#lockdown 99 - Parallel Pathways -Covid care opportunities - independence or high dependency?

 Across the world there is a huge opportunity to grab the pandemic embrace it and move health to the top of the agenda. 

Fighting the pandemic is clearly top of the agenda and I'm advocating embracing it. At the end of these coming 18 months we should have 3 times the nursing capacity that we currently have. We should have created new pathways in education within the health sector that encourages people to train at any age to be more effective in their role, or to offer development.

The current education pathway for doctors in the UK worked well until 90 hour weeks were banned and can continue to do so but it needs to evolve so we aren't just thieving from other countries. It wont be long before that exploitation loop hole closes and the idea that hospital managers need to get more creative is nonsense. Many weren't very creative before and being opportunistic isn't creative, its opportunistic. The way sterling is plummeting as we career towards a no deal brexit and the final twist in the USA's war of independence looms large.

We are very close to becoming an overseas territory of the USA. It does not take many people to do it and for the NHS see the examples of Manchester United and Liverpool. They are no longer part of their communities and it wont be long until they are no longer part of their cities. Within 50 years, as with sport in the USA, these teams will represent a franchise which can then be bought, especially if they successfully create a super league. The USA will enjoy grinding a post brexit smug UK into the dust, they'll love it, 250 years after independence, they will, in 2026, have destroyed us. Think rust belt states!

Back to the health scene though. Across the globe we are all living longer and therefore we need more people in the 70's and shortly 80's to have a meaningful role in society. These people have lived and their experience is of real value, its a resource we should exploit to mutual benefit. Covid has seen many retirees return to work and sadly many have died in their efforts. 

This is why lockdowns have been required, our nursing capacity is limited and in case you didn't notice, nursing staff died looking after patients, thus leaving the nursing community short of even more staff, including those so dedicated to their job they came out of retirement to help. I tried to apply for a care home job but realised I wasn't skilled enough to earn £9.50 an hour, that's wrong on too many levels.

If we are to do the right thing by them and ourselves it is to build an NHS and work with the WHO to build the world's health infrastructure. 

I do get it that people in the frontline are going to find it difficult to come out of intensive care to sit in a meeting about how to increase the pool of talent but it needn't stop there being parralel tracks. There's a huge pool of talent talking in chat rooms about covid this and that, most of it negative pissin' in the wind stuff with the statistical analysis that makes marketing people proud of saying almost 100% of people loved this product when only 9, out the 10 people approached, replied "yes, if given a pint free I woud say I loved it."

Community clubs can harness some of this. Whether its a sports club like your local football team, golf or tennis club we all have academies and pathways. All I would ask is that everyone be given a parallel pathway.

If I could dream for a moment, I would see the Hibs development squad staying back to discuss their parallel pathway, I would see Scottish Golf Clubs discussing with "getting kids into golf", what else they might do.

I grew up in a generation when paramilitary groups would meet at local church halls in their uniforms and do a sewing badge, first aid badge, or even how to tie a knot badge. We collected a lot of badges back in the days when football cards came with cigarettes.

I'm suggesting we learn a bit from our history and instead of increased isolation that we learn to pool our resources, pull the strands of our society to see if we have a society or indeed we are now 20 million sub societies floating like droplets bouncing into each other from time to time. The spread of the civd virus suggests we do bump into more people than we realise, that our lives are inexplicably linked even when we try to live them in isolation, pre or post lockdown.

Our communities thrive with common purpose, that's down the allotment or walking the Camino de Santiago My twin site fatal-bananas has all the nonsense that seems so real on the camino where you find yourself thriving physically and emotionally in a community that is so uplifting. Its not from the past or from the future, whats beautiful about the camino is its in the moment.

I've seen many community initiatives like the one where common space is given over to food production. What could be simpler than having a productive garden outside a hospital or council building, and it fills me up to know that people are still bashing on and making a difference. They are going through doors that are open. 

Brilliant practical minds lead to wonderfully productive solutions and lets' hope the opportunity the Pandemic has created to rejuvenate our approach to health isn't remembered for no wage rises for nurses, lockdowns that stuttered to a civil disobedient halt and the confused cray bungling Boris and the parlous public representatives. I've argued before they need a rest because they are clearly disappearing down the rabbit hole in their thinking. They have asked the health professionals questions about the current state of the heath system and the pandemic, they need to ask what steps we need now for 5-10 years as well. They need to ask what can the public do to help, not just stay home.

We need the idle masses to contribute, we need to see the brilliant simple solutions in action. We need to know how to become a key worker even if its just how to volunteer at a food bank or to move food from an allotment to a tattie collection point.

