Here we go! A bit of educational blurb for you (it’s all the rage now education, education, education!). I’m quoting Blair again! I’m thinking here of Mary Woollstonecraft. She wrote ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Women’ in 1789. It is no doubt the first of the great feminist thesis to be argued about. ‘From the tyranny of men’, she writes, ‘I firmly believe the greater number of foibles proceed.’ And she had a ‘profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of misery I deplore.’
Well, that’s it then. You have to admit she had a point, bearing in mind the time scales and what have you. Love and all that business, I just don’t know. I can only speculate but what her philosopher husband William Godwin thought about this, heaven knows. Anyway, she is the first feminist to rear her pretty head, well, I’m being punctilios now so don’t knock it!
Women have come a long way since Mary was writing about it. There isn’t the educational block age anymore. When I was interviewing a long time ago, women always had the edge over men, and for want of being sexist in reverse, I used to employ them before a man – that should get the male of the species going! Nothing like antagonism is there?
Women have a fine future, if they want it. If they choose to stay at home and have babies that’s alright too. Things have changed since 1789, haven’t they just. Society is more open and transparent – sorry to use the political glibness, ‘transparent’ and all that guff. But things have changed, for the better. Time marches on, and societies with it. It is a far better place now, than that in 1789. The feminists were particularly zealous on the liberation front then, but now? The story is all said and done. Look after yourselves and may the world walk with you.
Remember, you’re lucky to be born here when all is said and done. Women will never rule the world, they are just like men. Too flawed and too sentimental, but would I have it any other way? No, I don’t think so.
Well I’ll be buggered, it’s the Internet AGAIN! – Evening Post
I had better start by making a comment or two on climate change. Come to think of it, there’s enough in the media on this. Crisis and what have you – mind you, the fellow who wanders around the streets declaring the ‘End of the world is nigh’ front and tail might have a point! If we don’t start doing something now to stop this destruction of mankind with greenhouse gases, then look out. All these futuristic films may not be something to laugh about after all. I’ll be gone and turned into ashes no doubt but what about our children and grandchildren? Think about it.
Anyway, there’s enough on the internet about it all – that’s if you can decide fact from fiction. I don’t do any social media (can’t be bothered to harm my brain cells with it) and I don’t do the mobile phone thing. The other day I was walking along a train platform and can you believe it, but a young woman was walking along side me and crash – she went into one of the pillars. Trying to read her messages on a mobile phone whilst walking along. Heaven forbid, what a world we live in!
And what’s all this ‘selfies’ about? Photos of grinning chops to be sent around all in sundry. Manic self-representation for example, Facebook, Twitter etc A validation of one’s petty life, as far as I am concerned. A waste of space.
And let’s try politics. Would you like to be one – a politician that is. Your words are twisted on the internet and made into something that one didn’t mean in the first place. And there’s the fake Wiki page, the page on me was so filled up with demented stuff that it had to come down. And the revenge reviews. The internet allows the ridiculous to flourish but there we are, that is progress for you – some progress you might say.
And just one last comment, what about graduates these days? They know precisely nothing and that’s that. All their work is plagiarized.
All hail the internet!!! I’d rather die in sanctimonious freedom that be ruled by a flash screen full of nonsense.
Political Correctness – Evening Post
Hands up any of you Guardian readers or CH 4 News viewers? I’d like to bet there are a few of you! Now we all know about PC, that’s Political Correctness (it started in a think tank in Germany, in 1923), just thought I’d get that in to stop any fake news getting all uppity! There isn’t a day that goes by when we don’t encounter it in some shape or form. Just to warm you up a wee bit before getting to the nuts and bolts of PC, allow me to give an example of Pol Pot and liberal intelligentsia PC happened to me not so long ago – well, hang on a bit, the nationalists are always going on about how evil I am, so I take that bit back. All publicity is good publicity, so carry on.
Anyway, I had written a column for the Welsh press titled ‘Women can’t park.’ Did I just! Now before any of you lady drivers start jumping up and down my Welsh press columns are written to entertain and amuse, unlike my more serious political columns for Westminster.
Needless to say, I was immediately attacked with all kind of ‘isms’, the main one being that I was a raging ‘sexist’ – I can’t understand this, I am all for women getting on and so on. I must say that if any of this right-thinking folk knew my wife they would be quickly disabused of such fanciful notions!
I duly apologized and that was that – well, apologizing with a monstrous tongue in cheek. Everybody is about apologizing these days. Its just like a ‘crisis’ hitting everything. Health, social services, the police, poverty etc. It makes you wonder why be born in the UK doesn’t it? If some of the politicians and media want to see a crisis taking place, they should go over to Africa to see what a ‘crisis’ really means.
