Last years moans "The time has come", the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax - Of cabbages - and kings- And why the sea is boiling hot - And whether pigs have wings." "But wait a bit," the Oysters cried, "Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!" Quite a few of us may now be in that “fatter” situation after the festive season and so before embarking on a new year of grumps I thought I'd look back, without checking any of the posts, on what I remember really annoying me in 2018. Some I may have written about, some not. My major grump is quite simply the ludicrous idea that asking people whether they want something. once they know the full facts. is undemocratic. I have never heard anything so stupid or so nonsensical. And yet our leader, who must be on a level with the worst leaders we have ever had, holds to this view. As I write this I am reading that the leader of the opposition shares this view and, if that is true, he will lose the support I have been prepared to give him over the last few years. In a democracy, and our system of government isn't really that, the people should also be asked again if they have been asked once but were not aware of the facts or if they were actually lied to by their leaders. When I started these blogs several people said “oh you'll just be moaning how things were better in your day and how young people today are so useless”. There have been times when I needed to point out what was around in my day, we had glass re-usable milk bottles not plastic ones, but I'm can't actually remember a time when I criticised, specifically, the young people of today. I mention this here because the most articulate and intelligent arguments concerning Brexit and a new vote have come from the young people at Our Future, Our Choice, especially Lara Spirit. In fact should they set up a political party, unlikely but who knows, they would have my vote, my support and, if they wanted it, my experience. Talking of articulate, has anyone else noticed our Prime Minister is totally inarticulate and incapable of answering a simple question. Listen to Prime Minister's question time and rather than answer questions, she likes to tell us what the opposition would do, has done, might do or did last time they were in power. Of course being evasive is good if you are incapable of justifying your own decisions but surely you must realise intelligent people can see through this. I suppose the question is whether she is evasive or just a stupid woman. Which leads me on to my next moan, pseudo feminists. Conducting a pantomime in parliament when the country is in the middle of its biggest crisis for years is stupid. To the best of my knowledge, Teresa May is a woman. Calling her such is not an attack on women. Grow up. I want each person, whatever race, sex, religious beliefs etc, to be treated as equal. No-one would have complained if someone was called a stupid man. Please you stupid people who complained, grow up. Just because you are a woman does not mean you should be treated differently. You are an equal of men, behave like it. After all this leader spent many days ridiculing Jeremy Corbyn for not reading five hundred and whatever it is pages of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. It was her agreement, did she write every word. Stupid woman. I suppose my other big moan of the year has been about our nanny state, especially in schools. Imagine my surprise when I read somewhere that the new Education Secretary, Damian Hinds, wants children to climb trees. Rubber ones I suppose with a cushion flooring underneath and a harness fitted before they climb. Otherwise why have some schools banned some playground games because a child might get hurt. 7 January 2019
Feeble scaremongers and mixing metaphors I don't like scaremongers. I don't like people who make a statement that is deliberately made to sound scary when, in reality, it is no more scary than anything else. Our PM, she who has in my opinion presided over the biggest botch-up in our history, announced over the weekend that if people don't accept her deal we would be going into uncharted waters. Uncharted waters sounds scary to me. Sounds as though it is perhaps, unless you are a descendant of Captain Cook, somewhere we should not go. But the truth is whatever we do with regard to Brexit is going to be in uncharted waters. No one has ever left the EU before so however we leave it is uncharted waters. No one has ever triggered Article 50 and then asked to stay so that would be uncharted waters. No one has ever signed up to the PMs deal and seen what might happen if we can't agree a trade deal with the EU, so that is just as uncharted. The only thing that is not uncharted is to have another referendum. At the end of that we would know what the people think now they are aware of the full facts. The British public are not stupid Prime Minister. We can see what you are trying, in total desperation, to do. Your deal, the only deal as you say, is not a safe port away from uncharted waters. By kicking the can down the road and scaring us with uncharted waters (mixed metaphors are an art, you know) you are hoping to frighten people in having to back you because there is no time left. Don't think we can't see that. 8 January 2019