As a society we want our people to thrive so please....... Gizza joab!

Carry on up the covid

 It only seems like April when I was mumbling away about the care home cull and it seems everyone and anyone has an observation on how badly or well the politicians are doing. Its like golf club members all knowing more about hoticulture than greenkeepers, or football supporters telling their team managers that they haven't a clue.

It is true, they haven't a clue but that's not unique. We only need to look around the world and how different politicians in different countries approach it differently. What is unique is the situation. Normally flu epidemics are one thing and pandemics tend to be unique things.

Its like the shock and awe of the 'student explosion', that everyone knew about. Its absolutely what most of us expected and while some say its not part of a 'herd immunity' tactic it should work like that. Go to Uni, get Covid in Freshers week, recover by October week, then you can go home at Christmas and see whoever you like.

I'm not sure I share the opinion of locking pubs down at 10pm as Scotland led the way in opening hours 30 years ago to ensure less violence, but it also ensures less covid. Many pubs had moved to regulars only and certainly didn't let pub crawlers in as reserving on line was essential. The cure for me is that all tables must be booked in advance and 10pm is clearly wrong on many levels. Students are fairly good at entertaining themselves and union facilities offer great opportunities.

Whether your a publican or bar worker, a taxi driver or just a punter, the economics of 10pm dont add up.

Its like the resumption of sport. I've been waiting on the rather obvious decision to allow Melrose, Galashiels or Hawick to be allowed to use their facilities for fans, let's face it on non match days they'll be allowed to open their bars. Further up the East Coast the train stops at Kirkcaldy, Arbroath and Aberdeen where a trial match took place. Clearly Arbroath is where the match should've taken place. 

If Arbroath and all lower league teams are allowed to let local season ticket holders into the matches we will have a meaningful statistical trial to see how various towns are doing. For me the logic isn't flawless, but its got a few less variables than a city like Aberdeen where the population is so large that a trial involving a few hundred fans is meaningless as cross contamination on the way to the match or after it would lead to skewed data.

Arbroath being a railway town probably has a consequential higher exposure, but my general thesis, is the virus cant move around town if it ain't in the town.

If Arbroath, Montrose, Forfar or Brechin (I only use Arbroath as they are famous for Pulsebeat Plus TSB performers of great 80's pop tunes) were to hold trial matches the likelihood is the local population are covid free, albeit the players do work in other towns and are at a much greater exposure.

This brings me back to the earlier point about students. Its not really about students but about the great interactivity associated with moving house. The plague upon our halls of residences and student flats of covid were anticipated and have resulted in a spike of testing and positive tests. The only thing we need to remind ourselves is that students know they should keep it to themselves. The ridiculous accusations about students is a wonderful blanket treatment that refuses to accept only 1% are spreading it, but they are doing a great job as they bounce from bubble to bubble.

The previous spikes were produced by the over 25's getting back into partying and the under 50's who still think there's some life left in them and isolated incidents highlighted by track and trace, eg Coupar Angus. Its very easy when a town spikes to convince locals to stay indoors but its not easy when they're told to tay indoors and there's no covid in town. They know it will arrive sometime but the idea of being locked down just because our testing capability is 20 times what it was in April, we should compare like with like and the current analysis is wide, varied and the conclusions randomly chosen.

The real issue politicians need to get their heads around is balancing lockdown against complacency. We know the world will continue but desperation really will hit home as the nights draw in and people see their jobs disappear. 

Social Media creates new movements and as cambridge analytics proved are forces for good and bad. The younger you are the more likely you are to live through your online world.

Apps like Grinder and Tinder will doubtless have covid bolt ons but lets not beat about the bush, (better expressions should be used), sex is going to happen and not from 2m away!

So the rise in cases will continue in the short term but the main thing we need to do is continue to educate people about their responsibility to stop the spread and the vulnerable's to avoid catching it.

Life can and does continue, just in more comfort than before. When was the last time you got a train to London and didn't have to watch someone stand! I always dye my hair grey before getting on the train, or shave myself bald, just to have a wee bit of a chance of getting a seat. I used to book a seat until the rail companies got wise and pulled bookings on busy trains. "Sorry, our ticketing machine isn't working so its free seating", the guard would helpfully announce as he put the 800 reservations in the re-cycling. Its a tip learnt from Michael O'Leary and Ryanair flight turnaround times. If a train arrives at 4.46pm and is due to depart at 5pm, there is no way there's time to put all the reservations out, any 'time and motion' radge knows that!

