Brexit Bollocks: An ongoing view.

Evening Mugs,

Happy Brexit Week. Yay , the good ship SS Great Britain sails off into the distance singing sea shanties and striking trade deals around the globe for silk and spices and tobacco...........the United Kingdom rejoices in freedom and control. People will be able to leave their front doors open again, scruffy children will play in the streets and pubs will be full of people standing around upright piano's singing songs of Blighty's greatness...........

Meanwhile, in the corner of our country that hasn't been injecting LSD directly into its veins, 48% of the country are sitting there thinking 'what was so bad before Article 50?'. We're watching helplessly on the sidelines as the UK starts a bonfire of its own vanities. The current course we've plotted is to step back in terms of wealth and freedom. And if we speak out? if we challenge? Then we're 'remoaners' , 'lefties' and to some we're even traitors. This is the lurch to the right the UK is moving to along the political spectrum. 

I was bloody furious about the referendum being called, then I was furious about the pathetic 16 word question, dumbing down to the ignorant and stupid and witless a major national issue. I was furious over the outcome knowing that the most impacted people were the ignorant and the have nots. People convinced by rich and landed career politicians that everything was the fault of Johnny Foreigner and the invading hordes of Turks....sorry not Turks......Bulgarians....sorry not Bulgarians .....Poles etc etc. The British populace was conned by rich, educated, power crazed people for whom the cozy white privileged life was threatened by hordes of educated proles with a sense of fairness and decency and community. The true globalists were the ordinary working people. The real nationalists and xenophobes were the privileged classes and their right wing press robber barons. 

Those generally decent people were mugged off. 

So this historic week is not a week for ranting (although I reserve the right to rant freely), but a day when I believe the UK will start to dissolve. The decision to leave was an English one and one that belittles the Union as a whole. After all, why is one political union Ok, but not the other? Especially if the other is one created from force rather than collaboration. Cultural similarities? Do me a favour....the Scots have a far more distinct character and national identity than the English. Northern Ireland is less mired in sectarian politics than ever as the younger generations, borne of a tiger economy and internal and external investment see that jobs and prosperity will come from Europe rather than England. 

And Wales...the elephant in the UK room sits there mystifyingly as a country that has seen more EU investment than any other nation in the UK and decided to vote out. Good luck with that when the United Kingdom of England and Wales dishes out the cash in the years to come, because if you think the politicians in England give a flying fuck about you then you're more deluded than even I thought.  

I have no doubt deals will be struck, but the idea that we'll get better than we have now is nonsense. Yes we can strike deals with Australia, New Zealand, Gambia and any other number of developing nations as well as other commonwealth nations. But China? The USA? India? Do you really think these economies will look at us rather than a trading bloc of over 500 million people? One that can use enticing tariffs to tempt buyers where we won't have the economies of scale. Wait until the exodus of manufacturing and banking happens.  And people like James Dyson can set up cheap labour factories in Africa whilst keeping a token design force in the UK all they like, but in the end the days when UK PLC could rule the waves as a trading nation have gone. We make less stuff you see. Therefore we have less to sell. And if you're a German car maker, and the bulk of your customers are on the european land mass, and the people want and possibly need less money then how likely to stay in the UK are you?

So good luck SS Great Britain, hope the sails can keep you moving. But don't be surprise when those former upstart nations such as India and China decide that really, you have nothing of much interest to them. And good luck Scotland when you take the inevitable plunge to independence - a different subject of course, but another I feel close to. After all if one union isn't good enough then why should any other?

Later Mugs, GJ 

Social media muggery

Evening Mugs,

I'm 55. Yep 55. Mid-fifties. Middle aged. On the downward slope of life. 

It's interesting to me that since this blog started way back in about 2004 how it was a key part of my life, like diary writing for the middle aged who couldn't be arsed before.   Then as other social media came into play it faded when faced with the might of Facebook and Twitter. Yeah there were brief occasional witterings full of bile, possibly admiration, maybe even happiness, all laced with hints or promises to get back into writing. I even convinced myself that it didn't matter who read it, if anyone did at all because the joy and cathartic nature of putting thoughts into writing was enough to keep it going. At the start the creative juices were plentiful and the mind was constantly moist. 

Sadly it wasn't to last and over time laziness became the overriding maxim when I came to writing. I just couldn't be arsed to rant, or to find moments of interest in an otherwise ordinary and dull and increasingly contented  life. That and being 'discovered' by friends and family which meant despite the anonymisation of them via nicknames, some were upset for reasons of 'fuck-allness' but by doing so immediately marked themselves as sensitive drama queens that I could do without in my life. Some would then relate anecdotes to me about them for inclusion and of course some who would then try and act weird or wacky in order for me to include them.  Anyone who acts weird or whacky, or describes themselves as such is just suffering from John Major Syndrome. 

