What a Circus

So, parliament has voted to ban animals in the circus, except it isn't a law yet because it wasn't an official act of parliament or something - democracy rules ok. The main question there is why did the government and David Cameron want to stop it, against what was obviously the will of our elected representatives. I don't think he owns shares in a circus, I don't think Rupert Murdoch would give a toss on this one, so why were they pushing so hard back? I assume someone will find out, although it's probably irrelevant. It does show what our MPs could do, if they had a bit more backbone on other issues, which is an interesting thought.

I see our PM has now said he didn't threaten Mark Pritchard, and that the default setting for his staff is Mother Theresa. Bollocks on the second, we can't know about the first

I approve of the idea to ban wild animals from the circus though, why do we need to have wild animals doing tricks to amuse us, why do we want to watch that? Whatever anyone says they're caged and moved around the country in less than spacious conditions, and then put in front of however many people have bought tickets for no other reason than to make them go "oooohhh" or something. There isn't a very good point to that. To say that the animals enjoy it, how do you know? Would you enjoy being stuck in a cage, no room to move, travelling from place to place, so someone can have a short show before the clowns come on? Think about travelling in a small car with the worlds biggest dickhead. And they won't even let the tigers in to eat the clowns either.

That's my take on it, if you're going to cage animals have a good reason to do it. And there isn't really one I can think of. We shouldn't even do that for food. And I do eat meat before anyone asks, but I'd kill it if I had to. If you do I assume you would as well.

Stopped Clock - Poem

The only thing they noticed was the clock no longer chimed,
They'd complained about it's noise but he'd not listened to a word,
The clock had fallen silent sometime but they never thought,
Why the chimes no longer rang.

Nobody really missed the man who wound the clock,
They didn't think where he had gone, never gave a thought,
Why the clock was silent now after years of chiming on,
No-one cared where he was gone.

The neighbours hadn't noticed that he wasn't there
They didn't think that he had gone, they didn't stop or care,
They just had peace and didn't stop to briefly care that,
The Clock had stopped Dead.

Why Minimum Wage?

There's been another Tory in the headlines, saying the minimum wage is a bad idea for a group of people. I'm not going on what else got ignored in headlines, but he's stuck his head up so people should think about what the minimum wage actually is for.

It's not designed to keep people out of work, it's not there to penalise companies and cut their profits. It's there to pay people a decent wage. Whether it is a living wage or not isn't something I'm going to go into. What Philip Davies seemed to be arguing was that people should be allowed to undercut the minimum wage if they wanted to. He was talking about those who are on incapacity benefits mainly, but the meaning remains the same, if you undercut for some, why not for more, and then all.

First point, who would decide the ones who would be allowed to undercut the minimum wage? I've seen at least one person on twitter arguing that everyone should be allowed to undercut the minimum wage and be paid what they're worth. Everyone has the right to argue how much they're paid, in most jobs they are paying well above the minimum wage, and you can undercut in those circumstances, but not below the minimum in my opinion.

As I see it, the main benefit of having a minimum wage is to keep people paid a decent amount, it's not overly high as far as I'm concerned, and it keeps employers from employing effective slave labour. Private companies want to maximise their profits, which is fair enough. People want to be paid for their labour, the argument arises how much is appropriate to be paid. It's not about dignity, I'm not certain the minimum wage level currently allows for that, but it's about not using people.

If you allow one group to sell themselves to some company at a lower level you are saying to them they are worth less, not worthless, but worth less to you, to us, and to society than others in this country. We may not all be equal, but it's not a bad idea. To say to someone if you can't get a job then lower yourself to working for levels below anyone else, really a good idea? I don't think so. I'm sure (some) companies would jump at it, and it might get more disabled people into work, but is it worth that? Surely better to provide some encouragement to get them into work, financial or otherwise, although likely only financial objectives will appeal to some companies.

Because if you start saying the minimum wage doesn't apply to all, you've killed it. If you say that it can be undercut legally, then it will be. There was a campaign in the Independent about tips to waiting staff in restaurants, those were/are? still allowed to make up to minimum wage. This shows that if some places can undercut they will undercut, as far as they possibly can. They want to keep and increase their profits, that's fair enough, but it should not be at the expense of their workforce.

What's wrong with going bald?

Have been seeing a lot of commentary about Wayne Rooney's hair transplant this week. First of this one on the BBC website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13665321. I'm not going to say anything about use of the "word" manity here, other than ask if we're introducing fanity for a female equivalent? As that could go horribly wrong in some context. Personally I write this as someone whose hair started disappearing in my mid twenties, and I've never felt that worried about it.

There may be some reason for that, but the comment attributed to James Nesbit in that article suprised me a bit, this says - "he maintained that it has changed his life and that anyone who says going bald isn't horrible "is lying"."

I've never found my lack of hair an issue, it isn't horrible, and I promise I'm not lying to you there. It's not like I've a small gap on the crown, they wouldn't shave that big a gap in the back of my head if I was playing a monk in a medieval TV series, there's now a circle of hair round the bald spot, rather than the bald spot in the middle of the hair. Should I be worried about it? In case you're wondering I'm not.