So back to the students and the Covid 19 or 2020 as it'll be remembered. Within 5 weeks the campus will be covid free and lecturers and tutors will feel afe they wont catch anything as all the students have had it. There will be some extremely sad events where the covid has highlighted a previous hidden condition and taken a fair deeper bite in certain cases and these will be tragic, but perhaps not preventable.

I was never in covid denial and the care home cull I wrote about back in April was because our public policy was trying to catch up with itself having dismantled much of our pandemic machinery in austerity cuts nearly 10 years back. The speed at which we shut down our airspace was comical and even now, we still dont have people being temperature checked before flights, but we do have for going into a chiropodist. Worse still when they arrive, the customs and excise are only worried if they bring a dog with rabies, not a human carrying a virus.

We've closed so many doors but left open the ones causing the largest drafts. Away and boil yer heed springs to mind when the latest suggestions appear disjointed and ill-conceived, I just think they need some time out. Every door they open, eg resumption of sport, bars, whatever, is followed by lobbying for the next door to be open and they are crushed by it so resort to closing.

I recommend the politicians take the weekend off and put some menthal crystals in a bowl of boiling water and with a towel over their heads, steam a wee bit, relax, draw breath and start getting their carrots in a row!

Next week I'll tell you about my allotment

Valerie & the week of wonders -1984 #28

Valerie & the week of wonders -1984 #28

I was listening to this again and it got tangled in my cassette player.

Checked out you tube and there it is a video of "ships on the clyde", who knew, not me in 1984!

Arriving in Newcastle

I remember my experience of arriving in Newcastle to take over the rule as the local director of operations. The workers were warm friendly I'm curious well the management struck me as archaic.

I'd been sent in to try and fix the issues with the quality of output and I quickly realised the quality of the output was down to the input.

The stock for operating on very slow 10-year-old computers. They had not been incentivised to invest in the roles themselves, to study their work, to sit exams so many were doing roles that the management perceived were required. Very few were doing jobs that they felt they should do. Those who were rarely got any management supoort. This lack of comprehension came through in the ownership of any task and produced output that was often worthless.

Within 6 weeks the £2m staff were given new computers costing £80,000 and their productive output increased by 50%. The destructive output declined but not as significantly.

An exam policy was introduced to give £500 salary rise for each of the first two diploma exams and a £1000 for the third and the granting of a diploma.

The cost of the exams was bourne by the firm but the hours, by the individual worker.

Over the first year, 200 exam passes were obtained, an increase of 190 on the previous years.

Productive output increased and destructive output declined significantly by 35%.

The net contribution was that the offices who used to jam the switchboards on management time with the complaints were now much more likely to be recipients of a happy phone call saying their client was now fully established.

The final resolution to the problems came with the identification of a fraud. Resolving this would finally clear the backlog.

I enjoyed my time in Newcastle much as I enjoyed my time in Aberdeen. I was probably there roughly the same amount of time.

I've always believed the simplicity of administration tasks is to move boxes from one destination to another. Sometimes you have to open boxes and merge the contents with another box, before sending it on. If there was a trick that I used successfully more than once it was to try and get the client to manage the contents so that we received a box and just passed it on.

In stock trade we took this a step further to ensure that the processing was almost completed by the client. Delivering sold stock was a simple case of marrying a certificate with a transfer and in the days of talisman a docket.

If we could get the client to deliver us a box with the certificate and transfer already married up then we'd removed one merging of the boxes.

We did this very simply by introducing a reply paid envelope which the customer would use to put the transfer and certificate in.

These were the most valuable documents that arrived in our office on a daily basis and because they were in reply paid envelope they got priority and were back out the office by 12.

One person could process 100 items when they came in together. When they came in separately one person could process 50 items. The small efficiency had enormous ramifications for accuracy was improved as human error was removed.

The level of competency within stocktrade was so high that the migration to the electronic settlement of crest was seamless.

Under Crest settlement, firms like stocktrade would be responsible for converting the paper into electronic shares. They and their clients would beat the brunt of the costs of this dematerialisation.

I remember explaining this to Angela Knight who was treasury secretary at the time after her speech at the Mansion House. I'd been perplexed by her ridiculous speech saying how good it would be for the private investor, so I let her know, it was fantastic for liquidity in the markets, a huge step for London in global markets, how shortening the cycle improved  security, how institutional transaction cost would plummet, stock borrowing enhanced, but it would cost individuals more.

I went further and suggested that she sack her script writers, it's just the way I am. She asked me my name so I told her and said get in touch anytime, but she didn't.

Alistair Darling took over the following year so I invited him into see us in Edinburgh, we did after all have offices in his constituency.

I wanted to find ways to give our staff the firm. An old Marxist law is about owning the factors of production and while we were a service, little manufacturing existed in the UK by the 90's,  I still felt it incumbent to try and move significant chunks of the firm into the hands of the people doing the work.

