if kondratiev were around today

In the 6th economic wave as the technology wave signals The end of human existence I can't help but laugh at how the Russian economist would view it.

When the car was invented it came with technology and rules were invented to ensure the safety of the species. Some countries licence you to use such powerful technology.

When computers the size of mobile phones were placed in the hands of the masses we saw how quickly a lack of health and safety could see the proliferation of truth. I am the way the truth and the light said anyone with the mobile phone and an internet platform to match. Meantime the mental health benefits of this overload of information, marketing, fact checking and nonsense gathering.

I sometimes think I am going mad because I can see it all and yet nobody seems interested. On the contrary they genuinely believe that this is the truth and whether it be parties where dancing is just part of the meeting or fighting elections on bed blocking when all we are describing is wards that should've been bigger and hospitals that should've been scoped to be able to cope with a 100%  increase in demand every 5 years. With the pipeline for staff scoped and sourced.

With all our technical capability to be able to articulate the increasing demands that will be placed on the NHS over the next five, ten and 20 years to suggest that the cure is better management for bed blocking is just nonsense. 

Yet again I have had the pleasure of seeing the NHS staff at work on Jackie. 

Her Camino since 2005 has been random but with hindsight as regular as clockwork.

I have had as many days walking across  the meseta and the Pyrenees as she has the operating theatres, high dependency and general recovery wards. when she asked me to bring one croc in I knew my gambling chances were good, but ultimately unfounded.

Every time the treatment has been superb and yet the workers from consultant to cleaner have been hard at it.

Technology has given us the skill to bend the truth and quite simply to write lies. These people work while political adversaries make them footballs. The staff as highly skilled as any other part of our industry within their field of expertise and we should reward that. We seem intent on stopping staff joining from overseas while encouraging the few we do grow organically through schooling are encouraged to leave.

One of the nurses was telling Jackie that she would be going over to Australia for a few years to get enough money to pay off her student's debt and get a deposit for a house. An absolute scandal and that is why I back the idea that staff should be able to keep more than £12500, the current tax free allowance. Let's not talk about bed blocking. We know the demands increase year on year so let's not ask the nurses and doctors to pay for this increase in ill health with no pay rise and frozen tax free earnings allowance. Move this now to £20000. 

Bus Passes

Almost all the patients have free bus travel. The staff at hospitals should all have free bus travel. It should be issued as part of their induction. Do something about pensioners pots if you like by leaving their allowances frozen at £12500 but why punish our essential workers.

Yes Kondratieff would wave and laugh. Every big leap forward has brought a new way to keep the fodder feeling benevolent to some greater cause. 

Negreira to vilaserio

Deadbeat hears of new Tory slogans and tax plans - "Tax the pension not the Workers"

In the post covid world of high inflation and greater poverty Deadbeat has just heard the pub chatter about a massive hike in the tax free earnings point, jumping from £12500 to £20,000 initially for public sector employees but surely for all employees in due course.....not for pensioners though. The hard hit low paid will therefore not need a wage rise and the U-turn from the chancellor freezing it at £12500 for 5 years will be felt by those in work. For the vast number of over 55s drawing their pension the £12500 will stick but this was the point of freezing the rate to act as a pensioners tax. Today's announcement, or leak of the 2p off NI is a fantastic rebate to the rich. Let's face 2% of £20,000 is £200 and 2% of £50,000 will buy you a season ticket. As Rishi was alleged to have said, most of these £20k people support Wrexham whereas those on £50,000 are far more likely to be following at least a tier 3 club, but the pub chatter was all about rewarding those hard working NHS staff with a new tax code. Joy could be heard as glasses were clinking in the corridors and bars of power at squaring the circle. The Inland revenue were busy giving the new tax code a unique lettering system. NHS20k which will ensure those on £20,000 a year keep all their earnings instead of paying circa £1500 tax. Governments in London and Edinburgh were busy rushing plans through so they could be first to their electorate as vote chasing starts in earnest. While the tax take drops, inflationary pressure abates and people can keep the lights on this summer. With the pensions rising the tax take rises so everyone wins. Long term plans have often talked about removing a tax free amount for pensioners and concentrating all vote winning on fear and security. You care less about money when someone reminds you about being mugged off for your pension pot. Pollsters and policy makers (surely the same people) have been talking up siezing more of the pension pots and only the enforced retirements of many GPs and consultants has slowed this process down with the recent reversal on maximum pension pot size. The more successful way to raid the people's pension funds is the slow stealth methodology of removing the tax free allowance and removing NI. One hits pensioners so slows down their retirement while the other one makes working longer more attractive. There are £trillions in drawdown now and 10 million people being hit with £3000 less will merely encourage them to draw more of their pension savings and in turn hit another tax threshhold. Low interest rates encouraged many to transfer their final salary schemes into these pots and made early retirement all the more attractive. For those without a calculator that's £30bn to skim off these early and later retirees. The number goes up every year so its no gamble and will encourage many to stay in work as the country hits a skills shortage. You only need to look at the population who have moved into drawdown on their pensions and identify as the baby boomers of the 50's and 60's. They got their university education in the 70s and early 80's free. Some even entered politics and then introduced tuition fees while coming out with mantras about 'Education Education Education', as the political class moved back to the full entitlement. The old adage, if you cant do teach and if you cant teach pontificate was never more pronounced than during the last 30 years. As everyone knows most universities have now diversified into property fund first with the Education business a distant second. Like charity shops in the high street taking advantage of charitable status allows certain assets to be successfully exploited against a competition that cant benefit from this status. The most fundamental being many of our biggest universities have city or town centre locations making their accomodation an asset worth selling in the open makret and not at student rates. St Andrews have their approach and Edinburgh theirs. The Pollock halls of Residence now boasts 3 hotels and thats 200 less rooms for the students. Progress takes many forms and some may argue that those rooms ensure lower charges for the students in the remaining rooms. They certainly dont argue that they can afford to pay their staff more as the current spate of strikes demonstrates, but these are topics for another day. Tax the retired not the workers - that's the new slogan from the Tories and I love it. When all the right wing parties fight over who can claim to do more for the workers you know it's about the message not the welfare of the workers. And if you believe me you must have had a great night last night!

