Stress relief

I acquired half a dozen stress balls from work today; or at least from the marketing department. It was all for a good cause, namely to distract my seven year old daughter whilst I settled down to the serious task of vegetating on the sofa.

"Are they juggling balls?" she asked.

"They're stress balls" I half heartedly explained, "If you find yourself getting annoyed then you give the ball a squeeze".

"Really?" Upon which she put on her best 'angry face', squeezed the ball and sighed "They're really good!"

Twenty minutes, and several stress balls flying across the room, later… "LAUREN!" I exclaim, "Calm down!"

To which she picks up a couple of the balls, walks over to me and says.

"Here you are Daddy", and handing me a ball; "You look like you're getting annoyed…"

Then she adds…

"In fact you'd better have two."

Golden (Gordon) Brown

Somewhat paradoxically, though I have little time for socialism (it's a long story) I have some sympathy for the Prime Minister - because unlike many of the sell-outs in New Labour, he really is a socialist. No really, he is; it's just he hasn't come out of the closet with regard to his feelings. He has to rely on hideously complicated tax schemes, such as family credits, to redistribute wealth and thus hint at his true nature.

Poor bloke; he hankered after his dream job for years only to find it sullied by his predecessor. The wrongs of Tony Blair were hung around Gordon's neck and the public were determined to make him pay. Thus, despite not being entirely responsible, he found himself unpopular to begin with… and it went downhill from there. The soaring cost of food and fuel, again not his fault, only served to make him more disliked; a Jonah for the nation.

Therefore, having previously been a Chancellor of the Exchequer for so long, the current financial crisis might seem like the last thing he needs; but it could prove to be his salvation. This is a crisis so large that it's managed to make us forget, albeit temporarily, about 'minor' problems such as keeping warm in the winter or how we can afford to eat. What this country needs is a saviour; someone to rescue us from this mess. We are caught in the light of a global financial meltdown and we'll kiss the feet of anyone who can pull us out of the way. Never mind that he put us there in the first place.

It is a democracy, dammit!

If you listen long enough you can hear the bleat of the political sore loser. Unable to accept the result of a past election they will scatter around terms such as oligarchy, plutocracy or even 'elected dictatorship' to decry the democracy they live in. Indeed they will do their level best to suggest it isn't a democracy at all.

I'll not deny that government can often appear by the wealthy and for the benefit of the few; but it is we the people who put them there. Admittedly some democratic systems are better than others. The 'first past the post' system of Britain has far more potential than any 'proportional' system for representation that cares more about it's constituency than the party to which they belong.

However I'm not arguing about which voting system is best. I'm arguing that we have a vote. The first vote of the U.S. House of Representatives to reject the recent financial bail-out plan is a great example of this. In opposition to an all-party leadership there were some who rejected the plan as the backdoor to socialism (God forbid!), but most rejected the bill because there are elections around the corner; their electorate had told them exactly what they could do with it. I didn't agree with that initial result, but it shouldn't be sneered at - it is something to applaud.

The point is we don't just have a vote; we can let others know how we're going to use it. If there's no one worth voting for then campaign on the issue you believe in or run for office yourself. I'm not suggesting it's easy, it isn't; but before you're tempted to use the words oligarchy and plutocracy again, you ought to look up the word apathy.

The point of it all (prologue)

So it's the start of another long trying week and I've got this stupid Paul McCartney song looping in my head when all I really want to do is write. But even with a messed up economy, the looming U.S. presidential elections and the urge to write something meaningful, I'm finding it very difficult to get motivated. Despite these choice topics I can't spark myself into action; they're all too damn depressing.

I'm also finding it physically difficult as I'm having trouble breathing. I think it's some kind of mild asthma similar to that which I use to have as a child; only back then it was always after some strong physical exertion. This time it appears to be stress related; I get back home and it slowly builds up over the evening so that by the time I'm ready for bed I'm gulping in the air.

