I'm baaaaccckkkk....

Ok, so I know I should probably just take this shit to Twitter, but I've forsaken it in a fit of pique that I can't be bothered explaining. Well, sort of. But not really. Whatevs - point is I'm gonna slabber about crap here instead.

I think I might also need to issue an disclaimer of some sort - if you don't like slagging off politicians and especially the right wing, this is not the blog for you. 

So it's Question Time night! It's time! To face! The dickhead politicians and their dickhead policies who no one really voted for! Wooooo!!!

...wait, that's the wrong show, isn't it? Whoopsie...

But before we have Question Time, we have the BBC local London news (can't be arsed changing the region to NI, yes, I am a lazy bitch), so now I'm looking at this instead:

Ah, Boris. Boris and his big, silly head, next to his big, silly office building. I've spent so long staring at this picture that I have no idea what the story was about. Something about Boris Johnson and London, I think. I picked that much up at least.

Now the weather forecast: shit. That pretty much sums it up. Which brings me to another, completely unrelated point - why in the name of cheesus do UK fashion lines/stores not understand that they are selling clothes in the British Isles, where it basically rains all fucking summer long and drowns us all?! SELL SOME FUCKING COATS, YOU ASSHOLES. PREFERABLY ONES WITH HOODS. THAT ACTUALLY STAND SOME CHANCE OF KEEPING OUT THE RAIN. IT'S FUCKING IRELAND FFS YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES.

(I'm doing my swearing-stretching - have to warm up before the main show, y'know)

Ah jaysus, This Week are doing a football-themed show this week. Holy mother of God, bless us and save us all.

Dimbleby's here, and we're off. No turny dancing thing from Dimbleby, unfortunately (I still say they should start and end the show with Dancing Dimbleby). There's a load of random asshole politicians on, Germaine Greer and someone else I've not heard of.

First question is about the UKIP local election results and does it mean Britain is going right wing. YES. COS ALL YOU FUCKING CUNTS READ THE DAILY MAIL, WHAT THE FUCK ELSE DO YOU EXPECT?!

David Davis (Tory bugger) says we can't sneer at UKIP or their voters anymore. Well, maybe you can't mate, but it's not stopping me. Fucking UKIP mentalists. Jerry Hayes doesn't seem to mind having a wee go at them either, who wants to expose them for who they are, and says voting for them is dangerous, but less cos they cray cray, and more cos they'll help Ed Miliband get in.

Ooh, there's a man in an ascot! That should be worth something on Question Time bingo, right?

He voted UKIP, too. Bloody hell.

Some Labour shadow minister is talking about Europe and trying to scare people about jobs being lost if we run away from Europe, and Labour responses of improving working conditions and blah blah BORING SOMEONE DO SOMETHING RIDICULOUS!

This Labour bloke apparently heard me, cos he just called Nigel Farage attractive.

Germaine Greer says that the country has been moving to the right for a long time, and it's all cos of Maggie Thatcher, and then she said something else sensible and great that I have forgotten. Oops. Anyway, gwan ye girl ye!

Some wee girl from the Lib Dems is saying a lot of things without managing to actually say anything. Which sums up the Lib Dems rightly, I think you'll agree. She says that they all need to be better at reaching people, which Farage has obviously been very good at. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU WANT TO DO ANYTHING THAT FARAGE IS DOING, HE'S A FUCKING NUMPTY JESUS WEPT HAVE A WORD WITH YOURSELVES.

This is all really dull so far, when's someone gonna do a Jedward-style mash up?

Next question - should the Queen's Speech have mentioned an EU referendum? Labour bloke Tristram Hunt says an in/out referendum is a bad idea, that it wouldn't help people find jobs or businesses grow or companies invest if we start talking a load of balls about Europe (I may have paraphrased a little...). Our economy is embedded in Europe, then getting out of the EU will make all of us lose our jobs and we'll all die under bridges, basically. Probably with a baguette up our arses. Again, paraphrasing.

Dimbleby asks Hunt about Denis Healy (former Labour chancellor) saying Britain should get out of the EU, and Hunt says he's not read what Healy said. Dimbleby duly tells him off for not reading the newspapers. Hehehe, gotta love the Dimbleby.

The Tory bloke is boring me so much I literally cannot pay attention to a word he's saying, something about trust, I heard a bit about his step-father and now he's talking about people selling things here from Europe and basically trying to refute the Labour scare tactics of yer man Hunt there.