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Baxter Park Dundee 1985

Where were we on this day in 1985?

Well I'm writing this in May 2023 so I guess what I mean is who can remember 1985?

I'm looking for more clues than just the odd picture.

We all know that Plastic Surgery adorned the cover of Deadbeat and Chilli Peppers would change their name.

Issue #32 had the review of the gig but issue #31 probably is best known by me as another great fake news day! I couldn't remember the name Baxter Park so I typed it up saying a gig was coming with the line up, then I hand wrote caird park. 

We were running out of drugs and were running on steam by this point. Our bodies were temples and more like those found on the Acropolis or in Cambodia than those of the modern rock n roll stars. I liked that it was "free, outdoor and great, so grab a coach and visit dundee"

We worked like dogs for the gig including two practices and a tire change. I'm sure we weren't the only Hibs supporters who heeded the advice to grab a coach.

 General Gary Joyce gave a splendid rendition on the way back of how we sounded.  Oh how we laughed.

I've a few pictures from that day but if anyone has more please forward them or just leave message on the post.

I think we arrived too late to hear the first 2 bands and I know there's a picture in #32 showing us listening to plastic surgery but to be honest, I think I was blasted.

It may not have been our last gig as I'm pretty sure we managed a song or two at a wedding I was at in the old manor in Lundin links. A short-lived affair but it certainly provided the excuse to let the band slowly decay and have me down as a 24 year old fossil. 

Reading these reviews years later you realise how far up your own arse we were and we were only in our infancy of understanding what we were doing. I liked writing songs and later on I realised I liked singing along to them but I would happily have left my ego at the door and watched. It's a tough gig limping the gear and even if you are big enough to get roadies I'm not sure the hotels every night appeal either. I'd sooner an albergue on the Camino and leave the acclaim to those more capable, although my ego did enjoy playing as pkatform99 with Rich in the Sutton Arms in London's barbican area. That ticked a box. I loved how random our songs were and how they cling onto the set list. There were many 2 minute wonder that slipped away when we started trying to fill the hour of a set. That was a shame and so my mission for 2024 will be to load a few of those up.

I loved "Stop", "double Pernod" and other quick thrashy songs. They took very little singing had a cheesy set of lyrics and made me smile. 

"She died of cirrosis of the liver, now I'm never gonna drink again with her"

Ah the rhyming couplet

Friday night May 19 2023 - Leith Depot, only 6 more days to wait!

Platform 99 - Sutton Arms

It's a bit late to do a review of a gig on 1987 but here goes.

It was 1987 our old guitarist Mark and Rich had been ensconced in London and Gordon Tucker had joined Ross Bradford in bringing St Andrews student band life support into a proper band with occasional bits of timing and practice.

The job I'd taken in 1985 saw me working more and deadbeating less. We had the money to go into the studio now as well. So life support and hawking deadbeat tapes around the A & R guys was more my modus operandi. Throw in drinking and it was mental. A lot of alcoholics went dry at the end of the 80's and good luck to them, I of course didn't.

