Thatcher: The Pop Sensation

I wonder what it all looks like to the rest of the world, but here in the UK we are a nation divided over Thatcher's death - the pop music charts are  quite bizarre at the moment with Judy Garland's Ding, Dong The Witch is Dead at NO 1 (The song had sold nearly 11,000 copies by Tuesday night) while two other Thatcher based songs are in the top ten, The Day that Thatcher dies by Hefner and another version of Ding Dong the Witch is Dead by Elsa Fitzgerald is just bothering the top ten.

Though you wouldn't believe it by watching the media and the BBC have been broadcasting what can only be described as propaganda as pundits go on

and on about what a great leader she was. And next week Thatcher's £10million funeral will be broadcast across the world and the UK will be depicted as a country in deep mourning.

That couldn't be more false, despite what the media say.

It's not mentioned of how Thatcher ordered the bombing of a retreating ship during the Falklands conflict, or of her homophobic clause 28 - The amendment stated that a local authority"shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship. Of the way the miners were treated during the strike, of her deregulating the banks and selling off almost anything that moved and look at where that's gotten us.

I really don't want to get political but all I can speak about is what I saw with my own eyes. I remember being stopped by the police and turned back because we were travelling to support miners on the picket line. This was another result of Thatcher's revolution - the police were out of control and on times were deliberately provoking the miners so that the news reports could show violent images of striking miners, and public sympathy which was originally with the miners was soon lost. The police clocked up many  hours of overtime during the strike and I, myself, remember a police officer bragging about the size of his pay check, during a demonstration at Coedely Coke Ovens.

During Thatcher's rule divorce rates reached 13.4 per 1,000 married population in 1985, and unemployment shot up under the Conservatives to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Unemployment is still high but then with so little industry left things are unlikely to improve - yet another legacy of this so called great, Prime Minister.

You see that Thatcher revolution was a war plain and simple - a war on the working classes and although she brought wealth to many, she certainly destroyed many many more. She ended the family unit and created a country where families could no longer be supported on the one wage. In our post Thatcher Britain it is often the case that both parents have to work, and children are brought up around long working hours.


Thatcher was eventually brought down not be striking miners, or protesters but by her own party - and yet those that turned against here are among those in the news giving such glowing tributes. It's sickening and at least those who are celebrating Thatcher's death, although it may seem crass and tasteless, are sticking to their convictions.


I was brought up in a working class family in an industrial country and Thatcher was always the enemy to us. I was fourteen years old when she came to power and a couple of years later when I left school I entered a very troubled country, and it would soon get worse...much worse.

You don't mourn when your enemy dies, you rejoice.

Am I a Trekkie Now

I've always been something of a casual Star Trek fan - I've seen most of both the original series and The Next Generation at one time or another. And I always get around to watching the movies, once or twice at the cinema but mostly on DVD. I quite enjoy the show but certainly don't follow it religiously - Deep Space 9, the third Star Trek series, was another I quite liked but to this day I have not seen the entire run. Voyager and Enterprise, I've seen very little of.

Which leads me to - a week or so ago I saw a box set of the entire seven seasons of DS9 that had been discounted to a crazy low price. I had to snap it up and I've started watching the series from scratch, intending to eventually get all seven seasons under my belt. At the moment I'm a quarter of the way through season 2 and have just watched the episode in which Sisko is lusting after the elusive sexy alien bird. I'm told that the DS9 was at its best from season three onwards, but I've quite enjoyed what I've seen thus far and at the rate I'm watching the discs I'll likely get through the entire thing in a month or two.

On the strength of what I've seen thus far the strongest characters seem to be Odo and Quark, though Doctor Bashir is coming into his own. I've seen some episodes from later seasons and I know that character becomes something of a double act with O'Brian but there not much sense of that in these early episodes. I also find that Sisko, supposedly the lead character, is very underdeveloped and isn't at all as interesting as others in the cast. This would of course change as the series went on.

However from what I've seen so far I think the second season was an improvement on the first - the season started with an excellent three part story that saw the space station itself at peril, and since then there's been some great episodes. Rules of Acquisition was a firm favourite for me but then it would be given that it is a Ferengi storyline and I do so enjoy the Ferengi.


