TV

Every time I mention that I’m on the TV or in a newspaper, the views just  rocket upwards –  without a comment. Funny that.

Leanne Wood

Let’s be honest here, Leanna Wood is a genuine soul and sincere, the trouble is she’s too far left. Leaving this aside, let’s just take her party conference. A speech made from her heart and with a good lump of determined Plaid endeavour. Nothing wrong with this, it’s what political parties are all about. Whist I disagree with her on a number of points, I have to give her full marks – and to hell with the rumbles of discontent amongst her party. She will be at the electoral hustings next time, whenever that is!

Leanne Wood is at the Community stage, all citizens of Wales should be involved in their local community. This is fine but I’m still trying to work out what a ‘community’ is, but this is my problem, so don’t any of you get your pants in a twist. As for a second referendum? A misinterpretation of the EU debacle in all its glory.

Reading between the lines, that bulk of the speech was about ‘hope’. Hope for a better future and hope for a standalone Wales. Now this bothered me. Was she embarking on independence or not? An independent Wales or something else?

Well, Plaid hasn’t dropped its Wales can go it alone, has it? Independence? In your dreams.

The Welsh Assembly has had 20 years of power and they haven’t done much with it. Education, NHS, Social Services and the economy are all down. Plaid has 4 MP’s and 10 AM’s, not much you can do with this is there? Nevertheless, you have to give them this:

They are, with Leanne Wood as their Leader, a resilient lot, you have to give them that, but I have to hand it to them, they are a force to be reckoned with. Who knows, they might achieve a certain media attention if they carry on in this vein, politics is in a right mess at the moment so who knows.

Like all the political parties, I wish them well in their individual endeavours. It’s not the trumped up politicos that need to worry, it’s we the people that need to concern ourselves. Who is serving us, and this is the key word ‘serving’.

They are there to do our bidding, not the other way around. And the sooner the political class realises this the better.

‘Hope’ is a strange word. It can mean many things to many different people. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that it has some meaning to those in the institutions that govern us. If it doesn’t, then we are in a fine pickle.

Leanne Wood was right to go on about ‘hope’, and working on a till in front of loads of people, is the best way to start a political career. She knows about the common good.

I don’t like some of her policies, but I respect her.

ITV/S4C

I did an interview on the above – two days of exchanging malcontent! Anyway, the staff were kind and considerate.

Alun Davies (the Welsh Assembly Minister for Welsh Affairs) was, shall I say, slow to answer my questions but there we are.

You can watch the interview on Tuesday night. Observe Ruck being  sown up like a kipper!

Storm Brian

Who the hell thought that one up! Christ it’s given me a laugh! I know Brian is a popular name but well……. 

Evening Post – An Israeli Adventure

What about a change of circumstance? There’s nothing like a breather from the EU and politics in general – there are times when I get a tad bored with it but there we are. I’m thinking more about telling you lovely people about the antics I had while travelling the world – I mean it too, I’ll tell you I’ve done some boot legging in my time, not the nonsense of student travel! All booze, drugs and nothing seen or nowhere to go. Well, the booze…….?

It’s was about 35 odd years ago – showing my age now aren’t I? I was showing considerable interest in some Israeli artefacts in Tel Aviv, I can hear some of you shouting ‘as if’ etc etc but bear with me. It was a fine day as I remember, all sun and tanned bodies running around everywhere. I was at peace with the world – probably the bottle of Arak I had hidden in a pocket had something to do with this, what was I saying about the booze?

After a couple of swigs of God’s nectar, I sat down on a park bench and considered the situation I was in. Far from home and skint, not a shekel to my miserable name. Nothing but me and a bottle of Arak. Well, there was no hope for me was there? And apart from anything else I was hungry, my stomach was shouting for some grub. So I sat there and wondered what I could do about this sorry mess I was in. Religion was out of the question, God was not going to help this insult to the human race!

Time dragged on and so did the bottle – the only salvation ready to open its arms to me. I got up, I grumbled and started to make my way to the bars, restaurants and some deliverance. Heaven knows what I was going to do but there was a chance, you never know and all that.

I passed a restaurant and saw some lamb chops staring at me. The surly lumps of meat made my tummy jump. I had to have some……now! I sat at down at a table and ordered those lamb chops and a salad. It came, I saw, I conquered, Julius Caesar time but forgive me. I’d gone to Heaven with a bottle of Arak, what a way to go.

It was time to pay. I didn’t and shot off down an alleyway and mingled with the crowd. Job done, as they say.