When the brainless try to use what they haven't got. I genuinely do have a problem with the “kid glove” way we treat law breakers, morons and objectionable losers. As I understand it, a section of the 1986 Public Order Act means that "threatening or abusive words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour" could be deemed a criminal offence. Also under the European Convention on Human Rights, people have the right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression. No one in their right mind could define jostling an MP, calling them a Nazi and scum and loudly shouting abuse as a peaceful protest. Personally I am not convinced that you can give freedom of expression to anyone who quite clearly is incapable of expressing anything except through their foul-mouthed tirade. It would appear we have a name. Arrest him. Charge him. Lock him up and then he can express anything he likes, anywhere he likes, as long as it is in his own little cell. Sadly he probably now believes he is a celebrity, a definition we hand out far too easily. I need to explain to him, although my words may have more than two letters in them so he may be pushed to understand them, that he is brainless, useless, inarticulate, pathetic and completely incapbale of knowing what a protest is. 9 January 2019
I'm not sure the dictators are fake news. My mother, or to be more precise my proverbial mother, liked sayings and proverbs, Whatever was going on, she had a phrase for it, “A watch pot never boils” she would as I sat at the window waiting for my grandparents to arrive. “It'll be in the last place you look” she would utter as I tried to find something I had lost as a child. It was actually only when I was almost into my dotage that I realised what a stupid phrase that was and wondered whether mother really thought I was so stupid I would go on looking after I had found something. However when reading a report of Donald Thrump's address to the nation today, I was reminded of another of mother's sayings: “It takes one to know one”. I listened to Thrump telling his adoring pubic (none of these are typos by the way) how nearly all cocaine coming into the United States came across the Mexican border when his own government admits that most comes in by other routes. He once called 7,000 migrants an invasion. He has told of killings with no substantive evidence of such events. In short he rattles on about “fake news” because that is how he operates. He either assumes everyone else is the same or wishes to distract people from his fakery by accusing others. I assume he has always been like this. As mother would have said “A leopard never changes its spots” and, in any case, “you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Although it would seem any leader can make anything into a pig's ear. My father's generation fought against tyrants and dictators; they may be making a comeback. 10 January 2019
A written lesson on the unwritten British Constitution. The current Leader of the House of Commons is beginning to annoy me. She has a very specific job. So does The Speaker. She seems to think part of her job is to tell him what he should have done. What follows is my view, may not be one hundred percent correct although I believe it to be. As a little bit of justification for thinking I know what I'm talking about is the fact that, for two years in the 1960s, I studied British Constitution and subsequently took an A level in the subject. Government in the United Kingdom is ruled by the British Constitution. Unfortunately, or some might same fortunately, it is not a written constitution like most countries have but an unwritten one based on precedent, custom and practice. The government of the UK has three parts, the executive (who put forward the laws), the legislature (who pass those laws after debate) and the judiciary who make sure the laws are carried out. We also have two houses of parliament, the Lords and the Commons. For what I am about to say we will ignore the judiciary and the Lords. In olden days the executive was the monarch and sometimes he tried to rule without parliament. In the mid seventeenth century Charles I tried this and, after a bit of a civil war, parliament tried him and he was left in no position to rule at all as he