Then he starts his own scare tactics of how more and more power is transferring to Europe every single day. OH THE IRONING IS DELICIOUS.

Hayes is now gesticulating wildly and arguing with Davis. Arms akimbo.

God, the EU stuff is fucking dull. I perhaps did not pick the best week to start blogging QT. Should've waited till there was something juicier going on that flipping Europe. Ugh.

Greer, again, makes more sense than anyone else on the panel by pointing out lots of sensible things about the positivity of inclusion in Europe, including the ECHR. Yay Germaine again.

OMG you guys, QT is gonna be in Belfast in a couple of weeks! I imagine I will need to be heavily sedated before that hits the airwaves.

Now they're talking about making NHS staff act as border patrol with regard to immigrants. Germaine thinks it's ridiculous that people from central Europe coming to the UK to do work that no one else is willing to do should be penalised if they need healthcare, but Hayes tells her she's being silly, that it's to stop health tourism. Yeah, suuuuuure....

I need this on a shirt, btw.

Lib Dem woman says it's all very clear and easy and simple, it's just to stop illegal immigration and clearly that's not a topic that has any grey areas whatsoever...

Davis is talking a lot and I don't know where he's coming down on this - he says that healthcare is not a pull factor that attracts immigrants to the country, and that denying anyone healthcare is ridiculous - so is he saying that he disagrees with the government, or that that's not what the government policy is when it very clearly is what the government fucking policy is.

Labour bloke says that it's already the law that hospitals pursue foreign citizens for expenses so this new policy is bullshit and is just trying to be more right wing cos of UKIP.

Audience man thinks we should have ID cards, Labour Hunt says we need a proper border force in the first place, and now the panel and audience are all shouting at each other.

Greer points out that there are a lot of British immigrants in other countries, that people move back and forward, and that you shouldn't be looking for a reason to not give someone medical attention who needs it.

New question now: should police withhold the identities of people who have been arrested until they've been charged. Hayes (barrister) thinks it shouldn't be secret, because apart from anything, it will come out anyway. But he thinks that people charged with sexual offences, particular rape and/or child-related sexual offences should be anonymous until after the trial because of the stigma. Dimbleby points out that more victims might come forward if they hear of the arrest of the person.

Greer thinks that the victim shouldn't have to be anonymous, because the victim shouldn't be ashamed and should show their face, but also thinks the legal category of rape is medieval and it should all be under the category of sexual assault, and basically it all needs overhauling.

Audience member disagrees with Hayes about it being easier for women to come forward and report rapes. She says that there were 95,000 rapes last year and only 900 odd prosecutions. Hayes then says you can only say that just the rapes that result in prosecution actually occur (sort of). Goes down very well with the women on the panel and in the audience, as you can imagine.

Lib Dem woman waffles a lot and says that the lack of anonymity helps more people come forward, which allows more offenders to be prosecuted, but victims should still have anonymity because they might be put off if they thought they'd be in the spotlight.

Dimbleby tries to get people to talk about anonymity of the accused but they still keep going back to the victim. Would it be cynical of me to suggest that they're doing that to have a chance to sound all nice and sympathetic to victims of horrendous crimes?...

Davis doesn't like the idea of secret trials if there is anonymity, but that it's totally whack, yo, that the cops and press turn up at the same time to arrest people. He thinks anonymity should remain in place until a charge is made. Labour bloke agrees with that, and thinks that post-Leveson the culture between the police and media is starting to change.

Hayes is starting to shout and gesticulate even more wildly about the criminal justice system being taken over by the likes of G4S and solicitors being disappeared off the high street and everyone is like...ok then, aaaaaanyway....

Greer says that rape cases don't get worked up because the burden of proof is too heavy, and there's a distortion of what rape and sexual assault is.

Next question: Should Cameron get rid of his Etonian cronies? This is in response to David Davis having a go at the Etonians earlier in the week, he says that you need a wider range of people and opinions to be able to understand the country and that's why he said it. Labour bloke says they should do what Lincoln did and bring in opponents to get a better range of opinion and ideas. Well, isn't that what happened with the coalition? Lib Dem lady asks the people in the audience and watching QT to get involved in politics and democracy - seriously love, you need to read a bit more of Twitter to see what kind of nutjobs (like me) actually watch the show...Hayes says doesn't matter where you're from so long as you're good at your job, which prompts Labour man to shout "but they aren't!" Heh, I did do a bit of a lol there.