This was not well received, we don't believe in that anymore, was the rather glib response. I said I wanted to do more for out people than just exploit them and chuck them a gold watch at retirement or a redundancy cheque the next time the market took a dive, buy I could tell it was time for a guided tour. 

I was quite devastated, momentarily, but then I realised policy was about power. Don't have policies for people's well being policies are designed for people's perceptions.

Power comes with policies that people vote for and populist policies must be simple and usually involve a focus group out take from a marginal constituency.

Providing solutions is what people do politicians on the other hand just try to cling to power. I think the disregard for labour in Scotland and the rising support for the SNP and independence is clearly just down to people feeling they've been ignored.

They know independence is not a destination but it may allow better representation and the creation of a better society. Being part of Europe has been a big thing for many Scots. When Stocktrade was up for sale we had a German firm bid for us and an American. My preference was for the Germans as they seemed a natural fit. They believed in investment in the long game, developing deeper roots in our marketplace, whereas the American attitude was about exploiting the obvious and getting access to Europe. The latter offered the quickest gain in the shortest time.

I always thought what we were building would allow people to have careers for life if they wished it. The idea of cashing your chips and not having to do the work seemed alien, but I suppose if I had put it to the vote, do you want 10 years money now or do you want to work 10 years to get it, I may have got a different answer.

It was never my decision to give the firm away but I would've loved to have done the vote!

It ticks all my boxes for allowing people to self determine. I felt in all the offices I worked in processes and procedures were given, and I felt they should be inate. You need to be shown, to be trained, but then you need to think.

In 1987 I went down to London  to help with the "backlog" blamed by CRR, a new risk calculation introduced called counterparty risk requirement. It calculated your exposure and how much you had to set aside. I started working and discovered a ledger with £607 million on it! There were 40 temps working on this "backlog" but it wasn't really a backlog it was a complete breakdown and the firm had needed £607m from Nat west bank to tide them over.

4 weeks after I arrived they stopped doing any more bargains in the market thus ensuring the backlog could not grow any higher. I joked about someone in the NatWest working out it would've been £1bn by Christmas and that's why we had merged with them.

The recovery of this situation still makes me chuckle to this day. I requested we get rid of the 40 temps and myself, Andy and Paul would get it back. The firm had only been trading for 16 months and had managed to pay £298m for sold stock, but failed to deliver that sold stock to the market. Similarly there was £311m worth of bought stock that we had paid the market for but not received the money from the client. I said please concentrate on the current trades and was assured they were 100% up to date.

Call me old fashioned but if I loaned £20 to someone ahead of payday is expect it one day late max!

The complete lack of identification with the issues is what utterly stunned me.

I became a ranting banshee about how much we are still outstanding or what we'd brought in when out in the pub at lunchtime as I felt it so real. Finding and delivery into the talisman system a piece of stock worth £16m that had been in someone's drawer was sheer joy.

My observation that there were only 4000 items to find meant there were lots of needles in this haystack of an office. 

The reason for the mess was quite simply a lack of comprehension regarding the jobs. When the panic set in, local management 'threw bodies at it', much as projects hire consultants to sit and wait for work. We had 40 temps all sitting with sections of the alphabet and usually one had one box and another had another box, neither of whom knew the other had the box. By concentrating the resources to a few people with good memories for where they had seen that name before and who could take a certificate and file it in stock order, we got £100m in during our first week.

The last bargain we settled was dealt during that first week and I remember rabidly ranting that I'd been assured the current business was fine, and that clearly it wasn't and I was wiping my feet as I went out the door.

I was after all sent down as "an acquired taste", a sobriquet I changed to "after taste!".

Growing up in public

I had a couple of years growing up in Washington DC.

I was in primary five and six or as they see in the States grade five and grade six.

on my first day I said " sorry I cannot stand for the American flag and pledge my allegiance" and I sat down I never thought anything of it as I was Scottish.

I heard later my mum was calld to the school to explain.

I find the indoctrination of that nation nowadays somewhat similar to what chairman mao did with China.

The American dream is a wonderful red herring which ensures that a few people can be held up as an example to the rest of those watching in the Colosseum that Spartacus exists.

I tried to give blood

I was clearly sending out confused signals.

I said The results from my endoscopy had proved that I was not celiac and that further investigation would find the issues out.

My doc said that would be interesting but two years down the road nothing.

I should have said nothing on the post investigation as clearly they decided there was nothing unless the patient moaned.

Unfortunately for the blood donors they require a clean bill of health and I didn't have one so they asked me to go back and check with my doc.

