be, so the entire class sat there like automated drones writing the exact same key themes, quotes, points because our "learning" had been crushed and we were just regurgitating the stuff we needed to know to pass the exam.
OR
2) We opened the exam paper to find that the question wasn't one we had been anticipating, at which point we all went "SHIT!", looked at each other, panicked, then began to scribble as much bollocks as we could.
Creativity and critical thought? Maybe a little in scenario 2, but it was frantic and far from our best work. Enjoyment? Nowt from either. Reflection? Again, maybe a little in scenario 2 but no time for it to be anything deep or meaningful. Pressure? Extreme in both scenarios. In the future, even if the heart rate is a bit slower in scenario 1, students still know that this is now their only shot, the long process of independent thought and creative thinking they enjoyed via coursework now stripped away.
So what's the answer? It's difficult to say - everything seems to have its pros and cons, and there is no perfect system. Rolling assessments makes the student feel like they are constantly being tested/evaluated/analysed and under constant stress. Coursework can be conducted without integrity and open to abuse. A block of exams at the end of the year is an absolute nightmare, an experience I'm so glad I won't have to go through ever again.
Maybe it's time for a new way. Something fresh and innovative, a method which strips away all the "You won't need to know this in the future but you need to know it just to pass this exam" bollocks. A revolutionary, exciting and inspiring new way of education, which will fill the students with enthusiasm and joy. A way which stimulates creativity, and passion, and critical analysis, a way that leaves our education system admired around the world for its originality and enterprise.
A way which, deep down, we know we'll never see under Michael Gove and the Conservatives.
- hilariously out of his depth as a Cabinet minister
- scarily thick
- in a very influential position
Gove's latest idea is to axe the oft-criticised GCSE and overhaul school testing. In a few years time, rolling assessments will be gone, and a heavy emphasis will be placed on your "traditional" end of year examination. There will be only one exam board, and, according to the BBC, pupils will be 'assessed entirely by an external exam, with proposals for an end to all internal assessment.' In basic language - no more coursework.
So what do I think about all this? Not a lot, quite frankly, although I'm prepared to concede that only having the one exam board for a subject isn't the worst idea in the world. Is there a "race to the bottom" under the current system, with various exam boards competing against each other and chucking out easier test papers? Possibly. Not for me to say, really, but regardless, I think for simplicity's sake just the one exam board is possibly a wise idea. But what about the exams themselves?
Because Gove's problem with GCSEs seems to be all about grade inflation - that the humble GCSE is nowhere near as difficult as the O-Levels he had to endure in his youth. I can imagine this is the case. In my hand right now is my father's O-Level mathematics book that he used when he was 16. I've spent the last 15 minutes trying to find a question in it that I can answer (correctly), and I can't find one. In some places, I have an excuse - the money questions are in shillings(?!), I don't have any algorithms on me, I've forgotten what words like "factorise" mean - but mainly I just can't blooming do it. And I have a B in GCSE Maths, I'm obviously super smart.
So if Michael Gove wants to tell me that exams have got easier over the years, then fine - he can. But for me the slipping in standards of exam papers isn't a reason to tear up the whole structure currently in place and start again, particularly in regards to destroying the notion of coursework. I don't think exams are necessarily bad things, but placing the entire weight of a subject on one exam is a bad thing, because you simply don't know how people will react. There was a girl in my year at college who was extraordinarily smart - far smarter than I was or ever will be - but continually she struggled with exam papers and never got the hang of them. She didn't get the marks she really could/should have got in them, for whatever reason, but at least she was able to fall back on her coursework, which was always magnificent. In short, we know that students learn in different ways, so to me it makes sense to draw out that learning in different ways too. Exams are stressful, which is why they reward those who work best under extreme pressure. It would be unfair to penalise those who don't in such an extreme way.
I hated exams when I was at school - who didn't? - so I've tried to block out the memories of them, but what I do recall, particularly in my favoured subject of English, is how the exam always went one of two ways. Either:
1) We opened the exam paper to find that it was indeed the question our teacher had predicted it was going to be, so the entire class sat there like automated drones writing the exact same key themes, quotes, points because our "learning" had been crushed and we were just regurgitating the stuff we needed to know to pass the exam.
OR
2) We opened the exam paper to find that the question wasn't one we had been anticipating, at which point we all went "SHIT!", looked at each other, panicked, then began to scribble as much bollocks as we could.
Creativity and critical thought? Maybe a little in scenario 2, but it was frantic and far from our best work. Enjoyment? Nowt from either. Reflection? Again, maybe a little in scenario 2 but no time for it to be anything deep or meaningful. Pressure? Extreme in both scenarios. In the future, even if the heart rate is a bit slower in scenario 1, students still know that this is now their only shot, the long process of independent thought and creative thinking they enjoyed via coursework now stripped away.
So what's the answer? It's difficult to say - everything seems to have its pros and cons, and there is no perfect system. Rolling assessments makes the student feel like they are constantly being tested/evaluated/analysed and under constant stress. Coursework can be conducted without integrity and open to abuse. A block of exams at the end of the year is an absolute nightmare, an experience I'm so glad I won't have to go through ever again.