And with that, I'm done. A fairly dull episode, fingers crossed for something to blow up next week (in a figurative sense, of course) to get a proper rant going.

On the subject of chicken noodle soup...

Dear Heinz,

I am writing to ask you to please cease and desist from your horrendous and frankly inhuman practice of putting sweetcorn in chicken noodle soup. This is a disgusting and repulsive habit, and I cannot in good conscience buy anymore of your products, until I have assurances that you will no longer insert heinous sweetcorn into yummy, yummy chicken noodle soup.

I love soup, you see. I have seen several of your adverts on television for the joys of soup on cold, wet, windy winter days, and I was therefore inspired to have soup for my lunch today. Since all I have at my disposal in work to prepare said soup is a microwave, I thought I would buy a can of your chicken noodle soup. How bad could it be? I thought to myself. Surely all chicken noodle soup is basically the same, right? WRONG. I was terribly, horribly wrong. For this chicken noodle soup not only has the aforementioned reprehensible sweetcorn in it, but also contains peppers (which in my opinion, overpower the chicken taste) and on top of THAT, it's too thick and not thin and brothy enough.

Now, I know that the current trend seems to be for thick, creamy soups. But there are still those of us out there who like a thin, brothy type soup. I may not be trendy or cool or fashionable for liking this, but given that every other one of your soups is thick, you'd think that you would at least have the decency, the common courtesy and humanity, dagnabit, to provide something for the rest of us. I thought that your chicken noodle soup would be it, but I was wrong.

Now my day is ruined and I feel like I want to barf. SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE, HEINZ??!!!! I'm having to eat Haribo to get rid of the taste of that wretched sweetcorn and I'm getting heartburn. My day's productivity is ruined, and I am strongly considering seeking legal advice to sue you for emotional and physical damages, as well as for loss of income as I will surely not be able to continue working today after such a scarring and distasteful experience.

Yours,

Disgrunted soup-lover.

"We're the MTV generation. We feel neither highs nor lows"

Is it just me or is the world really bloody miserable at the minute? Despite my natural penchant for pessimism I have actually been trying to be a bit more positive about things in general, but on days like this it really feels like we're just going to hell in a handcart, no matter what we do.

There's near-apocalyptic weather that's resulting in floods all over the British Isles. The government gets increasingly useless by the day. The economy and employment rates are in the shitter, particularly in Northern Ireland. Headlines are full of crime and abuse and car crashes. The most positive story on the BBC news website for NI at the minute is about new buses. Yay.

And it's not that I think that the news media should be selling us good news stories to hide the reality of the situation that we're in - people need to rememeber that the economy is still fairly fucked, and that the government is still shite, and that the NI assembly, at least, are about as much use as scuba gear for penguins. Well, I'm presuming that scuba gear wouldn't be much use for penguins since they can swim fine on their own, but maybe they want to get into deep sea diving or something, what do I know?

My point is, why is the world so feckin miserable and apathetic? Why isn't there someone or something riling us up to overthrow the government or to make things better for ourselves? Why don't we care? I honestly have no idea. I like to think that I have principles and values that I would fight for (not necessarily in a literal sense since I bruise like a Ross Geller), and I want someone or something to come along and inspire me. But anytime inspiration pops along, it seems to let us down and disappoint. Is that because our expectations are too high? We expect everything to be perfect but we don't do a damn thing about it when it's not? Is it because of too much tv, too much capitalism, too much consumerism, too much materialism, too much McDonalds?

I genuinely have no answers, by the way. I'm just wondering. You'd think that with so much of life being so bleak these days that there would be any number of vacuums to fill the void of hope, inspiration and the desire for change, but there doesn't seem to be. I mean ok, we had the Olympics, and that was great - despite being in no way a sports fan, I got really swept up in it but just a few short weeks later and I'm considering the hermit life. If nothing else, it'd keep me dry and away from this rain. So long as I found a cave on high ground, I guess.

I often feel somewhat envious of people (like my parents and siblings) who lived in somewhat harsher times, when there was really something to fight against. They lived through the civil rights movement of the 60s, the horrendous Troubles, the possibly even more horrendous Margaret Thatcher (side note: my sister - a student in the late 80s - once chased a car thief in her pyjamas and slippers with an anti-Thatcher placard. True story). By the time I was a student, no one gave a damn about any kind of politics or issue other than what bar to go to. There were no marches, no protests, no kind of political awareness, even.