had no head. When the Hanoverian Georges ruled they relied very heavily on their ministers and from about 1721 there was a Prime Minister who led the monarch's government. The Prime Minister would have a “cabinet” made up of other minsters and that is roughly the system we have today. Parliament, originally there to keep checks on the monarch now is there to keep check on Ministers who form the collective executive. The ministers are normally all elected and as such are part of the whole parliament. At the beginning of each session of parliament, the members elect someone to be The Speaker, the chairman, of the house. It is his/her job to keep order, ensure proceedings are conducted correctly and make decisions of questionable matters. Returning to my third paragraph, this is based on precedent etc. The government, through their appointed Leader of the House sets the order of business. Yesterday's undignified hiatus occurred because The Speaker decided, as he has a right to do, to allow members to vote on an amendment to this business. The amendment was not, shall we say, helpful to the government and the Leader of House, both then and today, chirped up and then on and on, about what could be done and what The Speaker should do. She had already been one of those who complained vehemently when the Conservative Party complained that Jeremy Corbyn had said that Theresa May was a stupid woman. I don't know if he did or didn't. I do know that, in my opinion when the country is in the middle of an incredibly serious crisis her pantomime behaviour that day was very stupid, even puerile, if puerile isn't a sexist word. I also have no reason to disbelieve the fact she is a woman. Stupid woman seemed a good description to me and in no way sexist. If it was, then you can no longer tell a child he is a lovely boy or a pretty girl. This government has appeared, on quite a few occasions, to treat parliament with contempt (as voted by said parliament on December 5th last year when it tried to not release advice it had received) and, also on occasions to completely ignore decisions parliament has taken. It is obvious to anyone with half the brain of demented flea that this government and its Prime Minister are trying to avoid any vote on the withdrawal agreement until it is so late that those with the same brain who know a no-deal Brexit would be fatal to our country are almost compelled to support this deal, whether they believe in it or not. This is tantamount to a dictatorship, one of which my father's generation, as I said in my last post, bravely fought against. By making his decision yesterday The Speaker, without any political bias, gave parliament the chance to stop this “can kicking” and means that the government should come back to parliament with its new plan in 3 days if the withdrawal vote goes against them. Had the vote been held on the date originally stated then these 3 days take us roughly to the date they would have needed to report back from then, ie 21 days after the scheduled original meaningful vote. It is time this government, its leaders, both of it and the House of Commons, begin to understand democracy and what they can and cannot do. The executive (Andrea Leadsom) cannot interfere with the legislature (represented by The Speaker) I am sorry if this is a rather long grump but I feel very strongly about what is now going on and particularly about how we are treating those young people who will have to grow up, and probably sort out, this complete shambles. And yet again today I had to listen to the complete drivel, this time from Melanie Phillips of The Times, about the validity of holding a second referendum. Yes we all voted, No we did not know all the facts. Yes it was a bloody stupid question, making the previous PM in my opinion a stupid man. Yes some of us have changed our mind. Why is it wrong to ask a new question 30 months later based on the situation as it is now. To extend this idea to its extreme, we all voted in a referendum in 1975, why has that result run its time but not this one. What is the government arbitrary time limit for referenda. And I know how happy Teresa May would really be if we had another referendum because she could then announce it as the greatest public vote ever, Sadly I think most of the new voters, those young people I am so worried about, would not vote the same way as Mrs May would like, or pretends she would like. Stop being a dictator and be a democrat. 11 January 2019
A message for all Cluedo players. Lets finish this week with a non-Brexit, far lighter grump. The following advert has been placed by Essex Police. It asks for volunteer detectives effectively. Really. Apparently accountants, with 16 hours a month to spare, could investigate fraud crimes, possibly their own.