It is to my crying shame that I never got the label started and funded more demoes but I did find a few pints. I got seconded to London to find the missing £600m around 1987 and spent Monday to Friday finding it and then flying home. 

Every day of every week involved a pub crawl home. When we moved to broadgate that involved the railway tavern but it was always the globe.

Sometimes we'd get a pint at wood street.. I don't remember it like this. It was still a pub in the great council scheme of the Barbican although by this time all council tenants had long since gone.

I love the sign saying no drinking outside. That's new in the last 40 years.

I stayed on the 29th floor and rarely used it for the weekend as I always went home.

Finally if we had the energy we'd go over to the Sutton arms. There was a guy who played there on a Thursday and we always went in.

One night he said he was of to Austria so I pitched for Rich and I to play. We brought 50 from the work and the boy was delighted. The following week we forgot to bring the work, and the rest is history!

The Undertones, The Revillos and awayday in Glasgow

What a great day out for Alzheimer's Al as SALT's Simon introduced me to my carers for the day Robin and Sadie. We went for drink food drink then the gig. What a superb time. They even read me an excerpt from my diary from 1974, wee fat Al aged 10 would be so excited to think 49 years on....he'd make it onto the worldwide web.

By 1980 I could do joined up writing they told me before taking me out on the Glasgow tour again.

We even had enough time to pass the traffic cone.

Choice pub on the way to the O2 had to be after we crossed the river. The Laurieston is absolutely superb. 

They say everything is half price across the river and you'd think it was happy hour this Friday night. Getting change from £20 for four drinks is becoming unusually infrequent and more often embarrassing as you rummage for another £10 or your card.

Walking into the Laurieston was like a breath of fresh air and getting folding stuff back off a £20 is taking me back to the last time I saw the Revillos.

It was 1983, issue #21 when I was 21 too. It was the issue that would see us I to the new year of 1984 and all thoughts turned to the Orwellian nightmare being wrought upon Scotland by the Tories Thatcherite theft. The looting of the state by the state for those running it was never far from my mind and as I arrived at 60 last year I'm glad my mind wasn't as sharp as to think what has changed in my life.

Some things have stayed the same and it is for the better when it's the music of the Revillos and Undertones. 

The only thing that has changed is the venue and drink prices.

They dance more than I do too, now that has changed. Back then we called it a "Glam 12 bar sound" and it still sounds great, you never forget a classic from when you were 14. The only thing I forgot is that I knew all the words. As a warm up act they're superb. It's a high energy gig and I'd recommend they drop to 6 songs as you've;

got to think about your hips and knees 

In a different way these ......days. 

The age of the audience was predictable but many fans brought their kids who are all 25-35 so a new generation to enjoy 'TOTP'.

I sing the Undertones songs all the time. When they came on they were brilliant. I love loads of the back catalogue and again I hear myself singing them and think, oh, maybe not all songs about chocolate and girls stand the test of time, but it's what I thought back then and who cares I'm glad I'm all grown up now.

Wednesday week never happened at all.....

I sing it on the Camino and she's usually left me for the church......that or some observations on how there are more cranes in Spain than churches.

Mickey likes a chat and so does the singer Paul. The O'Neill brothers like to power their rhythm guitar in different ways, blessedly complementary and I love the way Billy bashes them into shape. 

The evening was transported to the next level for the encore with what would've been a magnificent 9minutes of love aid. 4 songs without drawing breath. Cousin Key-evan was there, they were all there.

 I didn't want to take pics so apologies for so few as I was too busy watching, oh and stumbling towards the bar and toilets. Some things really haven't changed.

Thanks for a great night!

Zoo the band at whistle binkies

Last Tuesday it was ZOO the band followed by another headline act and this week I'm in Santiago de Compostela savouring the delights of rock cafe O CUM.

its a smaller stage and the Estrella Galicia comes with a smaller price plus olives crisps and a toastie. I think they knew fat Al was in town, oh no sur, it's just standard in these parts our host reminded me.

So back to last Tuesday.

I thought I wrote a great review but somehow my cache is full and after sending it I got a rejection saying my inbox was full. I hate that as it means I try to re-type and lose all the vibe of spitting it out as I watch 

Ok that's not the picture. I'll try again. I took a few.

Now I'm raging as they don't seem to be on the phone. Well, when I say raging I'm clearly not as I've a toastie in one hand and a pint in the other so mildly discomforted probably covers it.