Facebook is nowadays, for me, merely a dad joke and picture upload forum with occasional comments, and perhaps it's best served as a mechanism to keep in touch with friends old and new without the hassle of actually speaking to them. Facebook is OK but it doesn't sate the need to vent, rant, praise, critique or opine in full. Twitter, with it's 140 character limit feels similar, a place to speak freely unless of course you speak against the crowd, after which it becomes a lynch mob of nappy shitting keyboard warriors with a genetically missing sense of context and the lack of basic intelligence with which to debate any subject or opinion with subtlety or nuance. Twitter is odd because it allows anyone to join a conversation irrespective of whether they have been asked or invited. You don't even need to use a polite 'I couldn't help overhearing you....' interjection to bring you into someones chat. Despite this, I have nearly 2000 'followers' which massages the ego nicely, and for the most part they are all Chelsea related and I have made an awful lot of good friends in real life by blind date meetings with them in pre-football match venues. In TwitterLand, when you meet for real,  everyone has 2 names, the one you introduce yourself by (@grocerjackuk) and your real name. 

Snapchat? I have no idea how it works or what it could do for me (pissed old hack baffled by new technology as Private Eye used to say). 

Instagram is OK, and I like the idea of a photo upload system and a social media based on that. Instagram can convey a moment much like Twitter and Facebook, with the added bonus that the underlying nastiness of Twitter has yet to pervade it. Safe, nice and maybe a bit dull. 

Where Facebook is extraordinarily tedious is with people sharing stupid hoaxes, promises of free Range Rovers, SUVs, Lodge Holidays and any number of crap cod philosophy quotes or unfunny videos. No matter how many times I post a friendly 'hoax' warning, there are still people seemingly so dim that they genuinely think someone has a warehouse full of iPads they need to give away for free because of over-stocking. Yes, because giving away £400 tablets because of an over-order that they, the seller, has had to pay for is  a very sustainable business model isn't it? 

And don't get me started on the like-farming wankers who post stock pictures of disadvantaged or ill people and then ask for 'likes' or even more sickeningly an 'amen' comment. These are just cunts, and sadly the people who spread this stuff, well intentioned or not, are the equivalent of the morons who used to pass on chain letters at secondary school. They are fuckwits, unwitting and gullible maybe, but fuckwits all the same. 

Anyway I digress. It seems the lure of writing has tentatively returned. I've been inspired by one person, who shall remain nameless but their ability to write fascinating historical tomes at what I'm guessing is a tender mid-20s age, or to write blog articles about my beloved Chelsea FC post match, whilst simultaneously doing an impression of a gin hoover is nothing short of deeply impressive. For someone so young, they are pretty 'old school' and almost entirely down to their drive and example that finding and making time to write is the key to .....errrr......writing,  I have decided to try, once again, to come out of retirement and kick start this old blog.

I've updated a few rules of the Guild , a few of the occasional 'cast' and some rules of my Liberation Political Party which the UK is crying out for under my benign dictatorship :) 

See them here

The ornaments lining GrumpyBloke Hall's dimly lit passages are being dusted down, the fading incandescent light bulbs being replaced by new shiny bright LED versions, the carpet is due to be 'shake and vac'd' , doors, skirting and frames given a lick of paint and walls given a new coat and a steam clean. Money is ready to be loaded into the meter and new pictures hung on the newly painted walls. All my old posts, good, bad, funny, unfunny, hateful and joyous are still sitting on the virtual bookshelves. The Guild of Grumpy Blokes has opened it's eyes......

All in all, this time, it's worth a try.

Later Mugs, GJ 

A Life of Fear?

Afternoon Mugs

Well, yesterday the event we feared in the UK but hoped would not happen again, did in fact happen. At the time of writing it looks like a radicalised lone wolf has decided that his God is so weak, so ineffective and so fucking hopeless at protecting all of his faithful flock that he decided to help him out and kill some infidels. 

This time using the blunt instrument of a large car, and the rather more sharper yet equally deadly knife. 

I could harp on about the terrorists not winning, about the bravery of the police and emergency services, of the fellow people who helped out, tourists and normal people doing their normal business, about the fuckwittery of taking selfies at the scene and the mixed morality of live footage and photo's but I won't. Virtue signalling isn't my bag though and all of the sympathy and thoughts should be yours and my default stance. 

