Covid-19 golf grants from R & A, via Scottish Golf

It was Adam Smith who suggested Tax should be easy to collect and grants should be easy to distribute but the announcement about the distribution of the R &A cash has reminded me how badly our generation has been at making these processes so expensive.

The fixed payment and the reimbursement of 25% of the normal Scottish Golf subscription on behalf of club members are very good examples of a fair,convenient, certain and simple distributive methodology.

Adam Smith would be smiling down at this stage, thinking we Scots are quick learners.

The idea of a four-stage process involving club managers up and down the country bidding for cash strikes me as very labour intensive and high processing costs for all.

I think it was Coase, the celebrated economist in the 1920's who first drew my attention to the transaction costs and the ones involved in a tendering process always spring to mind. 

Those who tender for work have a cost but also the people who assess the tenders and decide who to finally award the successful bidders also have a cost.

In short we will be needing to pay salaries to Scottish Golf to assess compliance with a random set of measures and financial impact of Coronavirus. The process at club level could perhaps be even worse. If a club spends more than £1,000 or 40 hours, in managerial time, proving the case for a grant, only to be awarded £1000, it will have been self evidently a waste of the bail out resources.

Added or should I say subtracted from this the government has benefited from the tax and NI all employees and employers pay.

The processing costs of bail out money should be nil, those managing the bail out money have a duty to make sure every penny reaches those in need and doesn't get eaten up in administrative costs.

It reminds me of why casinos take your cash so easily. The roulette wheel skims 3% with every spin and after 1 spin they are taking 3% of your 97% and after more spins you find that they're taking 3% of a much smaller amount, a bit like tendering processes.

I spent my life streamlining processes and when something is simple as the revenue collapse or the costs associated with covid-19 from just filling out the forms for furloughed staff, through to the managing of safety signage and course expenditure to comply, it seems rather pointless to ask clubs to detail how much they've spent trying to keep their community club going.

Every club in Scotland, every club in the UK spent so much money prior to lockdown that a small grant of £1,000 will be very welcome but don't please ask clubs to go through more hoops, distribute the money quickly and simply.

Scottish Football's philanthropic donor clearly knew that time was important and despite the grants being of £50,000 per club knew about Adam Smith and clearly wanted the process to be clear and simple.

Coase and Adam Smith gave us great guidance and like good firemen, knew that you don't negotiate over who supplies the water when the building is burning, you get water onto it as fast as you can.

See you in the rough.

1980's sewing bee

I laughed recently when watching this program and their categorization of the eighties

The it is what a time of success and excess big collars big shoulder blades and power dressing

The deregulation of the city and the opening up of lap dancing clubs was unanimous to many. It's hard to see why someone like Margaret Thatcher should go to war with galtieri and Sxargill while lying down to the city.

This deregulation was a one-way bet tantamount to agreeing to Sxargill and keeping all the uneconomic pits open and yet that is what happened. Deregulation highlights the type of class mistake that just government made.

It was abundantly clear when later selling off the family silver AKA the council houses and our nationalised industries, in the privatisations, that city advisors on privatisations had clearly not been regulated They had been given a license to print even more money their advice was to sell cheap and they would take 3% for the privilege, deregulation to me should have meant lower charges, and brokers advising to maximise the return, not a gravy train.

The period of stagging shares, applying and then immediately selling, created a short term bubble of activity and greed. There was no boom, but a hand out with a caveat the caveat being that you needed capital in order to get this handout it's a very strange concept but nonetheless if you had £10,000, you could roll it over every couple of months on the latest new privatisation. The miners in the meantime along with most of manufacturing industry were to rely on different handouts, smaller ones.

I laughed when I watched the Great British sewing bee as I remember going to Charity shops and buying clothes that I would sew.  I once got a fantastic bargain two old pairs of police trousers complete with a slot for a baton. They were clearly for someone taller than me but I took in the waist and both legs to make them much more like drain pipes. One pair I was very successful, but the other pair ended up looking like jodphurs. Jodphurs were of course quite fashionable so I could wear my drain pipes north of Watford and my jodphurs when I was in the affluent South.