I took a great video of some of the songs and stopped because I wanted to just enjoy them. Hmmm this is too much about my incompetence and not enough about the energy of the band and their fans.

I'll try again later.

Life, lies and the choosing of naive political arseholes

I've written before about how marketing took over from economic theory and in our lives we've all seen how social media started to dictate political choices. I laugh at the expression choices as its been the most marketed of terms. We want to choose. Eh, no we dont want to choose. We the voting public are sophisticated enough to know that choice is not a luxury a well functioning democracy can offer. As soon as you put choice into play you discard 84% of what most societies need. My favourite choice to get angry at is choice over schools. The people choosing dont understand that teachers leave and are recruited. They dont understand that past performance is no guide to future performance. It feels like rookies at the dog track being handed a programme and being told trap 1 likes to rail. Check the speed out of the traps as the winner is usually the winner at the first bend. Well except when its a fast finishing Black Moselle wearing the striped jacket of trap 6 in the 1980's era of powderhall, plunket brian and the deadly seriouos deadbeat. In my job as I tried to amass enough money to become a promoter of people with talent, aka, bands, I encountered the odd politician. I never knew about my condition back then I just said it as it was. Vinny to Treasury Minister Angela Knight at the Masionhouse in London, launch of CREST "You should sack your speechwriter. CREST is fantastic for removing risk from the industry but its just cost for the private investor. You should drag them into a room and kick the shit out of them. I'm sure there were very good words and fully formed sentences but it was nonsense. I know I'm Alan McEwan, I work for Stocktrade. We're an EO broker, and I know our costs per trade have just gone up." And the response "Who are you? I, I, I think it is a good deal for private investors........ "Yer maw, I'm away for a fag," and just then I felt the collar. One of my pals Tom grabbed me to save the minister any more humilatiation, my words, or aggravation, his words. It would be a few months until I encountered the Labour opposition minister. Wow! I thought. What a useless pair of individuals in such a short period of time. I knew the Tory story but the Labour one was the same. Vinny to Labour treasury spokesman in Edinburgh constituency "We'd like to find more ways to give staff a share of the company. At the moment we as Directors can divide a bonus pool and give them a chunk of cash but we'd like to give them more equity in the business. A wee Marx thing about the workers owning the factors of production. We do the profit share shares and the SAYE but we'd like to do more. AD - "Oh no we dont want to do that, not since Maxwell. We dont believe in that." He mumbled on about how they're happy people who have bought shares in privitisation etc and I have never felt so low. We've just added another 160 jobs in the last year to your constituency and you only want to reward the WHO! The Roger Daltreys of this world. I'd heard a lot about how NEW LABOUR had moved on or moved away from the party faithful. I was never a card carrier of any party but this one was clearly disappointing me. I'd voted for a pay more tax party all my life. I'd voted for a European party my whole life. Now I had to decide whether to vote for Tory Light as we headed into 1997. I had an ambition to pay £1m tax in my life. Every time the rates went up I would smile and think we are ambitious and want a proper caring democracy. I hadn't bargained on Gordon Brown and Tory Blair embarking on their own wee ego trips. I wasn't a fan of Major but when Mo Mowlem got the agreement over the line, it was one thing that made me think parties could work together. Brown bankrupted the workers with his pension fund theft. The tories never reversed it as they knew it was a devious trick they wish they'd thought of. They coud never have done it but he did. Countless pension funds are now underfunded. The Clown from Dunfermline thought he was stealing from the rich. He wasn't, he merely demonstrated a massive misundertanding of the poor and how pensions work. He clearly had no idea of how the market is cyclical and how pension funds can be 200% over funded one minute and only 87% funded the next. Market go up and down which is what I tried to show his dittery sidekick earlier in the decade. He clearly only saw certain over funded, or well run pension schemes and didn't see the others who had teetered on the brink. IN fact he clearly never got the AD memo about how MAxwell had raided the pension fund, or maybe thats where the first cornel of an idea had come from. Who knows where the fly Fifer found the stupidity to plunder his own voters, but his sleight of hand was the belief that 25 years on nobody would remember. After his plundering the employers stepped up their use of the pension surpluses. I think that's called O'Grade Economics. The reason this social science exists is because it believes that actions can influence decisions. Political actions on Taxation may result in a change of Behaviour. Sorry if I just sounded a bit exasperated. Its like watching Liz Truss getting elected because the country wanted to undermine itself. It seemed the country felt the poor were getting marginally richer and so if we all have a shakedown they'd be really poor and not be able to clog our doorways or polling booths. I heard them cry out, 'My house has lost half its value but its a small price to pay given that Liz is moving on up' It was the ultimate signal of marketing over economics that in my head Kondratieff desrcibes. 40-60 years ago we moved into a style over substance debate. Style won and now we have built in obsolesence, its now at level 83. It used to be that most cars lasted a lifetime then it became clear they needed to sell cars every 10 years, then every 7, 5, and now 2-3. Even the planet is not to be ignored. You now need an electric car. Truth is you probably dont. Truth is you do probably need to downsize and live in smaller place and consume less. I digress. Style wont keep you warm and it certainly wont feed you. Marketing departments will continue to sell you more food than you need with diet sheets to make sure you bin half of what they've sold you. Economists are still trying to help but they're drowned out, (mostly by each other!). Consumption is not the most important part of the economy. Its an integral part but just one we need to be mindful off. A society is based on people interacting and enjoying an existence. When we're dead there is no consumption although a few in the Funereal industry may disagree. When Thatcher moved us to a service industry I had a chuckle. She had spotted a huge gap in the market. Death and Taxes. That's the only thing we can be certain of. Forget the mining and manufacturing industries, we need to service DEATH as I'm removing taxes. I'm working on my eiptath. Hmmm, I might be onto something here! Thank you - my name's Fat Al and please enjoy the buffet as my alter ego Vinny is currently doing..... Footnote - When I was younger, so muc younger than today, my uncle was editor of the Scotsman and didnt support the union in any way, but now I'm older and I feelso self assured, ..... I almost want to stand for election to make the case to rejoin Europe and to adopt the Euro as the currency. I dont go for isolation and I do want to recognise that rogue states will come unstuck and so being part of Europe will be more beneficial than swimming in the north sea trying to catch mackerel with our badly made teeth.