Maybe it's time for a new way. Something fresh and innovative, a method which strips away all the "You won't need to know this in the future but you need to know it just to pass this exam" bollocks. A revolutionary, exciting and inspiring new way of education, which will fill the students with enthusiasm and joy. A way which stimulates creativity, and passion, and critical analysis, a way that leaves our education system admired around the world for its originality and enterprise.
A way which, deep down, we know we'll never see under Michael Gove and the Conservatives.
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
No Future For You (Redux)
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about my experiences down at my local Job Centre as a recent graduate - notably my first meeting with my "personal advisor". If you want to read that blog post, or have read it before but want to refresh your memory, it is here:
http://theriseandriseoftimlovejoy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/no-future-no-future-no-future-for-you.html
I've felt compelled to write a sequel to that blog post, here and now, after watching a Channel 4 documentary entitled "Dispatches - Tricks of the Dole Cheats" which - and I still can't really believe this - was partly filmed in "my" town and in "my" job centre. If you want to watch it, the link is here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3396080
although I imagine these shows don't last forever on 4oD so if you're reading this in 2014 - unlucky.
First and foremost, the title of the programme is VERY misleading. Channel 4 have history of doing this - they call a programme of theirs something outlandish in the hope that people will be drawn in by the title and watch it, as shown by a previous show of theirs about disabled, single people being called 'The Undateables'. So there's no "tricks" of the "dole cheats" here - rather, the documentary follows a few young people eager and looking for work as they attempt to prove that the Job Centre is a bit shit. One of them is a chap called Joe Paxton, and he's going into "my" Job Centre in "my" town armed with a secret camera and a job diary filled with...his shopping list. Yes, to prove that the people who sign him on every fortnight don't bother looking at the diary that he's meant to fill out and hand in, he's decided to write down his list of groceries needed rather than "Applied for a job here", "Looked at the website there" etc.
I have experience of this, and he's right - they don't bother looking at your diary. However, this bit of the documentary saddened me a little, as the woman behind the desk caught on camera being neglectful was a lady who has signed me on a few times. She's very nice - particularly when compared to others down there - and though in the documentary her face was blurred out, I, and presumably thus everyone who works down there as well, could tell it was her, just from her appearance and certainly her voice. I feel very sorry for her, and I suspect I won't be seeing down there again. The question is, was she at fault?
Because criticise the Job Centre all you want - and I do - but with 2.5m people now unemployed in the UK, the situation is beginning to get out of hand. I see it myself, when I go down there and I'm twelfth in the line to sign on. Once I'm done, I look back at the waiting area as I scarper out of the door and it's full again - it seems that there's a constant steady stream of people waiting to be signed on. When we're now dealing with these numbers, is it any surprise that Job Centre staff are cutting corners in order to get the stream of people flowing quickly? Is it any wonder that they don't spend valuable time with each person - proof reading their CVs and finding jobs for them?
The documentary made a big play on how their "Channel 4 Job Centre" manned by experienced recruitment consultants was "much more helpful" than the Job Centre next door, but it was a gimmick and scarcely credible. In fact, for all of their finger pointing and criticisms, not once did the documentary put forward any arguments or theories as to how the Job Centre can become more efficient, professional or modernised. Instead, it attacked the directgov.uk website, which I found surprising as I've always found it easy to access, navigate and use. Highlighting that the head manager of the Job Centre wasn't au fait with finding jobs on the site was perhaps revealing, but it all just felt a little flimsy and desperate.
So what's the answer?
I don't know, to be perfectly honest, and I don't want to try and work it out either. I just want to get out. Going down there every fortnight isn't a pleasurable experience, and I've only had to do it for a handful of times (at the time of writing). God knows what those unemployed for years feel like. However, there could be good news looming on the horizon. I've been invited to a "selection event" with a well known banking group (booooo) which will take place next week over in the Black Country. The job is only part-time, but it's in my home town, with decent pay, and quite frankly I'll take what I can get right now. If nothing else it'd be a start, a step on the ladder and the chance for me to earn money and do something rather than sit around waiting for Bargain Hunt to start.
So that's me, but when I'm away from the hell-hole, unemployment will still be around. 2.5m people - that's a lot - and with no end to the recession in sight, the number doesn't look like going down dramatically any time soon either. In fact, with machines now taking over the jobs formerly inhabited by people eg. in libraries and supermarkets, the number could very well keep on rising.
Gizza job!
http://theriseandriseoftimlovejoy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/no-future-no-future-no-future-for-you.html
I've felt compelled to write a sequel to that blog post, here and now, after watching a Channel 4 documentary entitled "Dispatches - Tricks of the Dole Cheats" which - and I still can't really believe this - was partly filmed in "my" town and in "my" job centre. If you want to watch it, the link is here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3396080
although I imagine these shows don't last forever on 4oD so if you're reading this in 2014 - unlucky.