And before I go, I was reading an article by Ron Liddle in the Spectator (don’t worry, I read the New Statesman as well!), he asked why did Mencap believe that its protest should carry more weight than the democratic process? I won’t go into his argument but why should truth be emaciated on account of PC?
Why indeed. This is what PC does, it makes truth a bygone word. For myself, I can at least buck the trend through my novels and blame fictional characters for their outrageous politically correct and heretical inclinations, so there’s hope for me yet!
To conclude then, PC is anti-soul, it is totalitarian, coercive and against human nature. More than anything else it destroys who and what we are.
The Labour Party?- Evening Post
And I thought the rowing on the political benches was over! Fat chance. We now have a spat going on in the Labour Party – no surprises here, its all about political persuasion no less. Do you know we have three lawyers in the leadership contest, Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and yes wait for it, Rebecca Long-Bailey (a Corbynista and a willing member to failure again, that will make it five times a Labour loss at a General Election). They must have qualified when you were allowed to take all your books into the exams, I used to lecture Law before you all laugh your socks off! In my day, you weren’t allowed anything and that’s a fact. There must be a conspiracy between the Left and the Law, who knows!
If Long-Bailey gets in, I wonder what the Labour Party is up to. The road to oblivion or what. She is a staunch follower of Corbyn (although frightfully inexperienced, she only got in in to Parliament in 2015, and she is a young ‘un with all the political might one would expect from a student but there we are), all his policies and all his defunct howls of self- righteous shenanigans. She is another Corbyn, full stop. Failure follows failure I suppose.
But there is a shining light of hope. My money is on Lisa Nandy. She is bright and thinks things through. She carries an air of forthright deliberation about her. She hasn’t forgotten the Election and its demolition of the Labour Party. She is listening to the people and good for her I say. Labour needs to listen and not follow the deluded path of Corbyn – as Long-Baily is likely to do.
The Labour Party is a cranky old, beaten up car travelling a road to protest. There are no recovery services to give back its once holy ground. If it doesn’t change and quickly, it will be forgotten as a major political party. The country will not go Left of Left neither will it go Right of Right. We are a nation of thinkers and if Corbyn thinks we are anything less then more fool him.
It is time for peace and harmony……whether we will get any of this time will tell, one can’t be too sure what with climate change and what have you!
Labour is annihilated – Evening Post
The Labour Party is annihilated.
Jeremy Corbyn will go on the back bench and grow his beard as long as he likes and wear the red ties of political destruction. Hail Jeremy Corbyn! The party has gone ultra-left, further than Michael Foot (1983) and 1935 is repeating itself again. Corbyn has taken his party into a colossal manifestation of failure. It is a tragedy, but the Jeremy Corbyn plan can not see its delusion or its facile deliberations on the present-day economy. Placing all the blame on the Brexit negotiation and Corbyn has ‘won the argument’ is a fool’s paradise, and sorry and all that, but Jeremey is a fool. Well-intentioned but a fool nevertheless, well I am not so sure about the ‘well-intentioned’ but there we are.
South Wales is one of the few Labour voting constituencies (Bridgend notwithstanding, this is one seat that had gone over to the Tories) – but even these MP’s have lost a lot of their majorities. The rest of Wales had moved over to the Tories (the others, their pens moved with a finite fandangle listening to their grandparents again!), a fine mess that Corbyn has got the people of Wales into! And to cap it, all Mark Drakeford (the leader of the Labour Welsh Assembly) has given his all to Corbyn – lack of judgement here I think, hardly surprising when one thinks of the Labour administration at Cardiff Bay.
The Labour Party is finished unless it gets its act together, we need a strong opposition in order for democracy to take hold. Get rid of Momentum (a far-left clique) and start moving more to the centre ground. Jonathan Lansman (the leader of Momentum) has been a far left individual since time began and if Labour do not get rid of him then so be it. They will end up as a protest party and have no political clout whatsoever. It could be that this is their intent, forget political power but let’s be a far-left cauldron of lefty intent. Who knows, but I have heard this from people of a political persuasion. This is where political theory moves elections. Not too far right, not too far left. Blair had it bang on, the son of Thatcher but he won three elections out right. If Labour vote in a Corbyn look alike then they are finished. I say this with absolute certainty.
The people have decided and there it is. No more Parliamentary equivocation, no more arguments. The people have had they’re way and quite right too. It is about time. Boris rules with a rod of iron but he has not forgotten the North and Midlands have only lent him their votes. He has to convince them that they can trust him. He has five years to prove this – and longer if history is anything to go by.