Such great days but c'mon the great British sewing bee, fashion has always shown a true history of society.

Take me on a journey

Take me on a journey that's what my music does for me take me on a journey from my elbow to my knee take me on a journey let's climb a fucking hill join me on a journey I'm climbing still

 I love these little journeys They make me smile out loud I'm standing on my own, in the middle of a cloud I'm floating high above them in this quite unique wee gig

I'm floating in the middle of the crowd that's not so big I'm loving every minute the voices in my head they're always in tune instead of the live recording when drums and guitar collide and bass bounces with bewilderment, bewilderment be fair, and all the crowd are jumping with no movement in their hair The moment this all gels and cascades through my mind my cheeks relax my body feels good my soul my treasure my find.

What's going on in my head what's going on in my head I really quite enjoy it like nothing I have read sound is going on and on and on instead

Yes finders keepers losers weepers I'm thinking this all the time I listen and laugh I laugh loudly again this entertainment stood the test of time.

On this day June 18th

Yes in 1974 Fat Al records that we drew with Brazil and kids in the other 6tg grade class (at Darnestown elementary school, MD) had let off the fire alarm. I'll bet the teachers were mad missing out on their annual "no fire alarm" bonus.

In 1979 I got a job on £1 an hour in the print room. £40 a week had me salivating and the fruit machine in the Queen's Arms was rocking while I got rolled.

By 1980 I was warming up for my driving test with a trip to Asda (other supermarkets did exist but we went to the one on Milton road). Golfers will note I had a 73 with 2 penalty shots, clearly I wouldn't let it lie, surely a 71 was only days away....

By 1983 it was time to put the finishing touches to issue 15. AKA start writing it. #13 had sold out and #14 was not selling as well. It seemed a bit harsh as it was one of our best covers. I blamed the election in May. It certainly done for my uni exams. I was famously tied to a tree in 1983 on that election night. To be fair, vanity b fair, I was tied up in late afternoon as I was in an alcoholic with complimentary amnesia induced coma.

By 1984 we were working on #26, collecting the cash for #25 and lamenting still, Thatcher's brutal destruction, no not dead neighbours, although they did appear!

How simple it had been 10 years earlier when the only escape I planned was from Washington DC. A place where after 2 years teaching my teacher how to play chess and my classmates that there were actually a large number of different countries in the world.....I had two years in their education system and if I sound bitter it's because my football career was ruined there, I missed my favourite aunties and my bottom lip kept trembling, a sure sign I've let it go, ha ha!

lockdown #23 plants do have memories even if humans dont

Plants have great learning mechanisms and have survived longer than humans so no great surprise to find their memories are good despite the lack of social media. What might be a surprise to many is how many university professors are investigating memory, problem solving and learning capability in plants. They're not to dissimilar to us after all but they dont like classical music and have rejected GDP as a measure of their species success.

I talk away to my plants and try to guide my weeds away from them. The weeds are ust plants people dont like, largely because they know a free lunch when they see them every bit as much as a slug. The bind weed that grows around my onions sucking the life out of them benefits greatly from its choice but my onion is rarely happy. I'm on the side of the onion, but only so I can eat it later, if only it knew! I put plastic fencing out for the bind weed to grow up but it usually goes off piste as it gets little nutrients from the plastic, a bit like the fish in the oceans, plastic isn't good for the digestive system either.

We train tomatoes to go up the way whereas they would much prefer to grow along the way. They spread their fruit onto the ground and when it's burnt dry the seed starts over.

Working with nature we harvest the fruit from the tomato plant but tomato seeds are very clever. Humans cant digest them so they come back out into world in a different location carried in the droppings of birds, foxes or humans.