Should we have listened to an airport? Scaremonger May is at it again. She now is telling everyone, or anyone who listens, that if her deal is voted down tomorrow there is a very strong chance of no Brexit. Some time ago she was telling us that if Parliament didn't vote for her deal we might leave with no deal. The only very worrying thing is that, in her speech today, she prefaced her opinion with the words “it is now my judgement”. This is, to be honest, not worth the air it is spoken into. Her judgement while Home Secretary wasn't brilliant. After taking a walk at Easter 2017, she judged it would be a good idea to have an election, in which she managed to lose her overall majority. She has also, over the last year or so, judged what is democracy, something she hasn't really shown she is interested in following. She strongly pointed out in today's speech, as an example, how wrong it would have been if Parliament had gone against the result of the referendum to establish a Welsh Assembly. This country does not overturn referenda decisions was the thrust of her argument. The problem with that is we all voted about being part of the EU in 1975 and the answer was yes. By holding another referendum in 2016 we surely gave the option, taken by the voters, to do exactly as she said we didn't, which is to overturn a referendum decision. I fully accept that things change and that gives a validity to holding another referendum but that argument also gives validity to having another referendum, a people's vote, now. You cannot place an arbitrary time limit on when votes can be overturned. I now understand that back in 2005 Mrs May campaigned, in that year's general election, on the basis of overturning the aforesaid Welsh Assembly referendum and indeed subsequently voted against it. It would appear there are now two more things I dislike about Mrs May; her faces. On this point of people losing faith in British democracy, I would also argue that Mrs May's decision to hold that 2017 election was also anti-democratic as we have a law stating that Parliaments are voted in for 5 years and she, with Parliamentary approval it is true, overturned that law. As for her belief that the European Union has given any assurances that are legally binding and not just nice airy-fairy platitudes, is laughable. We have a withdrawal agreement and it is over 500 pages long. It covers everything. Anything outside that may have legal force but not legal requirement should various events take place. Tomorrow, roughly 56 years after an airport vetoed our attempts to join with the EEC, the place where we go gathering nuts is trying to put through a deal which would have failed when she should have brought it to Parliament and will most likely still fail. One month wasted. I fully look forward to landing at Theresa May airport when it is built on the Isle of Sheppey in a few years time. I gather the runway may not be long enough for modern planes but a backstop is being put in place....on a temporary basis, until planes have better brakes. 15 January 2019
W O W That was some defeat. Largest ever by any governing party in modern times. A defeat by 230 votes. Crushing. Over 68% of all voting MPs today voted against the Prime Minister and her government. Some people were saying, and this included the PM, that they thought they might win the vote. They are either totally out of touch with reality or lying in the hope that their lies might have some effect. I do not want someone out of touch with reality or a liar to be my leader in government. The answer has to be a change in leadership. Let's see what happens tomorrow night. 16 January 2019
Confidence is never in short supply Did you know that if there is a vote about the competence of your government, the fitness of your government to govern, the best defence is not to explain why people should have that necessary confidence but you should spend hours discussing why anyone else isn't fit to govern. In other words we're crap but I can tell that in my judgement others would be even worse. Now sadly, the judgement of those making these statements has not been shown as brilliant, well actually, not be shown as any good at all. Surely any reasonable, mature government would try to defend what it has done rather than use that favourite scaremongering tactic of fear, fear of what a Labour government will do. The stupidity of some of their comments are amazing. They will announce that Mr Corbyn voted against his government more times than any other MP and then say that government was a disaster. In my eyes this makes Mr Corbyn quite different from that government so he cannot be tarred with their brush. You can't have it both ways. In fact a Corbyn government would be so different that we should obviously give it a try as we know this government is no good and we are told the previous Labour one, opposed so often by Corbyn, was also terrible. I have also just heard a Conservative MP tell us that Margaret Thatcher was responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall. The relevance for this fairy tale was that Mrs Thatcher took office after the last successful vote of no confidence. I don't think this vote will succeed (I am writing this before the vote) but I do now know that this government is incompetent, dictatorial and in contempt of the very people who elected it. Once this episode of the circus is over, I wait, with baited breath, the next move from the defeated, humiliated and destroyed leader of our government. In any other time, such a defeat would have resulted in a resignation but that would only happen in the real world. 17 January 2019
