Thursday, March 25, 2004

"Am I Sandie Shaw?" The look on the faces of the kids at the Youth Infomation Kafe was of bewilderment. " Who's she? " "Do you you remember The Smiths?" " Naw! who are they?" I am getting old for sure. We were playing a name game where you had the name of someone famous on a sticker on your forehead and you had to identify who you were by asking questions which could only be answered yes or no. So having made further inquiries I am an old, black, American singer. Hands up everyone who would have plumped for Shirley Bassey then!
posted by timesnewroman at 7:13 AM  

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Monday, March 22, 2004

Any goverment that brutally executes a half blind paraplegic is clearly NAZI in origin, regardless of the spin that they use to justify their barbarism.
posted by timesnewroman at 10:05 PM  

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Saturday, March 20, 2004

David Blunkett wrote to my former Constituency Labour Party every year asking why we didn't vote for him for the National Executive Committee. It was because we suspected that he was a crypro-fascist bastard!

Nice one Blunkett. Now the confirmation that the Home Secretary is indeed a crypto-fascist bastard. Seems he has chosen to surround himself with the very epitome of moderation in the form of advisors, having in his (our) employ one Matt Cavanagh who thinks that there's nothing wrong with race discrimination in employment. Lets take that a few steps further shall we and discriminate against people with disabilities, maybe we should bar them from...... lets say running for parliament.
posted by timesnewroman at 8:31 AM  

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Monday, March 15, 2004

I used to like Channel 4 News, but 6.00pm on the BBC suits me better. I watched Channel 4 tonight though and was mighty pissed when the journo in Spain spent the entire 5 minutes of her in-depth investigation into the Spanish Election results asking if the Socialists' victory was a result for the terrorists. What the fuck is that supposed to be about. Sure the Madrid bomb blast had a major effect on the turnout and hence on the result, but to try and pin the result on Al Qaeda gives them just a bit too much cred. Perhaps if Tone's good buddy Aznar hadn't tried to milk a catastrophe for his own party's ends, by continuing to point the blame at ETA, then maybe the Spanish electorate wouldn't have felt so much like they had been lied to by their own government, and seen through them.

P.S. How come all Tone's pals are such a bunch of right wing scum anyway?
posted by timesnewroman at 8:33 PM  

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Quiz champions yet again. By a long chalk (where does that come from?) and none of the youngsters around, we may break out on our own. We would certainly miss them though in the trashy television and modern "pop" questions though.

posted by timesnewroman at 6:29 AM  

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Sunday, March 14, 2004

Last night was indeed a 70s night, listening to LPs by The Rezillos, Frank Zappa and The Flying Burrito Brothers followed by a Classic Seventies Steak dinner with Steak, obviously, Chips, Onion Rings, Mushrooms and a Side Salad and was that good!
posted by timesnewroman at 5:41 PM  

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Friday, March 12, 2004

How can any human being have become so twisted that they would knowingly plant a bomb designed to cause maximum carnage on a group of ordinary people? You can't apply any logic to that whatsoever.

If it was ETA then whatever cause they had is surely lost in mass revulsion. I met a group of young Basques in the summer, all handsome/beautiful, bright articulate people, proud of their Basque culture and language. I could never imagine these people having anything other than utter revulsion for this atrocity.

This would have me erring on the likelihood of Al Quaeda being the perpetrators, and frankly if anyone thinks they are heaven bound as a result of causing this they more than deserve the disappointment coming their way.

A few weeks ago theboss asked me to attend a meeting in Easterhouse on Wednesday afternoon. On Wednesday morning I got an email advising that the meeting was cancelled because colleagues at a certain place (our place) hadn't confirmed the meeting. It asked if we could make a meeting on Thursday at lunchtime instead. I mentioned this to theboss who was quite livid because she had stated to the boss of the person who wrote the email that I would attend. So she's right in there emailing back, copying all recipients into it that she didn't understand how confirmation of my attendance hadn't been made. Also that we couldn't make the lunchtime meeting.

The person then emailed back to ask if the subject of the meeting could be tagged on to another meeting that was being held today with people from our team. I checked and no-one from our team knew anything about the meeting he was referring to, so I email him back to this effect. I tried to phone him but he was in another meeting, so I left a message for him to call back in this morning.

This morning I was going into another meeting and he hadn't called so I emailed, saying that no-one knew about the meeting but that I was available if need be. I went to my meeting and came back to find an email saying that some people from another organisation were meeting with my boss in the afternoon. I spoke to theboss who said that she had cancelled that meeting earlier in the week, but hadn't realised that an other was going as well.

