loitering with intent

#poetry #newpoemshort #spokenword

Putin's Puppet?

 

Andrew Aloysius Parker, the actor to Putin's puppet? Instead of being the butler and chauffer to Lady Penelope Creighton Ward this Reform campaigner of the same surname has caused his former leader's poll ratings to fall slightly especially since the culture warrior and populist Rishi Sunak went on television and deliberately spelt out the words of Farage's bad faith actor.

Who are the actors and who are the puppets in the run up to the General Election of 2024? an especially long episode of 'Thundercunts". Which former children's TV presenter has been briefing Sir Ed Davey? Why haven't they been able to stop Sir Keir Starmer sounding like Zippy from Rainbow?   

Everything has been dumbed down to a milkshake and a soundbite for us thick Brits. A nation of immigrants stirred to hatred and vitriol of modern day immigrants by class war bad faith actors Reform and Conservatives. On the day that the King has had yet another photograph taken in all his medals to tie in with Armed Forces Day, just so that we don't forget what he looks like. All these 'actors' are desperate to remain relevant. They may go to ground for months or years on end but their PR machine cranks into action when they feel that the time is right. It is all about the timing.

It's difficult not to write cynically but for those of us who have seen the puppets and actors come and go over the years it is a challenge to get enthused about anything politically now because of the obvious and glaring failure of humanity in its treatment of Palestine at the bloodied hands of Israel. But what about October 7th? Oh do fuck off!

The only showman saying anything about Palestine is George Galloway but he has the Union Jack as a thumbnail to videos of his Workers Party GB. The disconnect is real. A socialist but socially conservative. Bewailng Balfour but still championing the cause of a discredited amalgamation of nations.

And what of the Nationalists? The non British nationalist parties of Farage and Galloway. The SNP and Plaid Cymru.

Their causes have been greatly diminished by global events. Fighting for your own sovereignty and independence when there is such bloodshed in the Middle East could be construed as tasteless. Would your Independent nation even survive on a burning planet and this is where the Greens come in. There will be victories for the 'smaller' parties and for worthy causes but the first past the post system turns results into a school sports day and its about who crosses the finishing line first so the percentage vote counts for nothing in terms of elected representatives to parliament.

We are being led to the polling station like aristocracy being led to the guillotine next Thursday. We go reluctantly.     

The land of the floating shite

Well I am back from the 'land of the rising sun' to 'the land of the floating shite'. The culture shock is real. Those who love me have been following my adventures through the medium of You Tube Shorts.

Those who hate me have been waiting for me to write this blog post. The voyeurs, the observers, those who watch me on social media but can't quite work out what my angle is. This one's for you.

I can actually now say that I've flown around the world. My carbon footprint  conscience is relatively clear because I hadn't flown at all since 2005. Almost twenty years of not contributing to climate change but I had the chance and I thought, "I will be too old one day".

So we went via countries that are not in Russian airspace, across Europe first and then across some of the Tajikistan sounding countries. We flew across the Gobi Desert at night and there was ice on the outside of the window. Pyonyang appeared on the flying map and I thought to myself "Aye aye, are we going to get an audience with the 'one' before Putin does. The plane veered off across South Korea and landed in Tokyo.

Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 was literally 'Bedlam'. Haneda Airport was like a Japanese Garden of Tranquility.  When I say we I mean British Airways and I. I had booked through Japan Airlines but BA were the carriers for this trip and they brought me back yesterday via Alaska, Greenland and Scotland. Tokyo in the morning and West Wales at midnight.  Who knew that there was a town called Wales on the wrong side of the Bering Strait?

   

I will annoy all my precious readers, viewers and subscribers if I just compare and contrast Britain and Japan but the most obvious one is the public transportation system. Britain's couldn't become like Japan's in a thousand years even if they started now. Sunak ditched the HS2. Japan has got the bullet train or the Shinkansen to give it its correct name.  If it's late, the managers have to issue a public apology. Being a British train avoidant  I wasn't sure whether it was such a good idea booking a JR Pass as most recent You Tube videos were saying that it wasn't worth the money. Well I can tell you, in  my case, it was. I covered a lot of the Japanese mainland, north and south due to this futuristic and incredible piece of engineering technology.

On the Piccadilly line away from Heathrow Airport yesterday I could not help notice the tired, aging upholstery, the noisy journey and the unintelligible travel announcements. The escalator to the Piccadilly Line is in a far corner of some foreign field that is forever Heathrow Terminal 5.

All foreign visitors and tourists are ushered towards the Elizabeth Line because it is more expensive to travel on it.

There is no litter in Japan, no graffiti, no busking and no begging. There is plenty in Britain.

Japan is a polite, respectful society. Britain is not. Japanese crowds are not scary. British crowds are scary.

