BUDGET

Twas brillig and the slithy tives

Did gyre and gimble in the grove ;       

All mimsey was the borogrove

And the mome  rathe outgraved.

Good nonsense verse is hard to write and I shall turn my attention to the tedious subject of the budget as I can't remember any more of the Jabberwocky.

Well it was the sort of budget you would expect from a coalition - dull and disappointing. I have always hated the idea of a coalition where each side has a veto on the other. It is not surprising that nothing definite ever gets done.

Boy George did his best but that was not much good - something for pensioners and penalties for drinkers and smokers but I am not sure that our masters in Brussels will allow all that he has tried to

do. "We're all in this together" was always a silly slogan from a very rich man who would never feel the pinch himself especially when he was fronted by a front bench of millionaires.  No wonder the leader of the opposition asked the front bench to stand up if they would not be worse off and the Beast of Bolsover  made his usual cracks about millionaires' row. 

Actually most coalitions fall out and we have to have one of our General Elections which I really rather like.  In one year we had three of them,  and one of these heralded in the demise of Jeremy Thorpe.    I miss him.  Who will take that wit and humour into the House of Commons which it  badly needs? At the moment they are a very dull lot.

A Book of Secrets

What to read? So many books that have been praised to the skies by each man's or woman's buddy - (John's another Thackeray, Jane's another Chaucer; Jennifer is clearly a Trollope only coarser) - that one does not know where to begin.  The current number of The New York Review of Books is helpful, praising "A Book of Secrets" by Michael Holroyd.
It tells the story of a man called 'Becket' who was born at the end of the nineteenth century, inherited money, inherited even more money (this time from an uncle whom he hardly knew) and went off to live, very comfortably, in Italy. There he seduced a girl who called the daughter of this liaison 'Violet' before becoming in later life Mrs Alice Keppel - the mistress of Edward VII. Violet is chiefly known for her affaire with Vita Sackville-West now so well recorded.  And there they all there! Isn't that Lytton? And Virginia? And Duncan  and Carrington and the whole Bloomsbury lot who were so influential in the inter-war years? Those years which were one long cocktail party between World Wars; nobody knew how the first one began but everyone knew that it never properly ended and that a second one was bound to follow in spite of Morgan saying that he would choose to lay down his life for his friend rather than his country. (What did he mean by saying "Only connect"? Perhaps he was thinking of the gay friendships which they all indulged and extoling homosexual love.  I shall never understand how it was that once they had put themselves outside the law for one "crime" they thought that everything was available. And here come Burgess and McLean and all the Cambridge spies. No wonder Hitler was convinced that the young men of England would not fight for King and Country. Part biography part fiiction it is all here in "A Book of Secrets". Read it with pleasure.

What is more it is all done in 285 easy to hold pages.






      

A Book of Secrets

So many books - so many books that may be worth reading.  How shall we know what is worth while?
The New York Review of Books occasionally comes to our aid.  Here is their latest choice coming in

Ride Him, Cowboy

A spokesman for Dave denied on Tuesday 28th of February that the Prime Minister had ridden a former Metroplitan Police horse owned by Rebekah Brooks.  On Friday March 2nd, the Prime Minister admitted he had ridden Raisa.

Dave, Dave how can you have done it? I mean how can you have spent three days dithering over whether or not you could get away with ambiguous statements about that horse?  You ought to have known in three seconds that, after the expenses scandal and the setting up of the Press inquiry, the truth was bound to come out and delay could only make matters worse.  This goes to show how far you have got from the real life of the country.  You must send Lord Loosen-up away. (For the correct pronounciation of Leverson see my previous blog. "Leveson - Gower" should be pronounced "Loosen - Gore"), send them all packing and let anyone publish whatever they like. After all when the Prime Minister thinks that he is immune from making an open statement about this important matter it is reason to think that there must be something more than we have told.  And that is why the Press is there  and plays such an importanr part  in defending the ordinary citizen from the depredations of the Government.  If that upsets an actor with floppy hair who has not been scene in professional life for some time  he will have put up with it.

We are on good terms with our binmen. "Get well soon from the National Union of the General and Municipal Boilermakers by 13 votes to 12."

Kings and Queens

A couple of weeks in hospital is the ideal background for blog production. The  "blogeur" is free to range over the vacnt lot that his heart is rapidly becoming and lets him speculate freely and allow  an inpressive pile of of discards.  What is left?.  Here's one .....
The English Monarch.....
England  became the country it used to be shortly before it was conquered by the French.  After a couple of centuries of buggering about it packed up having English kings and left it to the Welsh for a couple more centuries when it changed to borrowing a king from Scotland. After the Scots we had a woman  who was married to a Dutchman and finally settled on a German.
Germans have occupied the throne ever since and have made a jolly good job of it. But why have we never had an Englishman in charge?  Probably because we are all much too nice......                        

Soldiers

What strange thoughts swim into the mind after midnight whenn the unconscience part of the brain takes charge:

We're the soldiers of the Queen my lads,

And what they ask us what we've seen, my lads,

And they ask us why we've always won,

Its because we're the soldiers of the queen...

or something like that.  This patriotic song started me thinking about the empire and how it was that we came to loose it. My own view is that we are better off without it, but how did it all go?  Clearly it was something to do with the second world war when the countries of the empire came in on our side as we stood alone against Hitler who was then at the height of his power.  (He achieved a much more successful European union than our so-called colleagues have managed to do.  "Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.") So I suppose that we must have promised them all independance as the colonists were fed up with us despising them.

In the colonies, dominions and protectorates,

It isn't true that everyone expectorates....

now that's more like it.  The problem has been solved.  No need to be worried about it any more.  Sleep beckons.



Football Fangs

What is all this fuss about one footballer insulting another footballer?

Sticks and stones can break my bones

But words will never hurt me.

 Apparently they can hurt these sensitive little flowers who are millionaires and who help to fill acres of newsprint with their doings and their boring sex lives, not to mention their secret injunctions in courts to which we have no access.

And that raises another question i.e. why are there any courts which are closed to the general public?  Everything that happens in court ought to be availsble to anyone who has an interest inm it even if it is only inquisitive curiosity.  This is especially so for courts which deal with the custody of children who are often pawns in a game played by social workers and the police.  An explanation is needed by me if not by anyone else. Open up Clarke! I want to know what is going on behind closed doors. 

That's enough thinking for one night.