Speaking of Blair - as I was in my last post - and somehow I wish I hadn't mentioned the name, but I recall the false dawn of 1997 when his New Labour replaced the dreadful Tory Party in government in the UK. We were ecstatic. Then came the sad realisation that Blair and his crew were even more right-wing, devious, miliaristic and imperialist than the Conservatives. I know that the election of Barack Obama is of much greater significance than even what we expected from the change of goverment on the UK - it is of fundamental importance to African Americans, to black people worldwide and to the people of the World that an intelligent, well educated and humane person is about to take the most powerful job on the planet: I just hope it will not be a false dawn.

I, for one, am optimistic that it will not be such.

It really is a bit rich for Tony Blair - of all people - to be advising President-Eelect Obama about the importance of peace in the Middle East. The gall of the man - Blair should be in the Hague answering charges for war crimes for the illegal invasion of Iraq, the pointless and tragic involvement of British forces in Afghanistan and his support of the muderous Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Hey, it's over a year and a half since I posted to this blog. I suppose I've been doing other things. Got a degree. Thinking about taking an MA in creative writing - oh yeh, and I've been writing off-line - mainly short stories and poetry. Will start structuring a novel soon. Haven't given up the day job, in fact it's going fairly well - touch wood. I'm less exercised about politics, I suppose. Can't solve many of the world's problems here. Haven't given up though. Hope Barak gets elected in the States. Wish we would get a summer here - two bad years in a row. Going to Ghana for two weeks soon - first time to sub Saharan Africa.

Blair Again
I haven't posted for along time - suppose I was thinking, what's the point? I'd forgotten quite how much T Blair really annoyed me since he'd left the scene. Well, he featured on this recollection of his premiership on last night's tv.
What an arrogant, self-righteous prat he is! He was even worse than I remembered. Talk about 'The Divine Right of Kings'. This obnoxious little fucker said ' don't care how many people protest, so long as I do what I consider to be right [they can all go fuck themselves]. This, in reference to the largest public protest in British history. He is truly vile. He said this in relation to the Israeli carnage of innocents in Lebanon and the endless injustices in Iraq, commencing with the invasion itself.This kind of self-righteousness was present in Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. What a nasty piece of shit. If there was any justice in this world, he would be taken to the Hague in leg irons.

It seems that no preparation has been made by pubs for the introduction of the new legislation banning smoking in public places on July 1st. Are smokers simply going to be expected to go out on to the already crowded streets and further clog up the thoroughfare? A minority of pubs have beer gardens that can be used for this purpose - which seems a bit unfair to the non-smoker who wants to enjoy the outdoors in the hot summer - but most have absolutely no facilities for dealing with the outflow of customers, who will have to leave the premises temporarily to comply with the law. To quote a recent hit, 'I predict a riot'.

The Cult of Celebrity
Dear reader, you may have noticed that I have a counter at the bottom of this page. Most people know that this will give some statistical information on the the visitors that arrive at the blog, including what searches they have used to get here. I find if I mention certain celebrity writers such as Zadie Smith, Ian McEwen, Martin Amis, Jordan - well maybe not - but we'll see - and Jeffrey Archer - sorry he's not a writer; he's a storyteller - according to himself, just like Aesop...in your dreams, Jeff - I get a lot of 'hits' . Still, you see what I'm getting at: it's not the media that should be blamed, or the papparazi for the phenomenon of celebrity, it's the general pubic. Bet I get a load of old wankers - jerk offs - for that last misspelling! Much as I detest Murdoch and his ilk, they are only filling the gap - Oh matron! nudge, nudge,wink, wink - that the reader craves.

People outside America like me find it very hard to understand how the American people can elect someone like George W Bush. He appears to us to be a bigoted, dim-witted redneck.

I recently found myself idly channel-surfing TV in Britain. I landed on a 'reality' show called Celebrity Big Brother. Some older middle-aged American called Dirk who was in the 70's show The A Team was explaining that he supports Bush. He came from Montana and was one of the 'majority of Americans' who lived in small towns. He didn't relate to the folks who lived in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or any of the other big cities. He seemed to be talking about a mythic 1950's lifestyle of 'My Three Sons' or 'The Lucille Ball Show'. It that what the Bush support is like? If so, they really need to wake up and realise the damage they are doing to the world with their militaristic and environmental devastation.

Isn't ignorance bliss?