Socialist chanting

I've long been a fan of Darren Hayman. He was in a spiffingly brilliant band called Hefner. I was reminded of his work upon discovering the existence of David Woodcock another fine singer/songwriter from Essex. I've always loved the strand of quintessentially English style of music that mostly blossoms in and emanates from the Essex/London area. A style that no doubt had its roots in music hall but was defined by the Kinks and the Small Faces and then via Ian Dury, Dr Feelgood, The Kursaal Flyers, Sham 69, The Members, Billy Bragg, Depeche Mode, Billy Bragg, Blur, The Libertines and many , many more.

Anyway back to the business in hand; one of Darren Hayman's recent projects has been to produce a musical offering based on a pamphlet of Socialist chants by William Morris. The left most certainly has the best music:

Boredom boredom uh hum, bur dum bur dum

Being bored shows a lack of imagination. If you are bored then you are clearly not capable of thinking. Boredom is a lazy state of mind.

Musarpial

I was fortunate enough to see the fantastically brilliant Courtney Barnett play live twice last year; once for free at Rough Trade in February and the again down our street in May. Not only is she a clever and talented songwriter but her three-piece band is as tight and complete as you'd need. What's she like? well apart from musically being the 'dogs bollocks' you could consider Jake Bugg to be her mirror image; that's a deeper concept than you might think at first observation. She's a fully rounded songwriter and performer. And, the GOOD NEWS is she's got a new album coming out this year. I can hardly wait!

Tory 'values'

Conservative 'values' are built on greed, oppression and inequality. Tories, whatever their hue, be it blue or purple, are the bully boys of British politics. And people are gullible enough to believe them and vote for them.

If you repeat a lie often enough people will start to believe it. It's how the rich remain in control and maintain their supremacy.

A Tories raison d'être is to ensure that blame is always assigned down the socio-economic scale; divide, conquer and exploit. Tory politics is nothing but evil.

The real meaning of Christmas

Today is the reason why we have Christmas. The fact that we've now ended up with the wrong day shows the true ability of the ruling classes to fool the masses. Any other reason for this festive season is just a con.

The U word

I firmly believe that there's no such thing as ugly. Although as a spotty youth I would never have agreed with that statement. At the time I firmly believed that I was the ugliest soul in Christendom; in fact I was convinced of it. After all it was why girls never fancied me. It didn't seem to occur to me that the real reason was because I was a shy, charmless nurk.

Ugly is a state of mind, an unnecessary state of mind. No one is ugly, there is beauty in everyone. The secret is to liberate that inner beauty and learn to love yourself. There are no benchmarks for beauty. Beauty cannot be dictated by the media. Beauty, like art, is in the eye of the beholder. If you look in the mirror and see yourself as ugly then you are not looking the right way. Instead imagine you are someone else looking over your shoulder. See yourself in a new light. As others see you. There will always be many who see you as beautiful. Trust that majority and not you the minority.

Abrogation

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."*

George Orwell

It's almost a year since I was told that the site I worked at was closing and I was being made redundant. When I first heard the news, which came as very little surprise, I felt a sense of relief. But as the saying goes 'be careful what you wish for'. As the days and weeks passed my future seemed very uncertain. I had everything planned and the rug was pulled from beneath me, or that's how it felt.

Rejection is a terrible thing. It's something that I've feared and had to deal with the fear all my life. Over the last year rejection seems to have been with me most of the time. There are little rays of hope then the way forward is covered up and all goes dark again; the pain in the black moments is unbearable. The constant question rings out 'what have I done to deserve this?'

Rejection wears you down. It saps your strength and will to carry on. I try never to judge, and equally I don't care for being judged by others. You never get over rejection but to survive you have to learn to put it behind you and get on with life. I bear no malice to those that have rejected me.

Thankfully I now have a job, which affords me some stability. It is a job I enjoy. It's been a very long time since I've had a job I enjoyed. I count my blessings. Sometimes we need to do that. It helps to soothe the scars and the residual pain. Forward, there is only forward.

*It's a nightmare, fear on a loop. A bad dream that you never wake up from. A door slamming in your face over and over again. That's rejection.

Me