But we still have so much to fight for. Even the protests against the coalition have died down, despite them being as shit and stupid as ever.

And rather tellingly, I've just run out of steam writing this. Says it all, really, doesn't it?

Hunt for Health. Fuckin hell.

Right, I haven't posted here in a while and I was hoping that I'd maybe come back to the oul blogging thing with something sensational and insightful and inspiring and generally amazing and brilliant and really well thought out, but today's cabinet reshuffle has somewhat taken over my best intentions and I need to have a bit of a rant about that instead.

WHAT THE FUCK IS CAMERON AT YOU FUCKING PLASTIC FACED POSHTARD FUCKING FUCKER?!?!?!!!

Giving Jeremy Hunt - the biggest fucking tool in his cabinet, possibly (and god knows, that's saying something), and giving him a PROMOTION???? To the fucking HEALTH DEPARTMENT???!!! Jesus fucking wept. We'll be lucky if the NHS lasts till the end of the day with that wee wankshaft in charge.

I mean for pity's sake, has he no sense?! Everything that Hunt the Cunt fucked up over the News International bid, the fact that inquiry clearly showed him up to be an idiot who couldn't run a paper round let alone a bloody ministry, and who had no idea of what was and wasn't professionally appropriate. I mean, how did he get to be a minister in the first place, was it like, "Collect twelve crisp packets and become a government minister" things? 

To let him stay in the cabinet at all was bloody ridiculous, this was Cameron's opportunity to get him out quietly without having to fire him after all the News International bid stuff, but to give him Health?! The health service in the UK is in complete disarray, it needs completely reorganised and reinvigorated, and its principles and priorities re-examined and reaffirmed. It does not need reduced to cinders, which is what will happen approximately 3.5 hrs after Hunt gets to his new office. There is no way in hell he is competent enough - let alone inspired, insightful or astute enough - to make the sort of changes that need to be made. 

This is quite literally people's lives that Cameron is dicking around with - I mean, would you want this twat:

anywhere near your healthcare decisions?

Just when you think the country can't get any more screwed, along come the Tories. Well done, lads. Well done.

Huh?

Ok, I has a confuse. So as the entire world probably knows by now, Obama has publically confirmed his support for gay marriage. We all know that this is nothing new, that he really did support it, but he was reticent to come out and say it in so many words for fear of backlash from more conservative types or whatever.

So, in response to this, the BBC has posted two opposing viewpoints on Obama's announcement here. And I'm a bit confused by the conservative argument. The guy doesn't come across as some sort of Fox pundit right-wing nutjob or anything, it's not like he's just spouting bile and bigotry, he's trying to make some sort of well-reasoned point, but I still don't understand his article at all. I mean, I literally don't know what he is trying to say. He talks a lot about the history of the civil rights movement in the southern states of America, and a lot about how media and popular culture outweighed local popular opinion. I see where he's coming from with that, but as soon as he starts talking about Christianity, he loses me.

America is such a fucking weird place to me, and to many people outside of it. And, I suspect, to many people inside of it. They've had separation of church and state written into their constitution from the get go, yet no one will ever be elected their president in my lifetime, I think, who does not express and live a Christian faith. Why do conservatives keep bringing Christianity into this argument about gay marriage? Why do they think it's ok for them to enforce their religious beliefs onto the rest of the population? It doesn't matter if these conservative Christians are the minority or the majority - their constitution clearly forbids religion having anything to do with the law or the way that the country is run. They're free to believe whatever they want, they're free to preach whatever they want in their churches, but why do they think they can make that law?

I don't ask these things as an outraged, bleeding-heart liberal (although I freely admit to being all of those things), I'm genuinely confused by the argument. I wanted to read his thoughts because I wanted to try to understand where it is that these people are coming from when they oppose gay marriage, but I just cannot get my head around what it is that this guy, at least, thinks. He seems to be saying that his conservative, traditionalist Christian view is that gay marriage is morally wrong. Ok. I get that much. But I just do not see any sort of legal argument for why his belief should be enshrined in law. There's lots of things I believe to be right and wrong, but I don't necessarily think that there's any basis for making laws out of those things. I just don't understand. I'm genuinely, really confused.