One might make the observation that British society is more relaxed and 

more real wheras Japanese society presents a face to the world but in terms of productivity it is a world that works. The gadgets, the cars, the convenience stores, the food, the gardens, the onsens, all this carried out in the shadow and history of two nuclear explosions, one on Nagasaki and one on Hiroshima. I had no intention to go to either and if I was Japanese I wouldn't be happy seeing so many of 'the gaijin' coming in to their country with a low yen against the dollar. If Japan wasn't in thrall to the United States because of the Second World War it would be a power as strong as Russia.

I would like to go back, again before I am too old, but my one piece of advice would be, leave Tokyo till last and do the rest of the country first. Tokyo is not Japan as London is not England. Learn the language. I only had the basics and it did limit interactions and it is just Imperial arrogance to expect people to speak English. For my liking, there was too much English in the announcements on the trains in Tokyo. Make the Gaijin sweat. Make them learn your language. Don't pander to theirs. This is a lesson we need to learn in Wales.  

 

  

Slavery by any other name

 

National Service and Apprenticeships are 'slavery' by any other name. Both require uniforms. The green khaki of the soldier and the blue denim of the boilermaker. Don't be daft ya big apath, this isn't the 1950s. Oh but it is in the minds of many older voters who feel that they have been cast on the mouldering dump that is the disunited kingdom by the divisive and inflammatory rhetoric of Reform UK and the Conservative Party.

Today we have Sir Keir Starmer behaving like God. Giving the whip back to Diane Abbott and then not allowing her to stand in the upcoming General Erection. The omnipotent Starmer who is being heavily worked by Peter Mandelson has really changed the Labour Party from a party that tried to be Socialist under Jeremy Corbyn to an establishme
nt tool of Israel. The man will be like Scrooge on his death bed with the ghosts of Corbyn and Abbott and the A.N other he's about to shaft any day soon.     

Finally we come to the sweaty orange overlord whose court appearance on re-imbursing his lawyer the hush money that he allegedly paid porn star Stormy Daniels BEFORE he became President of the United Snakes of America in 2016. Whatever the outcome, this creature from the populist swamp could become President again. 

All the bollocks mentioned above gets played out while Israel, the bastard son of the United Snakes and shit stain Britain commit war crimes on a daily basis in Gaza and Rafah. 

The fact that we are expected to vote for all these mother f*****g cock s****rs is a testament to how great Western Democracy is.

   

A United Wales/Cymru Unedig

 

I'm just back from a fact finding mission to the Emerald Isle hence the new banner photograph at the top of the blog. I was mistaken for the fattest Leprechaun this side of the River Shannon on a number of occasions. Short, fat but definitely not hairy. 

I returned to Wales enthused politically and am more convinced than ever after seeing things with my own eyes that Wales has to be united before it can become independent. An independent nation free of the British State. 

Ireland is offering us a template to follow. There is now no border where you have to show your passport as you leave Northern Ireland and enter into the Republic. On two occasions I didn't know which side of the old border I was in. It was a smooth transition and so it must also come to pass in Wales.

No longer must we be forced to show our identification papers in Machynlleth market on a Wednesday. Who cares whether we are Gog, Hwntw or mwynder Maldwyn. We must start to think as one nation, one identity. We mustn't squabble over the ancestral links of Dolly Parton whether they be Tenby, Conwy or Rhondda.

It must be good enough to say that she is of the Welsh. Like they have the Kennedy Center in Belfast perhaps we can hope for a Parton Center in Pontypridd or Porthaethwy.

The inevitability of a united Ireland could also be for us here in Wales if only we worked on being united instead of assuming that we were. Marching for Independence has done very little in reality. It gives the impression, to me at least, that we are also flag shaggers, Welsh banners instead of the Union Jacks of British patriots. The banners of ancient princes have little bearing on today's Wales.

Both countries, Ireland & Wales need to leave their histories in the past. The murals on the walls are the tattoos on our hearts. 

The British State has proved to us all recently that it is as rancid, putrid, sordid and squalid as it ever was with its unflinching support for the genocidal state of Israel.

But what about October 7th? What about it?

Our shit into the rivers and into the seas should be collectivised and nationalised. We need to bring our shit back into public ownership so we can all have free access to it. Why should the select few in Devon have access to the Cryptosporidium parasites while the rest of the Disunited Kingdom can only look on in envy. This is just another example of top down government favouring the select few in Tory voting seats. Where is our bacteria and where is our profuse watery diarrhoea? If nausea and vomiting, stomach pains, dehydration and weight loss are good enough for Southerners why can't we up North enjoy the spoils of Water privatisation?