That left me sad.

Blood donor sketch

There's a fine line to giving blood between the public spirited and the suicidal giving your blood away

I'm not sure it's a marketing slogan but today I ended up on the wrong side.

I tried to answer all the questions correctly but I managed to come up with one that was vague enough that I was unable to give blood.

Ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue but today I felt suicidal as a result -worthless, quite simply worthless.

This is clearly more to do with covid-19 - our trying to do things and the system fighting you.

Frankly I don't care.

I genuinely don't give a flying f***.

My defense mechanism got me to bed before I could do something f****** stupid but my will to live is lower than it's ever been.

I'll hopefully remove this from the website tomorrow when I realize I posted it.

I think it's probably cathartic to talk about it.

I'm so pissed off with the stupidity of others. I feel that I've acquired a lot of wisdom and that wisdom makes me realize it's not getting better it will get worse.

Google can't even spell realise!

I'm feeling calmer and I will post this if only to remind me to remove it.

There's anger and disdain, there's despair and dreams. I sent a text this morning about going to France in 2021, i just need some dream to cling onto, but it's not easy, it is not, easy.

A busted flush

Capitalism has long been built on the concept established that the best use of resources would be well served by such a system.

Overtime it has appeared rather obvious that you exploit the best opportunities which inevitably leads to colonial or imperial circumstances.

The worst inevitability about the system is that with such a small planet it is not an exhaustible anyone who understands the theory of pi realizes that as you head towards infinity it gets repetitive.

It is with great sadness that we close the door on capitalism as it has served so many of our benefactors so well but on another level it is a great joy to those who were the exploited.

Democrats and democracy

I think the world would be a better place if everybody agreed with how I feel society should run but unfortunately we live in a democracy or at least that's what we are told.

So many people want to give back to society and so many people do and yet we can't stem the tide of people who want to take.

It's quite simple for 5,000 years 10,000 GS people have stolen and people have created rule books.

With each theft comes unusual usually written by the person who has stolen.

Unless culturally you believe in working together the people who thieve will continue to prosper.

There will be a revolution in my time but not before there are several more wars fought to avoid revolution.

In the meantime I will plan a Camino I will walk a Camino and I will enjoy El Camino with friends.

We need a worldwide ambition to conquer poverty which means we need people to stop wanting to be rich.

Capitalism and the trickle-down effects or benefits as was originally estued is clearly a busted flush and as a society we need to come up with a better answer.

Lack of education and poverty go hand in hand and with racism sexism and many of the divisive forces that ensure the status quo they need to be fixed.

When the Badland Mall came down the campaigning culture stopped. The campaigning culture has risen again and we must back it.

Swimming against the tide

For years we swim against the tide.

We've pushed snowballs uphill.

We need to unite not fight.

There is only one struggle.

A fair and equitable distribution of all that we create.

It really is that simple.

Denny McCarthy (not always) getting it in the hole on day 1 TPC Boston, Northern Trust

It's so tight when you're playing a tour event that if you miss one as Denny McCarthy did, that short putt miss can lead to another and what then appears statistically as a bad putting day, useful to know when he holes 3 putts and doesn't miss any tomorrow in round two. Denny is normally a reasonable putter so he clearly had the odd misread or got too aggressive and gave himself a bad tiddler. That was the story at the first (his 10th) and I don't know the reason for the 3putt at 3 but he was in the box seat as he hit the green only to watch Bubba and Charles Howell III walk off with pars to his bogey.

His front nine had started solidly if somewhat unspectacular, he plotted the tough stretch from 10-13 in par looking very much in control. Dropping a shot at 14 was the first blip as all three missed the green but they got up and down from the left whereas from the bunker on the right it was a tad more tricky.

A great drive and approach at 17 set up the birdie and at 18, from 15ft for eagle, Denny was a bit unlucky. He must've been quite confident as he started at -2 on the easier front 9.

He was matching his playing partners shot for short most of the way around and often he was closer to the hole. To turn towards the easy holes at -2, -3, & -4 this was a fairly hot 3 ball.

But for Denny it became a birdie bogey rollercoaster that causes the scorekeepers carrying the scoresticks be always be reaching into their bag for the last number.

Whenever he did miss the green and the 6th and 7th sum it up, it ended in tears, if you cry over dropped shots to the field.

His drive probably cost him at 6 as he tried to work something in, an ambitious plot that failed as he got close to the pin but his 20ft chip, left him 7ft to go and it was the wrong side. Better leaving a 40 yard shot from the right side than 9 yards from the wrong place. His playing partners get par and he gets bogey undoing the excellent work he did at 4 where his good driving ensured he outplayed his partners with a two putt birdie.