And I'm even more confused about the arguments that it's somehow detrimental to Christian churches for the law to oppose the things that they teach. That by making laws that are on the other side to the churches on particular issues, that it's somehow making it illegal or harder for the churches to preach what they believe? Lots of laws stand in opposition to what various churches believe and preach. For instance, the Catholic Church is opposed to divorce, abortion, contraception, sex outside marriage, and the death penalty, but no one is seriously arguing that the church's freedom to continue to preach such things is legally obstructed by the laws which allow all of those things. Or if they are, they certainly seem to be people on the fringes of conservatism.

Or am I getting this all wrong? Do these people actually just want to change the constitution to remove the separation of church and state? Do they think that the founders and the framers and the fathers or whoever were wrong to put that in there in the first place? Is that what they really think, and they're mostly just too afraid/savvy to actually come out and say it? If they did say it, at least I'd be a lot less confused.

 Edited to add: Where I'm from, we have our fair share of reactionary, conservative, evangelical, far-right Christian nutjobs who prevent us from even being able to open shops - during a recession! - at reasonable hours on Sundays. I just wish we had a legal statement of the separation of church and state here. But that's a whole nother rant.

Why?

Once again this is a very poorly informed, completely un-researched rant about how much I hate the government. Not much new there, but since I'm not very likely to ever address this in person to any cabinet ministers, I may as well have a bitch session here. I also issue a disclaimer at this point that I've been watching far too much of The West Wing recently.

The Queen's Speech was today, where the legislative agenda for the parliament is laid out. Kinda like the US State of the Union speech, only with more crowns and shit. There are many aspects of the coming parliamentary objectives to which I am opposed, but one thing in particular really got my goat. not that I have an actual goat. I kinda like goats, there's something endearingly dorky about them. But then I remember the time that one almost bit me when I was trying to feed it at an open farm, and I'm suddenly not so keen on goats anymore.

Ahem. Anyway.

Our glorious leader tells us that the first priority of the government is to reduce the deficit. Now. I don't think that that's particularly evil or immoral or inhumane. It's a perfectly practical and logical goal to have. But I would like to ask Mr Cameron this. Why is that the first priority? Why isn't making sure that people have jobs the first priority? Why isn't making sure that people can afford to feed themselves and their children the first priority? Why isn't making sure that pensioners don't have to choose between heating and food the first priority? Why isn't making sure that our young people don't feel that they need to emigrate to find career prospects and have any sort of future the first priority? Why isn't curbing the terrifyingly steep raise in the cost of living the first priority?

I don't know a lot about economics, I'm happy to admit to that. I do have enough wit to realise that reducing the deficit is a Good Thing overall for the country, but I don't know a single damned person who gives a crap about the deficit. I do know people who are scared stiff about their jobs, because job security disappeared a couple of years ago for a lot of people. I know people who can't find jobs and have no idea what sort of future they're supposed to have when they can't even find a job to pay the bills, let alone a career. I know people who place coal on the fire, lump by lump to make sure they aren't wasting any. I know people whose children are deeply concerned about how much it would cost the family if they chose this secondary school over that secondary school. I know people being forced to give up their cars because they can't afford to run them anymore. I know people terrified about how they're going to feed themselves every single day, because they have to count each penny so carefully.

Why doesn't Mr Cameron think his first priority is to help these people? Why isn't his first priority to the people who make this country work, the people who pay the taxes, the electorate? Why isn't his first priority us?

...More in the saga of George Osborne being a wab.

Shocked, I tell you, shocked!!

 
Oi, Georgie - fuck off.

Seriously - is he having some sort of belated April Fools day joke with us, or does he seriously expect us to believe that he's shocked that many, many, many rich people do their utmost to avoid tax? Are we honestly expected to believe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is so fucking thick that he hasn't realised that his fellow rich bastarding cronies use every loophole under the sun to avoid having to pay taxes? And is he asking us to believe that he's just figured this out now, that it's just come to his attention? And does he really think that we're so thick that this is going to move attention away from the fact that he's just given these very same people a tax cut, while making the cost of living ever more impossible for people at the other end of the income scale?

I'm afraid I don't have any sort of reasoned argument or debate here - as ever I'm simply too fucking fuming to be able to come up with anything coherent or informed enough. I am just absolutely sick to death of this government trying to tell us that we're all in it together, when they continue to take actions that make life more difficult for those on lower incomes, while the people at the top of the pay scale are barely touched.

