“I’ll drown the urge for permanence and certainty;”

I may have been a little late in jumping on the Mac bandwagon, but every so often when trying out something new, I am completely astounded by the sheer brilliance of it.  Even a creatively-stunted novice like me can conjure up something passable.

I’m all about football lately, the Champions League match broke my heart a little this week, but hopefully it’s just the sort of injustice that will spur my Redmen on to bigger and better things.  Plus, smug git Ronaldo missed a penalty, so it’s all good really.

I seem to fall out of habits all too quickly – this blog is abandoned as regularly as everything else.  Hopefully I can get back on track as life stabilises again.  The biggest obstacle to that at the moment is my impending house move – all of about a mile down the road, but a big change nonetheless. 

This morning everything is sort of fine though.  The sun is slowly rising over in Canary Wharf direction, I’ve spent the majority of my shift chimping around on the Macbook, and I’m on my eighth shift in a row without feeling any ill effects and haven’t considered chucking a sickie or anything.

Most of my beloved books are packed away (in McDonalds boxes, which amuses me for no good reason.  McDonalds is just over the back of our garden, so it’s easy to go begging for boxes!) but I’ve just finished Philip Roth’s American Pastoral.  I may do a proper review, but my initial reaction is that I love his characters, they’re so very real.  But the jumpiness of the narrative left my head swirling about whether it was 1968 or 1973, and argh!  I do like that I was so engrossed in the story that I forgot the initial premise, that the author-narrator is really just conjuring up the details of an old school buddy/hero.  Well played, Mr Roth. 

Make Jock Strapped

Make Jock Strapped

Originally uploaded by Lola how_i_lie

Oh, delightful. Apologies for the picture quality, but West Brompton at night doesn’t invite the flashing around of easily stolen gadgetry, and so I hedged my bets with the more discreet option of my phone camera.

This mayoral election will be the first one I cast a vote in, the first time I’ve found a candidate I agree with who is worthy of my vote. Unfortunately, it has bubbling side effects all over the place, like these twats (English Democrats) and the possibility of the BNP sneaking in on one of the two Assembly votes. I’m going to need a refresher on this whole process before I actually tick any boxes.

Anyway, I may be a woman of fluctating accent, but my Scotland rugby tops have been defiantly displayed as I walk past this sign every day.

“I’m no superman”

Interesting points about the superdelegates, and the whole point of them in the first place.  It’s that time-honoured American tradition of checks and balances, the ’saucer that cools the coffee’ as it were.  If they simply confirm the existing pledged delegates’ frontrunner, then they’re a token gesture and ultimately pointless.  Instead, they’re intended as a counterpoint of calmer heads, frequently ones already successfully elected as Democrats, a balance against the kneejerk choice of the Democratic base.  After all, the candidate won’t win nationally if they’re too much of a lefty, that middle ground is the key – and being labelled as super-liberal never helps the Democratic nominee.  The person that the hardcore Dems choose, in other words, may not actually be the best electoral choice. 

So Hillary is still in with a chance, and deserves to be.  That is all.

 

“I’d be surpisingly good for you”

The bezzer kindly pointed out this article this morning, and I do love me a bit of Charlie Brooker, it has to be said. Funny though he is, like so many Guardian-and-other-lefty journalists, he’s missing the point. Boris has thus far run an exemplary campaign, and yes, probably because the Tory political machine has him carefully controlled. Doesn’t that just prove that it can be done though? That his affability can be combined with some political clout? Does the mayor, or any elected head of a body really decide everything alone? Of course not, there are teams of advisers, and the man at the top is simply the one who chooses between the options presented. ‘Twas ever thus.

Another thing that galls me, and Brooker puts it in a slightly dormouse-unfriendly way, is this anyone-but-Tories reaction. Oh, I know, it exists everywhere – die-hards on both sides, in every electoral system who wouldn’t vote for their own spouse/child if they were running under the opposing party’s banner; even if their own party was running a stick of celery as some form of protest. Blithely dismissing proven accusations of corruption, nepotism and whatever else, because all that matters is that Labour retains a seat. Doesn’t matter that Ken may have failed in certain areas, because we absolutely know for sure that a Tory would fail more. It’s lazy, is what it is. They’ve all set out their policies in bullet points, why not look at that and compare? Oh, because if you did that you might have to concede that the Boris campaign has some ideas, that they might save some money, or perhaps even make the Mayor’s office accountable to the people paying for it? Terrible behaviour, really.