Which leads me to an interesting point relating to honey. I always think of honey as a by product of a bee and therefore like a fox shitting a tomato seed and a tomato plant producing a tomato, these by products were at one with nature, but that's for another day, today I'm standing up for vegetables and plants generally.

There's a harmony in my head......which says we need to train things or we learn to live with the less desirable consequences. I couldn't help thinking the racism that results in the murder of black citizens at the hand of the weeds in the police force. Weeds are everywhere and its in their nature to destroy. The only solution is to retrain them, but perhaps like priests around the world they cant be retrained. In the allotment people sometimes use chemicals to control their weeds while others selectively pull them out. Both are techniques to improve the situation. I talk to the bind weed and explain that my onions matter to me. I say bad bind weed, and then on other days, I just think you're never going to learn, fuck you, I've had enough. We all live in harmony then you come along with you colonial views and your white male trash values and think at long last someone I can bully and get away with it, someone I can kill and get a few pats on the back from the guys back at control. I really feel for the good police officers across the country that dont need to go to a correction institution. I think of the 94% of priests that weren't paedophile, then I just lose it because not only was there 6% that were they were actively sent by another 6% management to be exonerated and do it again.

I dont know what's worse, the initial crimes or the fact that the hierarchy in our institutions seem to go into 'protect and survive' mode. We dont want to undermine the police force or the priests so we will not prosecute guilty parties. We will stand behind them and help them through these troubled times. Sickening, but I'm back to the harmony in my head as I yank another chunk of bind weed out and slip it effortlessly onto the bonfire.

The victims might not be best placed to suggest the corrective surgery required to improve behaviour but indoctrinated individuals should be asked to bring a racist pal along and they can recite for 7 hours a day. Black is beautiful. Black lives matter. All life matters. Black people are brilliant in all walks of society. They then have to memorise 10,000 names and the professions of people in all walks of life. From a painter or a poet, a sportstar or a spaceman. After this indoctrination they will then be asked to recruit another 4 people for the programme to get out. It worked for Epstein and society's always being told it needs to learn from business.

Now, next lockdown thought is Brussels Sprouts and Lettuces, aka, Buy to Let mortgages and why they are confirmation that our society has learnt little from 2008 banking collapse.....

lucky lockdown #33 The Other One 5 stars

Take a bow Holly Walsh & Pippa Brown.

From the first minute the show just felt right and we're on episode 4 already, another midnight finish and so funny. Hysterically funny and beautifully original comedy.

Superb characters played by great actors. Casting actors cant be easy but when you get it right, like here, there must be a smug grin from ear to ear! for those doing it

I'll be on the fizzy tea for breakfast tomorrow.

No spoiler alert as I'm not going to spoil it, BBC, The Other One, watch and enjoy!

lockdown #37 - Athene - wisdom personified

I enjoy the Great London (British) sewing bee but its quite amazing how institutionalised it is in its interpretation of the 80's.

For them its all about power jacket and shoulder pads and yet as they play "Blue Monday" and I'm thinking of Relax, the TUBE, I'm seeing a different society.

I'm watching Brookside, they're talking Bros "when will I be famous", and I'm thinking Patrik Fitzgerald sang "When I get Famous" in 78...

Its the thing about decades, they always talk about the 60's citing 1967-69, the 70's is punk rock 77-79, 80's is all about 87 onwards....whereas the alphabet bias heads towards Baldwin, Blair, Brown, Callaghan, Cameron, Chamberlain, Churchill, the decades slide to the dross at the end like Thatcher, Trump.....

OK, I know that the London centric show thinks it was all about Big Bang and the financial markets excess, but it wasn't if you headed further north. It was about excess poverty for those mining communities, they needed their sewing machines to make sure they could make clothes to wear, think the Proclaimers, remember almost every mill and factory producing clothes in the UK was closed.....please will someone remind me this is just a TV show....