Mirror, mirror on the wall........ As far as I, a mere member of the electorate, can see, the most serious problem facing the government and those trying to sort Brexit, is time and the most dangerous conclusion would be a no-deal Brexit. Finally, far, far too late, our stupid PM is saying she must talk to other parties, other MPs, instead of just the mirror on her wall. And that mirror has now stopped saying “strong and stable” and “my deal is the only deal". According to the totally biased press, Jeremy Corbyn is a villain for not agreeing to speak to the PM unless she agrees that the no-deal option is ruled out. If that happens, he is more than willing to talk. According to what I read and hear elsewhere the other leaders and MPs who have spoken to the PM have actually said exactly the same thing, if not more. Ian Blackford of the SNP said that the extension of Article 50, the option of a new referendum and the ruling out of a no-deal option would have to form the basis of future talks. Liz Saville Roberts of Plaid Cymru said that while her party were committed to finding a real solution that would mean taking a no-deal off the table. Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP, said Mrs May had refused to rule out a no-deal Brexit and resisted the option of extending Article 50. "I repeatedly urged her again and again to take no-deal off the table because I think it completely skews the talks - because you know that cliff edge is there," she said. Tom Brake, the Liberal Democrats Brexit spokesman, said a no-deal Brexit needed to be off the table. To my mind, apart from face-to-face telling the PM no-deal must be off the table, these other leaders and MPs have only succeeded in wasting a whole day in talks. Jeremy Corbyn succeeded in giving his view in a letter, taking up hardly any time. Time, as I said at the start, is the most serious problem and no-deal the most dangerous outcome. The PM knew, once away from that mirror, the views she was told today. Why waste time meeting people to hear the same thing? We need dynamic leadership. We need something to happen quickly. I still firmly believe in another referendum which I know Corbyn is wary of for various reasons. He is not right about everything but his attitude over talks is correct as far as I believe. The villain of this whole shambles is the PM and only the PM. Deciding to hold talks at this late stage while apparently sticking to her mirror-induced red lines is not just shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted it is shutting the door once the stable has burned down and blown away. Try using that mirror to reflect on this Mrs May. 18 January 2019
Age alone is just a number so is 270 I have never been one to condemn those young drivers who seem to have more accidents within years of passing their tests than those of us who have been behind the wheel for years. Age has little to do with it. Obviously we have more experience. That is undeniable but not all experience is necessarily good. Some of it is down to intelligence. Don't try and do something you can't. Don't think you can do something you can't and don't show off. My grump here is about the coverage by our lovable press of the accident which involved Prince Philip. Much of it related to his age. It may have been a factor, it may not. It may have been a low, blinding sun, it may not. No one knows except our lovable press. In their expert way, they know everything about everything, they have talked to everyone within 5 miles. In fact after listening and reading all the reports and interviews, I am convinced at least 20 passers-by pulled the Prince from his car, heard what he said, knew the problem and were delighted to be asked for their worthless but public opinion. Personally if the Prince did pull out when he couldn't see, it wasn't because of his age, it was because he took a risk, tried to do something he couldn't and guess there was nothing there. I must emphasise I have no idea if this is what happened but what I am trying to say is age may not have been even a small factor. I have been driving for over 50 years. I drive fast when it is safe to do so. I observe everything having once been taught to give a live commentary, as I believe police drivers are instructed to do, as I drove along. Mentally I still do this. The only accident I have caused, ie been my fault, was to reverse into a car parked across the road from my driveway. It wasn't there when I climbed into my car and stupidly I didn't look again as I reversed. I never overtake unless it is perfectly clear. I don't particularly drive fast on straight roads in the UK. Any idiot can do that and I've seen many to prove that point. I may corner quicker than others but that takes skill and concentration. Concentration, observation and skill are the three main things needed to drive safe. Couple that to experience and an awareness that my reactions are still good, driving and otherwise, and I believe I am as safe as I can be. Of course some idiot may swerve across the road but I think of that. I once told my ex-wife that if our car should ever somersault and she was still alert, open her door as it rolled. Car roofs and door supports collapse and that may result in you being unable, after a roll, to open the door. Be aware, think about everything. When I feel I lose my ability to observe, to concentrate, to know my limits and my reactions slow, then I shall stop. None of this will have anything to do with my age. Whether I will ever drive at 270kph on a German autobahn again is debatable although it didn't really feel that fast. 21 January 2019