First and foremost, the title of the programme is VERY misleading. Channel 4 have history of doing this - they call a programme of theirs something outlandish in the hope that people will be drawn in by the title and watch it, as shown by a previous show of theirs about disabled, single people being called 'The Undateables'. So there's no "tricks" of the "dole cheats" here - rather, the documentary follows a few young people eager and looking for work as they attempt to prove that the Job Centre is a bit shit. One of them is a chap called Joe Paxton, and he's going into "my" Job Centre in "my" town armed with a secret camera and a job diary filled with...his shopping list. Yes, to prove that the people who sign him on every fortnight don't bother looking at the diary that he's meant to fill out and hand in, he's decided to write down his list of groceries needed rather than "Applied for a job here", "Looked at the website there" etc.
I have experience of this, and he's right - they don't bother looking at your diary. However, this bit of the documentary saddened me a little, as the woman behind the desk caught on camera being neglectful was a lady who has signed me on a few times. She's very nice - particularly when compared to others down there - and though in the documentary her face was blurred out, I, and presumably thus everyone who works down there as well, could tell it was her, just from her appearance and certainly her voice. I feel very sorry for her, and I suspect I won't be seeing down there again. The question is, was she at fault?
Because criticise the Job Centre all you want - and I do - but with 2.5m people now unemployed in the UK, the situation is beginning to get out of hand. I see it myself, when I go down there and I'm twelfth in the line to sign on. Once I'm done, I look back at the waiting area as I scarper out of the door and it's full again - it seems that there's a constant steady stream of people waiting to be signed on. When we're now dealing with these numbers, is it any surprise that Job Centre staff are cutting corners in order to get the stream of people flowing quickly? Is it any wonder that they don't spend valuable time with each person - proof reading their CVs and finding jobs for them?
The documentary made a big play on how their "Channel 4 Job Centre" manned by experienced recruitment consultants was "much more helpful" than the Job Centre next door, but it was a gimmick and scarcely credible. In fact, for all of their finger pointing and criticisms, not once did the documentary put forward any arguments or theories as to how the Job Centre can become more efficient, professional or modernised. Instead, it attacked the directgov.uk website, which I found surprising as I've always found it easy to access, navigate and use. Highlighting that the head manager of the Job Centre wasn't au fait with finding jobs on the site was perhaps revealing, but it all just felt a little flimsy and desperate.
So what's the answer?
I don't know, to be perfectly honest, and I don't want to try and work it out either. I just want to get out. Going down there every fortnight isn't a pleasurable experience, and I've only had to do it for a handful of times (at the time of writing). God knows what those unemployed for years feel like. However, there could be good news looming on the horizon. I've been invited to a "selection event" with a well known banking group (booooo) which will take place next week over in the Black Country. The job is only part-time, but it's in my home town, with decent pay, and quite frankly I'll take what I can get right now. If nothing else it'd be a start, a step on the ladder and the chance for me to earn money and do something rather than sit around waiting for Bargain Hunt to start.
So that's me, but when I'm away from the hell-hole, unemployment will still be around. 2.5m people - that's a lot - and with no end to the recession in sight, the number doesn't look like going down dramatically any time soon either. In fact, with machines now taking over the jobs formerly inhabited by people eg. in libraries and supermarkets, the number could very well keep on rising.
Gizza job!
Saturday, 4 August 2012
Double Glazing
I'll get to the crux of this post in a minute, but before I do, here's two quick caveats. Firstly, I've attempted to write this blog post in a balanced manner. I'm not mightily impressed with the Glazers but, as you'll see, this isn't really a piece debating their pros and cons. Secondly, as this is my personal blog and not a site dedicated to Manchester United, some of my "regulars" might need a little bit of context on this subject, so here it is.
In 2005 Manchester United - the football club I support - were taken over by an American called Malcolm Glazer. Now Mr Glazer is an old dude, so nowadays his business undertakings are co-ordinated by his sons. There's a few of them, and I always forget their names, but the list is something like: Joel, Avram, Bryan, Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, and Grub.
Now Uncle Malc took over United thanks to a thing called a "leveraged buy-out". I'm fucked if I fully understand what that is, but here's my rather crude knowledge on the subject - it's a special kind of acquisition where the purchase price is financed using debt, debt which is repaid (eventually) by the company's assets and profits. So the thinking for the Glazers was pretty clear:
1) Manchester United is an extraordinarily well run football club - a profit making machine and always very successful on the pitch
2) Buy the club - make sure it's a leveraged buyout, so that the club itself is saddled with debt and not on the owners personally
3) Pray to fuck that United keep on winning, keep on getting big crowds and sponsorship deals and basically keep on printing money
4) Use the money to fuck off the debt
5) ????
6) Profit!
(And if it all starts to go tits up, you get out ASAP and sell it to a Qatari oil tycoon for $1bn)
Now I mention all that because the nature of the leveraged buyout meant debt, and that didn't sit very well with United supporters. Still doesn't. Overnight, we (when I say "we" in this post I mean United) had gone from a club who were doing very well thank you very much, to a club saddled with about £650m of debt (plus interest). Some supporters were so appalled by this they effectively walked out on their club, instead choosing to form a new team called FC United of Manchester, whilst others joined MUST (Manchester United Supporters Trust) and came up with the catchy acronym "LUHG" - Love United, Hate Glazer. There was a brief flurry of activism against the Glazers when a campaign based on the "Green and Gold" of United's original colours was abuzz, but it soon died down, and for the last few years there has been constant ill-feeling towards the Glazers, but it's never manifested into something bigger.
