It was warmer - and much nicer - almost like spring, but lets not get too excited - rain due tomorrow. Did bits of stuff in the studio - picked up a new cupboard for the kitchen that will look great after a bit of cleaning up. Feeling very relaxed about the increase in general temperature - although I spoke to someone earlier today who had been out in the Lake District this morning and there is still 2-3 feet of snow in places.
I'm getting quite attached to the weird little spam comments, they are either generated by computers or put there by people getting paid fractions of a penny per post - usually having been through a couple of translation websites first. Strange, abstract, confused and random. What's not to like.
Earlier - on Oxfam - I overheard two women complaining about the prices "I bought real class in the PDSA for £2.99, look at this tat for a fiver - they should be ashamed.
After walking through Clive Vale this evening - I can conform that there are still two xmas trees up - and one holly wreath on a front door.
Oh yes, the other thing.
The Thatcher thing was, frankly - a bit of an anti-climax - with most people being far less bothered than I had expected. 'That' Thatcher - the one everybody bangs on about - has been dead for a decade, this was just a very old, very sick woman. Quite a few of her most vocal opponents were far too young to remember what the world was like. It was a different wold - as is the world today. I lived through the whole thing, and as I'm sure you have noticed am quite a long way to the left of the Iron Lady ( mind you - I'm quite a long way to the left of Blair - but isn't everyone ). I can remember the strikes, the redundancies, the fear - the social divisions - all of it. Mountains of bin bags in Leicester Square, bodies unburied, my fathers redundancy and his conviction that he would never work again at the age of 40 - his redundancy cheque sitting on the table for several days because he couldn't bear to bank it. I also remember how shit everything was - and mainland IRA bombing, and the Yorkshire Ripper, and everyday casual racism, and don't get me started on homophobia. I've stood on the balcony of my flat while the glass dropped from the broken windows and flakes of insulation fell like snow as a black mushroom cloud blossomed over the city of London, and I've hidden on my Peckham kitchen as rioters burned cars outside my house.The world is different and so are we. I do wish the people who still bang on about Thatcher put all that energy into learning from the past and moving forward, making sure that the same things never happen again. I know people who will be lost now - with nobody to hate - the centre of their life is gone.
I don't really care about all that any more - I'm more worried about the present. Thatcher told us it was possible to work our way out of poverty and to aspire - get an education, be creative and inventive - it might have just been sound-bites and flannel - but many of us did it, or at least tried. Now, it's all about fear and class hatred - hopelessess, resentment and mediocracy.
One thing that really pissed me off - Gerry Adams on the radio being very critical of Thatcher - he is nobody to talk. There is so much evil in that man it cannot even be named. If tolerating him is a part of the price we pay fr peace - then so be it - but it makes me sick to my stomach.
2 comments:
Thanks. I agree with almost every word here, you sum it up very well.
She effectively 'died' when she was stabbed in the back several times over by her colleagues, in 1990. That betrayal destroyed her and the last 22 years of the life were spent in a purgatorial existence of ever decreasing circles. I don't know why her death has brought so much pleasure to some people, as she ended up as a pathetic, senile old woman - punishment enough, surely. The way some people talk about her, you could be forgiven for thinking that she was up there with Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin.
I hated what she did and what she stood for, but I see her as a product of her time. All of this 'Hey ho, the witch is dead!" stuff is a bit infantile.
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