Onward, onward, rode the 600 and 50 Welcome to a new week. You may not notice it. The PM has presented parliament with her plan B. This was easy because it is actually Plan A alphabetically moved along one place. Presumably Plan C will follow this format if, or when, it is needed. Apparently, according to the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, there were a lot of people quoting Einstein, who claimed the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. It would appear these was some dispute as to whether the great man ever said this. He did, however, say that “The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no new ideas,” and so we can be fairly certain that Mrs May will not be making any mistakes. In all my 54 years of following politics and politicians I would be hard pressed to find anyone who carries on when it is obvious they will never succeed. I fully expect Mrs May will appear at the dispatch box next wearing a cardigan and a balaclava. Think about it. How many more half leagues must we go on before riding into the valley of the no-deal. Some one has blundered and every single MP who does not make a reply and ask the reason why will commit this country, its businesses and its people to do and die in the valley of no deal. There's 650 this time. Someone stop this catastrophic charge. By the way, Einstein also said “"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.” 22 January 2019
I'm not listening to me, are you? I don't know about you but when I was younger I always thought the people I saw on TV were really clever to be able to just talk away with just a handful of notes. After a few appearances on chat shows I realised that the hosts all had an autocue which told them what to ask and a producer shouting in their ear, telling them when to ask it and when to wind up etc. My admiration for their verbosity and articulacy (might have made a word up here) diminished. Yesterday I watched the 1°clock BBC news. Chris Morris, the BBC Reality Check guy, was explaining all about Brexit options. Again. As an aside I do wonder while all their other correspondents don't deal in reality too but so be it. Anyhow, waving some notes in his hand, he was spouting on with diagrams changing in the background. Then he repeated the whole of one paragraph he had just said. At the end he seemed to realise this and looked down at those waving notes, fumbled around, looked back at the autocue, which had obviously now moved on, and continued. My slight worry is that if BBC correspondents don't actually listen to what they are saying, why should we? It may be that they do write these speeches but I no longer think they are any cleverer than you and I, mainly I actually. 23 January 2019
Credit where credit is due. I am delighted that, according to the latest figures, there are now more people in employment than ever before. I am somewhat less delighted that the present government seems to be taking credit for it. The full credit should go to all those people who copulated some years ago and then gave birth, on the maternal side, to so many little babies. I have been unable to find a set of figures that will tell me how many people left school last year nor how many left university. I do know, however, that this figure is considerably higher than the number of people who either chose to retire or were actually able to retire. It is therefore simple statistics, or even a natural occurrence, that there are more people employed than ever before. There are more people of an employable age. Of course the government could argue that it is their policies that have created so many new jobs for this new influx but I find that hard to agree with too. As more people exist in our little country, so we need more services, more food, more nurses, doctors, teachers and so many other professions. Once again, our thanks for this is down to the copulating many who set about, at no small sacrifice, to populate our country with more bodies. It is they who deserve our thanks for putting greater numbers into employment. To put more simply; it is the fu**king population not the fu**king government. 24 January 2019
When no advice may be the best advice. I do have a certain amount of concern with regard to advice we get these days from so-called experts. Over the past few years us oldies have been advised, nay told by the Daily Express at least, that an aspirin a day will prevent quite a few illnesses that may affect us. Today we are told that doing that is not worth the risk of other complications it could cause. Apart from ignoring things and carrying on living a healthy life, what are we all to do? 25 January 2019