To walk off with a five at 7 having hit a reasonable tee shot will have hurt, the fact it was a single putt is what seperated the best from the rest, but 3 chances to hit a green from 263 yards, is forgiveness itself, but from 30 yards to only get halfway is a shot lost on the field. 3rd time lucky he puts it to 4ft and gets his five. They say all the time that strokes gained in approach are worth a lot on this course. You have to be mindful where the flags are and there are good misses but you've really got to hit the green at the second time of asking.

Denny walked off 2 under and you feel there's unfinished business as his playing partners Chucky three sticks (-4) and Bubba (-5) both scored so much better than him.

I hope his coach explains just how important that birdie was at his last. He is capable of being that good and I take him to outscore the others in round 2.

They go out early so get the money on now as the course will firm up in the afternoon!

Jose Archer - TTC chapter 27

Jose sat sipping her tea, "what's going on" shouted Holly as she made the long approach through Los Herrerias to the last cafe before the climb.

"Menta poleo, with extra sugar for O"Cebreiro".

"Yes, it's a long one" replied Holly. "I'm sure even the men will care" she laughed.

Holy and Jose had been discussing the night before the "while men talk" series of short stories Jose had written in the early 70's. 

"While man walks on the moon....women care" they laughed in unison.

It seemed to them that every stage of life had been about picking up the pieces discarded based on this very simple theory.

Sometimes they laughed at the stupidity of men but at other times they were befuddled as to why they did nothing about it. We didn't live in America. We could do something about it. In America it seemed that men were carving out a job description for women on the television.

Man had clearly decided that women were very good at caring and therefore men should do f*** all, care not a hot. Have the life of Riley. Women should aspire to a beautiful kitchen.

The seeds were sown when the Neanderthal were slowly bred out of the species. They were a caring docile creature, the Neanderthal, and were largely replaced by homo sapien.

As larger societies formed there was a fine line between slaves and women. When slavery was abolished in the UK it became apparent that women should perhaps be allowed more freedoms too. This is when we diverged with our colony in America.

The real freedoms began when men broke ranks and started to care. This all began when Nannies started influencing their early years. Show me a child and I'll show you the man was a cheeky way of explaining how society would change.

This is then freed up some women who were able to take the fight upstream and find out why they were so busy caring for people who had been wounded maimed or murdered on a battlefield. Caring for those who had been scarred by a society that cared only for a progress that carried with it wealth and awe.

Only when poverty hit the wealthy classes did some men really start to care.

As more men started to care This allowed more women to interfere in the direction society was taking. Medicine grew into politics, but it was through writing that the imagination was inspired. Reading about doctors, teachers and great leaders of history touched a nerve and 6 or 7 generations later, Jose would recall them.

This silent revolution was simple economics. Supply and demand are gender neutral and inevitably head for equilibrium. If society wants less Oxford boys clubs residing at 10 Downing Street it will happen.

I like caring, it's in my nature, but when I am doing unnecessary work, created by foolish actions, I know it's time to change our society.

Jose had been inspired by many of the unsung heroes who got on with it. Marketing was manmade and her women didn't need praised. There wasn't time for it, there was work to be done.

When Jose was writing her series of stories they were designed to set the story straight and record the works of women. Holly loved the series.

Scottish league's winter USA break

Signs of Scottish football will soon be looking forward to continental football in the new year

Normally the seasonal break has the Scottish winter ravages would see the club's head to Dubai, Spain or the Isle of Arran depending on budget, but 2022 could be different.

With so many owners having contacts in the southern states, where the winters are fine for soccer as well as the West Coast And does the golfing world knows the Arizona swing.

When the NFL brought its US football teams over to Wembley you could tell it was a very successful marketing venture. It's not to do with whether or not the teams win the Super bowl it's primarily to create an event.

Taking hibs out on tour for example will need permission from the Proclaimers to ensure that the aftershow experience is as good as the football. Coinciding two schedules sounds a logistical challenge (anything with football and music is) but what an event to be at and I know a few people who might just pop over to the states to join the fun.

Horse racing has been putting bands on after the racing has finished for a while now. Often people will go to the racing who only want to see the band while similarly those at the racing stay on to make a complete day and night of it. This is the entertainment of the future once you've got an audience utilize it.

Visit Scotland are clearly going to be excited at the prospect of a touring football followed by music with plenty booze and haggis suppers to be sold. I'm not sure I want to go to a game where the band gets piped on but if it's in the middle of a 2 week holiday and our whistle stop tour includes New Orleans I'll go for it.