OK, that's enough context.
The nasty Glazer business has reared its head again recently because of a thing called an IPO. Now if I struggle with "leveraged buy-out", I don't stand a chance with this thing, but a quick read of Wikipedia has helped slightly. An IPO (Initial public offering) is a scheme where shares in a company are offered to the general public to buy, though not enough shares to put the ownership of the business under any doubt. In essence, it's a crafty way to raise a bit of dosh pretty quickly. A good thing, right? Well, no, not according to MUST and Glazer critics, who point to the fact that even though some of the money raised will go towards repaying the club's debts, the vast majority of it will instead go to the Glazer family themselves.
Who's right, and who do I side with? In fairness, that's not what this post is about.
Because the IPO has brought out the worst in Manchester United fans, particularly on Twitter. Nowadays it seems that we're not united in supporting the team any more. Pro-Glazer, anti-Glazer, pro-Sir Alex, anti-Sir Alex, and let's not even get started on David Gill - every United supporter now comes with a label, and it's all down to the finances of a company owned by a family we've never met. This has led to stupid, stupid, STUPID arguments, some of which are so mind-bogglingly unnecessary it beggars belief. The latest came when anti-Glazer supporter (see?) Andy Green raised the point that due to the terms listed in the IPO, there was a strong chance that Sir Alex Ferguson would benefit financially from the whole shebang. "What a cunt, I've lost all respect for him!" screeched a few. Others castigated Green for even daring to raise the issue - to even hint at criticising Ferguson a sign of some form of betrayal to the "Man Utd family". Finally, some others thought that it was only right that Ferguson, possibly the greatest manager of all time and certainly a long-standing employee, would receive some financial gain from this scheme.
Ferguson was forced to release a statement, categorically stating that he wasn't in line to benefit in any way from the IPO, yet the cease-fire was only in existence for a matter of hours. Last night, it was announced that the club had signed up to a shirt deal with Chevrolet, and we'll receive a total approx to $560m by 2021 off the back of it. Minutes after the news was announced, and before it had even begun to sink in, people took to Twitter to furiously claim how that amount of money per year would be "peanuts" by the time 2021 rolls round, before they in turn were criticised for being negative and instantly critical of anything the Glazers do. And so it goes on, and on, and on, and on.
I can't quit on Manchester United - the emotional bond is too strong. Yet with all the angst swirling round on the internet over my football club - from our own "supporters" - I do find it difficult to enjoy the experience of being a fan as much as I used to. (In that respect, the less said about MUST's latest scheme the better. I can't say I take favourably to being told which bottle of wine I can or cannot buy by someone I've never met.) Partly this is because it's August, and there's no football to talk about right now, but mostly I think the problem is that fans, itching to be called "Top Reds", fall over themselves to analyse and dissect anything and everything to do with the club. For financial experts like Andersred that's fine - I enjoy reading his blog and agree with him often by the way - but I can't say my life has been enriched by swathes of people weighing in on the subject of an IPO listed in New York, and the endless arguments that inevitably ensue.
What does the future hold for United, then? I don't know, but what I hope is for three things. Firstly, that the debt is paid off, and United can go on with no financial worries hanging over them - whoever owns the club. Secondly, that the manager who comes in after Ferguson is given time and adequate resources to do his own thing and try to continue the success we've had recently. Thirdly, that the fanbase becomes a little more...y'know....united. Because as much as I don't really appreciate them, forcing the Glazers out and opening ourselves up to possibly something/someone even worse seems, to me, to be utter madness.
LUHG? I understand. But how about a bit more of the LU bit?
In 2005 Manchester United - the football club I support - were taken over by an American called Malcolm Glazer. Now Mr Glazer is an old dude, so nowadays his business undertakings are co-ordinated by his sons. There's a few of them, and I always forget their names, but the list is something like: Joel, Avram, Bryan, Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, and Grub.
Now Uncle Malc took over United thanks to a thing called a "leveraged buy-out". I'm fucked if I fully understand what that is, but here's my rather crude knowledge on the subject - it's a special kind of acquisition where the purchase price is financed using debt, debt which is repaid (eventually) by the company's assets and profits. So the thinking for the Glazers was pretty clear:
1) Manchester United is an extraordinarily well run football club - a profit making machine and always very successful on the pitch
2) Buy the club - make sure it's a leveraged buyout, so that the club itself is saddled with debt and not on the owners personally
3) Pray to fuck that United keep on winning, keep on getting big crowds and sponsorship deals and basically keep on printing money
4) Use the money to fuck off the debt
5) ????
6) Profit!
