Saturday 10th April

I'm sitting here thinking what do I have to blog about... and I can't say that anything springs to mind with that instant let's do this, or do that... Villa lost to Chelsea in the FA cup - no Match of the Day on Scottish tv.. bored now.

Boredom. How does one deal with boredom? I could get out my beads and put together a few bookmarks, which I haven't done for a while. When my essay deadlines got to 'breathing on the back of my neck' I closed the shop and haven't re-opened it yet. I should do that but perhaps not until the week after next. I could get a book and read - which I probably will do when I've finished this, but to be honest I'm a tad read out at the mo, I'm currently making my way through.. let me see, Saints and their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul. I feel the urge for something a little bit more fiction-y.
I watched Harry Potter and the whatever it was on the box tonight. Now this was moderately interesting as I hadn't seen it before, and it did strike me that Daniel Radcliff - Harry - hasn't exactly sprung up inch-wise has he. Probably just a slow developer, either that or Ron is now six feet five inches. Perhaps that's a bit more likely! Anyhow it was the usual thing, you know I was going to say Harry gets into trouble, Harry gets rescued, Harry goes home from school. But it wasn't really, I suppose because they're getting towards the end and Harry must at some point kill off Voldermort? Does Harry kill Voldermort? I'm fairly sure I must have read the last book, but it hasn't stuck that well in my memory. Actually I'm presently re-reading Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, which is very good indeed. Genly Ai is in Mishnory, and he and the ex-Prime Minister are about to have to make a run for the ice. Anyone who's read this will know what I'm talking about, and those of you who haven't - who knows, you might be sufficiently mystified to find out! Ok, not, but you know what I mean.

But of course the very mention of the words Prime Minister - whether ex or not, brings me to the election. Yes. Very yes indeed. Picture me frowning here, drawing in the metaphorical breath, and letting it out with great slowness. I have to physically restrain myself, because they make me so Goddam Angry!!!!! No I can't this is the third time I've deleted what comes below because I don't want to make personal remarks that might offend - you see that's the sort of person that I am. In part it's why I hate this campaign, the offensiveness of it all. The fact that these people - from all sides, I'm not being favouritist about this, a good lot of them from pretty much all sides, seem to think it's acceptable behaviour to insult each other, and each other's opinions in loud voices. I wouldn't find that acceptable behaviour in a person that I knew, and if someone persisted in doing it in front of me, I would likely as not, eventually tell them so. If I was forced to continue associating with them, that is, the most likely result first and foremost is that I wouldn't continue to associate with them. Every one has a right to say what they think, but they should do so calmly, and without insulting the person whose opinions they are criticising. Critique is a valuable skill that can take a bit of learning, in an academic setting, and all of these people have some degree of education, why can't they practise what they've been taught? And can someone tell me why, or even when, it became acceptable to fight a general election campaign whilst avoiding telling the truth about what you intend to do should you be elected? God knows, every time Brown starts suggesting that Labour intend to reform the House of Lords, I find myself asking well didn't you say you were going to do that back in 1997, and wasn't that one of the reasons, if not the chief reason that I personally became very un-fond of Blair, and very hopeful that Brown would carry out the mandate that I was under the impression that he had been given? I fully expected Labour to go a good way towards dissolving the Lords entirely, and turn it into a fully elected house but no, apparently not. So I don't get best pleased when they bring it up because I'm reasonably sure that they've got no intentions of actually doing this should they be elected, and it's a ploy to the Lib Dems should they find themselves in a hung parliament. As for the idea that Brown might bring in proportional representation, well I'm reasonably sure that I've heard him dismiss the idea in the past. I could be wrong, he might have had an epiphany, but I doubt it.

As for the Tories.. don't get me started. The amount of what might be described as tactical untruths that they are coming out with at the moment is beyond belief. Why exactly should I, a single woman, who has been single all of her life, spend my tax pounds on supporting married couples? I'm almost tempted to say that should such a thing happen, I shall try to refuse, or reclaim it. I think it's an appalling, disgusting, divisive idea. I think it shows exactly what sort of people you're dealing with here, people who like the idea that some sort of ceremony makes a difference. It's so 1950s. Worse, it's 1940s. Incidentally if you're out there spluttering that they say they're going to pay for it with a banking surcharge, let me remind you that that's going to happen what, once? If they had any intention of continuing a surcharge on over a long term period, they'd go for the Robin Hood tax, which would at least do some good.
And the Lib Dems. I'm not entirely sure why they didn't elect Vince Cable as leader, but I feel it's another example of them shooting themselves in the foot, probably - must have been a result of the Ming debacle. Mind you, had they done so - elected Vince Cable that is, then he wouldn't have been able to be a potential chancellor in a hung parliament, which is what I for one, am devoutly hoping for. We're up the river, and the paddle's floating out of view, with rapids to the left of us, brambles to the right, and sharks snapping at the sinking canoe. We all know this people. We know that there will have to be massive cuts to public services, but I'll be damned if I don't point out that the Conservatives are the natural representatives of the very people who got us into this mess in the first place, not the Labour Party, but the bloody bankers. They keep droning on about their list of business leaders who support them, and the Labour Party left it to the LibDems to remind people that these are people who earn millions of pounds, and are now telling you loudly that £15 a month is too much for them to pay to keep you in work. Thats the reality behind all this. It makes me sick, it really does, the longer this goes on the less I feel like actually voting at all, but that won't stop me. And to be really honest, although I'd like to say you should go vote Labour, I'd rather that you actually go and vote for the Tories rather than not vote at all. Do that and we could end up with the BNP, and that frankly will give me apoplexy. I shall stop now...