Deadbeat Christmas Compilation #1

I was doing the countdown to Christmas in my head and lo behold! There is a star....and in the case of Deadbeat 16 of them.... The CD produced by Gordon Tucker as he cleaned up the DB masters in all their Dolby + nonsense is superb and this first CD will be available with the book and CD 2 of the Greatest hits in the summer. Get in touch if you want a copy. Talk of the book and a gig to cement your place in history is like my memory, fleeting. I will try to get in touch with some of the icons and try to repeat the iconic events at a venue in September next year.....judging by my past performance I'll need a lot of encouragement but I thought I could organise a golf day as everyone must be playing by now.....at the iconic Arthurs seat golf club, aka Prestonfield. Its a great track and handy for the train station for you out of town travellers......and if you dont play golf, there's always a drinks buggy to operate.... So back to the CD.....sometimes I name the song first and other times its clear I haven't. I never had a career in journalism as I am shit at writing but I do enjoy it almost as much as listening to the music! My favourite song has been saved for the second CD but regular readers know what that is. Track 1 dancing bears - Lost in my mind Track 2 - The very thing - conventionality Track 3. Metropolis - burlesque Track 4. I heard Catherine sing - autumn 1904 Shirley sang with them and only she'll know if it's her voice on this Track 5 - standing still - the floor I was lucky enough to interview Thomas and David as Slaughterhouse 5, RIP David. Track 6. Miles and miles - the relations Muggins died recently and wasnt part of the band but was part of my Perthshire experience so RIP Track 7 Trust - Track 8 - pulsebeat plus happy children sinking ships Track 9 - About you - life support Track 10 - bone of contention - strawberry tarts Track 11 - poltergeist - twisted nerve Track 12 - who do you love - strawberry tarts Track 13- way of the west - Napalm stars Track 14 - run out of time - the invitation Track 15 - influence of love - sunset gun Track 16 - loose on you - circus of hell

40 years ago today

Yes I just dyed my hair blue and the inverted skunk look didnt go down to well for Christmas. Back up the road I went topping up issue #6

and finishing collating, stapling and distributing #7. Hilary had a drawing of Edwyn for #7 and it would set Christmas 82 and the new year 1983 alight for Deadbeat. Roy Terre was getting into the groove Fran and Graeme getting involved too as the interview with Durutti Column with pictures by Fran duly arrived in the December 18 1982 - January 6 1983 issue. We only put the dates on to remind us it was time to put another one out but it worked. Fanzines were supposed to burn bright and die off but everyone from the bands, the punters to the shops everything seemed to want us to fly and my hunt around scotland for the best venue to munch a cheese and onion toastie just grew and grew into an annual review ......40 years ago today, ha ha!

Callum Easter - Fans at work - Thank you

How good is it just to listen to the fans.