Vinny, its just a bit of froth and bubble, dont lose the plot at least the lassies got to wear suits that made them look like linebackers. The idea that women got a level playing field from showing they had power shoulders tells us yet again we'd forgotten to educate those testosterone charged men just to listen to someone wiser....its always about a battlefield, about war not wisdom....I come from the Athens of the North, we know, Athene was wise, she was Minerva in Roman times but still a lot wiser than any man....C'mon everybody get with the programme...

lookdown #12 - Education windfall - Fat Al's imaginary world

Great news that schools are to temporarily utilise university lecture halls to ensure social distancing and crucially for the 5th and 6th year pupils gave them a glimpse at what further education looks like.

As students past and present will tell you the biggest difference in learning between schools and University is the independence to go and seek the answers yourself. University learning is perfectly suited to distance learning as demonstrated by the Open University since it began.

I think the students who are at or going to university in 2020 will be among the best educated generation as they will potentially have a full term of distance learning and save a whole term of living costs.

This cant be underestimated as loans and bank debt are a phenomenal stumbling block. Too many people die on this stumbling block and are also left with mental health issues as they try to work out how £60,000 of debt will stop them ever buying a house.

In the 80's loans were introduced and Council house sales shrunk the social housing rental sector. It was a perfect storm.

Without education, perpetrators of some of the worst evils in our society, manifest in the indemic sexism, racism, anti semitic, anti muslim bullying shite and we need to educate these people so they're not evil stupid bastards.

For too long people think that laws and policing behaviour is a solution but its the cause. It certainly never stopped Tony Blair and WMD, it never stopped the banking crisis and it never stopped Boris giving jobs to his pals.who couldn't track or trace a dandelion.

Lockdown #11 HAPPY HINTS saving money and time

Its lockdown so, as a contrarian ,I have to tell you about efficiencies at home, in the art of making a cup of tea, ok, Al's anal, re-arrange the letters, we know. Vinny's as bad....

It was Lynne and Cath who started the Happy Hints page with many practices now adopted as official policy by the Green party and nowadays most people have knitted a Rasta egg cosy. Its like walking the camino for the Spanish, every Deadbeat reader who became a parent, auntie, uncle etc taught someone how to knit as beautifully illustrated on the Happy Hints page of Christmas 1982. What a lovely present it still makes in 2020. There are 11 Happy Hints pages in a tab on the Deadbeat site so you dont need to flick through the issues to find them.

Turkeys were victims of society back then and here we are 40 years on and its still happening. There's a resurgent tide with Forest Green becoming the first Vegan club in the country, but I do wonder how all our aspirations were crushed so easily, the planet is melting and the private power club gets more exclusive every week. There's more poverty now than there was 40 years ago. Who knew, take a bow Pete Townsend and the rest of My Generation......

But today is a happy day, so we counter power with love, and today we love tea. I did a video recently on how to make a cup of tea. Its an exact science for some but for many its quite an expensive thing too, so I want to let you know how you can reduce the cost of your tea, make it taste better, and get more cups hot.

I had my ephiphany when Jackie threw out our tea cosy and I had to stop making big pots. The trick is you boil less water. The first pot is 330ml just over half a pint in old money and enough for 1 1/2 of my standard cups. You boil, splash 30ml to heat the tea pot, empty it and then put 300ml and a tea bag of your choice. By the time you've got your cup out of the cupboard and you've put another 300ml into the kettle you're ready to pour, or get the milk out.

Next up you pour turn on the kettle and sit down to type some drivel on the website of your choice. Once the kettle boils you refill teapot and sit back down. On finishing said first cup you pour yourself another or better still if Jackie comes in and says have you made tea, hand on heart you can say, "yes I've just made it", followed by "yes its piping hot".

So there it is - use one bag and never fill the kettle full, its a silly Scottish custom that we leave the kettle full for the next person.

Save time - the tea is ready quicker

Save money - half your tea bag consumption and save £50-£100 a year off your electricity. Yes boiling a kettle can cost that much. In an average house probably only a hairdryer or tumble dryer would be more expensive.

