Falling apart at the seams

Sometimes...

...I think that I'm just out of step with the times. And sometimes I think I'm ahead of the times.  But then again, I'm not so sure of trusting anything I think anymore.

The last election is a good example, I think. Now, maybe my critical faculty is going but I read through the manifestos of both the Conservative and Labour parties and I could barely detect a difference.  Navy Blue vs Blue, say.  There was the odd difference, sure, but it was the same broad outline.

But all the media had it as "a real choice".  "A real difference". Labour are "anti-business"! Only the Conservatives know how to run the economy!  Labour won't let the NHS be privatised (let's ignore the PFI contracts that were set up under Labour for now)! The Tories will sell your granny's kidneys to rich oligarchs for spares! etc.

Were they right?  If Labour had been elected, would everything have changed?  Would anyone have really even noticed?

I suppose I just wanted a quiet life.

So, to continue from wherever I was last time,

I was earning more money than I could spend (well, within my very strictured conventions (I reckon I could be described as - to use the immortal words of The Great Leader - "prudent" - with money) but had no time to spend it. The whole thing just seemed pointless as an exercise.  I've no kids, it's not like I've people depending on me for money after I'm dead.  I'd sooner trade the money for the time.

OK, I did that in a pretty drastic way and still have no idea where it's going.

But at least that's exciting and I'm out of the rut.

Were I to act the pessimist I'd say "out of one rut and into another" but that's not yet been proved. At least I think I might be glimpsing that thing people call "fun" again, even if I'm not actually doing it right now.

This is going to be interesting to read back in a few years' time...

Blatter!

To the surprise of absolutely no-one,

Sepp Blatter has got his fifth term.  As I've mentioned, that's an irrelevance really.  He may well be the head of FIFA but I reckon that FIFA will have largely been dismantled by this time next week, in which case being the head of FIFA won't count for much.

I do hope the fallout is spectacular.

This isn't real, is it?

From the Guardian website:

"The Home Office said that one of the main elements of the psychoactive substances bill would be a ban on the trade in "any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect", with a maximum seven-year prison sentence to back up the ban.

But it quickly added that "substances such as alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, food and medicinal products would be excluded from the scope of the offence".

Basically this bill is being introduced to ban "legal highs", something like the Federal Analog Act in the US.  I'm going to write a really, really, really tl bit about this whole thing, but for the moment I'll just sit and sadly shake my head.

Well, so far...

This thing speaks for itself, I think: