I was listening to the radio this morning, the great debate taking place concerning changes to the Benefits system. I note that the coalition government refers to the system as 'The Welfare State' - as though they are somehow 'removed' or separate from the way the Benefits system is funded and controlled.
I do not pretend to know an awful lot about the economy or politics, although I am a great believer in the adage 'the personal is political' and one of the areas where this seems very evident is concerning cuts that have been instigated in benefits, and those that are to follow. In the late 80's Margaret Thatcher said:
"There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate".
Did Thatcher mean that we should take responsibility for ourselves while helping others? Are those who are born into poverty or with disability or who become ill the "unfortunate" whom we are meant to help? Surely by working and paying taxes we are doing just that.
The Coalition are putting their weight behind the idea of 'The Big Society'.
The website http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/big-society states:
"The Big Society is about helping people to come together to improve their own lives. It’s about putting more power in people’s hands – a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities".
The only way that I can see some of the Benefit Cuts will change communities - so called transferring power is in the migration of people in receipt of Housing and Incapacity benefits to poorer/less affluent areas where the housing is cheaper (and therefore fall within the benefit limits). Leading to 'gettoisation'...
Semantics aside (you say society, I say society), what is the difference - what difference have the Lib Dems made? I don't see any great beauty in the tapestry that is 2012 Britain.
For an overview of the proposed cuts and their effects see Turn to Us:
http://www.turn2us.org.uk/information__resources_-_3/benefits/benefit_changes.aspx
Monday 27 February 2012
Wednesday 22 February 2012
The soundtrack to my life
I said I would explain the concept I mentioned in an earlier post - 'the soundtrack to my life'.
It is slightly different to the soundtrack of my life - which is more self explanatory.
The soundtrack to my life is the songs/poems/prose that spring to mind as people speak, or act, or as events occur. For example today my daughters were discussing the love life of a friend and commented that she had thought she had it all. Cue Whitney Houston's 'Didn't we almost have it all' to begin running through my head (okay, yes and a quick vocal burst); writing that bought to mind a line from a poem 'suddenly everyone burst out singing' (Everyone Sang by Sigfried Sassoon- I had to look it up because it was just a line).
You see how it works.
A classic that occurs while walking though certain areas of anywhere: Pulp's Common People.
It is slightly different to the soundtrack of my life - which is more self explanatory.
The soundtrack to my life is the songs/poems/prose that spring to mind as people speak, or act, or as events occur. For example today my daughters were discussing the love life of a friend and commented that she had thought she had it all. Cue Whitney Houston's 'Didn't we almost have it all' to begin running through my head (okay, yes and a quick vocal burst); writing that bought to mind a line from a poem 'suddenly everyone burst out singing' (Everyone Sang by Sigfried Sassoon- I had to look it up because it was just a line).
You see how it works.
A classic that occurs while walking though certain areas of anywhere: Pulp's Common People.
I want to live like common people,
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people,
I want to sleep with common people,
like you."
Well what else could I do -
I said "I'll see what I can do."
I took her to a supermarket,
I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere,
so it started there.
...
I want to do whatever common people do,
I want to sleep with common people,
I want to sleep with common people,
like you."
Well what else could I do -
I said "I'll see what I can do."
I took her to a supermarket,
I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere,
so it started there.
...
Rent a flat above a shop,
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM
cut your hair and get a job.
Smoke some fags and play some pool,
pretend you never went to school.
But still you'll never get it right,
cos when you're laid in bed at night,
watching roaches climb the wall,
if you call your Dad he could stop it all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM
Which for me always leads to Educating Rita - Willy Russell... and round and round it goes...
In a similar way when I was in Stratford upon Avon with my sisters recently, my eldest sister introduced the concept of 'songs I love but would be happy never to hear again'. I was horrified! I love songs and music, I don't want to relegate any, but when I thought about it I began to consider which songs might be able to appear...
Gentleness
I have allowed a week to pass since my last post - slack - you were warned.
I don't know where the week has gone, half term made it busy and several family events; including my son proposing to his girlfriend. She said yes.
Today my son is 27, a week rushes by but so have the past 27 years. He was born in Hereford.
While we were travelling to the hospital in the early hours past Queenswood a deer walked in front of the car. A deer is the symbol of gentleness and if one crosses your path it is said to demonstrate that you are a compassionate and loving person. I wonder if these qualities are meant to be mine or my son's?
http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/leisure/parks_recreation/queenswood.aspx
I don't know where the week has gone, half term made it busy and several family events; including my son proposing to his girlfriend. She said yes.
Today my son is 27, a week rushes by but so have the past 27 years. He was born in Hereford.
While we were travelling to the hospital in the early hours past Queenswood a deer walked in front of the car. A deer is the symbol of gentleness and if one crosses your path it is said to demonstrate that you are a compassionate and loving person. I wonder if these qualities are meant to be mine or my son's?
http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/leisure/parks_recreation/queenswood.aspx
Tuesday 14 February 2012
Valentine
It is Valentine's Day and I don't think I can let it pass without something on my blog, I am a middle aged woman after all - or should that just read 'I am a woman after all'? I am going to offer you a selection of pieces (does this bring to mind the 'nettted' selection stockings that you would be given as a child at Christmas? Consider it in the same way.)
Is love a tender thing?
It is too rough, too
rude, too boist'rous,
and it pricks like a thorn'.
(Romeo and Juliet)
This painting of Shakespeare's fictional lovers by Frank Dicksee was voted the most romantic work of art currently on display in UK museums and galleries.
All this talk of Romeo and Juliet is making my 'life soundtrack' run through my head - Dire Straits: Romeo and Juliet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tim4VzHUUyQ
Not Love Pehaps
Not Love Perhaps
Not Love Pehaps
Not Love Perhaps
This is not Love, perhaps,
Love that lays down its life,
that many waters cannot quench,
nor the floods drown,
But something written in lighter ink,
said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own.
A need, at times, to be together and talk,
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places,
And meet more easily nightmare faces;
A need to reach out, sometimes, hand to hand,
And then find Earth less like an alien land;
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street.
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas,
Halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked, notes compared;
A need, at times, of each for each,
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.
Love that lays down its life,
that many waters cannot quench,
nor the floods drown,
But something written in lighter ink,
said in a lower tone, something, perhaps, especially our own.
A need, at times, to be together and talk,
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places,
And meet more easily nightmare faces;
A need to reach out, sometimes, hand to hand,
And then find Earth less like an alien land;
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street.
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas,
Halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked, notes compared;
A need, at times, of each for each,
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.
(ASJ Tessimond)
Soundtrack of Life (if you don't understand this reference I will explain at some point) is running 10cc - I'm not in Love
'I like to see you
But then again
That doesn't mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you
Don't make a fuss
Don't tell your friends about the two of us'.
But then again
That doesn't mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you
Don't make a fuss
Don't tell your friends about the two of us'.
I'm not in love, no no, it's because...'
- The End of The Affair (Graham Greene)
- Love doesn't end, just because we don't see each other.
- Doesn't it?
- People go on loving God, don't they? All their lives. Without seeing him.
- That's not my kind of love.
- Maybe there is no other kind.
Valentine
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
Carol Ann Duffy
I have realised that all of the 'selections here are not traditionally 'romantic'. If I am to contine to think of this post as a confectionary selection it will have to be made of plain bitter sweet chocolate, not the sweet confection I anticipated it to be.
Saturday 11 February 2012
I Love You Because
Adding to the theme of the memories stirred by music (previous post), an unexpected hearing of Charlie Pride's Crystal Chandeliers brought my Mother to mind. She was keen on Country and Western music: Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Don William, Billy Jo Spears, Kenny Rogers to recall a few.
I have a clear memory of my Mother dressed in a chiffon sleeved maxi dress of the type worn by Tammy Wynette in the early 70's, in fact Mum was buried in her favourite cream one - she saved it for the occasion.
We played Jim Reeves and Charlie Pride at her funeral, she would have loved it...
A good friend lost her mother last week, she was a keen member of the choir.
Music is just one of the ways that we celebrate and remember.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nECoA-uVGfw
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Top of The Pops
Early in the new year I had a brief moment of panic when I thought that I was about to depart this world. I was lying in my bum rut when my life began to flash before my eyes. It took a few seconds of confusion (during which I raised myself to rest on my elbow) for my son to point out that in fact Top of The Pops 1977 was replaying on BBC4...