Ahh well I'll be back with another batch of DS9 thoughts after I've gotten through a couple of more seasons. Who knows by then I may be wearing a Star Trek shirt and speaking Klingon.

Live long and prosper

I blame Fifty Shades....

The Fifty Shades saga which sold squillions and squillions of books may have a lot to answer for - this week a Doctor in China wrote on her blog of a man who, presumably unable to find a butt plug, almost died after sticking an eel up his rear end. The creature went and ate part of his colon.

Story goes that the 39-year-old man was doing a bit of drinking when he concluded that it might be nice to let a live swamp eel swim up his rectum.

Needless to say, it damn near killed 'him.

According to the doctor, the 20" eel gnawed its way through the man's colon into his body, causing massive internal bleeding.

"The eel was simply trying to find its way out," another doctor is quoted as saying.

Happily, surgeons who worked through the night to extract the fish from the man's gut were able to save his life.

Shockingly, the eel survived the ordeal as well, though it didn't stick around for long.

One Japanese news outlet reports that the story of the man's misadventure has generated much conversation in his native land, along with many "LOLs."

Mobile Reading

Look behind you

The Hobbit (DVD)

I found The Hobbit a better viewing experience on DVD than I did when I saw it in the cinema - it still felt bloated, and took an age to get going, but the fact that I could relax at home, allowing the movie to play out on my home cinema system meant that I didn't find it such a grind. 

 Of course my expectations were high when I originally went to see the movie on the big screen. I was expecting another Middle Earth masterpiece from Jackson, so  no wonder I was pissed off. The Hobbit is far less of a movie than any of the Jackson's other three Middle Earth movies.

With the Hobbit Jackson seems to have traded artistic integrity for the lure of big money, and the affects of stretching such a slim story into three epic length bank account bulging movies, is evident when sitting through the Hobbit - or rather An Unexpected Journey which is the first of the three movies Jackson has made based around Tolkein's novel. Of course I suppose the ultimate judgement will be passed when all three movies have been released, but judging on this first part there's going to be a lot of tedium involved. I remember when I first saw Fellowship of the Ring and I couldn't wait for the next movie, but as for the Hobbit I think I'll wait for the DVD next time.

Mind you Martin Freeman is excellent as Bilbo and the second 90 minutes of the movie is absolutely thrilling, but the problem is that overall the movie is just so damn boring. I consider Jackson's original Middle Earth trilogy to be cinematic masterpieces that will live forever, but the Hobbit is just a poor imitation. 

Maybe Jackson's lost it - after all his King Kong didn't exactly meet expectations, and his The Lovely Bones was not the artistic powerhouse he so obviously hoped for.

Ahh well, let's hope the next movie is better.

Ding, Dong the Witch is dead!

Today an old lady died and many in the UK saw this as a reason to celebrate, and whilst I haven't been dancing in the streets I did feel a smile upon hearing the news that Thatcher was dead.

Does that make me twisted?

 Of course I'm not pleased than an old lady passes away but at the same time I feel no sorrow - I am one of the generation that felt Thatcher's regime - I left school the year of the miner's strike. I remember having to visit a local food bank and I recall my mother crying in desperation. I also remember my father, a working man, desperate to return to work but unable to because of Thatcher's war on the working classes. I saw the working classes divided and I found myself, leaving school, and not being able to find work and having to take part in the first ever government scheme. I also remember the poll tax riots and seeing the police being turned on ordinary people. During the strike the police were a law unto themselves and this was down to Thatcher who mobilized the entire police force against the miners.

She did so much more than go against the miners, though - so much more but most of it was negative to all but the elite few at the top of the social ladder.



Many are saying she was the greatest PM the UK has ever seen - I think that's bollocks! The housing crisis, unemployment and wayward banks of today are all results of the Thatcher years. It was Thatcher who deregulated the banks, Thatcher who sold off Britain's interests - these days our utilities are foreign owned and we pay through the nose for them. The woman sold off Britain, destroyed entire communities and created the welfare culture.



So do I feel sorrow at her passing? Well how can I?