After half an hour I felt hungry again – I’m not joking here. And what did I do? Found a restaurant and did the same thing again – tried to anyway. Next thing a fancy jeep pulls up alongside my table. Some soldiers leapt out and shoved me in the back of the jeep. I’d gone back to the same place as  I’d done a runner from. That’s Arak for you!

Well, this is it I thought. Now, you might be thinking this is the end of Ruck but here’s the thing. The officer in charge was an old Cambridge student. I explained my desperation and he sympathised, bought me a packet of fags too.

Israel is a fine place, be in no doubt about it. An Arab gave me some shekels too, to get some food.

There’s a moral in here somewhere.         

 

 

Labour

The polls are now showing a clear lead in the election – Corbyn is in! Now I know this will address the Labour Party concerns, trials and tribulations etc but will it happen? The Polls have been wrong so many times before that I don’t see any point in relying on them – take 1000 people and show which way they will exercise their political angst is anybody’s guess!

No, the polls aren’t worth a light.

Labour is promising all kinds of handouts. Money for this, money for that and all paid for by the Corporations. Well, guess what’s going happen? Once the tax bill is on the table, the Companies will take off and that’s that. It’s easy enough to do these days and we don’t even know what the EU is going to look like.

So what are we going to do with this black hole? Borrow is one way out and Labour is all for borrowing – it’s what has got us into this mess in the first place, look at Browns no more borrowing or busting that didn’t get us very far did it? In fairness to Brown and Blair they didn’t go as far left as the Marxist Labour Party. Look at McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor no less? If there’s a run on the pound we’ll see to it. Oh they’ll see to it alright, the country will be skint again!

What’s happened to all the main players of the Labour Party, that was? In the Party Conference I didn’t see any of them sitting beside Corbyn. He’s has wiped them out. All those with the experience and judgement of office, have gone. There was a time when I used to be impressed by Blair (or Brown) but now? The Labour Party has gone so far to the left that they remind me of a Party in utter chaos.

And people want to vote for them.

Call me a Blairite, but and here’s the thing, we didn’t go bust over him. Corbyn will lead us down a path of social delusion, Marxist prevarication and a Communist free state – British style. Vote for him by all means, but don’t moan when it all goes wrong. If he manages to become Prime Minister I’m off, and so will a hell of lot of other people – although I have been that for some time, pastures new again etc etc.

Wales might well be Labour to its core but there are limits and Corbyn has reached this limit. Now is the time for sensible Labour voters to stand up and be counted…..that’s if their fathers don’t get in the way! Where we would be without the political thinking of the Welsh!

Where indeed.       

Oxwich and all that!

I thought I would take you off to another part of Swansea – nothing like a change of circumstance, Oxwich no less! The Bay with all the parts that people refuse to discuss, they just take it for granted. Anyway, I went there for lunch the other day with a friend of mine – he tells me that no other Bay had been photographed as much as the beachy splendour that crashed into our eyes. If you believe that you’ll believe anything, I think between you and me he had had too many gin and tonics, but what a way to go!

We ordered a mix of sea food, cockles, mussels and King prawns and laid into it like a couple of seafarers who had gone without any grub for the last two weeks. It was a delight. We discussed what was the attraction of visiting Oxwich, sands and all that. For me, it was the memories of old loves. Being locked away in a caravan for two weeks while it rained and tipped down the heavens upon us, we two that is. You might think this is Ruck getting all boring on us now, but we found plenty to do, like I say it was just the two of us. Scrabble one night, Cluedo the other, a bit tedious but there we are. This was in the ’70’s so forgive me, times were a bit different then.

My friend was a bit nostalgic about Oxwich. He went into a downer about ex-wives breast feeding in a car park and so on. Ex-wives? I changed the subject as quick as possible, I know enough about ‘ex’s’ to write a play about it!

So there we are. We had some food in a rather plush hotel and looked at the Bay and remembered. The force of circumstance had taken me back to my youth and all the predicaments that accompany it. The girls, the booze and the general feeling of being broke all the time. I was student then, with all the social awareness of doing it all. It was a time of expectation and anticipating a wonderful new life.

Things turned out differently, but do I look back with regret? No. Some but little of what I would call ‘regret’. I would have done things in a different way, possibly with hindsight. Oxwich brought back a balance. A levelling of what might have been.

And this is what we old ‘uns always think isn’t it? We no longer pretend or escape into a mess of delusion. We accept what is and hope to God we have got it right. It is far beyond us to reach any conclusion about this, only time will tell.