Save the planet - its these small things that work so well to make a big difference. The strategy's not always about changing others attitudes its about taking your own actions and smiling as others look and learn. Forest Green footbll players have less muscle injuries and recover quicker after games than the meat eating footballers, surely something worth considering even one or two days a week. This year give the Turkeys a treat at Christmas, eat the sprouts and wish the bird a Happy New Year.

Ingredients list and measuring equipment.

Some people may not have an old bottle of beer lying around to measure 330ml so I suggest starting with your favourite cup and working it that way.

You might not have a teapot, charity shop, 50p max, it'll pay for itself within a week on the electricity alone.

Teabags - this is probably the most important decision you face. Buying in bulk only works if they're properly sealed.
Tea leaves - Well that's a proper lockdown drink. You can spend as long as you like pouring and tipping the leaves back in!!

Compost - yes but they do take a bit of time so only if you have space to wait a year. Ask around someone might have a secret burial mound you can use and then collect the compost a year down the line free. Keep your banana peels in a jar of water and use them on your tomatoes.

Herb teas - these can be free if you know what your looking for. Mint is all about the place and so are nettles. I'm sure there'll be a many a you tube asnwer for scrambling around the sea shore, up hills or sourcing in the city.

Ok back to the real world there are people being scammed on track and trace, how bad can this government get. When the tories were selling Sid the shares in British Gas they had a marketing campaign with track and trace they seem to have not told us anything apart from get an app that people say cant be trusted!

Back to the happy hints, I'm boiling the kettle. Yes I've saved so much today I'm on my 6th cup!

lockdown #7 Worshipping idols

Is it the human condition that we n eed to worship all the gods whether they're false or not? From religions to popstars, via social media, the opiate of the masses in the 21st century.

Its so difficult identifying when football became a religion, just as why war could be fought for Queen and country.

What quaint notions, that cemented themselves into fact. By the time Shankly was at Liverpool, the man from Lanarkshire was explaining that football was more important than life or death. Interesting times as Liverpool prepare to lift the trophy in front of an empty stadium.

This ability to worship seems innate, a desire to cede credence to a higher power. I dont get it, although I do know we are not worthy.

Last night's re-run of the Thatcher Revolution on TV had me squirming again about how hard we fought and yet how foolish that was. This was never a fight to be won, Thatcher came and went. Our problem was that after she had gone Education was forever transformed and one of the great levellers with it. If you cant learn better, you cant do better, someone sort of said once! If you have to go to work at 16 instead of university then you come from an institutionalised weak position and you have a narrower path.

My Mum never went to University and although doing all her bank exams was shunted into the role of wife and mother to 1000 kids. It was free when I went to uni and I remember arguing with fellow students about library closures. There was such polarisation as people wanted to make 'points' instead of the glaringly obvious truth that it was busy some evenings not others. If it was me and I was working there I would've close it on a Friday and Saturday night and headed off to party.

There was a lot of talk in 1980 about inner cities and aspiration. Within 10 years that door slammed shut and by the time Blair arrived with his "Education, Education, Education" mantra it was all "Loans, Loans, Loans". Rhetoric about debt is the last thing someone needs as they start out in life.

North Sea Oil & Gas revneues were going to fund a different kind of Britain in the 80's, needless to say Northern Ireland were not included, wrong side for the North Sea. Team GB carried this forward, clearly realising that this was anything but a United Kingdom. The re-branding of the UK was a bit like the re-branding the Royal Mail, not very successful.

I've ranted before about the 80's, not just in Deadbeat, but more recently when exploring how we could lose 3 fortunes in less than 10 years. We gave the city of London the freedom and they showed how you could take the UK's large fortune, and turn it into a smaller one.

The UK sold off its Council Houses, all its nationalised industries and it banked all its North Sea oil and Gas revenues. For most countries one of these would see a spending spree but for the UK we also told students they could no longer have free university education.