What an absolutely, groin-grabbingly, evil git.

He makes Darth Vader look reasoned and civilised.

The Budget Part 2, and other rantings

Ok so I know I said I'd post a rant about the budget last week and about how big a twat George Obsborne is, but I got a bit distracted and busy, and now my ire is somewhat diluted.

I will say this, however. George Osborne, David Cameron and their rich bastarding Tory fuckers are evil gits. In my opinion, anyway. Ok, so the personal allowance threshold for tax is going up, which will help me out a bit. But it doesn't cover the increase in the cost of living, so I'm not actually any better off as a result of it. And I can assure you, that I am most definitely considered 'low income'. I'm not on minimum wage, but I'm not a kick in the arse off of it either - despite the fact that I should be earning at least 50% more than I currently do, given the responsibilities, experience and so on that my job requires, but that's a whole nother rant.

What a fucking twat.

Osborne the Twat messed about with pension allowances as well, in what's being called the 'granny tax', to an extent that will apparently save the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds, but won't leave any pensioner any worse off 'in cash terms', whatever that means. If you think that those things don't exactly add up, that's because you're right. They don't. They make no sense whatsoever. Because the Tory scumbags in charge are lying bastards who don't care about people on lower incomes, even if they're elderly and having to choose between heating and food. But then again when you're talking about people who are cousins of the Queen and come from aristocratic families, it's little wonder that they have no idea what real life is like for most of us.

Srsly, like, what a punchable face he has.

Then they put a ridiculously huge amount on the price of cigarettes - now, don't get me wrong, I'm as anti-smoking as they come. It's a disgusting habit and it costs the NHS a fortune each year treating illnesses and symptoms caused by it, and there is evidence to suggest that rising prices on cigarettes discourage people from smoking. However, there are also people like my parents still around who have been smoking for 50-odd years, if not more, and they're somewhat beyond help. They've tried everything going to give up smoking, and whilst they've succeeded in cutting down dramatically, they just can't give up permanently. Particularly as it's become a stress relief technique for them, and given that they're pensioners finding it more and more difficult to make ends meet, it's understandable that it's so hard for them to completely give up a habit which makes them feel slightly more relaxed. They don't drink, they don't have any other real indulgences or luxuries in life, and this is an unfortunately horrific habit which makes them feel a tiny bit more prepared to get through the day, so I can't judge them or other people like them too harshly for it.

Speaking of all the cutbacks they've been making, being able to leave the house might soon be one of them, because this budget did absolutely nothing about the continuingly increasing price of fuel. They didn't freeze the duty on it (it's due to go up another few pence next week I understand, and again after that), let alone reduce it. Given that this comes from people who have chaffeur-driven cars to get around the corner, I find this hard to stomach. I understand that people need to use public transport more and use cars less - particularly when it comes to people driving relatively short distances to work, sitting in their car alone, when they could easily catch a train or a bus instead. But there are people in rural areas, and people like my parents with mobility issues who simply can't go about anything resembling a life without their car. The cost of fuel is forcing them to have to give up their cars and significantly reducing their standard of living. How happy would you be if you couldn't leave the house to visit people, if you couldn't go further than a quarter of a mile to a shop (and end up having to spend more at the shops closer to you than be able to go to supermarkets with better deals), and if you were never able to attend any family event without having to find someone to impose upon for a lift, if that were even possible? For pensioners like my parents who aren't getting out to work everyday anymore, that's a huge blow. It might sound like that's being fussy in a recession, where we all have to make do and tighten our belts and so on - but just imagine how it would feel to have worked your whole life, to have nothing to show for it when you've gotten to the stage that you're unfit for work anymore, that you're having to struggle to make ends meet, and the little tiny things that bring you some sense of comfort or normality like being able to go across town to visit family, or nip down to the supermarket, are taken away from you?

Yeah, we're all in it together. My fucking arse we are.

If someone can explain to me why this budget just continued to put more and more pressure on those already on the lowest incomes and in the worst situations, yet gave a tax cut to the highest earners in society, I'd really appreciate that. Maybe I'm being too emotionally swayed by my own and my parents' situations, but we aren't alone in this. There are thousands, millions of people around the country in the same boat. They haven't ended up there because they're lazy, or they don't work hard enough or they can't be bothered or because they want to live beyond their means. They've just had bad luck - to get stuck in jobs that don't pay much and can't find anything else in the current job market. To have become too ill to work and been left with a mortgage to pay into their pension years. To have had the misfortune to live in an area which became run down and degraded by political strife, thus vastly reducing the value of their house when it was sold. And dozens of other such things that aren't anyone's fault, that just happen. Why are people like that being told that they have to make sacrifices, while people earning more in a month than I do in a year are able to get even more money back from the government?