Actually on that last bit ...I will. I would not want to see a dead friend or relative on social media and that be the way I found out about their demise. But i don't want to be denied the horror of what has happened. Like many this is what spurs us on to be stoic and outraged. if we weren't then what would we be...mere automatons robotically carrying on with no compassion? There's a line here, such as blurring faces for a start, something simply done but seemingly beyond the lazy and stupid insensitive bastards rubbernecking any type of human tragedy. And just based on human compassion alone, why not just picture the scene not the individuals involved? But get off your collective high horses about those who do take the pictures and publish, be they passers by or media corporations. Blackouts don't work and will never happen in this modern smartphone, social media instant gratification, on-line 'connected' age unless we willingly allow suppression of free speech and thought.  I have yet to hear the same complaints regarding pictures and footage coming when the atrocity happens abroad in Berlin, Paris, Brussels or Damascus, Mosul or Ethiopia. Pictures of dead and starving children are fine are they, but not of people in the midst of a terrorist incident? I'm not saying I agree with the pictures broadcast yesterday but I do sniff double or mixed standards here. 

My main gripe is that yet again the twisted and poisoned dogma of religion claims yet more victims and that is where my issues with religion come into play. Through the years I have moved from Roman Catholic born and indoctrinated/brainwashed/raised, to stroppy questioning teenager, after all what sort of *God wants me to go to Church when I WANT to play football with my mates? I then sauntered to the safety fence of agnosticism but questioning the morality of a God that promises unconditional love whilst applying the condition of undying and unswerving worship? After reading The God Delusion and a book called God: the Biography (By Alexander Waugh) the sidestep to atheism was completed.  I am about to start God Is Not Great. I suspect it will reinforce my benevolent form of atheism even more. As an atheist I know that every bad thing i do is something I have to live with, and not something a few mumbled words in Church will assuage through God's alleged forgiveness.

I know **people will take umbrage on my view that religion in general is bad, but it is. And the bad outweighs any good because NOT ONE person should die for or because of religion.  Religion should not be 'mostly good' it should be completely and unambiguously a force for good. It should be un-corruptible. It should be crystal clear. There should be no ambiguity. No doubt. And it should be optional. Every religion should have one overriding message that you can choose not to join and take your chances at your end. Simple as. As things stand and have always stood where religion is concerned, it looks to suppress and control people by the imposition of fear through threats of eternal burning and agony and servitude to the purveyor of the religion's ideals of right and wrong. 

What sort of God would sanction that level of alleged hellfire punishment for people acting on the very frailties he built into his creation? Why give people the ability to hate or be mad or to despise and then allow them free reign to use them? If he's a God and omnipotent in the true sense of the word, then he could either limit those frailties, or allow them and use a mechanism to ensure it doesn't lead to anyone's death. If he created us then why not build a DNA algorithm into us which physically and genetically prevents every human from the taking of another life? No more murder, genocide, matricide or people being blown up by remote control. Surely as the ultimate creator of our complex world he could have done that? 

But he didn't did he? 

Either he couldn't do that because basically he's a bit of a shit 'Life Creation Engineer', or he didn't do that because he doesn't  care what his creation does. Instead he's fallen asleep on the job. He's a seagull God, who flies in, hangs around a bit, shits on people (Adam/Eve anyone?....punished for eating a Granny Smith?)  and then fucks off. While he snoozes he wittingly allows his 'disciples' to bastardise his alleged teachings (sorry folks, teachings written by liars and conmen) and then act unilaterally on his behalf. He allows these fuckwits to become judge, jury and executioner and allows them to carry out their acts of madness with impunity. He does nothing. He's asleep in the corner of a celestial party having knocked a few bottles of Deity strength Jack Daniels over. 

God, if you exist, and you believe in judging people at the end of their life why not have the decency to allow them to live their lives to their natural end, and not have their lives ended at the hands of people acting in your name? Just think God, how lovely it would be for your creations not to have to live a life based in fear, but in joy and hope. And think where that might have led us. 

I won't hold my breath waiting for your answer. 

Later Mugs, GJ

*Note - I have used the gender 'he' to refer to God, because not one religion I know of has promoted the idea that a woman might have been God. And let's be honest, women would never be that fucking stupid or vindictive, or come to think of it, that lazy or ignorant so as to ignore the actions of their creations. 

**If you're offended by this, then good. I don't really care. But know this, be religious if you like. I am all for freedom of choice, but you should in turn respect my right to not believe and not feel it is your duty to convert me. That way we can have a nice drink and chat with no problems.