Click for 1234! |
When you are on the other side of the world, the things that you took for granted take on a different importance, the things you'd forgotten come crashing back and the things that you love amplify themselves to a fever pitch! However, not everything is beautiful, not everything is great and not everything can be forgiven. Such is the life of a Flâneur...
Wednesday, 3 July 2024
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
White Lines (Football & Cocaine) #1
We weren't the Wrecking Crew, Old Town Tooled up Mob, Bunch of Nutters, Beachy Headcases, South Coast Psycho Gang, The Crumbles Rumble Squad or even The Sussex Naughty Boys! We were simply loyal supporters on our way to see our team (albeit in 'enemy territory').
Truth be told thought, we were just out for a pie, a pint & hopefully 3 points! And remarkably we carried on like this for a few years, a little rowdy now and then (especially the time we headed up to Old Trafford under the guise of Jaap Stamm's Transit Van Gang) but we never threw a punch or copped a hiding.
Not even the time a Man City crew attached themselves to our party and offered to show us round Manchester... that was a close call!
However, it all went smoothly until Mr White joined our happily little band of travellers.
He started turning up to the bigger games (notably a Cup Semi-final at Villa Park). He'd loiter at the back of the Executive mini-bus, hang around in Inter-City toilets and leave powder traces in the stadium bogs. After these trips, the chaps started to get a little more intense, a little lary (if you will), a little more wankerish. Small schisms would appear.
The cost of a match day was getting steep... Ticket, Tube, Train, Beers, Food, Charlie, Taxi's to & from the ground, more food, more beers, more Charlie... Looking at the wrong end of £500 just to go and watch a 1-1 draw at Middlesborough!
And then things got a little tastier - We started going to Europe!
Tbc...
Monday, 1 July 2024
The day democracy died
Martin Webster (NF) and young friend... |
I have dismissed Nigel Farage as a rather grubby little racist, a part-time Hitler, a Poundland Powell or even re-imagined him as a 21st Century Sir Roderick Spode! And, in my defence, it was fine to do so whilst he continued to merely snipe from the sidelines like the bullies little buddy that he so often seemed to be (the Richard Hammond of Politics, in fact).
However, the time for the piss-taking and milkshake throwing should stop (no matter how amusing it might have been at the beginning). He is a very dangerous individual and his quasi-patriotic schtick is a neat distraction from the very sinister ideas he leaks into mainstream political discourse (Southern Water must marvel at his ability to seamlessly pollute the water with his bigotry suffused effluent and yet there is barely a condemning word from the ghouls of Fleet Street - in fact a couple of the TV groupies seem to be getting a tad moist at his ability to 'command an audience').
He is not a character, nor is he a jovial little Englander. Neither is he really “speaking out for true Britons” or speaking for the outsiders. He is a public school educated, banker, who cheats at Golf (as numerous witnesses at West Kent Golf Club will attest), had a long-standing affair with a political aide (according to Daily Mail) and his murky flirtation with the National Front in his youth still lurks in the unwritten truth of his life story.
Stop the NF - Nigel Faragists! |
Anyway. This isn’t about name-calling. Those days are gone. This is about fighting for the future. We must not allow them a foothold. Current polling predicts that Reform UK will win possibly 7 seats. We have a clear example from the past where we can see the impact of tiny parties on the edges of the conversation growing rapidly to take overall control.
Year | Total votes | Vote % | Seats % | Seats Won | House Total |
1928 | 810,127 | 2.63% | 2.44% | 12 | 491 |
1930 | 6,379,672 | 18.25% | 18.54% | 107 | 577 |
1932 | 13,745,680 | 37.27% | 37.83% | 230 | 608 |
1932 | 11,737,021 | 33.09% | 33.56% | 196 | 584 |
1933 | 17,277,180 | 43.91% | 44.51% | 288 | 647 |
1933 | 39,655,224 | 92.11% | 100.00% | 661 | 661 |
1936 | 44,462,458 | 98.80% | 100.00% | 741 | 741 |
1938 | 44,451,092 | 99.08% | 100.00% | 813 | 813 |
So, we do not have an option. We must confront this threat at every turn. Through the power of our imagination, the force of our arguments and our commitment to building a brighter, better, more inclusive and vibrant country. We must not let the Faragists take a single step more towards power.