(And if it all starts to go tits up, you get out ASAP and sell it to a Qatari oil tycoon for $1bn)
Now I mention all that because the nature of the leveraged buyout meant debt, and that didn't sit very well with United supporters. Still doesn't. Overnight, we (when I say "we" in this post I mean United) had gone from a club who were doing very well thank you very much, to a club saddled with about £650m of debt (plus interest). Some supporters were so appalled by this they effectively walked out on their club, instead choosing to form a new team called FC United of Manchester, whilst others joined MUST (Manchester United Supporters Trust) and came up with the catchy acronym "LUHG" - Love United, Hate Glazer. There was a brief flurry of activism against the Glazers when a campaign based on the "Green and Gold" of United's original colours was abuzz, but it soon died down, and for the last few years there has been constant ill-feeling towards the Glazers, but it's never manifested into something bigger.
OK, that's enough context.
The nasty Glazer business has reared its head again recently because of a thing called an IPO. Now if I struggle with "leveraged buy-out", I don't stand a chance with this thing, but a quick read of Wikipedia has helped slightly. An IPO (Initial public offering) is a scheme where shares in a company are offered to the general public to buy, though not enough shares to put the ownership of the business under any doubt. In essence, it's a crafty way to raise a bit of dosh pretty quickly. A good thing, right? Well, no, not according to MUST and Glazer critics, who point to the fact that even though some of the money raised will go towards repaying the club's debts, the vast majority of it will instead go to the Glazer family themselves.
Who's right, and who do I side with? In fairness, that's not what this post is about.
Because the IPO has brought out the worst in Manchester United fans, particularly on Twitter. Nowadays it seems that we're not united in supporting the team any more. Pro-Glazer, anti-Glazer, pro-Sir Alex, anti-Sir Alex, and let's not even get started on David Gill - every United supporter now comes with a label, and it's all down to the finances of a company owned by a family we've never met. This has led to stupid, stupid, STUPID arguments, some of which are so mind-bogglingly unnecessary it beggars belief. The latest came when anti-Glazer supporter (see?) Andy Green raised the point that due to the terms listed in the IPO, there was a strong chance that Sir Alex Ferguson would benefit financially from the whole shebang. "What a cunt, I've lost all respect for him!" screeched a few. Others castigated Green for even daring to raise the issue - to even hint at criticising Ferguson a sign of some form of betrayal to the "Man Utd family". Finally, some others thought that it was only right that Ferguson, possibly the greatest manager of all time and certainly a long-standing employee, would receive some financial gain from this scheme.
Ferguson was forced to release a statement, categorically stating that he wasn't in line to benefit in any way from the IPO, yet the cease-fire was only in existence for a matter of hours. Last night, it was announced that the club had signed up to a shirt deal with Chevrolet, and we'll receive a total approx to $560m by 2021 off the back of it. Minutes after the news was announced, and before it had even begun to sink in, people took to Twitter to furiously claim how that amount of money per year would be "peanuts" by the time 2021 rolls round, before they in turn were criticised for being negative and instantly critical of anything the Glazers do. And so it goes on, and on, and on, and on.
I can't quit on Manchester United - the emotional bond is too strong. Yet with all the angst swirling round on the internet over my football club - from our own "supporters" - I do find it difficult to enjoy the experience of being a fan as much as I used to. (In that respect, the less said about MUST's latest scheme the better. I can't say I take favourably to being told which bottle of wine I can or cannot buy by someone I've never met.) Partly this is because it's August, and there's no football to talk about right now, but mostly I think the problem is that fans, itching to be called "Top Reds", fall over themselves to analyse and dissect anything and everything to do with the club. For financial experts like Andersred that's fine - I enjoy reading his blog and agree with him often by the way - but I can't say my life has been enriched by swathes of people weighing in on the subject of an IPO listed in New York, and the endless arguments that inevitably ensue.
What does the future hold for United, then? I don't know, but what I hope is for three things. Firstly, that the debt is paid off, and United can go on with no financial worries hanging over them - whoever owns the club. Secondly, that the manager who comes in after Ferguson is given time and adequate resources to do his own thing and try to continue the success we've had recently. Thirdly, that the fanbase becomes a little more...y'know....united. Because as much as I don't really appreciate them, forcing the Glazers out and opening ourselves up to possibly something/someone even worse seems, to me, to be utter madness.
LUHG? I understand. But how about a bit more of the LU bit?
Thursday, 26 July 2012
O is for...
Providing you haven't been on the planet Zog for the last few months, you'll know that tomorrow sees the start (well, opening ceremony) of the 2012 summeria Olympia down in Londinium (Apologies for the stupid names but I'm terrified of LOCOG suing me for some copyright infringements).
So much has been scribbled by so many about these Games that there's not much point in me rambling on about the same old topics, and to be honest it's too hot to be sitting inside at a computer banging on. So, I'm going to try something a little different. Apologies for those of you interested in my thoughts about the largest McDonald's in the world being at the Olympia village (LOL) or who I think should light the Olympia flame (Redgrave) but...it's pictures time!
Because quite frankly if there's one thing in this world that I love, it's a photo booth. Ever seen anyone look good in their passport photo? No you haven't, and that's why I love them - for us ugly people, they really are a fantastic leveller. No make-up plus no smiling plus a harsh white background? Why, those conditions make even the most beautiful women in the world look....plain.
