… all Facebook status updates had to begin with “is…”?
These are the sort if things you start to think about when you’re bored in an airport bar.
Bruce Hornsby and The Range are currently in charge of the soundtrack, Boddingtons are doing the beer, and the woman sitting behind me is providing the skinner. If you’re reading this, Penny, she can’t believe you were such a cow.
Personally, I’m not surprised. I never liked you anyway.
Heading home today, so a quick QP of Sheffield for old times’ sake.
This isn’t today, of course. Today is cold and grey and miserable and wet. Fortunately, once I’m at Sheffield station, I don’t actually have to go outside again until I get back to Cape Town airport tomorrow, and the weather there is looking much better.
I’ll see you on the other side.
I was just bending over a tomb in Holmesfield this lunchtime (as you do), trying to read the small print:
when suddenly, this:
Oh! Let my sudden doom
A warning be to all;
E’en while thou bendest o’er my tomb
Thou may’st as quickly fall
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I rapidly unbendedeth before I as quickly fell. No-one likes that sort of warning from 161 years ago. I was quite shaken and needed a beer at the pub next door.
I like Google Now. It’s full of useful information like how long it takes me to go home. But then, it has been a bit weird too, from time to time.
There was suddenly another weird moment today as well.
I have no idea what the Unknown place in question is, or why I would want to go there. But recognising the general area in which the Unknown place is, I think I’ll give it a miss.
UPDATE:
Ah, zooming in, it’s a bit of field behind a hedge, next to a farm building, near a motorway.
Right, well, that clears everything up then.
Not.
I arrived here in the UK just in time to see (not literally) Nigel Farage’s UKIP party win their first seat in the UK Parliament. It was a bit of a cheat, really, given that the the guy who got elected was already the MP for the area, merely for a different party. That said, unlike the situation in SA, he had to be re-elected under the UKIP banner, and he was. They now control 1/650th or about 0.15% of the UK political landscape. But that’s only if you choose to look at the number of MPs. Because even though the traditional main three parties have just held their respective conferences, all I’ve seen on the TV here is Nigel and UKIP. Repeatedly.
And, if this infographic below is true (and I haven’t had time to check on the veracity of it because that’s not what I’m here for), then my viewing experience could well be easily explained.
Question Time being a much-watched and much-debated TV programme here, this is important.
The thing is this: despite their unpleasant policies and lack of any workable plan should they be elected (or maybe actually because of that?), UKIP have shaken the political landscape here and they have become the media darlings because of it. They don’t have a presence in Parliament (save for that one brand new seat), but they are the go-to party for opinion and soundbites which are going to get the viewers to your news programme, paper or website. And coming from SA, that situation seems rather familiar.
Of course, Julius Malema and his EFF have a few seats in the SA Parliament. But it’s still a tiny presence. And yet their vocal, no holds barred, sabre-rattling approach to everything has repeatedly made them headline news. But they’ve actually achieved nothing through it. Has Jacob Zuma paid the Nkandla money back? No. Has Baleka Mbete resigned? No. And yet, the EFF still get the headlines, despite not actually adding anything positive to the parliamentary mix.
OMG! They shouted! They chanted! Floyd stuck up his middle finger! They walked out of parliament again!
So did they get all their demands satisfied?
Er…. no.
There’s a common thread here, despite the vastly differing politics of Nigel and Julius: people are very unhappy with their incumbent government and the incumbent government seems to be doing nothing to remedy that situation. Suddenly, there’s a power vacuum and that’s something that these populist, radical parties have stepped in to exploit. And they’re exploiting it well, because while they’re not in power they can make a lot of noise and a lot of promises without actually having to back any of it up or be taken to account. They can react quickly to individual incidents, switch polices and respond with no comeback, save for the mainstream political parties (who would try to shout them down anyway, and who no-one is listening to anyway, of course) the media (who love the devil-may-care attitude because it brings them more readers or viewers).
The next general election for both countries is going to leave a very different political landscape. And that’s fine, because that’s how democracy works. But, much like that Trevor Mallach letter, it would be better if we went into these things making decisions based on facts and not on what the media spin. Right now, the EFF and UKIP are getting all the positive press coverage while having to do nothing to back it up. Would either of them actually be able to successfully run a country (or even an opposition party) given the chance?
I can’t see it, personally – although the media might want me to think differently.