Now is the time for balance and a steady nerve, let’s just hope that the Tories have both well and truly in hand.
Here is a thing! Evening Post
‘A fascinating read.’ Well, that’s what the presenter on LBC said about my book ‘Not Yet.’ It’s about a 1960’s oil rig disaster for the negligent manufacture of the main structure. It leads to two old friends, a fallen happy go lucky schoolboy and a grieving lawyer, into the rough and tumble chaos of a 1970’s Aberdeen oil boom – sounds like British politics, doesn’t it!
The sudden deaths of those responsible for the rigs collapse, cast a suspicions and dangerous shadow over love and friendship alike. The love affairs between the main players and their girlfriends, one a tough female investigative journalist, and the other a brilliant artist, brings further drama and tension as all those involved try to discover who and what they really are. It’s a good story – well, I’m rattling on about my stuff but no one else is! No one reads anymore (the young ‘uns), so be it but the novel does have implications for climate change and what have you. Have to get that bit in! It is a novel of twists and turns and everything else that one can think of.
I’m not going on about the Election——for now anyway. I should think everyone is getting thoroughly fed up with hearing about it. What the presenters of the various news channels must be thinking, I haven’t a clue. I should think they’re as cheesed off with it as everyone else!
Just a passing note – of great importance, I should say. Plaid Cymru have never been a political party of note and I don’t agree with them on any of their political persuasions, but I must say that their leader, Adam Price, is an impressive chap. He’s sincere and genuine in his beliefs and that is something to be admired. It’s a great pity that more politicians are not of a similar ilk!
I’ll get around to the political shenanigans the next time, the trouble is this has to get in the newspaper before Friday. C’est la vie! Dear me, I’m starting to get in a mess now. Won’t do at all!
The Silver Songster – Evening Post
The ‘Silver Songsters’ is a novel (makes a change from the Election, doesn’t it?) – written by me, so what more can I say? It’s about a Jewish boy, a Welsh compatriot and an evil chorus girl. Love and betrayal drive the book on to an unconventional conclusion. The fact is that it is based on true events in the past. My father in law was rated as the finest contralto soprano on the British Isles, in the 1930’s that is. The Songsters sang all over the British Isles and abroad – Illtyd is still going strong as he’s 97! It’s a good yarn – well, I would say this wouldn’t I?
Anyway, I was doing an interview for BBC Wales at the time – heaven knows what it was about, but there we are. At the time I remember a charming gentleman coming up to me (from the Welsh BBC) and telling me that the book had been passed upwards to do a film on it. A drama would have made a good catch all bit of television. It had come back with a straight “no”, can’t give this Ruck anymore publicity and so on. BBC Wales and its presenters and controllers are up there with the crachach and I’ve criticized them for taking taxpayer grants for books that don’t sell – that’s if they have written any! I can think of one news journalist who hasn’t even written a book but still received a few thousand pounds in taxpayer money from Literature Wales.
I’ve taken the Talfan Davies’s (the father and son controllers of BBC Wales) and numerous employees to task over receiving grants to write books that don’t even sell. That’s not to mention all the Welsh speaking staff at BBC Wales. It a haven of Welsh speaking prowess if ever there was one. I’m not against the Welsh language, never have been, speak whatever language you like, we’re a free country but I’m against the cost to the taxpayer for a language that is only spoken by 10-15 (who can read or write it) percent of the Welsh population. Like other parts of the United Kingdom you can throw money at it but it will never work, full stop. Good luck to Welsh speakers and carry on with the language you enjoy but if you think you’re going to get the whole of Wales speaking it, forget it. Its just like that Welsh water advert – in Welsh!
The nationalist Welsh administration’s target of a third of Wales speaking Welsh by 2050? In your dreams.
An Election? God help us! – Evening Post
So, what is this fuss all about? A new election? This is what happens when political parties cannot agree on anything. Leave or Remain in the EU. The trouble with this is, the people have voted democratically and our great and learned politicos cannot carry out the will of the people. The Remainers are causing chaos and the Leavers just sit tight and wait to see what will happen in a General Election. In fact, it’s all a mess.
The Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Greens and Paid Cymru (there’s nothing much to talk about where Plaid is concerned, they go on about Independence when all of Wales doesn’t want it, they are a joke), the Remainers are forgetting what position they have in Parliament – they are to carry out the will of the people. Pure and simple.
There are scraps going on about how much each party will spend: Labour will spend twice as much as the Tories, a road to financial ruin and the rest are going on about what position they will take if they get into government – a delusion if ever I’ve heard it. I’m not a Leaver in some respects but I believe in the democratic will of the people. They have voted out and that is all there is to it.