See?
Here's a few photos I've found on http://www.london2012.com/athletes of either famous athletes or members of Team GB looking odd/silly/confused. For some of them, if they didn't have their name underneath their picture, I'd have really struggled to recognise them. Seriously, see how many you can get without cheating.
(I mentioned earlier about copyright laws. Truth is, I've no flipping idea whether I'm allowed to put these photos on here or not, but as I've seen them elsewhere I'm going to chance my arm. See you in the courtroom guys!)
ANSWERS
1) Ana Ivanovic
2) Kelly Smith
3) Chris Froome
4) Yohan Blake
5) Elena Baltacha
6) Michael Phelps (!)
7) Jessica Ennis
8) Victoria Azarenka
9) LeBron James
10) Queen Victoria Pendleton
11) Marcos Baghdatis
12) Andy Roddick
However many you got, just take a moment to consider that Roddick has had sex with Brooklyn Decker more times than we've had Prime Ministers. Not bad for a guy who looks like he works at a gas station in Arkansas.
Enjoy the Olympias, humble and law-abiding citizens!
So much has been scribbled by so many about these Games that there's not much point in me rambling on about the same old topics, and to be honest it's too hot to be sitting inside at a computer banging on. So, I'm going to try something a little different. Apologies for those of you interested in my thoughts about the largest McDonald's in the world being at the Olympia village (LOL) or who I think should light the Olympia flame (Redgrave) but...it's pictures time!
Because quite frankly if there's one thing in this world that I love, it's a photo booth. Ever seen anyone look good in their passport photo? No you haven't, and that's why I love them - for us ugly people, they really are a fantastic leveller. No make-up plus no smiling plus a harsh white background? Why, those conditions make even the most beautiful women in the world look....plain.
See?
Here's a few photos I've found on http://www.london2012.com/athletes of either famous athletes or members of Team GB looking odd/silly/confused. For some of them, if they didn't have their name underneath their picture, I'd have really struggled to recognise them. Seriously, see how many you can get without cheating.
(I mentioned earlier about copyright laws. Truth is, I've no flipping idea whether I'm allowed to put these photos on here or not, but as I've seen them elsewhere I'm going to chance my arm. See you in the courtroom guys!)
ANSWERS
1) Ana Ivanovic
2) Kelly Smith
3) Chris Froome
4) Yohan Blake
5) Elena Baltacha
6) Michael Phelps (!)
7) Jessica Ennis
8) Victoria Azarenka
9) LeBron James
10) Queen Victoria Pendleton
11) Marcos Baghdatis
12) Andy Roddick
However many you got, just take a moment to consider that Roddick has had sex with Brooklyn Decker more times than we've had Prime Ministers. Not bad for a guy who looks like he works at a gas station in Arkansas.
Enjoy the Olympias, humble and law-abiding citizens!
Friday, 22 June 2012
No Future, No Future, No Future For You
Finishing university was a surreal experience. For several years I've had books sitting by my computer, paper with notes scribbled on all over the place, thoughts whizzing round my brain about the current assignment, or the next one, or the next module. And then...it all stopped. I clicked "Save Post" on the on-line forum I was to use for my final assignment, my post was duly saved, and then....nothing. No fanfare, no celebrations, no round of applause. I sat at my computer and, to be honest, struggled a bit to take it all in.
One month later and I'm the "proud" owner of a 2:2 in English and Creative & Professional Writing. I'll take it, but I know I could have done better. I have nobody else to blame for not doing as well as I possibly could have done, though, so I learn from the experience(s) and I move on with life. No complaints from me about anything. Of course, "moving on" entails that it's time to enter a new period of my life - to get out of the comfort zone I've been in and ramp it up a notch.
I know I have a lot of catching up to do. I remember watching an interview with the darts player Phil Taylor once, after he had lost a match. The man has won absolutely everything in the game (several times over) and he's a multi-millionaire, but after his defeat he was berating himself. I'm paraphrasing, but his attitude was "That wasn't good enough. I've got too comfortable, and these guys are coming back at me now, and it inspires me. I'm not scared, or worried - I'm inspired, to work even harder, practice even longer, and stay at the top". At the time I thought he was bonkers - just like I do when I see the multi-millionaire Michael Schumacher still risking his life every fortnight in a racing car - but over the past few weeks I've begun to see exactly what he meant. I see a friend of mine, with his nice car, new flat and decent job, and rather than feel bitter or jealous or anything negative, I feel like it's a kick up the backside, a shot in the arm. As I told a(nother) friend the other night - "I'm trying to be excited about my future, not scared of it. I've spent too long being anxious about things."
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, however. For all my excitement and positivity, four years of uni and no part-time job has seen the bank balance dry up quite spectacularly. I would say "God knows what I've spent it on" but deep down we all know where it's gone - on books that I'll never get round to reading/can't read but make me look cultured when put on my bookcase. My reasoning behind this tactic is to one day have this conversation:
Fit girl: "Wow, look at your collection! Madame Bovary!"