The kids of course will be hoping that they get the game that goes ahead near Disney world at LA Galaxy's home. Others will just be hoping for a spot on the beach in Miami. The crucial aspect though is to sell football and the Scottish identity to a brand beset nation.

Scottish football needs very little from America 0.000001% of GDP will do very nicely thank you very much.

More importantly it is the sense of fun and enjoyment which needs to come back into the game after the crisis of the pandemic.

The winter break of 2022 gives us all plenty time to book our travel and for the locals to be educated into what team they should support. Let's keep it simple Americans like colours. We need to get nice bright strips and then we need to market them.

Every game will feel like a cup final as the stadium she will be rocking. These are real players in a real league, with something the Americans love, history.

No I know the cynics we'll see Celtic playing their home games in Boston while Rangers play theirs in Alabama but I think we can slide past these issues and accept tribalism for what it is a great tool to be used to develop support.

Now that may sound glib that we exploit the ku Klux Klan and the Boston priests but it's just a marketing ploy.

Okay before anyone gets too excited I am joking there is an elephant in the room. In fact there's one in every room in the house!

Spanish is not quite the national language of the United States of America but it's fairly close and as a result soccer will soon become their national sport. That are so many heritage opportunities that that it is very important that we act now before other leagues realize the potential.

At present most teams are having preseason games and tournaments in the USA but nobody has made the bold step to play league games there.

For Scotland with its winter moving the games and incorporating a warm weather break will be financially beneficial as well as building the audience and brand that is Scottish football.

On this day, one week of July through time

Yes Dear diary, on this day in 1973 I was swimming. We were living just outside Washington DC on Esworthy Road near Darnestown.

I had a penpal from primary school, Adam Kopystynski, and it was clearly his birthday as I posted his present. As well as a squirt gun fight, water pistols to you and I.

1 year later in 1974 on July the 11th I go up I didn't do much Mom took us to the Cash & Carry I got a box of tutti frutti's in a box of Lee's macaroon bars I had a toothache after which  prayed.

four years later the 1978 with the world cup behind us I played around before and after work Good morning round of 18 was followed by an 81 with Graham Mavor.

My golf's not improved by 1979 As I scored another 80 but what does amuse me is apparently I custom swore about what could have been a morning we bastard back then Derek timmons won the medal with the 75

In 1980 we were in Blackpool and it was our last full day We had fun on the shows and then markets shopping for presents haha not me I did buy sticks of rock went to Tiffany's again yeah we were at Tiffany's quite a lot what else is a 17-year-old to do in Blackpool.

July the 12th we went to Seattle's party she got lots of presents John and I went swimming We had lots of fun Sarah must have been about 5 or 6 because she was a friend of my sisters who was 5 That's 1973 for you we're all a lot older now.

well I like about July the 12th is in 1978 my dad proved just how generous he was when he took us to New Battle Golf club it cost £2 each to play so we didn't went to Pollock Halls in the evening and had a laugh putting a box on a window ledge so it fell off when the window was opened now there's a prank The first day of the open championship and Tom weiskopf round in 69 He's my favorite to win He was 3 under The par at theSt Andrews is 72.

In 1979 I got off early and had a bath before rushing to work I got my dispatch pay £4.20 and I get £35 tomorrow from printing went jogging at night phone 6 golf balls for really good ones. I was really lucky to have this job it wasn't a lot of people who were 16 getting paid 35 lb for a summer job

In 1980 all the talk was about returning from Blackpool, 

got train home after going to shows it was tiring watched late films very tired.

July the 13th it was unlucky for some but it wasn't for me in 1973 as we went swimming at the Sweeney's the water was really high we had a really lot of fun swim was too much we went to toys R us I bought a movie projector it was good I was going to get the talking new master but it was just a bit too expensive. The thing about American toys it was such a disposable culture you can get really good things very cheaply. My eldest brother Tom had about seven tape machines I'm not sure how many made it home but there were real to reels all over the place you'd think Nixon had been.

1974 and we're not long home from America I got up I watch TV Mike Lucy Nicola and Uncle Frank went to the Commonwealth pool I went to the shops and got some red cooler Tommy and Gordon went golfing Mum said she'd order the dandy for me I watched the final round of the open championship Gary player one booster house was tied second. Sounds like I had a blast that day and I didn't really make up for it in 1978

played badly at golf Don't know why I'm not playing well went to work and got studs for golf shoes at Lily weights got £6.65 paid taxi to GPU found my keys that I lost on Sunday well that sounds good And on to 1979

Got 63 lbs pay during the 2 weeks 13 8 played golf badly in the evening in preparation for gollan I got a game of golf without a market in the evening at a 78 I went to cathedral Mass. I'm not sure God was a golfer but he did help me hole putts.