“a room is not a house, and a house is not home”

It’s depressing, that at twenty-five, one of the most essential news areas for me is the property market. I could feasibly wait a good few years before saddling myself with the mortgage and a commitment of longer than twelve months, but in my own perverse way, not being able to do it makes me all the more desperate to.

I just can’t help wishing the arse would fall out of the housing market, and then I feel guilty about my property-owning friends and the impact it would have on them. In the course of this year I will move on to a considerable whack of a salary, and even with both of us in good and stable jobs, we’re still miles off the pace. We were offered out current flat the other day for quarter of a million, but we just don’t have it, not even the deposit.

In the meantime, it’s getting worse before it gets better. I find it reprehensible that so many idiots would put themselves on the verge of bankruptcy just to have the front-and-back door, brand new Magnet kitchen lifestyle. It’s hard to maintain sympathy with Scott from Croydon:

‘It has affected what holiday we will choose to go on,’ says Scott. ‘And we are definitely not saving money, nor treating ourselves in the way we would have done if our mortgage payments had been lower.’

I guess my working class roots still rise up like bile in the throat when I hear something like this, such a sense of entitlement. Don’t they know how many people would willingly sacrifice swanky holidays and overpriced nights out to have the security of owning their own house? How many people can’t afford to do any of the above, and then those who try to have it all an destroy their credit rating and often families in the process? Nothing puts a strain on the old 2.4 children homestead like having it repossessed!

This is the biggest test of my capitalist principles (this and socialised medicine anyway). It seems the bubble will burst and the first-time buyers like myself will get a look in eventually, but at what cost to so many others? You can say screw their irresponsibilty, or damn the banks and building societies rubbing their hands with glee at another sale and small fortune in fees, caring not a jot that one fluctuation in the market could leave these customers on the verge of bankruptcy? So what’s the answer – regulation? I would consider it, were it not for the incompetence of Labour at doing anything more than preserving the middle class and their status. Restrictions on buy-to-let seem sensible, I can’t describe the choking sensation when I listen to taxi drivers talk about the 27 properties they own and get rent from, most of the mortgages paid off, and driving just for something to pass the time. Or multi-millionaires who ‘flip’ properties, making entire towns and commuter belts inaccessible to anyone other than those forced into renting.

There’s a smarter solution somewhere, perhaps it is just the boom and bust cycle, but something has to give eventually. If I was some flake who couldn’t hold a job, or who was too busy trying to ‘find myself’ by travelling the world’s fleapits instead of worrying about getting a deposit together, then perhaps this wouldn’t worry me. But in the face of being forced to move by yet another wanker landlord, I now I’m beyond impatient to no longer be at the mercy of the landowners. I want my own place, dammit.

“the mayor’s out killing kids to keep taxes down”

It seems I’m still leaning towards voting for Boris, and the Torygraph has helped me put the reasons into words. Also of interest, the latest Guardian/ICM poll saying that even people who like Ken acknowledge that he has a sort of Del Boy dodginess surrounding him (without the lovable roguish charm of David Jason). I just genuinely hate Ken, and I suppose that’s the problem with this sort of election, it comes down to pure personality.  The policies are either nonsense, or there’s not much to pick between them, and it just comes down to who you want to suffer the most.  True to form, by the time I formulate an actual thought, a real writer does it better and in a real paper.  So I give you Marina Hyde’s “Back to the 80s on Boris and Ken’s bendy routemaster”

“you’re a big, fat, bigoted arsehole”

There’s a post in the works with my thoughts on the upcoming London mayoral election (at times a welcome respite from the Clinton/Obama marathon, with the added bonus of watching Ken squirm). This article (originally linked to by the wonderful Seaneen, whose frankly excellent blog you can find here) is too frightening to wait. Bagsnatching is worse than rape, eh? Silly little me for not realising. Never mind the legal definition, it’s only rape if he smacks you about a bit as well? I know the BNP is a jerkoff reactionary asylum for the politically incontinent, but Jesus H, can’t they just stick to racism? At least you know what to expect and how to dismiss them, but this has shocked me beyond all reason.