Me: "What a cad Flaubert was eh?" *laughs falsely*
Fit girl: "Pride and Prejudice! Wuthering Heights! You're SO cultured! I'm really turned on - can we have sex right now?"
Me: "Sounds reasonable. Let me just move Lee Sharpe's autobiography off the bed first."
With my funds standing at precisely £0 and being unemployed I knew I had no choice but to go down to the Job Centre and sign up for JSA. I didn't want to - still don't, to be honest - but when you tell your brother that he can't have a book from his school's book fair because they're too expensive and you wonder how exactly you're going to pay for your mum's birthday present/Father's Day gifts/the tooth filling at the dentist/meal and drinks out with mates etc you realise that you don't have a great deal of choice.
I signed on. It makes me feel awful doing so, but my friend tells me "that's what it's there for" and my parents agree with me doing it so it's got to be done. As I am 25+, I get £71 a week, paid fortnightly, so I won't be buying an iPhone5 any time soon but for things I'll need - envelopes and stamps, printer cartridges, clothes for interviews - it is a help. As part of receiving JSA I have to trundle down to the Job Centre every fortnight, and once a month I have to meet with my personal advisor, who I met for the very first time today.
What an appalling woman, quite frankly. One minute after I sat down she told me that my degree was "useless", because employers don't care, they want work experience instead, and as I haven't worked since starting uni I wasn't likely to get any interviews anywhere either. She then pointed out that I'm allowed to look for the jobs I want to go for for about 13 weeks, at which point I will have to start applying to be a cleaner/work at McDonalds/retail instead - anything I can get, basically. My previous office experience - where I worked really hard over two years for minimum wage in a shitty, boring job I didn't really care for - wasn't much use either, because I didn't use SAGE, I didn't get an AAT qualification. In short, I'm fucked.
My favourite exchange between us was this little beauty:
Her: "On my screen here it says you'd be interested in being a librarian or working in a library."
Me: "Yes, that's correct - like I said, I'm not fussy, because I know the job market is tough and I can't afford to be picky, but when I chatted with your colleague last time it was something we put down on the screen because it is certainly something I'd like to do, I'd jump at the chance to do it to be honest."
Her: "Yeah, well, we have a bloke who first came here eight years ago wanting to be a librarian - he's still here. You won't get a job in a library."
Me: "Oh."
Followed by this one:
Me: "I was wondering, for graduate jobs - are there any specific websites that you guys use, or recommend to me? I've looked on your website but those jobs aren't perhaps too suitable for my qualifications, and I've been warned about using the commercial sites such as Reed, Monster etc"
Her: "It's not difficult to type in 'graduate jobs' into Google - have you not done that? Look, I'll do it now." *turns screen round*
Me: "Sorry, yes, I meant any specific sites that the Job Centre can recomm...
Her: "See, look here - Google, there's 10 pages of results come up when I type 'graduate jobs' in."
Me: *loses the will to live*
All that positivity that I was talking about earlier - all of it that I was trying to build up disappeared in roughly three minutes. I'll tell you now - being told that the degree you've worked for over several years isn't worth the paper it's printed on isn't much fun. Still, at least I didn't accumulate over £20k worth of debt for it, eh?
Don't get me wrong - I'm not thinking for one moment that a guy with a 2:2 from Wolverhampton University is going to jump into a job worth £50k a year within a matter of days. But to do things properly - work hard, get A Levels, work hard, get work experience, work hard, finish a degree - and just be sneered at....it isn't easy. I've never called myself a "good guy" but I don't think I'm a bad dude. I'm not a benefit cheat. I haven't faked a back injury or fathered six children to get more benefits that way. Yes, I am at home and get to wake up when I want, but let me tell you a little secret - it ain't much fun. Sure I can spend my days reading and masturbating but I like to think there's more to me than that.
The other day my Gran told me how lucky I was - 25, newly graduated, life ahead of me. Today a portly woman from the Job Centre told me that I'm a bit useless, I should be ashamed that I've spent a few years in higher education and not the workplace, my degree counts for shit and I'll be lucky to get an interview anywhere any time soon.
It's difficult to know who to believe, or where to turn, but I know one thing - I'm going to try my damnedest to prove one of those women wrong, and it ain't the mad Irish one now living in Greater Manchester. The challenge has been very much accepted.
One month later and I'm the "proud" owner of a 2:2 in English and Creative & Professional Writing. I'll take it, but I know I could have done better. I have nobody else to blame for not doing as well as I possibly could have done, though, so I learn from the experience(s) and I move on with life. No complaints from me about anything. Of course, "moving on" entails that it's time to enter a new period of my life - to get out of the comfort zone I've been in and ramp it up a notch.
I know I have a lot of catching up to do. I remember watching an interview with the darts player Phil Taylor once, after he had lost a match. The man has won absolutely everything in the game (several times over) and he's a multi-millionaire, but after his defeat he was berating himself. I'm paraphrasing, but his attitude was "That wasn't good enough. I've got too comfortable, and these guys are coming back at me now, and it inspires me. I'm not scared, or worried - I'm inspired, to work even harder, practice even longer, and stay at the top". At the time I thought he was bonkers - just like I do when I see the multi-millionaire Michael Schumacher still risking his life every fortnight in a racing car - but over the past few weeks I've begun to see exactly what he meant. I see a friend of mine, with his nice car, new flat and decent job, and rather than feel bitter or jealous or anything negative, I feel like it's a kick up the backside, a shot in the arm. As I told a(nother) friend the other night - "I'm trying to be excited about my future, not scared of it. I've spent too long being anxious about things."
