Sunday 11 April 2010

The One That Is Struggling. . .

I don't know how many posts I've tried to write this week. They've all been abandoned half way through. I get the feeling this one may suffer the same fate.

It feels similar to a fifteenth birthday, this election. You've been looking forward to it for ages but when the big day arrives you realise that you're too old for jelly, ice-cream and pass the parcel, but not old enough for a responsibly imbibed half pint of weak bitter shandy in a smoke and discrimination free licensed environment.

A week in to the 'vote for me, the other people are really nasty' process and I'm starting to lose the will to live. Every post I've drafted has been so obvious that it doesn't need saying and can't be said in any more than ten words, or have turned into polemics that would take an hour to read. It's like the Eurovision song contest, GET ON WITH IT, I don't care about the shitty songs, let's get to the shamlessly partisan voting, shall we?

I've written about the NI row, and binned it. Why is cutting a shit load of inefficient no-nothing civil servants and not taking more of my money a bad thing? I'd have thought it was obvious. Labour have expanded the civil service to gargatuan levels, it was big enough when Major sat in the big chair. We don't need them all, and I say that as one of them.

I've written about and scrapped an item on the frankly bizarre situation of a government of any colour deciding that they are going to inflate the price of fuel, tobacco and alcohol. Two or three times a year. And people just grumble. Why? What input do the government have on the production of this stuff? Would people wear it if it was applied to other aspects of consumer goods? A 3p increase on the duty on trousers and teddy bears? And then, and then, they make a big fucking show about it because they deign to spread it over the course of a year in smaller increases. Yeah, cheers. £1.20 a litre of petrol. And they bang on about not wanting to harm the recovery? Give me strength.

I was going to write this morning about Caroline Lucas' appearance on Andrew Marr's show this morning, where she made a great virtue of the Green's plan to steal even more of our money than Labour and piss even more of it up the wall. Ye gods. What more is there to say?

I was also going to write about the balls up in the organ donor register, and how this displays that presumed consent is a very bad thing. I don't care personally, when I'm dead you can do what you like to my body. If anyone needs a part of it, they're welcome to it, I'm happy to help. Indeed once they've stripped out the spare parts I'm tempted to leave what is left to medical research. It'd certainly save on the costs of a funeral. No-one has the right to presume anything over someone's most personal possession. Presumed consent is only a step or two removed from you ceasing to belong to you, and you belonging to the state. It must be resisted at every turn.

Some people believe their body must be complete at the point of disposal, and that's fine and dandy, it's their body and continues to be so after their death. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a shell, but it's MY shell.

Again, what more can I say?

Yes, just like a teenage birthday. You still have those childlike expectations that the day is going to be like a dream. What you want is a PS3 with a copy of 'Stealing cars, shooting cops and running over prostitutes 4' and a house party with booze, fags and slutty girls. What you actually get is double geography, a nagging at lunch because you had chips and a jumper of questionable sartorial taste. Let's get it over with, shall we?

Perhaps this is my eternal curse. I'll get all keyed up once every five years, only to realise that the anticipation, the hope, is more satisfying than the actual event. Or maybe, I'll be pleasantly surprised and the Church of the Militant Elvis will be swept into power on the back of an era-defining landslide.

1 comment:

The Refuser said...

Perhaps it is also the realisation that whoever wins the election nothing much will change. We will be cheered briefly by a few "Portillo moments" hopefully involving Balls and assorted shitbags like McNumpty and Woolass, but afterwards comes the real issue. Nothing has really happened. Just different bums on seats. A vote for none of the above is my response.