Tory fucking bastards, that's why. I'd like to be able to give a much more informed, reasoned and objective account of last week's budget but I lack both the willpower and the understanding of economic politics. All I know is I'm fucking disgusted with these people, and I hope that the people who voted for them are too.

And on a vaguely related note, I despair for our future. I was sitting on the bus this morning on my way to work and there were 12-13 year old girls at the back of the bus. They were acting in what is apparently the official teenage manner of this generation, which is to say they were being loud, obnoxious, playing music on their phones and singing extremely badly to it. One of them started singing the Cranberries song Zombie, and another one told her, in the most glorious Belfast accent imaginable "Here, that's a fenian song, that's a fenian song, don't be singing that, there's a real version, fer pratenstants leek, that one's the fenian one". Charming. It was only when they starting singing loudly about sticking things up one's bum that the bus driver told them to be quiet. I'm used to kids from this particular school being vulgar, obnoxious and generally hateful on the bus, but when they display that sort of utterly ignorant sectarianism, it just depresses me. What hope does this country have if kids that young - who were born after the ceasefires and have thus never even experienced the Troubles proper - think it's ok to think and talk like that? Children are supposed to be our hope, our future. If those kids are any indication, that's not a future I want anything to do with. I hope that they're in the minority, but my experience suggests that in certain parts of this city at least, they aren't.

On a much more superficial level, also sucking today is the eternal wait for my iPad, having to work on gorgeously sunny days, and waiting for replies to text messages.

The Budget

I'm extremely busy in my low-income job in a small indigenous company who keep losing contracts to a large multinational today, so I'll keep this short till I've more time to fully express myself.

So in the meantime - George Osborne is a fucking dick.

More later.

Why is Bruno Mars?

Seriously, just why?

His stupid, piece of crap song Marry You is on the radio. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE THAT THEY LIKE THIS SHIT? "I think I wanna marry you". Oh really? You think, huh? Well, that's nice. That's what every girl wants to hear in a love song written about her. I have the same conviction and depth of feelings towards you as I do towards that pasta sauce I bought for dinner a few days ago and haven't eaten yet. I think I might have it tonight, we'll see. THAT IS NOT A SUFFICIENT LEVEL OF COMMITMENT IN A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL, BRU-BRU.

Apart from his stupid crappy songs and his stupid ridiculous lyrics, I think it's the stupid smug look on his stupid face that annoys me the most. Although, obvs, there are a lot of things to choose from. But seriously, look at him:

How is it possible to not want to smack that face everytime you see it? In fact, I just got distracted at work and have come back to this post a few hours after I started it and I *still* want to slap him. That's longevity of irritation, that is.

But since I'm now distracted by a pretty new coat and boots I got for a fiver (srsly, 5 quid for boots - I don't care if they fall apart after 3 wears!), I shall leave poor Bru-bru alone. FOR NOW.....

Minor rant for a Tuesday lunchtime

Things that are bothering me today:

• Why does knitwear from Primark very often smell weird? I've had this happen to me a lot. Nothing I do seems to get rid of the smell, either. I'm practically drowning in perfume today, yet I still smell like I've been dossing in a musty warehouse. Nice. 
• Rihanna. She's not done anything today to annoy me, but her general existence usually does the trick.
• The fact that I can't decide if I like Lana Del Ray or not. I'd probably like her more if she wasn't getting airplay on Cool FM. Anyone getting airplay on Cool FM raises my suspicions immediately.
• The woman in the advert for whatever new toothpaste Sensodyne are hawking now - the one going on about how her healthy diet is destroying her enamel or some such crap. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is about her that annoys me. I just know that I'd like to put my finger - and, indeed, the rest of my fist - into her face at a rather sharp velocity.
• People who walk too heavily. I should not be able to hear you coming ten minutes before I see you. 
• My insatiable quest for junk food. No matter how much proper food I eat, I still want to stuff my fat face with crisps, chocolate and anything in between. 
• People in work who insist on drumming loudly (and badly) on their desks, to the point that I've now got a headache. Ditto whistling.
• The fact that I never seem to want to be doing anything that I'm doing. When I'm at work, despite being overloaded with things to do, I'm bored out of my skull and keep planning out all the things I need to do when I get home. But when I'm home I never do any of them. If I do anything other than spend the whole night in front of Mock The Week and QI repeats, it's a minor miracle.

