Another family day survived, I can tell you Hannah Montana and Toy Story are both doing well in the merchandising stakes, Disney own children, it’s like a non-alien corporate Midwich Cuckoos. However niece no. 3′s guinea pig died, this was doubly unfortunate as 3 nieces have one each and niece no. 3′s previous guinea pig died within weeks of purchase. So that’s two in quick succession for her. They were all bought from Pets at Home which puts the survival rate of guinea pigs from their chain at 50% within 2 months (at least as far as this small sample goes) I am thinking chain store profit motives may not be in absolute sympathy with animal welfare, go figure.
Meanwhile from glancing contact with the web the awful story of the death of Joanna Yeates unfolded, yes it had a whiff of missing white woman syndrome but that aside it put the tinsely consumerism in perspective. Over the same period in North Wales Patrick John Cleary thought to be homeless froze to death in a Bangor park and a mother killed her two children and then herself. All tragedy will never be preventable but if the Austerity fetishists have their way our society will move further from any semblance of one that nurtures human beings. What does not produce surplus capital to be creamed off by the rentier class will not be supported, homelessness will shoot up next year due to the changes in the welfare system and support for banks and the property rental & sale industry rather than people who live in houses and think of them as a home not a get rich quick scheme. Mental health services that are already scarce will be devastated and clinical illnesses will be denied by for profit health corporations in order to gain performance bonuses from the government and reduce the benefits paid to even terminally ill people. What small regulation the health reforms in the US have introduced are incentives for the rapacious corporations making profit from human suffering to expand in the UK under welcoming neoliberal governance of all three parties.
Oh yes and Vince Cable danced and the Queen spoke about sport…sport, as the head of an institution that by its very existence validates a rigid class system of privilege at a time of massive attacks by the ruling class upon all beneath them their figurehead babbled about sport and millions still think she is ‘their’ Queen. Fuckwits. Cable, well the BBC are clearly sympathetic to promoting the coalition and its austerity agenda by subtle means as well as the standard Mark ’800 grand a year’ Thompson disdain for journalistic ethics. Although to be fair to Auntie Beeb’s creative output it was striking if you looked at the schedule for BBC against ITV1 it was stark, ITV the for profit network was filled with soaps, reality shows and one arse quakingly awful period detective bollocks. The BBC while having its share of shite did manage some original, popular programs (Who, Corbett) though apparently Ben Elton wrote Ronnie’s monologue, oh dear, like tempting Bill Murray back to SNL then have his script written by Dennis Miller, jimminy christmas.
Anyways, my Na-Twivity (it now turns out actual religious orgs used that pun to retell and drum up some tech savvy faithful) seems to have gone down well, unplanned and spur of the moment as it was. Thanks to all who followed and had fun with it which did influence how it happened as I did ponder having the couple die in custody but that felt wrong as it developed plus custard is not that homicidal (what!?!). Maybe next year the other Xmas cliché could be tackled, A Christmas Carol, hmmmmm. Now I have to sort out my stuff and prepare to leave this snowy island, get to Manchester airport and fly to Prague tomorrow where I have been summoned for another shadowy HFA summit. Hope to blog from there a bit, my birthday and also something called New Year is happening I am told, can’t say it rings any bells, New Year? Maybe it just gets overshadowed by my birthday (also this blogs fourth anniversary) which must be very sad for those who celebrate ‘New Year’, imagine having an important day so close to two much more famous holidays, that must be rubbish…
Last Friday of 2010, post coming up, meanwhile 42 in Prague!