This seems bizarre, a country as rich as we were, as educated as we were to know that our citizens are our future, we turned off the tap of talent.

Thatcher who believed in hardwork and thrift, decided spiffs in strip joints should have the keys to lock up.

How we laugh, she really was off her fucking trolley.

Not content with re-balancing the system to give the rich a less equitable distribution of the country's assets, she then taxed the poor a bit more with the poll tax, class, a French revolution happened for less and the UK should've had one. I'm not Arthur Scargill and we weren't too happy with him at the time, an arse who seemed to worship at his own altar. He wanted to be someone, not realising he was, and he believed he should lead the mining workers and their communities into a glorious jungle in central america and commit suicede, oh, wasn't that Jamestown, ah, same story, same outcome. I

'm also not one for violence, but occasionally you realise one violent act may saved many more lives and the bombing of the Grand in Brighton may just have rescued the country from the Barren Thatcher vision.

That's history, you cant re-write it, well, many do, but the events remain the same, just some facts dont always slip out.

I'm Fat Al, I was Vinny Bee, I've no idea who's talking now because its way to early. I come from a long line of alcoholics and throughout my life I've identified with that part of my gene pool, I've embraced it rather than reject it, its who I am.

In the 80's the expression often used was 'no yer no an alchy, yer a bevvy merchant'

It became heavy drinker, serious drinker, habitual drinker, I think heavy is probably most apt as I am very heavy compared to 40 years ago. Whenever I do the splits I feel my lead leg has just too much to carry.

In the 80's I used to use the word theft and people would say 'its just a pen.'

So I remodelled my theiving theory to describe 'acceptable pockle' and 'takin the piss.'

Acceptable pockle was a pen, pencil, paper clip and borrowing a stapler. Theft or takin the piss was when you stuffed three boxes of pens into your bag as you went out the door. When I was at uni I used to re-use the old folders that I was replacing with new ones in my job at WoodMac. I figured that was recycling so very acceptable pockle, whereas if I stole a box of new folders and then sold them at uni, that wold be 'takin the piss'.

A bit like phone calls. Office phone calls home now and again were accepable pockle but when you phoned that girl from New Zealand every day for a month, not only was it harassment but it was takin the piss.

Nowadays everyone thinks that more rules are the answer, but if we get away from the spirit of the law and why we do things, people just buy 4x4's to avoid the speed bumps. We need education, we need to know why we pay taxes, we need the masses educated so they can reason for themselves and respect each other across the many different #groups, I particularly like the #helpful group and those of us misunderstood left handed subset with 0.4% neanderthal genome.

lockdown #65

So now its June, worldwide deaths head for 400,000 excess deaths close in on £1m and its pretty much all over bar the shouting.

The UK has won for being the daftest bastards in the world, the crazy gang who play fast and loose in the preservation of life. Ironically it looks like we'll also have the worst economic meltdown too but dont worry, it was coming anyway because of Brexit.

My thought for today was all about the numbers, as we've been so busy talking about dodging curfews. My numbers relate to the number of road traffic deaths which have declined significantly during this period and it appears to me the obvious correlation is far from it being dodgy eyesight, Covid-19 has improved everyone's eyesight and there has been a dramatic drop in road traffic fatalities. There you go, statistic comes in and Fat Al whacks it out the park.

On the subject of crime, as that's what road traffic accidents usually result in, 3 points on the licence doesn't seem a fair exchange for a fatality but tell that to some parents who dont even get the chance to see a prosecution. I'm thinking rich American, our own wee Epstein moment, where we turn a blind eye as a result of some pressure from a few people with 'power'. 'Power' tends to evaporate when you say no, I cant be bought off with threats or promises, but we've (including the perpetrators) all been getting conditioned into turning a blind eye for a while. Its not just murder on the roads, Epstein or even the Catholic church's ludicrous abuse, we weren't too good in New Orleans, Kosovo, Rwanda or Germany either.