 That'll do for now.

The ignorant taxi driver

It's so uplifting and inspiring when you start the day off right, isn't it? Well I wouldn't know, actually, because I'm pretty sure that's never happened to me and it certainly didn't this morning.

First of all I slept in. When I finally woke I was so completely exhausted still that it took me a while to keep my eyes open long enough to actually get up. Then there was the hunting like a headless chicken for something to wear, the phone (both my mobile and landline) refusing to work when I called for a taxi, the traffic, the weather, etc etc.

Then there was the radio in the taxi. It was the Nolan show, a very well known and popular talk radio show on Radio Ulster in the mornings with a bloke called Stephen Nolan who lives to sensationalise and antagonise. But he was being reasonably sensible this morning - when I got into the taxi, there was a discussion about tourism infrastructure in Northern Ireland. Someone called in saying that there's nothing for families and children to do here because there's no rollercoasters. And the taxi driver was all 'Aye, right nuff, there's nathin like that here, like rollercoasters or annyhin' (actually there is, in Portrush, a very well known amusements park called Barry's. It's not massive, but it does have some of those types of things). Now, I personally object to that because I think we have much better things for kids to see and do here - my 6 nieces and nephews had a ball at the various tourist/museum type attractions that we took them to last summer. The Giant's Causeway, the Ulster Museum, the Folk and Transport Museum - they loved it. But whatever, I wasn't going to get into a debate with this guy over something like that.

Then the next item on the show started. It was Alastair Campbell talking about his new book The Happy Depressive which talks about his problems with depression, with alcohol abuse and his mental breakdown in the 1980s. Obviously this is something I was rather interested in. But the taxi driver started scoffing and laughing - 'Why on earth would he think anyone would want to read annyhin like that, like? Sure who'd wanna read sumhin about depression?' etc etc etc. He looked at me in the mirror like he expected me to join in his laughter and mock a person with depression who's had the audacity to write about it.

I know this wasn't the worst thing in the world for him to say on the subject, but something about his attitude just really irked me. He seemed like a fairly stereotypical working class Belfast man - and there has been a huge, huge problem with suicide amongst that very group. Swathes of young men all over Belfast (usually in working class and/or deprived areas) have been taking their own lives, and it's been a problem that the authorities have been struggling to deal with for years now. That he could be so utterly untouched by any sort of mental illness in his family, his friends, colleagues, anyone that he knows seems highly unlikely to me, therefore. But he had such an overwhelming sense of ignorance about it that I found it really bothering me. Thankfully this all happened towards the end of the journey, so I didn't have to deal with too much about it. But I really felt like just telling him 'I have depression, that several of my friends do/have had, and that I find it both interesting and important that someone like Campbell should write a book about this because we need any help we can get to knock down the ignorance and stigma towards the disease from idiots like you' to see what he'd say. But of course, I didn't. I'm just writing a ranty blog instead.

I get that people don't understand this. It's a very hard thing to understand if you haven't experienced it yourself, and even then everyone's experience is different. And I know that there are some people who are just a bit judgmental and think that you have to just pull yourself together. Those people, I tend to think, are just blocking out their own feelings. It's very often a sort of knee-jerk reaction that suggests to me that it's almost hitting a sore spot, like they have their own crap to sort out but they're just ignoring it and don't want to acknowledge that there's a different way to do things, or that different people might think differently.

But that someone could find it *funny* that a person was sharing their story of mental ill-health with others, who couldn't possibly get their head around the idea that there might be people interested in this - it just blew my mind a little bit. How could a person be so utterly ignorant of the world in which they live? How could you live in a city where suicide is a huge problem, and there are constantly public health drives against it, and find depression amusing? And to think that expressing that in public is perfectly ok? To not even consider that the person you're talking to might have some experience of depression, either personally or through friends or family? I just don't get that.

And mostly it's just incredibly sad that this is what we have to deal with, this is the sort of attitude that exists out there that has to be challenged. It's hardly any wonder that people don't want to talk about it, don't want to admit to it, when this is the sort of thing you're faced with.