1977, I was 15 - it was my life reappearing before my eyes. The year of the Silver Jubilee, the death of Elvis and Marc Bolan and the arrival in Britain of Punk.
Watching Baccara performing 'Yes Sir I can Boogie' and Brotherhood of Man with Angelo it seemed quite easy to understand how something so gritty and apparently 'down with the kids' such as punk blew us all away. But thinking about the early 70's - remember Prog rock? Glam rock was a direct descendant, there was Motown, disco, Bob Marley. Were Queen a glam rock band, Roxy Music? So the move to punk is not so easily defined. It can just be seen to have captured a moment. Just as the political wilderness, unemployment and urban decay of the early eighties could be defined by The Specials 'Ghost Town'
'This town is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place is coming like a ghost town
Bands won't play no more
Too much fighting on the dance floor
Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?
We danced and sang and the music played in the boom town'
A time that seems very familiar now, 35 years later. The 1981 riots, are they comparable to the rioting seen last year? We have the Golden Jubilee celebrated against a back ground of unemployment, austerity and disaffection.
I wonder what genre of music will be seen to have captured 'this moment' in years to come?
1977, I was 15 - it was my life reappearing before my eyes. The year of the Silver Jubilee, the death of Elvis and Marc Bolan and the arrival in Britain of Punk.
Watching Baccara performing 'Yes Sir I can Boogie' and Brotherhood of Man with Angelo it seemed quite easy to understand how something so gritty and apparently 'down with the kids' such as punk blew us all away. But thinking about the early 70's - remember Prog rock? Glam rock was a direct descendant, there was Motown, disco, Bob Marley. Were Queen a glam rock band, Roxy Music? So the move to punk is not so easily defined. It can just be seen to have captured a moment. Just as the political wilderness, unemployment and urban decay of the early eighties could be defined by The Specials 'Ghost Town'
'This town is coming like a ghost town
All the clubs have been closed down
This place is coming like a ghost town
Bands won't play no more
Too much fighting on the dance floor
Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town?
We danced and sang and the music played in the boom town'
A time that seems very familiar now, 35 years later. The 1981 riots, are they comparable to the rioting seen last year? We have the Golden Jubilee celebrated against a back ground of unemployment, austerity and disaffection.
I wonder what genre of music will be seen to have captured 'this moment' in years to come?
Wednesday 1 February 2012
On the buses
Using public transport is such a trial, it has always been a nuisance, waiting for buses that don't turn up, having to add an hour to even the shortest journey, but since the recession, the cuts, we now have no buses after 7 in the evening and no Sunday service. Two of my children have to work in the evening and some Sundays - there must be so many people who now can not get to or from work without walking miles.
Dogs are allowed on buses, occasionally I have to move to avoid having my leg sniffed - although to be frank I have had to move away from the odd person for similar reasons (why, often when there are very few people on the bus do the drunks and weirdos always head for me?)
On one particularly memorable trip a woman got on the bus with a large Alsatian and a puppy. She held the puppy on her lap and the dog lay by the seat. Shortly after we had set off the puppy was sick, straight onto the head of the larger dog. Their owner looked around, panic in her eyes, spotting the free newspapers she grabbed one and vigorously rubbed the dog's head. The grim, and by now quite pungent journey continued. The Alsatian, obviously aroused by the head rub, became hugely erect. I can't begin to describe my revulsion or the 'lipstick' that filled my gaze for the remainder of the journey. Eeww.
Dogs are allowed on buses, occasionally I have to move to avoid having my leg sniffed - although to be frank I have had to move away from the odd person for similar reasons (why, often when there are very few people on the bus do the drunks and weirdos always head for me?)
On one particularly memorable trip a woman got on the bus with a large Alsatian and a puppy. She held the puppy on her lap and the dog lay by the seat. Shortly after we had set off the puppy was sick, straight onto the head of the larger dog. Their owner looked around, panic in her eyes, spotting the free newspapers she grabbed one and vigorously rubbed the dog's head. The grim, and by now quite pungent journey continued. The Alsatian, obviously aroused by the head rub, became hugely erect. I can't begin to describe my revulsion or the 'lipstick' that filled my gaze for the remainder of the journey. Eeww.
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