Miles and miles.....(for nothing) The Relations - lockdown #10

Its no surprise to me that pedalling miles and miles for nothing in lockdown, I am after all Fat Al, and as the resident pedant, I'm undergoing metamorsphosis into Ped Al.

Clearly when I tried to turn the volume up the video cam went off and the first 15 seconds is quite funny as I try to work out why the light is on, then I hear the Director in my head scream "Action" and I'm off and another 3km later I hit pause and have a cup of tea.

After the relations its "Silent Sculpture" by the Men Men and then back to the Relations again for the "Devil in me".

I cant believe I have somehow got the deadbeat tapes on shuffle....

Dancing Bears - dancing feet #4 lockdown bikers it's "Lost in my Mind"

I was and still am a great fan of Richie Lambert songs and the tight Dancing Bears performance. Good drummers seperated the average garage band from the excellent and the dancing drumming and driving bass from the bears was what leapt out of the cassette player in 1983.

The opening three tracks of Deadbeat 2 are "Dancing Beat", "She moves me" and "Lost in my mind". All three get the feet moving but pride of place goes to "Lost in my Mind". It's a song that creeps into every sunny day on Arran as I stroll along the beach or just coming home pissed during the festival. Stumbling along in the meadow's and the music to straighten me up and get me marching home in a zig zag formation.....

Nostalgic songs, "looking back on the days when we had such fun going out in the park in the warm summer sun", work well with every passing year and all the arthritis disappears as you move your feet to the drummers beat.

It always made me chuckle when we'd drive up to St Andrews for our annual golf weekend and Simon would say "Got any Dancing Bears" and boom it's on the cassette in the car. I kept that car until 2018 just so that I could keep playing the brilliant cassettes from an earlier era.

Their first demo was so fresh,  nascent and naive, as Roy Terre would say.

The second demo would contain three songs. "I go where my baby goes", a Mick Jones type Clash song followed by "lucky Son" a surfer song for all you wave riders from Portobello. The happy vibe continues with "thousand miles".

It was good but not as stripped back as the first demo. The Bears were a live band and I think that first demo sounded like a one take wonder. I could picture the three of them looking at each other and thinking "is that it?, Done in 15 minutes and we've got the studio booked all day!"

Deadbeat 2 will be digitalised one day so if you've not got a copy just smile in that warm summer sun!

Bone of Contention - Strawberry Tarts - lockdown #8 on the bike

With pounding drums setting the rhythm, the legs are off and suddenly you're doing 30km p/h and singing away. Just over three minutes fly by and if its your first song then the bike is rocking from side to side and a groin strain is merely another couple of pedals away.

I love this song 36 years after Jeremy and the boys first track on the first Deadbeat Tape broke seal on 3 hours of great local music.

There's a rockabilly feel to it which probably dates it a wee bit, but the sound is fresh as ever and I've played it over 1000 times now as I listen to it at least once a week and since I got this bike its been on at least once a day!

I first heard it in 1983 at one of their shows. I think it may have been the one when we went to a primary school in the middle of nowhere for a showcase gig with Moroccan CoCo. It was brilliant back then and the band, all feather boas and glammed to distraction.

Great memories and still a great sound.

Music from lockdown #5 the Relations from Perth - You're the next best thing

From Perth, the band, the Relations appear on deadbeat tape 3 and the song you're the next best thing it's just one of those cracking exercise bike songs, your legs just can't stay still.

I remember getting a bus up to the fair city to see the Relations play a gig in some hotel on the perth road heading towards Dunkeld I think.

The gig was brilliant The band's performance electric. We didn't sign bands for the deadbeat tapes, we begged them and The Relations were delighted to take part after a suitable bribe of a pint or two.

35 years is a proper test of time and this song is stunning, its longevity like some of the other Deadbeat tape songs is quite simply the soundtrack of the 80's music scene for me.

When I first heard it live I thought it was "you're an express train...", which was strange because I'd just got the bus up from Edinburgh which was a lot quicker than the train. The locals had heard it before and were all bouncing.

Starting off the song with "I'm in love with myself" works well,  it's always a great pop starlet line and as we pump and grind our way to the sound of wedding bells we're asked to spare a thought for the battered wives. The inference being any violence should hit the perpetrators, it's not their fault the next best thing.

The dry singing is set against a very post-punk fast-moving song. The band for me lean towards Elvis Costello with clever lyrics, jangling chords and the undertones and buzzcooks in maintaining the tempo.

As I say they're part of this 57 year old's soundtrack and a must during the DJ set workout!

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.