So several telephone calls circled around with no-one actually speaking to anybody, just leaving messages. At 11.00am the situation was I was going to have a meeting with folks from Easterhouse, confirmed with a human being on the phone, and folks from a voluntary organisation. Except come 2.00 (The meeting is at 2.30) person from Vol Org phones to say that they have had a message to cancel meeting and a message to say its on so they are confused. THEY ARE CONFUSED! My head is hurting! So I phone Easterhouse to discover the person who originated the whole email thing isn't coming but their boss is, but is coming directly there from another meeting, so can't be contacted but a voicemail message is left to say call me before coming. So I phone Vol Org person back who thinks we should cancel and I think okay, but I don't really want person coming from other meeting to arrive and we finish at 4.00 on Fridays and I need a drink I really need a drink. Other person wasn't going to get to our place until 3.00 and by ten past I think that maybe the admin person got in touch, but oh no at 3.15 they phone, having just parked the car and noticed the message. So what the hell we have the meeting. Communication in the 21st Century. Fucking Fabulous!
posted by timesnewroman at 8:26 PM  

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Tuesday, March 09, 2004

Heard this on the radio on way into work. Thought no way, couldn't actually believe my ears. Arsehole, cretinous imbecile, prick, stupid tory wanker, fucking idiotic bastard. However much the Labour Party and leadership might upset me, there is no way they are ever, ever going to crown the monstrous stupidity of Patrick Mercer. Shadow spokesman on particularly cruel and insensitive numptiness. What has Colonel Mercer done to irk me. He wants children to have lessons on how to use firearms safely. HOW FUCKING STUPID IS THIS MAN. Apparently he thinks that the banning of handguns after the slaughter of primary school children in Dunblane was "knee jerk reaction" Is this new school of comedy? If he wanted to become known, he has gone the right way about it.

Sack the fool Howard, or better still offer him a position as head teacher in some mid-westen U.S. High School, where they haven't quite gotten round to introducing weapon scanning equipment.
posted by timesnewroman at 6:55 PM  

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Monday, March 08, 2004

Sundays. I have formed a love hate relationships with Sundays. Hate, because its the end of the weekend and love because thewife and I are now fervent frequenters of the Kings Arms' quiz. Yesterday was a Sunday with a bit of a difference though, being a Scottish Cup Quarter Final with the Old Firm facing up to each other and on a different level their adherents, shall we say rather than supporters, who amongst them number some sad sectarian gits who like nothing ore than to get tanked up and celebrate the aftermath of the reformation in modern Scotland. Result of this being that the quiz was cancelled on account of 2 outbreaks of trouble in the pub, following a 12 noon kick off. Some folk.

Sectarian bigotry is of course completely lacking at Rugby Park, where the bold Killie took on the Jambos of Embra. We should have beaten them, but failed to convert a good number of chances. Still following recent form a 1-1 draw is possibly a good thing. Young Stewart was back, accompanied by Gameboy in case the excitement got too much for him. Didn't have it out of his pocket though, and despite having been not too well over the past day or two, successfully managed to scoff a Killie Pie.

Alex asks me if I still have his rake and I reply in the affirmative, saying that I could pop in and get it for him on the way home. He declines stating that Rachel only wanted to know where it was and that he wasn't in too much of a hurry for its return. Still cold out perhaps.

Prior to heading off to the Kings, thewife and I were round at Lady El's for dinner. Shepherd Pie, which was particularly good. We also sorted out some of Manuel's 'Vinyl'. It's odd how records sort of stop somewhere about the point when one acquired a CD player. I'd say this collection ceased circa 1985 or there abouts, with an emphasis on early 70s stuff like Zappa, Clapton, Beck, Hendrix clearly a guitar man was Manuel! My record deck is upstairs, which is a bit of nuisance, but I am going to have a weekend of vinyl pleasure fairly soon.
posted by timesnewroman at 5:34 PM  

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Sunday, March 07, 2004

I am being hounded by reidski on account of there having been no posting here for a week. What can I say, the week was pretty uneventful that it didn't seem worthy of a post. This was coupled with the fact that I didn't have any political ranting in me. We did have a Fair Trade night on Tuesday with our Woodie groups which was fun, and came with bountiful supplies of Fair Trade chocolate, juice and bananas which were enjoyed by all, adults and kids alike.

YIK was cancelled on Wednesday because of a burst pipe. On Thursday we had a youth workers meeting which aimed to address some of the recent difficulties re behaviour of some of the kids and the dwindling number which I fear is attributable to fear i.e. some of the more neddish kids are simply driving the other less neddish kids away. The senior worker hasn't worked with kids, lets see, in probably in 20 years is my guess and spends the evening waffling about stuff. They want everyone to have done the basic youth leader training course, which is fine, except that some people who haven't done it, have been actively doing Youth Work for the past 15 or so years and could probably train the trainers. thewife and I went shopping after the meeting and got home just in time to catch Queer eye for the straight guy which is still my favourite current telly program.

Last night was a Thai green curry, which we cooked, it was nice but could have been a lot nippier. Tonight is quiz night, Lady El will be accompanying us as we are determined to win again, coming 3rd or 4th a few weeks on the trot is not good enough!

Before that I will catch a bit of the old firm cup game, followed by live action as Killie go for 2 in a row at Rugby Park.
posted by timesnewroman at 12:33 PM  

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