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, however. For all my excitement and positivity, four years of uni and no part-time job has seen the bank balance dry up quite spectacularly. I would say "God knows what I've spent it on" but deep down we all know where it's gone - on books that I'll never get round to reading/can't read but make me look cultured when put on my bookcase. My reasoning behind this tactic is to one day have this conversation:
Fit girl: "Wow, look at your collection! Madame Bovary!"
Me: "What a cad Flaubert was eh?" *laughs falsely*
Fit girl: "Pride and Prejudice! Wuthering Heights! You're SO cultured! I'm really turned on - can we have sex right now?"
Me: "Sounds reasonable. Let me just move Lee Sharpe's autobiography off the bed first."
With my funds standing at precisely £0 and being unemployed I knew I had no choice but to go down to the Job Centre and sign up for JSA. I didn't want to - still don't, to be honest - but when you tell your brother that he can't have a book from his school's book fair because they're too expensive and you wonder how exactly you're going to pay for your mum's birthday present/Father's Day gifts/the tooth filling at the dentist/meal and drinks out with mates etc you realise that you don't have a great deal of choice.
I signed on. It makes me feel awful doing so, but my friend tells me "that's what it's there for" and my parents agree with me doing it so it's got to be done. As I am 25+, I get £71 a week, paid fortnightly, so I won't be buying an iPhone5 any time soon but for things I'll need - envelopes and stamps, printer cartridges, clothes for interviews - it is a help. As part of receiving JSA I have to trundle down to the Job Centre every fortnight, and once a month I have to meet with my personal advisor, who I met for the very first time today.
What an appalling woman, quite frankly. One minute after I sat down she told me that my degree was "useless", because employers don't care, they want work experience instead, and as I haven't worked since starting uni I wasn't likely to get any interviews anywhere either. She then pointed out that I'm allowed to look for the jobs I want to go for for about 13 weeks, at which point I will have to start applying to be a cleaner/work at McDonalds/retail instead - anything I can get, basically. My previous office experience - where I worked really hard over two years for minimum wage in a shitty, boring job I didn't really care for - wasn't much use either, because I didn't use SAGE, I didn't get an AAT qualification. In short, I'm fucked.
My favourite exchange between us was this little beauty:
Her: "On my screen here it says you'd be interested in being a librarian or working in a library."
Me: "Yes, that's correct - like I said, I'm not fussy, because I know the job market is tough and I can't afford to be picky, but when I chatted with your colleague last time it was something we put down on the screen because it is certainly something I'd like to do, I'd jump at the chance to do it to be honest."
Her: "Yeah, well, we have a bloke who first came here eight years ago wanting to be a librarian - he's still here. You won't get a job in a library."
Me: "Oh."
Followed by this one:
Me: "I was wondering, for graduate jobs - are there any specific websites that you guys use, or recommend to me? I've looked on your website but those jobs aren't perhaps too suitable for my qualifications, and I've been warned about using the commercial sites such as Reed, Monster etc"
Her: "It's not difficult to type in 'graduate jobs' into Google - have you not done that? Look, I'll do it now." *turns screen round*
Me: "Sorry, yes, I meant any specific sites that the Job Centre can recomm...
Her: "See, look here - Google, there's 10 pages of results come up when I type 'graduate jobs' in."
Me: *loses the will to live*
All that positivity that I was talking about earlier - all of it that I was trying to build up disappeared in roughly three minutes. I'll tell you now - being told that the degree you've worked for over several years isn't worth the paper it's printed on isn't much fun. Still, at least I didn't accumulate over £20k worth of debt for it, eh?
Don't get me wrong - I'm not thinking for one moment that a guy with a 2:2 from Wolverhampton University is going to jump into a job worth £50k a year within a matter of days. But to do things properly - work hard, get A Levels, work hard, get work experience, work hard, finish a degree - and just be sneered at....it isn't easy. I've never called myself a "good guy" but I don't think I'm a bad dude. I'm not a benefit cheat. I haven't faked a back injury or fathered six children to get more benefits that way. Yes, I am at home and get to wake up when I want, but let me tell you a little secret - it ain't much fun. Sure I can spend my days reading and masturbating but I like to think there's more to me than that.
The other day my Gran told me how lucky I was - 25, newly graduated, life ahead of me. Today a portly woman from the Job Centre told me that I'm a bit useless, I should be ashamed that I've spent a few years in higher education and not the workplace, my degree counts for shit and I'll be lucky to get an interview anywhere any time soon.
It's difficult to know who to believe, or where to turn, but I know one thing - I'm going to try my damnedest to prove one of those women wrong, and it ain't the mad Irish one now living in Greater Manchester. The challenge has been very much accepted.
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