Boo boo in select company

Boo boo in select company
Something to say?

Thursday 7 September 2017

First Day At School

Never post in haste, they say. You might change your opinion, or be short of facts. So, I watched the news and did some thinking.

That little boy George. Prince George - Winsome. I wish him well with his school-life and all else.

   BUT - why the hell do I want to know who held is hand for his first day at school? I would think we should spent our time thinking of more immediate matters - like the plight of refugees from Syria and the Rohingas. We should spare a thought for the catastrophe in the wings when BREX-bloody-IT is done and dusted.  The Tories lie so much, we may never even know when it actually happened. 

   We should be really concerned about what the hurricanes are doing to the West Indies and parts of America. And how the Grenfell survivors are coping. Or not.

   And the power-grab. How are we (Labour) going to prevent it when we are short of a vote or two in Parliament behind us, and the Tories will close ranks as always when their sinecures are tested. There is much talk on the media (Norman Smith has not stopped pontificating, or looking where he can hang some of the chaos on to the back of Labour,) but Theresa May blunders on, blinkers in place and imagination switched off.

   Back to first days at school: I remember the day I took Asha, my granddaughter, to the local nursery ten years ago on a December morning. We had arrived from Kenya after ten years. Our wardrobes were not quite English winter. Asha insisted on wearing her gold strap-sandals anyway. I stayed with her that day, through the compulsory morning-break for half-an-hour.. When our hands froze, I got us inside a dilapidated phone-box in the playground. 'I am freezing,' the little one said matter-of-factly. So she put her hands in my coat-pocket.

   And her father? Like so many fathers hers had buggered off within a week of her birth. Mother HAD to earn a living and had to be in London by eight in the morning. So I was in charge. I think, today, of all those single mothers with no help, no money to buy new shoes or coats, and Mrs May threatening all sort of school-disasters. I have no time to think of Price George.

   As for third in the line of succession, I am quietly hopeful that will become irrelevant when our Queen gives up. Can you imagine the rest of that lot in charge of our nation's Royal heritage?

Monday 4 September 2017

The Royal Expectation

Babies are wonderful things - another one, anywhere, and hope springs up even in my old, beleaguered psyche. I believe birth is nature cocking a snook at death.  Wonderful.

   Catherine Middleton and William are having another baby. I am glad for them. No doubt William will donate the entire privy purse coming to that baby, to Centrepoint.

   However, when I see the obligatory simpering of the newscaster announcing this news, I feel like throwing something at the TV screen. Lots of women have babies all over the world, many have extreme 'sickness'. Haven't they noticed?

   Recently we have had royal overload on TV. Diana and the princes and ... What is brewing? I wonder.

   The numbers of the homeless in this whole happy realm of ours climbs by the minute all over the cities, and now the smaller towns up north as well.

   As an old woman, I having a sneaking admiration for the queen. Her persistence and obstinate ideas about duty and loyalty. But I keep hoping that soon, when her reign comes to an end, the country will give the Royals a pension for two generations or so, and quietly forget them. It worked in India - all those Maharajas and ranis have disappeared into politics, Hospitality business (all those big palaces are useful after all.) or simply faded away.

   We cannot feed our people:

   The food banks are doing brisk work, filling up the hampers. Mothers eat less to keep the children fed. School-meals are threatened by the Conservative government. 

   All the tax-payers' resources should go towards housing and feeding our folks, not propping up the monarchy.

   And then - there is not enough money for the police, the NHS, schools, prisons. I don't need to spell this out.

   I am a republican and don't believe in monarchy anyway. But when things are so dire for many in this country, for Heavan's Sake!