Britain is on its arse and it isn't worth saving. It's in the knackers yard ready for yet another rebrand in preparation for even newer Labour under Sir Keir Starmer. He's rolled up his sleeves in preparation to fist us all. This is what Socialist collectivisation should be about. That we all get fisted by a Knight of the Realm in a systematic and fair way and that fisting should last five years until he hands over to another even more brand new Labour personage for another five years fisting before the Tories get in again.

That's how British politics works or rather doesn't work and that is why Ireland must be United and Wales must surely follow.

  

          

Death by Taxes

"Individuals and businesses not paying the tax they should deprives the government of the funding it needs to provide vital public services and investment in areas such as schools, hospitals and roads." 

I cut and paste this one sentence, lifted from a BBC News story about ex England footballer John Barnes being banned as a company director for three years. John Barnes, a wonderfully erudite spokesperson on racism but the tax man has got him.

Now it's not often you see a monarch put their crown to one side to count the taxes their subjects have paid but in this animation we see King Charles Windsor III recovering from cancer with Prime Minister 'Super Snake' the populist, Rishi Sunak.

Now for a man of my hairstyle and kidneys I have a very naive view of paying tax. I don't agree with it or rather I don't agree with the sledgehammer to crack a nut way that they are extracted from us. They are couched in terms that the guardians of the public purse can do what they like with the taxes extracted at source in income tax to fund the Israeli genocide in Gaza. They can tell us that they are going on roads, schools, hospitals but we just don't know. They could be going anywhere. They could be going to subsidise the lavish lifestyles of benefit scroungers 'God forbid' or they could be going to fund the Rwandan Airlift of small boats crossing the English Channel. A loud huzzah emanates from within the ranks of the St George's "We will take are country back by hitting horses on the nose brigade".

Fuck! We are in such a mess after 9/11, 7/7, Brexit, Covid Pandemic Lockdown, Israeli Genocide of Palestine that if we get out for a bit of fresh air for an hour then we should consider ourselves grateful because we are Prisoners of His Majesty's Tax System. Like prisoners in lock up, it's often 23 hours in your cell with one hour walking around outside in a walled quadrangle. You can't work from home now, you've got to pay for an overpriced latte and croissant on your way into the centre of a town or city for sitting in meetings under artificial lights with your soul dying inside but "I miss my cat". Tough titty baby, you gorra work to pay your taxes to make this country run like the shit tip it is.

As a former, reformed benefit scrounger who still doesn't work on 'conscientious grounds' I cannot allow this pay first die later society to get to me and get me so I hide a lot. I avoid the outside world as much as I can by writing blogs and by being as much of a useless member of society as I can.

Give MP's the 'living wage' and then see how many of them will put themselves forward to represent us. Strip the King of his many palaces and perks and then see whether he thinks it's still worth his while to be our monarch. 

We are funding Britain's backing of Israel who is hell bent on traumatising toddlers. If I did pay tax I would want my tax to be ring fenced to support brave students who are protesting the Israeli horrors in Palestine. But what about October 7th?

As I say I have a very naive view of paying tax. It is a control mechanism by government. It is a divide and conquer tactic by government. They know that if people weren't forced to pay tax then they wouldn't voluntarily pay it because of the land grab, selfish gene in all of us which prioritises getting planning permission and building an extension and fuck the neighbours. You know, exactly what the Israelis are doing.

I apologise if I have not come up with any concrete solutions apart from 'ring fencing' the tax that we pay.

Was Benjamin Franklin actually correct when he said "In this world nothing is certain except death and taxes"?

I don't think he was.

What do you think?   

I am a poet dahling not a paramedic

 

I have not written a blog post in the month of April 2024 yet and it is the 22nd already. As I type this I do not know what I am going to write. It is 20.04 as I begin to write and that is nearly five minutes past eight in old money. Age shall not weary nor the years condemn. As you get older you become aware on the daily that you might not be around that much longer. You've given up most of the bad stuff but you have aches and twinges that make you think that you might have overdone it in certain bodily places years ago! Did I smoke too many fags? (cigarettes for Americans) Did I drink too much? Yes probably on both counts.

I wonder who isn't a hypochondriac really? With it being so difficult and deliberately off putting to see a GP there will be an invisible army of (mostly men) who will disappear off the face of the earth because they were too stubborn or scared to get that cough seen to or too embarassed to have the finger up the bum to check their prostate in case it arouses them.   

The poor old NHS! The horror stories we are hearing. I really don't want to trouble them. That's why I try and avoid doing dangerous things but accidents will happen and last Thursday I pulled myself away from twitter just long enough to attend a First Aid course.

Well I discovered a lot and it was fascinating but I would not feel confident in phoning 999 let alone administering First Aid to anybody but I have learnt the basics. If you are in my vicinity hopefully you will have the good sense and grace to faint or have a seizure as far away as possible from me.

I am a poet dahling not a paramedic!