The politicians are treating the general public like a load of idiots. Enough of this. When it comes to the practice of mindless idiocy, they go off with the laurels no doubt about it. Particularly when it comes to the juvenile antics of a five-year-old. They ought to grow up and act like adults once and for all.
No matter which way politically you sway, you must vote for the people, otherwise we’ll end up in a political nightmare.
Tory or Marxist Labour? The Tories have their problems, but no-one has gone near the amount of spending that Corbyns’s shadow government has promised. He has been friends with as assorted group of terrorists, he will nationalize everything, and he will not push the button on nuclear attack. If this is what you want, fair enough. I’ll be out of the country if this happens, you can be certain of that.
It’s up to you and remember that Mark Drakeford (the leader of Welsh Labour in the Assembly) is voting for Corbyn even though Wales has voted to leave the European Union – another joke in the offing!
A General Election – Evening Post
On April 20, 1945: Adolf Hitler raises a glass to his fifty-sixth birthday. He won’t celebrate another birthday, not much to regret there then. He caused more chaos and destruction across the world than one can ever imagine. What if? – now, here is a historical question for you, his fifty–sixth birthday was not his last? In other words, he had conquered Gt. Britain and all the other territories he had in mind?
Now, France had given in to his Blitzkrieg, so we were the next. Just across the channel, if you like. I put it to you, and in the words of Churchill, we would have fought Germany on the beaches etc. We would not have given in. We would have fought, fought and fought again, no matter what the loss in human endeavor. These historical questions do raise the odd hint of common forbearance, don’t they? This is basically the difference between the UK and other nationalities of the European Union. We are an island nation; we had fought all the other states of Europe to a standstill in the past. It is this difference if you like, that makes us, so hell bent on being a problem for our European friends……or enemies, depending on which way you look at it. Well, ‘enemies’ is pushing it a bit but there you are. We live in the twenty first century now, so a European war is out of the question. But you take my point – we in the UK are different, just like an Italian is different from a Frenchman.
It comes back to my question. What if Hitler had lived, what if history had got it wrong again? A thought you must admit.
So, to come back to the EU debate, democracy is raising his head again, not at the destructions of the naysayer’s angst. Our MP’s are nothing but a shower of indecision and complacent jack of all trades and most of their time is spent seeing to their own jobs. Get rid of them and let’s have a fresh start. It’s December the 12th like it or not, not one for predictions but I have a feeling that Johnson will walk it, the Opposition parties are in a state of oblivion. Jeremy Corbyn? No chance.
The Gospel according to Ruck you might say, but there is some truth in it. We are in a mess and at last the politicos are doing something about it.
Boris Johnson – Evening Post
The Queen’s Speech? There’s another moment of chaos it would seem. The Opposition had a whale of a time and Boris Johnson had an even greater wallowing in a mire of accusation that teared the Labour party apart in response. Marxist, spendthrift and a general going back to the 1970’s was the gist of his condemnation of the Labour Party. Johnson was having an enormous joke on the disgruntled Corbyn and McDonnel – well, nothing changes with our Parliamentarians does it?
Jokes aside, Corbyn’s speech last week enunciated a plan of political doings, tax raising, nationalizing all industries whatever. If you follow him vote for him, that’s all I can say.
Is there a deal on Brexit or isn’t there? No one knows at the moment but keep your hair on we will soon find out. I have to say – although I am not a fan of Johnson – the man does know how to speak to the ordinary human being, better than May it has to be said. Arms waving, his nose getting straight into the bag of grub. He has a certain passion about him, I have to admit. It wouldn’t surprise if he wins the next general election hands down. As for Corbyn, we’ll just have to wait and see, judging by his Marxist 70’s stand I don’t fancy his chances, but one can never tell, these days anything is possible in politics.
I actually found Parliament following the Queen’s Speech quite invigorating for a change. It was quite polite, all things considered. The Opposition looked tired of it all, not surprising when you think it has taken three and half years to draw an inconclusion on indecision, that’s the way I put it, might as well add to the confusion that everybody feels at the moment! I can’t work out where Labour stands on Brexit and I doubt that anybody can but there we are. The Tories aren’t much better and as for the Lib Dems, well, going against a democratic vote defies any sense of reason one may well have.
Anyway, we shall just have to wait and see. Heaven knows what we will end up with, Brexit or no Brexit but I just have a funny suspicion that our Boris might, just might pull it off. Don’t keep me to this prediction, I’ve only said ‘might pull it off’!