I hesitated to put New Orleans in as that was a natural disaster, well I thought that, until I saw the Spike Lee 4 hour documentary and realised that the number of deaths that came after the Hurricane and floods were probably greater than during. Absolutely disgusting and total abuse of power. No votes in Louisiana, but plenty in New York for selling a war loosely based on a terrorist attack. I still dont understand how those fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction which were ridiculed in the UK still had us off on a phoney pretext to kill people in Iraq. Its quite a thing that we ask people to kill other people, but its even harder to contextualise it actually happening. People actually killing people. All lives matter and during the current pandemic I thought that was a recognised mantra, its not age, ethnicity, religion or sex.

This swings us back round to the drop in crime during lockdown. Less people being killed, civilian on civilian, I guess is how you'd put it. Is it any surprise when you see the murderous activities of our leaders that people think killing is an option. Never mind the UK, the USA has been killing its residents  again and its been doing it for years. Our institutionalised racism is well documented, we prosecute crimes to fit the statistics, we target easy crimes to ensure people cop a plea. Why would you try to get the drug dealers at Imperial College or the London School of Economics when you know those cases are going to be difficult to prosecute. Its not rocket science, if you asked most people if they would rather play Celtic or Clyde in the cup final they're going to go for the easier option on paper, so why shouldn't the police if they've been set a target to 'catch criminals'. Similarly if you want the stats to go down and you dont want to win the cup, play Celtic. When a spin doctor can tell you he drove a 60 mile round trip to test his eyesight, its clear that twit'fuckerry is alive and kicking.

Over in the dis-united states we see that yet again the polis are killing their citizens. Why do they think its ok everyone screams, because its always been ok and you usually get a gold star. Its got to change and that starts with education. We'll watch in horror as the latest episode plays out but its another opportunity to stir up the racism issues, which sadly means the bastards in power win again. I've long said that whether its sex, religion, race or any of the ways that they divide and rule, those people, with power, have special qualifications in the art of misdirection. Sadly also the powerful people who purport to represent the left handers of America, are often the bastard corrupt captains of the elite, who wear the badge with the finger wagging at somebody else, and all the time, us poor people suffer. as divide and conquer works again. We switch off because its so fucking annoying that they dont answer truthfully, everythings a debate about scoring points, and then we just think, like Trump they're unhinged but the system clearly wants them there so guess what, plus ca change, c'est la memechose. I remember growing up that Edinburgh born, James Connolly went over to Dublin as a Socialist and was shot that way. He wasn't a catholic wanting an Irish church/state solution. He wanted the people to receive the benefit of moving out of poverty. Watching Louisiana getting fleeced of their oil revenues reminds me so much of Scotland being used as a testing ground by Thatcher's administration. Bush was fully aware that the oil business in Texas stays in Texas but next door neighbours oil and gas revenues go to the Federal Government ans as a result Louisiana is impoverished. As poor states go its hard not to believe the corruption, the corporate theft is stealing from them and yet they haven't declared independence. After Katrina, they should have. A little Venezuela in their own back yard, build that wall Mr Trump!

The world is weary of the expression immigrant. The little Englanders, who themselves were Angles and Saxon migrants, while the WASPs in the USA show just how bad that gene pool is, when the cream of the crop ( I jest, because as we know the economic migrants we sent west across the Atlantic were far more diverse), decided to battle it out for independence, they were swiftly, within a generation, putting a similar set of handcuffs on their fledgling democracy.

So I am getting on with my allotment and the lettuces look good, as does my salsify. I'm away off to water them before that runs out. I cant say I'm great with the power I have over my allotment, I clearly think trying to tame that society has been far more difficult than our global politicians have achieved in controlling us. I think if I dont water the weeds and just the plants I can keep the weeds under control, ha ha ha, they just get closer to the plants that way! The beauty of nature is, it is nature. There's no water, like humans, they migrate to a water source.