So it's the start of another long trying week and I've got this stupid Paul McCartney song looping in my head. I'd quite like to write something meaningful, but whilst I've got these loose ideas swimming around I can't seem to hook them together. I wonder if I'll ever get to part one.

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy

Back in the 1980's I was such a zealous advocate of free market economics, even Adam Smith would have run for cover. Just as my socialist friends were convinced of an infinite number of rich people to tax, I was certain that an unencumbered market would lead us all to greater prosperity. I suppose to some extent we were both wrong. Even the Labour party no longer believes in the "infinite number of rich people" and the turmoil in the financial markets means I'd be brave, or perhaps off my head, to suggest that deregulation has been a total success.

Despite this I'm still a capitalist at heart though it's not always a particularly edifying sight. Greed is one of those unpleasant by-products that we all have to live with. I never particularly cared about fat cats on obscene salaries so long as the overall wealth of the country increased. Ultimately, I reasoned, if the fat cats got too greedy their business would fail and be replaced by something leaner and more able to contribute to the economy.

However in a bizarre twist, rather than letting the crap financial institutions go to the wall the U.S. government is preparing a rescue to the tune of $700 billion. This appears almost, dare I say it, socialist. True, there's no nationalisation of the industry but bailing out useless businesses use to be the preserve of British governments of the 60's and 70's. Has the world gone mad?

Actually, no; it's not madness… it's desperation. No matter how bad the business, how revolting the excesses (the head of the troubled Lehmann Brothers had a $10-$20 million bonus last year depending on which paper you read), to let a bank fail has the potential to collapse the financial markets. This isn't a case of the rich protecting the rich; if the financial market collapses then we're all screwed – businesses everywhere will fail, unemployment will be rampant.

Distasteful though it might seem; we can't afford to do nothing. But at a cost exceeding $2000 dollars per man, woman and child in the United States, it's one hell of a price to pay.

Shepherd's f**king pie

I hate Shepherd's pie. I have mentioned this on numerous occasions, though I try to be more tactful. Usually I've said something along the lines of "I don't particularly care for it", or "it's not my favourite dish", but it turns out I've been wasting my time. I was asked to pick up some potatoes on the way home yesterday - never suspecting they'd be used as weapons against me.

Whilst sitting at the table, wondering what I'd done wrong, I was reminded of a similar incident I'd experienced as a child. I was once invited to dinner at the house of my best friend and was rewarded with a lime green mousse for dessert. It was possibly the worst thing I'd ever tasted and took me an age to force down.

"Did you like that?" asked his mother when I'd finished.

"Lovely, thank you", I replied - for I had excellent manners.

"Well you'd better finish it off", she said as she emptied the contents of her bowl into mine.

Let the wookie win

I'm going to say something terrible… Winning isn't that important. Shocking isn't it? Come London 2012 and you'll probably get arrested for saying things like that. It's not that I'm going to stop trying; it's just that I can't seem to summon the interest. Hmmm, maybe that DOES mean I'm going to stop trying? I'm not going to survive with that kind of attitude.

I'm being a little disingenuous here. A month or so ago my brother won a badminton game against me for the first time. I was shocked to discover how much that hurt but resolved to be the gracious loser I'd always supposed myself to be; and since he's won several games since then that's probably just as well.

Nevertheless I stand by my original statement. I'm beginning to think we should all become a bit more… well… British – wherever you happen to live in the world.

However, though this may be my belief on how things should be I still have to recognise how things are. So I attempt to balance my daughter's competitive behaviour with that more humane (and I use to think more British) belief that it's not the winning but the taking part that counts. 'Loser' talk as my brother would put it.

But it's not easy. If you're playing a game with your children you let them win, don't you? It's not only because you want to see them happy - it's also to do with self preservation. It's O.K. to win against your wife because she won't try to pull your arms out of their sockets if she loses, seven year old children have been known to do that.