Trump and a disorganised retreat. Sometimes words fail me with how those in power view the facts. Today, Donald “I won't back down over my wall funding” Trump backed down over his wall funding so the shutdown could be lifted for 3 weeks. In his announcement he said he was “very proud to announce an agreement to fund the government till 15 February”. What he was actually announcing was that he was now agreeing with a move made by the Democrats a few days ago. Pride, squirrel head, comes before a fall, although it's so nice to see him proving the old “takes one to know one”adage with his fake news words. 28 January 2019
Is social media the new pornography? There has been much talk in the last few days about the harm that social media sites can do, especially to our young people. Some of the content of which I have heard and seen is, quite simply, horrific and, in the real sense, pornographic. The father of a teenager who took her own life has said that he believes Instagram helped kill his daughter. Facebook, who own Instagram, have said they are deeply sorry. They said that graphic content which glorifies self-harm and suicide has no place on their platforms. What a boring, dishonest and inaccurate platitude. If it has no place on their platform, it shouldn't be there. If they mean in order to make as much money from us, their users, as possible we are unable to monitor what appears on our platforms, please say that because, in my view, that is the case. Our Health Minister Matt Hancock welcomed steps taken by the social media firms but added more action is urgently needed. Sorry, we don't welcome action being taken that is not succeeding. We don't suck up to extremely wealthy individuals who care not one jot about anyone else. Today Sir Nick Clegg, whilst being appalled by what is available on websites run by the company he now works for, added that a large number of people, 3,500 he quoted, who showed suicidal tendencies had been helped by prompt intervention. That is 0.0001 percent of Facebook users. Also, sadly, a natural extension of Sir Nick's view is that we put images of young children on the site so we can intervene and stop paedophiles. But we have been here before and I make no apology for re-printing, in full, a post I uploaded on May 19th 2017. I am disgusted that nearly two years on, nothing much, if anything, has changed. It read For those of you who have followed these pieces over the last year or so, well done. You will also have some idea of my view of social media, one of the main things being that it is possibly more often than not far more anti-social media. It is an open platform, whatever the owners of these sites may say, for people to insult, humiliate, libel, bully and generally decry anyone, or indeed anything, they want. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think the sites were devised for that purpose but because of the way they are run there is no way that such behaviour can be policed. There are, as of now, approximately 2 billion regular monthly Facebook users. I am, by the way, only using Facebook as an example. If each user posts once a day there are 2 billion posts each day. Assuming you take a minute to read each post. That is over 33 million hours of reading. Assuming one person works an eight hour day, reading posts non-stop, you would need 4 million people to check each post, making Facebook the world's largest employer. But we all know that's not how it works. Certain words appearing in posts may be thrown up to those who do check but it is laughable to believe that even 1% of unsuitable posts could be found by Facebook. The same applies to the other four big social media sites, twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat. In fact I have uploaded a video to YouTube, with backing music composed by me, and be told there was a copyright issue. The reason I am blogging about this today is that the BBC has reported that a survey has been carried out among young people to see what effect these social media platforms have on their mental health. Young people, aged between 18-24, were asked to score the five sites on issues such as anxiety, depression, loneliness, bullying and body image. It is estimated that 90% of these young people use social media so any effects are far greater on this age group. The survey found that Instagram had the worst effect when it comes to young people's mental health followed by Snapchat. YouTube had the most positive effect then twitter with Facebook coming out in the middle of the five. It doesn't take a genius to spot that Instagram and Snapchat are the most image-focused of the five. It is therefore pretty likely that they can make young people feel inadequate about themselves when visually compared to others. The problem is that social media can also be a positive in young people's lives. It allows them a large degree of self expression, as long as they are not indulging in the anti-social behaviour, and it gives them a public identity. Of course it also keeps them in contact with their friends but I would venture to suggest that many of the followers young people gather on Instagram, for example, are not actual friends. The other problem is that, in the blink of eye, or the upload of a post, what was a good platform for social interaction can become a destructive one. The clap trap wheeled out by the social media companies was woeful. Keeping Instagram a safe and supportive place for young people was a top priority, the company said but we know they can't do that. It is