Also Matthew Norman in the indy today, link -
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-never-mind-the-economy-ill-be-watching-rooneys-growth-2294256.html. I don't think he's being entirely serious, considering the comments about castrating Giggs, although that receding hairline hasn't been used as an excuse yet. But I don't get why you feel comments are an issue, if someone says you're thinning on top, say yes, and? It's just happening, it isn't important. And baldness looks better if you cut your hair right than that awful aubergine colour it goes with the dyed black look, usually with a fake tan to really make you look nuts.

Basically my hairs gone, I have many other issues that caused me problems and smart comments over the years. I don't care about my lack of hair. Bald and, not proud maybe, but unconcerned.

Scottish Football

I think everyone and their monkey has commented on the state of Scottish Football after last thursday, but I won't let that stop me. If you're unaware, 3 teams playing in Europe from Scotland that night, 3 teams lost. Why are we so shit? Money talks now in football, it's taken the game away from the fans. It was a working class sport, now you have to support a team, it's "trendy" to do so, and it's killing the game, especially in England. They may win in Europe, and co uld this year, but long term? How far apart can you take the players and keep the game running. I'm getting distant from the game, I support Aberdeen and will watch when they're on guaranteed, but seeing an English premiership game on a Sunday does not interest me that much anymore.

But getting back to the original point, Scottish teams in Europe. The song should go "We're shit, and we know we are". Celtic claim to be a big team still, so do Rangers. Only in past reputations, which are being destroyed. No Scottish team seems to know how to play against a half decent team, who can keep the ball down and actually play, Italian 3rd division level. Football is about Money now, and we don't pay English League 2 levels, but that isn't the main reason. The main reason in my view is that no-one plays the game anymore, not like they used to. Hell, even when I was a wean 20 something years ago we played in the street, doesn't happen now. Tell me the last time you saw a group of kids playing in your local park, just for fun. I can't remember. Players get rich off the game, and the kids want to get that money, but don't want to put in the effort. Too many people now think that they should be able to be famous, just for being famous - see Big Brother, or Kate Price/Jordan. The attitude is I'm owed by the world, I'm brilliant and you can't see it. Talent may out eventually, but it's getting hidden by the idiots going on X-Factor with no talent but being "wacky" and becoming known.

I've gone well off where I started here, but will leave it in. One last point, why do people buy into these things, that Jordan (person not country) is actually worth watching or listening to. Is that what you want from the world. I don't.

It's been a while

just coming back to this, will be blogging more soon, to anyone who falls over this by accident, but just been storing stuff up last few months with everything that's been going on in my life. Redundancy is becoming ever more real, and jobs are getting harder to come by, never been easy in the Hebrides at the best of times. Don't want to leave the way things are, parents getting older and I'd like to be around with them while I can. Morbid thought I know but if you can't face things you'll never be comfortable as yourself.

Electoral Reform

Haven't written here for a while, not been busy so much but been watching elections, Debates (and Dr Who but that's for another entry after a couple more episodes). As things stand now we have a hung, or balanced if you prefer, parliament in the UK. And the Lib Dems are talking to the Conservative party, and twitter and others are going nuts. You voted this outcome, these are the consequences, deal with em. I don't want a Conservative Government, I don't trust David Cameron, I think with them you really don't want to get old, or be poor, or be ill but this is the hands we the voters have dealt the politicos, and they will do their deals and we will be left to watch what they do. And hope they don't screw it up to badly. I do not think a lib dem/conservative coalition has any mileage, the tories will not give proper Electoral reform and if the lib dems do a deal without it they will lose too much credibility. Equally much as I'd like it, I can't see a Lib Dem labour deal either, we are likely to have Minority Tory Government, for a while at least. Labour sold it soul in the 90's to get elected, and are now not the party of the people, just the nearest thing, we need to get rid of some of their dumber ideas (DEBill for one) and get back a peoples party, who represents us. Electoral Reform is a must, AV+ voting system as suggested by Jenkins report in 1990s, abolition of the house of Lords and a new system of government.

One thought I had on this was we have a scottish parliament, and Welsh Assembly. Get an English parliament sorted, make the Current British Parliament a senior (revising) chamber to all 3 with defence and some budget powers and everything else in the other parliaments. Whether that would work I have no idea, but it can't be worse then what we have. In any shake up, the place I live will lose it's direct MP as we become part of a bigger constituency, we must be one of the smallest in uk after all, but we must represent how people vote, and first past the post does not do that. Not anymore. Changing electoral boundaries as tories want, and labour did, is gerrymandering on a national scale, and does nothing to resolve the major issue. David Cameron says he wants to make all votes count the same. The right step for that is Proportional Representation, but I don't want Party lists as we'll just get clones coming in who will do as told. Top up lists are ok with some directly elected MPs, but we have to do something.