physically impossible with the large number of users. They also said that they provide tools and information on how to cope with bullying and that they warn users before they view certain content. I would again doubt that these warning apply to comments posted on a personal Instagram page. I can't imagine a pop-up saying “whoops someone has said something nasty about your picture”. In any case human nature being what it is a warning about the content would probably arouse the curiosity. The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) says that "social media may be fuelling a mental health crisis" in young people. How wonderfully vague. They also say that social platforms should flag up heavy social media use and identify users with mental health issues. Unfortunately, in the report I read, they don't say how this should be done. I, for one, fail to see how a social media site can identify someone with a mental health problem when mental health problems are often not identified by so-called experts and professionals. They say a pop-up saying something like you have used social media for “a long time” after a certain period of use might deter but, seriously, if people need to be told that, the problem is far deeper. Another idea was to have a note to say when photos have been digitally manipulated - for example, they said, fashion brands, celebrities and other advertising organisations could sign up to a voluntary code, allowing a small icon to be displayed on digitally altered photos. Really. I am sure that these brands and celebrities who do alter photos do not want the world to know. Can you see this working? I may be an old cynic or I may genuinely have serious concerns about how society is developing. I certainly have no answer but it is nice to see some dialogue and also some admission from others that there is a problem with social media. I may return to this at some later date after a period of non-social reflection. And so I have. Matt Hancock finished his interview by saying that his government is developing a white paper that will address "online harms" and look at content on suicide and self-harm. A white paper? We are so full of consultation and idea-seeking, so frightening of upsetting others that we totally fail, in so many cases, to take any action. If any self-harm or suicidal images appear on any social media platform then that platform must be closed down for a month. Let's see how quick the money-grabbers are to make changes then. If any image is on their site then they are purveyors of pornography. Pornography is something that is likely to deprave or corrupt. These images do just that. These companies, and their bosses, are pornographers. 29 January 2019
I need a lie down. According to the BBC the Prime Minister has bought herself some more space. Based on what she said and did today, that must be between her ears. I have never heard so many U-turns, promises broken, impossible promises made and vague ideas that will be put to the EU. I don't think I can keep commenting on this much longer. In my youth I always looked up to MPs. Now I am totally and absolutely aware that the majority of those in the Conservative Party are nowhere near as clever as my grandchildren. I need a lie down. 30 January 2019
Snow happens in winter. It's not actually news. Just a quick word to anyone born after about 1980. We had snow before there were non-stop news channels with nothing to talk about for a full day. We managed to survive on about 2 bulletins a day, a couple of weather forecasts and we didn't have to listen to local radio every ten minutes to discover if we were likely to disappear in a snow flurry. We got on with it. We coped. We knew it was snowing when we saw snow. We knew that if it was icy we should drive more carefully and allow longer for our journey. Here's a weather forecast from 1991. It tells you the weather. The only advice is at the very end when dear old Ian McCaskill tells us to wrap up well. How have we all made it so far? 31 January 2019
I mean what I say or I May not. I am reliably informed by my favourite TV political commentator, Norman Smith, that Theresa May, our strong and stable leader, has said in Parliament 67 times that the UK is leaving the EU on 29th March and the editor's decision is final on that. She has not said we are aiming for that date; she has not said we will do everything possible to leave on that date; she has said, no questions, that we will definitely, undoubtedly, indubitably and with the full use of tautology, leave on that date. Now you may have spotted that quite a few other things she has said have mysteriously, or even non-mysteriously, not happened. They may be good reasons for them not happening but nevertheless, she said it would and it didn't. However, there comes a point when I can no longer accept an excuse for any of this. If Mrs May makes any attempt to extend Article 50, which whatever happens she surely must, then, in my honest and humble opinion, she is a liar. She has made statements she knew were untrue or impossible, in the hope that she would look good in someone's eye. However many more people than she thinks have gone to specsavers and we can see through her deceit. Actually I'm not sure that going to specsavers allows you to see through things but you get my drift. Let's see what happens over the next few weeks.